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Trump questions why people are talking about ‘creep' Epstein - despite his push to release the files

Trump questions why people are talking about ‘creep' Epstein - despite his push to release the files

Independent4 hours ago
President Donald Trump criticized a reporter who asked about the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, questioning why there was any buzz around the disgraced financier just one day after the Justice Department revealed there was no 'client list.'
When confronted with a question about Epstein during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the president paused, expressing disbelief that 'people are still talking about this creep.'
'Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy's been talked about for years,' Trump began. 'Are people still talking about this guy? This creep? That is unbelievable.'
Trump promised to release the highly anticipated Epstein Files, among a trove of other documents in high-profile government investigations, to increase transparency.
'I can't believe you're asking a question on Epstein at a time like this, when we're having some of the greatest success and also tragedy with what happened in Texas. It just seems like a desecration,' Trump added.
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Tucker Carlson's jaw-dropping theory on why Trump is burying the Epstein list
Tucker Carlson's jaw-dropping theory on why Trump is burying the Epstein list

Daily Mail​

time14 minutes ago

  • Daily Mail​

Tucker Carlson's jaw-dropping theory on why Trump is burying the Epstein list

Tucker Carlson said he believes the government is 'covering up' the Epstein files to protect US and Israeli intelligence services. Tucker - who has long claimed Jeffrey Epstein was tied to the Israeli Mossad espionage service - is leading a MAGA backlash against the Trump administration's promises to release Epstein's anticipated 'client list.' In a major U-turn, Attorney General Pam Bondi released a memo this week re-affirming the Justice Department's ruling that Epstein's 2019 death was a suicide, and that he had no 'client list.' Tucker said it was 'obvious' that Bondi was 'covering up crimes'. Amid mounting scrutiny over Trump's handling of the controversy, Carlson said he is not convinced that the president was covering his own alleged ties to Epstein, and felt the reason is hinged on espionage. 'I don't think he's that guy, actually,' Carlson said of Trump. 'I don't think he likes creepy sex stuff.' Rather, Carlson floated a more sinister plot to protect the US and Israeli intelligence agencies was driving Trump's response. 'The only other explanation that I can think of... is that intel services are at the very center of this story, U.S. and Israeli, and they're being protected,' he said. 'I think that seems like the most obvious.' Carlson waded into the controversy hours after Elon Musk launched into another attack on MAGA world by claiming that former Trump advisor Steve Bannon is implicated in the Epstein files. Musk also alleged weeks ago that Trump is in the Epstein files, saying that 'is the real reason they have not been made public.' But on Carlson's show, his guest Sagaar Enjeti, the host of Breaking Points, agreed that intelligence services likely had a role in the growing scandal over the release of the files. Enjeti pointed to reports in 2021 that alleged that federal prosecutors had chosen not to prosecute pedophilia cases within the CIA. 'There have been multiple documented cases of pedophilia inside of the CIA perpetrated by CIA officers,' he said. 'This was a BuzzFeed News piece years back where the CIA specifically did not want to prosecute those individuals in federal court for fear that they would reveal sources and methods if they were pulled into open court and they basically just made it go away. 'The only time they actually prosecuted somebody for child pornography was whenever he'd already been prosecuted for mishandling classified information.' Carlson joked in response: 'Well, when they want to crush you, they put kiddie porn on your computer. It's why I don't have a computer!' The issue of Trump's handling of the Epstein files led the president to snap at a reporter on Tuesday when they asked Bondi about the Justice Department's internal review of the documents. Trump brushed off fury from his MAGA base over the abrupt conclusion of the Epstein probe this week, and accused the reporter who quizzed Bondi of 'desecrating' the deadly Texas flood tragedy. 'Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?' Trump lamented to reporters present for his six-month Cabinet meeting. 'This guy's been talked about for years.' He said that the media needs to move on from 'this creep' Epstein and focus more on the tragedy in Texas and ongoing wars in the Middle East and between Russia and Ukraine. In the past, Trump has riled up his base with theories over Epstein's death, and in his 2024 campaign he vowed to release all the government's secrets, along with documents from the much-scrutinized assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Trump, however, is now ready to move on from the Epstein files. 'Do you want to waste the time – do you feel like answering?' Trump asked his Attorney General, who was just one seat away from the president with Secretary of State Marco Rubio between them during a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. Bondi said she didn't mind answering the question, but Trump continued his tirade against the Post reporter. 'I mean, I can't believe you're asking a question on Epstein at a time like this where we're having some of the greatest success and also tragedy with what happened in Texas. 'It just seems like a desecration, but you go ahead,' he said to his embattled attorney general. Bondi then sought to clarify her past remarks about having Epstein's 'client list' on her desk, saying she never admitted there was a 'client list' and that she was actually referencing the complete paperwork related to the investigation into Epstein's child sex trafficking crimes. She then said that the reason more evidence was not released is because it contained child pornography. 'They turned out to be child porn downloaded by that disgusting Jeffrey Epstein,' Bondi said. 'Never going to be released, never going to see the light of day.'

