MSNBC’s Jen Psaki Loses It On Trump Allies In Emotional Rant On ‘Using’ Epstein Survivors’ Stories To Defend Trump
MSNBC host and former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki was clearly emotional as she ripped allies of President Donald Trump for “co-opting” victims’ stories to defend the president over the blockbuster Jeffrey Epstein email dump.
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee dropped a bomb Wednesday morning with the release of emails that Epstein sent to accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell and author Michael Wolff that directly referenced Trump.
One featured Epstein alleging that Trump “spent hours at my house” with a victim whose name was redacted. House Republicans quickly revealed that the redacted name was Virginia Roberts Giuffre, and released their own dump of tens of thousands more documents and emails, many with explosive revelations.
On Thursday’s edition of MSNBC’s The Briefing with Jen Psaki, Psaki’s voice shook as she tore into House Republicans for revealing Giuffre’s name, and others who invoked it in Trump’s defense. That included Fox News host Sean Hannity and Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt:
JEN PSAKI: Yesterday, the very first email that the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released showed Epstein writing Ghislaine Maxwell to say that Trump was the, quote, dog that hasn’t barked and that a victim spent hours at Epstein’s house with Trump. The Democrats on the committee redacted that victim’s name, as they’ve tried to do with the names of all of the Epstein survivors, in part to allow them to tell their own stories on their own terms if they want to.
But within an hour of the release, the Republican majority on the House Oversight Committee promptly outed the victim as Virginia Giuffre, apparently doing so just so they could point to past statements of Giuffre’s in which she said she had never seen Trump do anything wrong.
So again, they’re outing Epstein survivor for political gain. And just to be clear, this was not a one off.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt promptly did the same in a press release. And then at the White House press briefing yesterday, Leavitt had the gall to again invoke Giuffre’s name to defend Trump without even learning how to pronounce it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Did the president ever spend hours at Jeffrey Epstein’s house with a victim?
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong. In this email, you refer to with the name of a victim that was unredacted now and has since been reported on in this room. So, I will go ahead and say it, Virginia Giuffre.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PSAKI: It’s Virginia Giuffre. Giuffre. Sorry, that’s just incredibly insulting. But here’s what she went on to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEAVITT: Ms. Guthrie maintained, and God rest her soul, that she maintained that there was nothing inappropriate she ever witnessed, that President Trump was always extremely professional and friendly to her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PSAKI: Now, again, the reason Karoline Leavitt and House Republicans were invoking and have been invoking Virginia Giuffre’s name is not to help tell her story or to push for releasing more documents like her family wants, but to try to cover Trump’s butt. And it’s not just the White House and Congress that are doing this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANIE MILLER, COMEDIAN: Trump is all over the Epstein files, and I’m wondering if they’re going to release those. Are you covering that tonight?
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: No really, because the woman that apparently they’re talking about is the one that said he was a gentleman and never did anything wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PSAKI: Again, co-opting the story of a young woman who many survivors credit with inspiring them to tell their own stories, who is no longer here with us, to keep telling hers, all for their own political gain.
Watch above via MSNBC’s The Briefing with Jen Psaki.
