On her Thursday night program, MSNBC’s Jen Psaki accused the Trump administration of wrongfully using the name of well-known Jeffrey Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre as a means to discredit the recent unveiling of Epstein e-mails.
Many Democrats have held that pushing for a full-disclosure of information relating to the late sex offender could expose potential co-perpetrators and would bring justice to his many victims. But Psaki didn’t seem to care about what the late Giuffre had to say. She shamed the White House for naming her.
The Briefing host claimed: “... Trump and the White House are already trying to discredit everything in this trove of documents. They're working overtime to do this. And they are trying to use the name of Epstein survivor to get away with it.”
Here’s the background: the Epstein scandal was reignited on Wednesday when House Oversight Committee Democrats, in an attempt to shift attention away from the ending government shutdown, released three emails from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate that referenced Trump, in which victims’ names were redacted. In response, the Republican majority released over 20,000 documents and chastised the minority for deceptively redacting Giuffre’s name.
What was Psaki’s spin? Defending Democrats for giving victims’ their space and denouncing Republicans for calling foul:
The Democrats on the committee redacted that victim's name, as they’ve tried to do with the names of all of 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 an Epstein survivor for political gain.
Considering that Epstein died over six years ago, the argument that authorities and public officials still needed time to redact victims’ names has gotten old and unbelievable. But just because Trump wasn’t necessarily implicated by the newly uncovered documents didn’t mean he was trying to distort the truth.
Republicans weren’t “outing” Giuffre since she was already publicly known to be a victim and spoke publicly about Trump. The deceased Giuffre had already recalled Trump not participating in any illicit activity relating to Epstein.
The former Press Secretary then went after current post-holder Karoline Leavitt for mispronouncing Giuffre’s last name and for daring to defend her boss: “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.”
Democrats and the left-wing media clearly hoped the latest development in the ongoing saga would finally damn Trump. The full extent of what those new documents revealed wasn’t yet known. But considering that the Oversight Democrats hand-picked only a few (and intentionally edited them to make Trump look bad), it begged the question of how much ammunition they really had to begin with. And Psaki didn’t intend to stop psucking.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" read:
MSNBC’s The Briefing with Jen Psaki
November 13, 2025
9:07:14 p.m. EST
(…)
JEN PSAKI: Now journalists have only had the documents the House Oversight Committee released for a little more than a day now. But Trump and the White House are already trying to discredit everything in this trove of documents. They're working overtime to do this. And they are trying to use the name of Epstein survivor to get away with it.
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 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 an 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.
[Cuts to clip]
WEIJIA JIANG [on 11/12/25]: Did the President ever spend hours at Jeffrey Epstein's house with a victim?
PRESS SEC. KAROLINE LEAVITT [on 11/12/25]: These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong. [Transition] In this email you referred 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.
[Cuts back to live]
PSAKI: It's Virginia Giuffre — Giuffre. Sorry, that's just incredibly insulting. But here's what she went on to say.
[Cuts to clip]
LEAVITT [on 11/12/25]: Miss 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.
[Cuts back to live]
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.
