Trump Hangs Up After CNN Question About Epstein Photo
While appearing Tuesday on Erin Burnett OutFront, reporter Andrew Kaczynski shared details about the abrupt phone call with Trump that ended in name-calling.
The call took place after CNN's KFile found photos of Epstein and Trump that had not been widely reported on before. One photo showed the disgraced financier and sex offender attending Trump's Plaza Hotel wedding to Maples.
In a separate image, Epstein was seen with Trump and his children at a Harley-Davidson Cafe that same year.
CNN also released a video of Trump and Epstein chatting with each other at a Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in New York in February 1999.
Kaczynski told host Burnett that the call, in which he asked Trump about the images, ended with the president slamming CNN as 'fake news' and hanging up after he refused to answer questions about his past connection to Epstein.
'We were not on the phone very long. I think our call was about 30 seconds or so,' Kaczynski told Burnett. 'But when I asked him about the wedding photo, he said, he sort of paused for a second and then said, 'You've got to be kidding me,' before calling CNN 'fake news' and then hanging up on me.'
In a statement to CNN, Kaczynski said, White House communications director Steven Cheung said, "These are nothing more than out-of-context frame grabs of innocuous videos and pictures of widely attended events to disgustingly infer something nefarious."
Cheung added: 'The fact is that the president kicked [Epstein] out of his club for being a 'creep.''
Kaczynski's heated yet ultra-brief conversation with Trump comes after the Department of Justice and FBI released a two-page memo earlier this month, claiming their Epstein investigation determined that there was no evidence Epstein was murdered or had a 'client list' of powerful figures he could potentially blackmail.
Following the memo release, Trump faced scrutiny over his administration's handling of the Epstein files, particularly from his own base. Since then, both Republicans and Democrats have called on the president and his administration to release more information.
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