White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday abruptly cut short a press briefing after a reporter asked about Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
The question was asked hours after Lutnick, who responded to questions from congressional lawmakers about documents released by the Department of Justice, revealed that he misled the public about the extent of his ties to the convicted pedophile sex trafficker, who killed himself in prison while awaiting trial.
Leavitt was about 20 minutes into one of her regular meetings with the White House press corps when a reporter asked if President Donald Trump would back Lutnick, who earlier that day had admitted to members of the Senate Commerce Committee that he had visited Epstein’s well-known private island, Little Saint James.
She responded that Trump “fully supports” Lutnick and described him as “a very important member of President Trump’s team.”
But instead of allowing the reporters to further probe Trump’s opinions about Lutnick, or ask any other questions, Leavitt launched into a monologue chastising the reporters for not asking about several positive statistics put forward by the administration on issues of importance to the president.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is leaving after chastising reporters Tuesday for asking probing questions about an administration member’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein (Getty)
“I’m going to point out that there are a lot of wins in the news this week that people in this room haven’t asked about – you keep asking questions about the same topic – so let me point them out for you again,” she said.
Leavitt then began to rattle off a list of the day’s topics, including last week’s Stock Market results, a medical group that announced opposition to performing gender transition surgery on minors, or a recent drop in the national crime rate.
“So we’ll get back to business. The president is very busy tonight, and you’ll see it all tomorrow at the event in the East Chamber announcing his administration’s energy policy,” she said.
Then she turned and walked out of the room with a group of assistants in tow.
Leavitt also answered a question about another document released by the administration that conveyed a secondhand report where he alleged that Trump had spoken to the police chief of Palm Beach, Florida about Epstein and claimed that “everyone” knew about the pedophile’s illegal activities with minors.
The Commerce Secretary admitted to visiting Epstein’s island in 2012, almost ten years after he claimed to have cut off contact with him (Getty)
Although she would not confirm whether the alleged 2006 phone call actually took place, she maintained that Trump has always been “honest and transparent” about his relationship with Epstein, who was once one of his closest friends before the two men fell out in the early 2000s.
Lutnick, a longtime friend of the president who was pushed to become Treasury Secretary after serving as the finance chief for Trump’s 2024 campaign, has not been similarly “honest and transparent” about his ties to the late rapist.
While he had told the New York Post in October that he cut off contact with Epstein – his next-door neighbor – after a 2005 encounter he claimed left him so troubled he vowed to “never be in the room with that nasty person again,” documents released by the Justice Department showed that Lutnick not only maintained ties to Epstein since he was charged with federal traffic before he was charged with sex. and long after he spent time in prison for state-level crimes related to his preying on girls — but even arranged a visit to Epstein’s so-called “rape island” in 2012.
The secretary of commerce admitted that he visited the infamous land, which is part of the US Virgin Islands, on Tuesday under question from Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen.
“I had lunch with him, as I was on a boat going on a family holiday. My wife was with me, as were my four children and the nannies,” he said.
“We had dinner on the island, that is, for an hour, and we left with all my children with my nannies and my wife… I don’t remember why we did that.”
Lutnick also claimed in his testimony that he “had no relationship with” Epstein and “barely had anything to do with that person.”