Jen Psaki

But, I mean, regardless of who knew what and when they knew it inside the White House, nobody on the outside was betting that the First Lady would give a surprise speech on Jeffrey Epstein.

And when I say nobody was betting on it, I mean literally nobody.

Because ahead of the speech, the prediction market, Kalshi, took wagers on what Melania would say during her remarks.

Now, the anticipated topics range from education to peace and security to AI.

They must have seen the robot.

Who knows?

But nobody put their money on a random denial of her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

The few lucky gamblers did manage to make a few bucks betting that she would mention children or minors.

So I guess there's that.

The whole thing was even more bizarre, given that the first lady seemed to formally stage her remarks to match the visuals of the president's primetime address to the nation on Iran last week.

And having worked in multiple White Houses and been a part of preparing for many of these formal speeches, I can tell you where you give a speech is basically a signal of how important you think it is.

And let me just tell you, Melania was exuding self-importance this afternoon.

So now that Melania Trump has put Epstein back in the news, congratulations, Melania, let's just take a look at how she described their relationship.

Well, relationship can be a flexible term, I suppose.

But we do know, of course, that Melania Trump has been photographed with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell over a number of years.

I mean, there's the picture of Melania with her future husband and the two of them at a February 2000 party.

And another of her with her husband and Ghislaine at a fashion show in September of that year.

You can see it right there on the screen.

And the Epstein files include an email dated October 23rd, 2002, addressed to G. You can also see that email.

The sender asked, how is Palm Beach?