Melania Fallout Grows as Epstein Survivor Speaks Out

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3:00Popok:Was Melania Trump's press conference about her lack of involvement, she says, with the Epstein scandal and her call to have Congress hear from the victims and the survivors? Is she getting out ahead of a story? Was Donald Trump aware of it? Why is there reporting that the White House was caught completely flat footed and was not prepared for her statement? We've got conflicting testimony about whether Trump did or did not know about the statement in advance, telling MS now that he didn't know about the statement in advance, but others reporting that he did. And what is it all about? Is she now trying to cut ties with Donald Trump or is she just another puppet being used by Donald Trump?

3:48Popok:We got to pick up the pieces based on new reporting related to Melania Trump's stunning press conference. First time in 250 years. Donald Trump likes to talk a lot about history and the 250 years of our country. He's tried to co-opt all the celebrations about our nation's founding and the army's founding. Well, it's the first time in 250 years that a first lady has had to look the American people in the eye and declare that she was not involved with the child sex trafficking rig. So we have that for us. I'm Michael Popak. You're on Legal AF and on the Midas Touch Network. Let's start with the press conference.

4:26Popok:You know the top line news, which is that she stood, seemed to be angry about having to refute frequent speculation in the press that she had some sort of involvement with Epstein. We know where that came from. Michael Wolff, who is a journalist, has said on his podcast, on our podcast, in writing, that he knows of connection between Melania, Epstein, Maxwell, the model's world, Donald Trump, that placed her on the plane, even though she says she wasn't, and the flight log says she wasn't. And there's a lawsuit going on between Michael Wolff and Melania Trump about whether he is telling the truth about her or not, or whether he's defaming her or not.

5:17Popok:It's in federal court, and we're still waiting for a judge there, Judge Vocasel, to make a ruling in New York. And that has fueled a lot of speculation. I mean, you have a former Eastern European model in Melania Trump who ran with that crowd during that same period, the 80s and 90s, 2000s, before she got married to Donald Trump, that seemed to have sidelined herself at least for the last year. I mean, we waited for Melania to come forward for the victims, for the survivors. You know, we're told that the two closest advisors to Donald Trump, the only two he really listens to, are Susie Wiles as chief of staff and Melania Trump.

5:59Popok:So where has she been all this time? And only when she got caught having to answer questions at her press conference about her documentary Melania, which may have lit the fuse for her to feel that at this moment in time, during a recess in Congress, she needed to step forward. Let me remind you of a very uncomfortable press conference during what she thought was going to be a puff piece about her documentary. Play that clip. After Aviva was freed, she called me, wanted to see me, and we set up a meeting in New York in January 2025. It was an emotional meeting, and it is captured on camera and available to see in my new film, Melania.

6:54Why do you feel it is appropriate to use an official White House event to promote your documentary? This is not promotion. We are here celebrating the release of the hostages of Aviva and Keith. It has nothing to do with promotion.

7:10Popok:Other than that, we've been sore. We haven't really heard much from it. from Melania at all about this issue. She's our first immigrant migrant, maybe even with a cloudy status in terms of how she got into this country. And yet she sat on the sidelines for this entire time as human beings were being chased through churches and schools and hospitals and preschools and parking lots and Home Depots during Donald Trump's depraved, immoral immigration and migration policy and his removal policy. So that she didn't pick sides on. Now, there's always been weird questions about the relationship between Melania and Donald Trump.

7:58Popok:Now, reporting came out soon after her press conference yesterday in which she declared that, you know, there should be justice for the survivors. Is that really just her running interference for Donald Trump. In fact, when Trump was reached by MS Now, he said he didn't read or didn't know about that statement in advance. And there's other reporting that he did, which would make a lot more sense. Now, I interviewed a survivor of the Epstein scandal, Lisa Phillips, who's also a client of mine. And she has a very unique position about Melania's past as a model and her coming up for the survivors now.

8:49Popok:And I'll want to play it for you now. Play it now. I think when it comes to Melania, I was always wondering why she was silent. If she, I mean, being the president's wife, I mean, she can't really go against him and stand up for survivors. But what I see her doing here is actually standing up for survivors. I would have thought that this would have been something of an argument within the system that she wouldn't be able to actually make this statement because it brings the survivors to the forefront. And if it's true of what she's saying for us to testify under oath in front of Congress with the power of a sworn testimony.

9:32That means survivors have to tell the truth. So that would further support what's come out in the files. It would further support what the public wants to know is that there was other men involved. So it's hard for me because I come from the modeling industry. I started in Europe and I know a lot of Eastern European fashion models. and I know that a lot of them were brought in through this sex trafficking network in the malling business. They were given their visas and I don't know how much of her background being Eastern European and brought in this way, how much of a victim she was in the beginning or if she had nothing to do with it.

10:21So I'm not sure. I don't think I feel as strongly as you do and others that are more politically motivated to put her with her husband. I feel like she's her own separate person and that she coming from her background probably was more silenced and didn't say or stand up for this.

