Epstein birthday book included note from Bill Clinton: WSJ
The Journal previously reported that President Trump wrote a 'bawdy' note for the leather-bound birthday album given to Epstein three years before the disgraced financier was first charged with sexually abusing girls in Florida in 2006 and more than a decade before Epstein's higher-profile sex trafficking arrest in 2019. Trump denied writing the letter and sued The Wall Street Journal over its report.
The New York Times separately reported on Thursday that it had reviewed a 'contributor list' for the book that included Trump's name.
According to the Journal's latest report on the birthday book's entries, Clinton, who left office in 2001, penned a handwritten note that read: 'It's reassuring isn't it, to have lasted as long, across all the years of learning and knowing, adventures and [illegible word], and also to have your childlike curiosity, the drive to make a difference and the solace of friends.'
A Clinton spokesperson declined to comment to the Journal but referred the outlet to a previous statement saying the former president did not know about Epstein's crimes and that they severed ties years before Epstein's death.
The Hill reached out to a Clinton representative for comment on Friday but did not immediately hear back.
Epstein died in a New York City prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, but his case has continued to draw intense interest about his associates.
Trump's Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI announced earlier this month that an investigation concluded that Epstein kept no 'client list' and died by suicide, but the DOJ this week has conducted private interviews with Epstein's associate and the source of the birthday book, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving 20 years behind bars after she was convicted in Epstein's sex trafficking scheme.
Meanwhile, the Epstein controversy has engulfed Washington, D.C., and effectively ground the House to a halt this week ahead of its August recess.
A House Oversight panel on Wednesday approved several subpoenas related to the case, including one directing the DOJ to hand over materials related to the Epstein files and separately for Clinton and other prominent Democrats to testify before the House.
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USA Today
41 minutes ago
- USA Today
Men don't like how Trump treats the economy. Democrats must cash in on that.
Democrats are being given an opportunity to fix their messaging with Americans who are quickly turning on President Donald Trump. According to new polling, American men are beginning to lose faith in President Donald Trump. It took them long enough, but I'm glad they're here with the rest of us. A CBS News/YouGov poll showed that the president's approval rating among men had dropped to 47%, while 53% disapproved of the job he was doing. It's a stark contrast from the November election, when Trump won male voters by 55%. It's a troubling sign for Republicans, but an opportunity for Democrats to gain ground with male voters before 2026. While men tend to go for the GOP, there is a possibility that Trump continues to alienate them by continuing to torpedo the economy and making irrational decisions when it comes to foreign policy and immigration. Can Democrats fix their messaging? The big issue for men? How Trump handles the economy. Men are particularly upset by Trump's handling of the economy. According to the CBS News/YouGov poll, 49% of men say the economy is getting worse, and 59% disapprove of how he's handling inflation. Sixty percent of men think he's focusing too much on tariffs, while 65% say he isn't doing enough to lower the cost of goods and services. Opinion: MAGA, I feel bad Trump lied to you about the Epstein list. Who saw this coming? Democrats, who tend to have weaker messaging on the economy, should take these criticisms and run with them. The cost of tariffs is likely to be passed on to the consumer. The nation's gross domestic product just declined for the first time in three years. Inflation may be cooling, but prices aren't falling. By putting the blame on Trump for the economic strife Americans are feeling, the Democratic Party could potentially show men that Republican lawmakers may not be the ones to rely on when it comes to their finances. When the rest of us know that was always the case. Men are also dissatisfied with the conflict in Gaza, and immigration While 55% of men say the economy and inflation are critical in how they view the president, there are some issues where Trump is also beginning to lose favor. For example, 53% of men say they are dissatisfied with the Trump administration's handling of the Israel-Hamas war, which the president said he'd end on the campaign trail. Fifty-one percent disapprove of his interactions with Iran. Fifty percent of men disapprove of how Trump is handling immigration, with 47% saying the administration is deporting more immigrants than they believed it would, according to that same poll. All of these concerns are corroborated by other polls that show Trump is widely disliked. This should be a wake-up call that Democrats need to strengthen their message on the Israel-Hamas war, at least advocating for peace talks. They could also combine immigration with economic issues, and stress how Trump's deportation agenda could negatively affect the GDP and increase the cost of food. Opinion: Trump keeps brutalizing immigrants because he's failing at everything else Gen Z is particularly unhappy Generation Z, born between 1997 to 2012, also seems to have woken up to Trump's failures. The CBS News/YouGov poll found that his approval rating among 18- to 29-year-olds plummeted to 28% in July. Seventy-one percent of those under 30 disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy, and 73% disapprove of how he's handling inflation. As with men, it's a far cry from how Gen Z felt about Trump in the 2024 election, when voters ages 18-29 supported Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris by a much smaller margin than they supported former President Joe Biden in 2020. Among this age group, 56% of males voted for Trump, 1 percentage point more than among all male voters. Opinion: Trump is unpopular, polls show, and he's building an America most Americans hate It's telling that the generation whose perception of the Republican Party is entirely shaped by the rise of Trump is suddenly souring on him. Perhaps people around my age are finally realizing that targeting marginalized communities won't actually improve their quality of life, or that Trump made promises he couldn't keep. They might also be realizing that the positive emotions they felt during the first Trump administration can be chalked up to childhood nostalgia. For those of us in the generation who were old enough to vote in 2016, the negatives of Trump's first presidency were unavoidable. Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store. If the Democrats are clever, they'll consider this polling and begin brainstorming ways to further drive a wedge between Trump and male voters, particularly those in Gen Z. Yet I'm not sure Democrats are prepared to pick up the young voters Republicans are siphoning off. Their solution now seems to be doing nothing – Democratic leadership essentially disappeared after the 2024 election, and no one seems to know how to get the party back on track. Ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, they need to focus on more than podcasts and memes. They need to be working on crafting a populist message and focusing on economic issues, because that seems to be the deciding factor in whether or not a president is doing well. Follow USA TODAY columnist Sara Pequeño on X, formerly Twitter: @sara__pequeno You can read diverse opinions from our USA TODAY columnists and other writers on the Opinion front page, on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and in our Opinion newsletter.
