President Donald Trump claims he did not know a high-profile British Ambassador who was fired last week over his ties to child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, despite inviting him to the Oval Office.
During a joint press conference with UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, Trump was forced to confront what a British journalist described as “the elephant in the room”: the sacking of the UK’s Ambassador to the United States, Lord Peter Mandelson.
“Do you have some sympathy with him, that he lost his job over historic links to Jeffrey Epstein?” the reporter asked Trump, who also has multiple links to the late disgraced financier.
“I don’t know him, actually,” the President replied. “I had heard that, and I think maybe the Prime Minister would be better speaking of that. That was a choice that he made, and uh, I don’t know.”
He then deferred to Starmer: “What is your answer to that?”
Mandelson—a polarizing figure on the left of British politics for years—was fired as UK ambassador to the US last week after his ties to Epstein became another unwelcome problem for the embattled Starmer.
The ambassador came under mounting pressure this month after House Democrats released a 2003 “birthday book” compiled for Epstein’s 50th birthday, in which Mandelson had penned a handwritten note describing the notorious sex offender as “my best pal.”
Starmer initially defended his ambassador, telling parliament that he had his “full confidence”.
But hours later, Bloomberg published a trove of emails between Mandelson and Epstein, in which the Brit expressed support for his friend and offered to talk to political contacts about his infamous 2008 Florida trial.
“Some information came to light last week, which wasn’t available when he was appointed, and I made a decision about it,” Starmer replied when Trump diverted the question to him.
But Trump’s claim that he did not know Mandelson came despite the pair being photographed in the Oval Office together in May after announcing a trade deal with the UK.
In the photo, a smiling Trump is seen shaking hands with the then Ambassador, who had also spent his time in D.C. working conservative circles and MAGA figures across the capital.
The process of becoming a diplomat also involves formally submitting diplomatic credentials to the president in the Oval Office.
Trump’s dismissal of the issue is emblematic of the ongoing headache the Epstein scandal has continued to be for the president, who was a known associate of Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.
On the day Trump arrived in the UK, images of the pair were projected onto a wall of Windsor Castle by demonstrators, and also plastered on a giant photograph that was unfurled on the lawn outside the gates of the castle.
Back home, the issue also continued to dominate, including at a fiery Capitol Hill hearing with Trump’s FBI director, Kash Patel, who was cornered into opening an investigation into whether Trump’s signature was forged in the notorious 50th birthday book.
The book features a lewd drawing apparently signed by the president in 2003, but Trump insists he had nothing to do with it.
“Will you be opening up an investigation into the Epstein estate for putting out a fake document with the president’s signature linking him to the world’s largest pedophile ring?” Florida Democrat Jared Moskowitz asked Patel.
“On what basis?” the FBI director replied.
“They literally put out a fake document, according to the president!” Moskowitz reminded him.
“Sure, I’ll do it,” Patel said.
