President Trump offered his most significant and substantive comments on the “Jeffrey Epstein matter,” sitting beside a visibly uncomfortable Keir Starmer during a press conference Monday in Scotland. “Do you know that my poll numbers are up 4.5 points since this ridiculous Epstein stuff?” Trump said. “People don’t buy it.” “I can say this: those files were run by the worst scum on earth,” he said. “I was running against somebody that ran the files. If they had something, they would have released it.” “Now, they can easily put something in the files that’s a phony.”

REPORTER: You have said that you have not been briefed on the Epstein files, or that your name has not appeared in the Epstein files. But doesn’t the AG have to tell you if your name-? DONALD TRUMP: Well, I haven’t been overly interested in it. You know, it’s something-it’s a hoax that’s been built up way beyond proportion. I can say this: those files were run by the worst scum on earth. They were run by Comey. They were run by Garland. They were run by Biden, and all of the people that actually ran the government, including the autopen. Those files were run for four years by those people. If they had anything, I assume they would have released it. The whole thing is a hoax. They ran the files. I was running against somebody that ran the files. If they had something, they would have released it. Now, they can easily put something in the files that’s a phony-like, as an example, Christopher Steele, a person you know well, happens to be from your country. But Christopher Steele, as an example, wrote a book-a dossier-we call it the fake news dossier. And the whole thing was a fake. The whole thing was a fake. They could put things in the file that are fake. But those files were run by bad, sick people. If they had anything, why didn’t they use it when I was killing Joe? And then he gave out because he was 25 points down. And then I got somebody new. Nobody even knew anything about her. She was a horrible vice president. She was a border czar, but she never went to the border. She never once called a Border Patrol agent to find out how-but she was the border czar. Her name was Kamala. Nobody knows her last name. It was Harris. But nobody knew her last name. So I ended up-how would you like to end up in a race where you’re killing somebody, you’re beating them-and then they say, “All right, we’ll take him out. He’s not working. Let’s put somebody else.” And then she had a six-week honeymoon. It was amazing. They predicted she would have a six-week honeymoon. And she did. And then she got slaughtered. But think of it-those files were run by these people. They were run by my enemies. If there was anything in there, they would have used them for the election. I don’t do drawings. I’m not a drawing person. I don’t do drawings. Sometimes people would say, “Would you draw a building?” And I’ll draw four lines and a little roof, you know, for a charity stuff. But I’m not a drawing person. I don’t do drawings of women-that I can tell you. They say there’s a drawing of a woman. I don’t do drawings of women. And also, you know, Epstein was always a very controversial guy. I was at a very high position, you know, pretty much all my life, in all fairness. I’ve been doing this for a long time. I had the top show on television. I had the number-one bestsellers. I had everything, right? And I was a very successful business guy. He was a very controversial-who would do a controversial drawing? Now, with that being said, they say there were many letters done by many people-and many big people, you know, big successful people. But I just-I just don’t-when you talk about files, I just keep going back-and other people too, even the enemy says-this thing is not correct. Because if we had it, we would have used it on the guy. It’s a bad issue. They say it’s a good issue for Trump. Do you know that my poll numbers are up 4.5 points since this ridiculous Epstein stuff? My poll numbers have gone up 4.5 points because people don’t buy it. OK? People don’t buy it. And he’s gone, and we want to focus on trade deals. I want to focus on the deal we just made with the European Union, which is the biggest trade deal in history. It’s the biggest deal, I think, in history-not just trade deal. So if they would have had something, they would have used it. REPORTER: They threw him out of Mar-a-Lago. What can you-can you settle that? What was it about? What caused the breach? TRUMP: That’s such old history. Very easy to explain, but I don’t want to waste your time by explaining it. But for years, I wouldn’t talk to Jeffrey Epstein. I wouldn’t talk, because he did something that was inappropriate. He hired help. And I said, “Don’t ever do that again.” He stole people that worked for me. I said, “Don’t ever do that again.” He did it again, and I threw him out of the place. Persona non grata. I threw him out. And that was it. I’m glad I did, if you want to know the truth. And by the way, I never went to the island. Bill Clinton went there-supposedly-28 times. I never went to the island. But Larry Summers, I hear, went there. He was the head of Harvard-and many other people that are very big people. Nobody ever talks about them. I never had the privilege of going to his island. And I did turn it down. But a lot of people in Palm Beach were invited to his island. In one of my very good moments, I turned it down. I didn’t want to go to his island. Yeah.

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