10:44Popok:So it's it's one of two things. It's either Melania trying to get out in front of a story and taking to the podium now, not coordinating with the White House, sticking it to Trump, because she can't possibly know whether all of the allegations about Donald Trump and the Epstein files are true or not. There hasn't been sufficient investigation of claims made by women and girls against Donald Trump that are inside of the Epstein files. The half of the Epstein files that have been revealed is the tip of the iceberg. What about the other half? And yet, not knowing what's in those documents and obviously are likely being lied to by her husband, she took to the podium to call for hearings and testimony against powerful men in Congress.

11:31Popok:Now, she has moved to the beat of her own drummer before. There has been a lot of reporting that in the first term and the second term, she wouldn't participate as the first lady until her prenuptial was improved by millions and millions of dollars and her son Barron was taken care of. It's a very transactional relationship, as reported, between the president and Melania. But sometimes she steps out on her own to make her own statement. Now, Kristen Holmes had this to say about the aftermath of the press conference, which she reports left the White House stunned. Play the clip. Yeah, Aaron, I mean, I'm told by a number of White House officials that they were just absolutely stunned, particularly by the timing of these remarks.

12:21In fact, it sparked rumors all across the White House campus that she was trying to get ahead of something that most people must not know about. That's the only way she would get out there and do this now. Now, I am told by people who are close to her that they were a little bit less surprised because in private, Melania Trump has been growing increasingly frustrated with the online chatter about her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. And she's never actually come out and flat out denied it. And she wanted an on the record denial. And I was told that even within the sources that are close to Melania Trump who are talking to the team about this, there were some concerns about the timing of this, particularly the fact that this story had all but died down.

13:00The White House had spent months trying to get away from this narrative on Epstein. They've only been able to really do so in the last month and a half as we've been at war with Iran. So the timing would bring this all to the forefront. But some sources said that for Melania, this was in the forefront, that she'd been seeing this online chatter. She'd been seeing these stories circulating in various online news reports about her relationship with Epstein. much of it or most of it, all speculation, but that she wanted to have this denial. Now, of course, Ronald Trump did a quick interview with MS Now in which he told a reporter he had no idea what she was going to say.

13:40A senior White House official told me that as well, although we do have one source in the West Wing saying Donald Trump was aware of these statements.

13:46Popok:So we're trying to sort out the pieces here. As I said, it's either she's being used as a puppet to run interference for Donald Trump by trying to shift to have the victims and survivors give their testimony and put a spotlight on thousands of powerful men, maybe not named Donald Trump. But she's got to also risk the chance that that person who testified under oath to the FBI four Times that we just learned about, who says that when she was 13 and 14 years old, that she was abused by Donald Trump, forced into a sex act or to perform an act on him. She bit him and then he hit her. I don't know whether that's true or not, but neither does the Department of Justice nor the FBI because they haven't done a proper investigation and neither does Melania Trump.

14:45Popok:And yet there's a risk that that person comes forward and testifies. I mean, Congress has been left with no choice. This has now been dumped in the lap of Mike Johnson and Comer and the rest of MAGA to pick up the pieces. I assure you, Melania did not coordinate this press conference with the head of the Oversight Committee, the head of the Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan, the Speaker of the House, or the Senate Majority Leader Thune. That I assure you. We're quibbling whether Trump knew or didn't know or read the speech or didn't read the speech. But the reporting is the White House was caught flat-footed and are flummoxed.

15:29Popok:And so I don't believe in my honest commentary reporting that she coordinated it with Congress. But now she's dumped this hot potato in their lap. They have no choice but to open up these hearings. And you're going to hear from people like Lisa Phillips. Let me play another clip of my interview with Lisa Phillips at Epstein Survivor about the Melania press conference and what's going to happen next. Play the clip. But I'm going to stand up for these women. You may be exactly right. I mean, look, listen, look at the public pressure. And this is where our audience comes in. Look at the public pressure placed on her.

16:03Popok:You've got the Michael Wolf reporting, whether you believe it or not, he's certainly out there doubling down on his testimony. You've got the lawsuit that she had to file against him and all the public outing related to that. Pardon me. Then you've got the calls on platforms like ours and yours for her to step forward and do something for the survivors. I mean, we've been hoping she would do something for the immigrants and migrants to this country, given her special role as the first immigrant first lady, but she decided not to do that. But here, finally, after all of the things, and I think, I'm just speculating here, I'm not a psychologist, but it certainly probably helped the matter when she was just trying to do her documentary press conference a month or so ago, and she got asked if it was appropriate and got linked back to the Epstein files for her to be doing a documentary and not take questions like this.

16:55Popok:And she snapped and ended that press conference. That might have been the light of the flame, Rob the Fuse. Yeah, something, something lit a flame in her. So we'll continue to report on it right here on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF. We fight hard for survivors. We fight hard for people who have been abused by the rich and the powerful here on Legal AF and on Midas Touch and with my law firm, the Popak firm. In fact, we are in a collaboration with an entity called Survivor Strategies out of California, led by former state Senator Joe Don and Sam Maloney, and Lisa Phillips is a part of it, to help survivors and victims of sex abuse and sex discrimination and harassment get the justice and dignity that they need.

17:41Popok:And we'll continue to do that and platform them right here on Midas Touch and Legal AF. Until my next report, I'm Michael.

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