Ministers face fresh challenge to welfare reforms in Wednesday votes
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The Department for Work and Pensions will try to steer the Universal Credit Bill through its final Commons stages, including clause-by-clause scrutiny, on Wednesday. The Bill, if agreed to, would roll out two different rates of benefit for claimants who cannot currently work. It would also freeze the limited capability for work and work-related activity (LCW and LCWRA) elements of the benefit until 2030. The PA news agency understands that a 'substantial number' of Labour rebels have agreed to vote to gut the Bill of these reforms, if they can trigger a division. When MPs debated the reforms last week, Government frontbenchers rolled back on their plan to reform the separate personal independence payment (Pip) benefit, vowing to revisit any proposed changes only after a review by social security minister Sir Stephen Timms. 'The Government for all the goodwill of pulling clause five on Pip, they've lost it over being so stubborn and obstinate over clauses two and three,' Labour MP for York Central Rachael Maskell said. Clause two of the Bill includes a framework for two rates of LCWRA, with claimants who are eligible for the benefit before April 2026 able to claim a higher rate than later applicants. Claimants who are terminally ill or who have severe symptoms of an illness which 'constantly' apply would also be eligible for the higher rate, regardless of when they become eligible. Ms Maskell has proposed a change to the reforms, so that someone who has slipped out of and then back into the LCWRA eligibility criteria either side of April 2026 would still be able to claim the higher rate. Approving this change would be like 'gathering up the crumbs rather than getting the full course meal', she said. Asked what the Government should do to tackle welfare costs, Ms Maskell told the PA news agency: 'We've got to put the early interventions in to take people off this path of ill health. 'We've got quite a sick society at the moment for all the reasons that we know, a broken NHS, you know, social care not being where it should be, and of course long-term Covid. 'All of that is having its impact, and the endemic mental health challenges that people are facing. 'But to then have the confidence that your programme is so good that it's going to get loads of these people into work and employers are going to have to fulfil their obligations in the future hopefully after the Charlie Mayfield report (the Keep Britain Working review) will make those recommendations – all of that, great, as far as it goes. 'But what we can't do is leave those people that can't work in poverty, because they would love to work and earn money, but they can't, so we have to pay for it. 'And therefore the people who've got the good fortune of earning money, whether it's through income or assets, they're the people that are going to have to support a wider society.' Labour MP for Poole Neil Duncan-Jordan proposed gutting the Bill through a series of draft amendments, to strike clause two and cancel the freeze in clause three. He and Ms Maskell were two of 49 MPs who unsuccessfully tried to block the Bill at second reading, when it cleared its first Commons hurdle by 335 votes to 260, majority 75. Amid fears the Bill had been rushed through Parliament, and referring to the Liberal reformer William Beveridge who published a post-war blueprint for the welfare state in 1942, Mr Duncan-Jordan asked: 'Beveridge didn't design the welfare state on the back of a postage stamp, did he?' Beyond changes to parts of the benefit specifically for people who cannot currently work, the Bill would demand an above-inflation rise to the universal credit standard allowance each year until 2030.

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