From PBS NewsHour.
President Donald Trump expanded on his recent comments about what he says were the end of his ties with financier and child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, telling reporters Tuesday that Epstein was “taking” workers from his Mar-a-Lago spa.
Trump’s remarks to reporters aboard Air Force One follow his comments from Monday that Epstein “stole people that worked for me. I said, ‘Don’t ever do that again.’ He did it again, and I threw him out of the place, persona non grata.”
A reporter asked Trump on Tuesday whether some of those people were young women.
“People were taken out of the spa, hired by him,” Trump said, referring to Epstein. “In other words, gone. Other people would come and complain, ‘This guy is taking people from the spa.’ I didn’t know that. And then when I heard about it, I told him, I said, ‘Listen, we don’t want you taking our people, whether it was spa or not spa.’ I don’t want him taking people. And he was fine. And then not too long after that, he did it again and I said, ‘Out of here.’”
Another reporter asked if one of those workers was Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers who died by suicide earlier this year. Giuffre worked as a spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago in 2000, when she was 16 years old.
“I think she worked at the spa. I think so. I think that was one of the people,” Trump said. “He stole her. And, by the way, she had no complaints about us, as you know. None whatsoever.”
Last week, White House communications director Steven Cheung said Trump kicked Epstein “out of his club for being a creep.”
Watch PBS News for daily, breaking and live news, plus special coverage. We are home to PBS News Hour, ranked the most credible and objective TV news show.
Subscribe for exclusive content in our newsletters: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/subscribe
PBS News podcasts: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/podcasts
Stream your PBS favorites with the PBS app: https://to.pbs.org/2Jb8twG
Find more from PBS News at https://www.pbs.org/newshour
Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/2HfsCD6
Follow us:
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@pbsnews
X: http://www.twitter.com/newshour
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/newshour
Facebook: http://www.pbs.org/newshour
