Trump’s war and Melania’s Epstein statement, with US editor Betsy Reed – The Latest

Today in Focus

The Guardian

Daily News, News

4.5 • 778 Ratings

🗓️ 10 April 2026

⏱️ 17 minutes

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Summary

Melania Trump made a surprise appearance at the White House on Thursday to announce that she ‘never had a relationship’ with the late child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. Her address has seemingly put Epstein back on the political agenda when focus had been firmly on the US and Israel’s war in Iran. The intervention came at a difficult time for her husband, Donald Trump, as the fragile ceasefire agreed between the US and Iran seemed to be at risk of falling apart, and as US lawmakers are raising the alarm over the president’s mental stability. Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian US editor, Betsy Reed – watch on YouTube Jonathan Freedland on Politics Weekly America with the Guardian’s Washington bureau chief David Smith on whether Trump could be forced out of office – listen here or wherever you get your podcasts. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/infocus

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The Guardian.
0:10.4	It really was quite bizarre.
0:12.7	The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today.
0:18.4	Even among Fox News crowd, there is just complete bafflement.
0:23.1	President, you called the, yesterday in your truth social, you called the Iranians crazy bastards.
0:28.7	True.
0:30.1	What is your response to critics who say that it is?
0:32.8	I don't care about it.
0:33.9	It did feel like a new low and truly terrifying, given that he is so clearly unhinged,
0:39.7	threatening to destroy an entire civilization, the extreme corruption, the incredible enrichment
0:44.5	of his family.
0:45.4	But if the house flips, I do think you're going to see a very different story emerging about
0:51.4	what's going on in America.
0:52.9	In a dangerous and dramatic week for the world, things have got even stranger in Trumpland.
0:59.1	We're joined by the editor of Guardian US to help make sense of it all.
1:02.4	From The Guardians today in Focus, this is the latest with me, Lucy Hoff.
1:07.1	Well, I'm thrilled to be joined today by Betsy Reid, who is editor of the Guardian US over in London. So it's wonderful to have you in the studio with us. I bet it's quite a good week to be out of the US this week after quite a torrid and dramatic week over there. Yeah, absolutely. I'm excited to be here. Well, there's so much that I want to talk to you about, but I want to start, if we
1:27.8	can, with the speech given by the First Lady Melania Trump last night, because it was a sort of
1:34.5	sense of real surprise, wasn't it? Number one, that she was going to be giving a speech at all, which
1:38.3	she very rarely does, but also what it was going to be about. And what it ended up being about
1:43.4	was sort of saying that
1:45.5	she was trying to discredit the suggestion that she had a relationship with with Jeffrey Epstein.
	...

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