Fox News host and former Trump aide falsely claims president was never on Epstein’s plane – as it happened | US politics

Kayleigh McEnany, a Fox News host who was Donald Trump’s first-term White House press secretary, misled the network’s viewers on Friday by claiming, incorrectly, that unlike Bill Clinton, Trump was never on Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet.

McEnany’s false statement came during an on-air discussion of Clinton’s testimony to the House oversight committee on his ties to Epstein, the late sex offender.

“I want everyone who’s mentioned multiple times here to be deposed,” Marie Harf, a former state department spokesperson during the Obama administration, said. “Larry Summers, Bill Gates and, you’re all probably going to yell at me, Donald Trump.”

After Harf elaborated on why she thought that Trump should also be required to testify about the crimes Epstein committed during the nearly two decades the two men were friends, McEnany jumped in to defend her former boss with some misinformation.

“I would note that Donald Trump was not on the plane,” McEnany said, incorrectly. “So putting him in the same pool as Bill Clinton, who was on the plane I think it was 17 times, 27 times” would be unfair, she added.

In fact, while Clinton was on Epstein’s plane 26 times during six trips between February 2002 and November 2003, there is clear evidence in the files made public by the justice department that Trump was also on Epstein’s plane many times.

In one 2020 email exchange made public in December, for instance, a federal prosecutor involved in a discussion of the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s accomplice, told colleagues: “the flight records we received yesterday reflect that Donald Trump traveled on Epstein’s private jet many more times than previously has been reported (or that we were aware), including during the period we would expect to charge in a Maxwell case.”

The prosecutor went on to note that Trump “is listed as a passenger on at least eight flights between 1993 and 1996, including at least four flights on which Maxwell was also present. He is listed as having traveled with, among others and at various times, Marla Maples, his daughter Tiffany, and his son Eric.”

“On one flight in 1993, he and Epstein are the only two listed passengers; on another, the only three passengers are Epstein, Trump, and then-20-year-old [name redacted],” the prosecutor in Manhattan, where Maxwell was tried and convicted in 2021. “On two other flights, two of the passengers, respectively, were women who would be possible witnesses in a Maxwell case.”

The name of the 20-year-old who traveled alone with Epstein and Trump on that flight in 1993 has been withheld by the justice department, but in another email from the files, Epstein later bragged to a reporter that he “gave” a woman of that age he dated in 1993 to Trump two years later. Epstein also sent the reporter a link to photos of the woman, the Norwegian cosmetics heiress Celina Midelfart, who was born in 1973 and dated Trump in the late 1990s.

Midelfart was photographed with Epstein at Mar-a-Lago on 22 February 1997, the same night that a now-famous photograph was taken of Trump with his hand on Epstein’s shoulder.

In an except from his 2025 memoir published in the Guardian, the former Norwegian prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, wrote that when he first met Trump in 2017, the president brought up his former girlfriend.

“You know, Mr President, as former prime minister of Norway, I know that it’s possible to speak with the Russians.”

Trump cast a questioning look. “Are you Norwegian?”

I understood why he was asking – over the years I’ve received many heads of organisations myself, and it isn’t always easy to remember where each comes from. I smiled. “Yes, I’m Norwegian.”

“Do you know Celina Midelfart?”

“Yes, I’ve met her several times. She’s a well-known person in Norway,” I replied.

“Nice girl. What they wrote about us in the Norwegian papers – was it good or bad?”

I remembered seeing newspaper images of Trump and the Norwegian cosmetics heiress and investor at some sporting event or other, but more than that I couldn’t recall. I had no idea what the papers had said.

“Oh yes, the reporting was positive. She’s married to a rich Norwegian now,” I said.

“He’s not rich.”