<\/p>\n
Saturday Night Live<\/em>\u2018s Donald Trump tried any which way he could to come up with a satisfactory explanation for his reluctance to release more files related to Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n In a White House press briefing, the president (James Austin Johnson) was asked about this week\u2019s trove of emails<\/a> that lawmakers released, many of which have led to even more questions about Trump\u2019s relationship with the dead sex offender<\/a>. But Epstein\u2019s former friend struggled to form a coherent defense of his actions.<\/p>\n More from Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI am hiding almost nothing\u2014just enough to make it extremely suspicious,\u201d Trump responded to one reporter asking what he is concealing from the public. \u201cBut let me ask you a question: if there was something incriminating about me in the files, then why would I cover them up?\u201d<\/p>\n The reporter (Kenan Thompson) replied quizzically: \u201cWait, isn\u2019t that exactly why you would cover them up?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOkay, let me go again,\u201d the president said, only to bolster critics\u2019 arguments once more.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I were innocent, wouldn\u2019t I just release all the files?\u201d he said, looking around the room confidently.<\/p>\n \u201cYes!\u201d the reporter noted. \u201cAgain, I think you\u2019re just agreeing with what everyone is saying.\u201d<\/p>\n After two consecutive whiffs, Trump tried again\u2014but was no less convincing.<\/p>\n \u201cJeffrey Epstein\u2014I barely knew the guy, as evidenced by the thousands of pictures of us together, dancing and grinding our teeth at various parties, always leering at something just off camera. Probably a book we\u2019re excited to read,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Trump, after praising former Fox News host Megyn Kelly for effectively splitting hairs<\/a> about what constitutes an \u201cactual pedophile,\u201d was confronted by how Epstein claimed in an email that he was never a member of Mar-a-Lago, even as Trump has said he kicked him out of the club.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s kind of hard to square that circle until you realize that Trump exists across many timelines,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s the \u2018Trump multiverse theory.\u2019 We just happen to be living in the worst one.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump then figured his way out of the Epstein scandal was to do something true to form: start selling something, fast. And in this case, the product would be individual Epstein files\u2014\u201don sale for the low, low price of $800.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA beautiful, one-of-a-kind screenshot,\u201d he boasted of one gold-framed email\u2014\u201din very low-res.\u201d<\/p>\n Best of Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for RollingStone’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Saturday Night Live\u2018s Donald Trump tried any which way he could to come up with a satisfactory explanation for his reluctance to release more files related to Jeffrey Epstein. In a White House press briefing, the president (James Austin Johnson) was asked about this week\u2019s trove of emails that lawmakers released, many of which have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2159597,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[22389,353933,22942,413880,22893],"class_list":["post-2159596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-donald-trump","tag-james-austin-johnson","tag-jeffrey-epstein","tag-satisfactory-explanation","tag-white-house"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Nervous-Trump-Fumbles-His-Epstein-Defense.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2159596"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2159598,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159596\/revisions\/2159598"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2159597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2159596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2159596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2159596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}