{"id":59612,"date":"2026-04-12T09:14:49","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T13:14:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/?p=59612"},"modified":"2026-04-12T09:15:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T13:15:09","slug":"59612","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/?p=59612","title":{"rendered":"Melania Trump\u2019s surprise Epstein statement prompts bafflement: Reporters search for answers to why first lady chose to make speech \u2013 and whether president knew it was coming"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-59613\" src=\"http:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-12-at-9.14.22-AM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"487\" height=\"654\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-12-at-9.14.22-AM.png 487w, https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-12-at-9.14.22-AM-223x300.png 223w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 487px) 100vw, 487px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Melania Trump\u2019s surprise statement denying she had any relationship with\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/jeffrey-epstein\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\">Jeffrey Epstein<\/a>\u00a0sparked confusion about why she had chosen to speak out, and whether Donald Trump knew that the first lady was planning to draw attention to a subject he has called for the public to move on from.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Even normally well-sourced correspondents for rightwing outlets were at a loss to explain why\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/melania-trump\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\">Melania Trump<\/a>\u00a0felt the need to issue the seemingly out-of-the-blue statement about her relationship with Epstein, the late sex offender who socialized with her husband for nearly two decades, or his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.<\/p>\n<p>____<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/apr\/09\/melania-trump-epstein-speech-puzzle\">https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/apr\/09\/melania-trump-epstein-speech-puzzle<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59612"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59615,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59612\/revisions\/59615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}