Unsurprisingly, after First Lady Melania Trump’s statement on Thursday denouncing “lies” that she had a connection to Jeffrey Epstein, MS NOW’s Katy Tur Reports, guest-hosted by Antonia Hylton, framed Melania’s speech as a distraction, while Democratic strategist, Basil Smikle, said the statement was a “distraction” from the Iran War, which was a “distraction from the Epstein Files.”
The Epstein-obsessed network has focused an inordinate amount of time on the Epstein Files releases and investigations as they hope to find a magical connection to Trump to end his presidency once and for all. Smikle made connections to multiple alleged distractions and said the President sent troops to fight to mitigate Epstein:
And it was kind of what we were saying in our earlier segment: it's a distraction from the war, which is itself a distraction from the Epstein files. So, if you wonder how much this president is entangled in all of this, it is so much that he's throwing everything out there for the press and bringing this country into significant economic and personal peril for the soldiers.
WATCH: MS NOW guest-host Antonia Hylton and guest Basil Smikle say the Melania Trump Statement was a distraction from the war, which was "itself a distraction from the Epstein Files.
— Nick (@nspin310) April 9, 2026
Hylton then seriously asked Smikle: "But now this is their best route out of it?" pic.twitter.com/7Pb4RuZelj
After Smikle got through his distraction escapade, Hylton called the statement “strange” and, seriously asked Smikle if that was the White House strategy:
You're a strategist. You understand the game here. You really think this is some sort of maneuver here, as they see how angry Americans are about the war, angry about their material conditions and experiences at home. But now this is their best route out of it?
About 15 minutes earlier, the first direct mention of Melania’s statement as a distraction came from Hofstra Law Professor James Samples, who claimed the Iran War went so poorly, the administration had the First Lady make a statement to distract from Trump’s “threatening of war crimes”:
Antonia, things are going so well that a war that has bumped the Epstein investigation to the back page for the last five weeks is going so badly that the First Lady of the United States makes an unscheduled, impromptu statement about the Epstein investigations that the administration was so desperate to get out of the headlines, to get back in the headlines during an international armed conflict where 48 hours ago, the President of the United States, her husband, was threatening the destruction of a whole civilization.
So, we are 48 hours separated between threatening war crimes and distracting from the threatening of war crimes and a colossal disaster of our own creation in the Middle East.
Everything is a distraction from the Files, especially on MS NOW and CNN. Even in timeslots meant for hard news, MS NOW has constantly proven themselves to be an unserious network.
The transcript is below. Click "expand":
MS NOW’s Katy Tur Reports
April 9, 2026
3:16:55 PM Eastern
(...)
JAMES SAMPLE: How are things going for the Trump Administration right now? Antonia, things are going so well that a war that has bumped the Epstein investigation to the back page for the last five weeks is going so badly that the First Lady of the United States makes an unscheduled, impromptu statement about the Epstein investigations that the administration was so desperate to get out of the headlines, to get back in the headlines during an international armed conflict where 48 hours ago, the President of the United States, her husband, was threatening the destruction of a whole civilization.
So, we are 48 hours separated between threatening war crimes and distracting from the threatening of war crimes and a colossal disaster of our own creation in the Middle East. And now we are burying a statement by the first lady about an investigation that the Department of Justice has so bungled that Pam Bondi, who one week ago was the Attorney General of the United States and who one week from now should be testifying before the House Oversight Committee, will not be testifying.
(...)
3:33:37 PM Eastern
BASIL SMIKLE: Well, listen, I think the first lady is right. There should be - Congress should do more. And the Democrats want Congress to do more. It's the Republicans - and I go back to this all the time, and we talk about this. They have the keys to the building. The Republicans could do whatever they want to do, and they choose not to do it. To Stewart's point, in an earlier segment, we've abdicated so much of their responsibility to this imperialist president that nothing is going to happen and nothing's going to move.
And let me just say this, because it's been on my mind. We're about to automatically register 18 to 25-year-olds for a draft starting in December. Congress, the president, and his secretary of defense have decided this. They don't have the same willingness to automatically register people to vote, but they're going to make sure that there is a smoother path for people to go to war. So, they're focused on that, whereas the rest of us are actually focused on the economic feedback loop that we're in and the fact that we need to get to the bottom of what's behind these Epstein files, and what's behind the first lady coming out in this unscheduled way to talk about it.
And it was kind of what we were saying in our earlier segment: it's a distraction from the war, which is itself a distraction from the Epstein files. So, if you wonder how much this president is entangled in all of this, it is so much that he's throwing everything out there for the press and bringing this country into significant economic and personal peril for the soldiers.
So much so, because he's so concerned about what's in these files, presumably. And so if Republicans want to get - if they want to heed the first lady's advice, they need to stop a lot of this in its tracks. That includes the war and actually turn to the fact-finding and all of the investigations that actually get us to the bottom of the Epstein files.
ANTONIA HYLTON: Yeah. It's this whole thing is incredibly strange, as you say, it was scheduled. We knew that something of this nature was on her calendar, but did not know exactly what it was. And in fact, actually, our colleagues here at MS NOW say a white house official immediately responded to MS NOW, saying that many folks inside the white house were caught off guard themselves by her statement.
You're a strategist. You understand the game here. You really think this is some sort of maneuver here, as they see how angry Americans are about the war, angry about their material conditions and experiences at home. But now this is their best route out of it?
(...)
