"It’s not going to happen," Hunter Biden, son of former President Joe Biden, said in a YouTube interview on 14/8 with Channel 5 host Andrew Callaghan, referring to an apology to former first lady Melania Trump.
During the interview, Callaghan said he was holding a legal notice that Trump's lawyer sent to Biden earlier this month. The notice demanded an apology and a retraction of Biden's speculative statements about the relationship between former President Donald Trump, Melania Trump, and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Biden made the statement in an interview with Callaghan last month, suggesting Epstein introduced Melania Trump to her future husband.
"That’s how the president and first lady met," Biden said, adding that Melania Trump’s relationship with Epstein was "very close". Trump's lawyer called the allegation false and "salacious".
Biden also quoted a passage from a book by Michael Wolff, a Trump biographer, to suggest that Epstein and Trump "knew each other well, spent a lot of time together".
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Hunter Biden in Wilmington, Delaware in 6/2024. Photo: AFP |
Hunter Biden in Wilmington, Delaware in 6/2024. Photo: AFP
Trump criticized Wolff as a "third-rate reporter" and disputed many of Wolff's stories about him and his family. The Daily Beast, which reported on Wolff's story regarding the Trumps and Epstein, retracted the article and apologized "for any confusion or misunderstanding".
"I can only go by what people say," Biden told Callaghan. "If the president and first lady would like to sit down and clarify the nature of their relationship with Epstein, I’d be happy to provide them with a platform."
When asked for a response to Biden's comments, Melania Trump's spokesperson, Nick Clemens, said her lawyers were working to ensure those spreading false and defamatory information retract their statements and apologize.
"The true story of how the first lady met President Trump is detailed in her best-selling book, 'Melania'," Clemens said.
In her memoir, Melania Trump wrote that she met Trump at a New York Fashion Week party in 1998, introduced by a modeling agent.
In the legal notice sent to Biden and his lawyer on 6/8, Trump's lawyer, Alejandro Brito, demanded an immediate retraction and public apology, threatening a lawsuit seeking over USD 1 billion in damages for "enormous financial and reputational harm".
Biden did not comply with these demands before the deadline and disclosed the letter's contents to a reporter.
Trump said on 14/8 that he encouraged Melania Trump to take legal action against Biden.
"You know, I’ve been doing pretty well with lawsuits lately. And I said, go ahead. Jeffrey Epstein had nothing to do with Melania and my getting together. And they make up the story," he said.
Huyen Le (ABC News, CNN, Fox News)