2 hours ago
Women legislators fight for 'potty parity'
For female state lawmakers in Kentucky, choosing when to go to the bathroom has long required careful calculation. There are only two bathroom stalls for women on the third floor of the Kentucky Statehouse, where the House and Senate chambers are located. Female legislators — 41 of the 138 member Legislature — needing a reprieve during a lengthy floor session have to weigh the risk of missing an important debate or a critical vote. None of their male colleagues face the same dilemma because, of course, multiple men's bathrooms are available. The Legislature even installed speakers in the men's bathrooms to broadcast the chamber's events so they don't miss anything important. In a pinch, House Speaker David Osborne allows women to use his single stall bathroom in the chamber, but even that attracts long lines. 'You get the message very quickly: This place was not really built for us,' said Rep. Lisa Willner, a Democrat from Louisville, reflecting on the photos of former lawmakers, predominantly male, that line her office. The issue of potty parity may seem comic, but its impact runs deeper than uncomfortably full bladders, said Kathryn Anthony, professor emerita at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's School of Architecture. 'It's absolutely critical because the built environment reflects our culture and reflects our population,' said Anthony, who has testified on the issue before Congress. 'And if you have an environment that is designed for half the population but forgets about the other half, you have a group of disenfranchised people and disadvantaged people.' There is hope for Kentucky's lady legislators seeking more chamber potties. A $300 million renovation of the 155-year-old Capitol — scheduled for completion by 2028 at the soonest — aims to create more women's restrooms and end Kentucky's bathroom disparity. The Bluegrass State is among the last to add bathrooms to aging statehouses that were built when female legislators were not a consideration. In the $392 million renovation of the Georgia Capitol, expanding bathroom access is a priority, said Gerald Pilgrim, chief of staff with the state's Building Authority. It will introduce female facilities on the building's fourth floor, where the public galleries are located, and will add more bathrooms throughout to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. 'We know there are not enough bathrooms,' he said. There's no federal law requiring bathroom access for all genders in public buildings. Some 20 states have statutes prescribing how many washrooms buildings must have, but historical buildings — such as statehouses — are often exempt. Over the years, as the makeup of state governments has changed, statehouses have added bathrooms for women. When Tennessee's Capitol opened in 1859, the architects designed only one restroom — for men only — situated on the ground floor. According to legislative librarian Eddie Weeks, the toilet could only be "flushed' when enough rainwater had been collected. 'The room was famously described as 'a stench in the nostrils of decency,'' Weeks said in an email. Today, Tennessee's Capitol has a female bathroom located between the Senate and House chambers. It's in a cramped hall under a staircase, sparking comparisons to Harry Potter's cupboard bedroom, and it contains just two stalls. The men also just have one bathroom on the same floor, but it has three urinals and three stalls. Democratic Rep. Aftyn Behn, who was elected in 2023, said she wasn't aware of the disparity in facilities until contacted by The Associated Press. 'I've apparently accepted that waiting in line for a two-stall closet under the Senate balcony is just part of the job,' she said. 'I had to fight to get elected to a legislature that ranks dead last for female representation, and now I get to squeeze into a space that feels like it was designed by someone who thought women didn't exist -- or at least didn't have bladders,' Behn said. The Maryland State House is the country's oldest state capitol in continuous legislative use, operational since the late 1700s. Archivists say its bathroom facilities were initially intended for white men only because desegregation laws were still in place. Women's restrooms were added after 1922, but they were insufficient for the rising number of women elected to office. Delegate Pauline Menes complained about the issue so much that House Speaker Thomas Lowe appointed her chair of the 'Ladies Rest Room Committee,' and presented her with a fur covered toilet seat in front of her colleagues in 1972. She launched the women's caucus the following year. It wasn't until 2019 that House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones, the first woman to secure the top position, ordered the addition of more women's restrooms along with a gender-neutral bathroom and a nursing room for mothers in the Lowe House Office Building. As more women were elected nationwide in the 20th century, some found creative workarounds. In Nebraska's unicameral Legislature, female senators didn't get a dedicated restroom until 1988, when a facility was added in the chamber's cloakroom. There had previously been a single restroom in the senate lounge, and Sen. Shirley Marsh, who served for some 16 years, would ask a State Patrol trooper to guard the door while she used it, said Brandon Metzler, the Legislature's clerk. In Colorado, female House representatives and staff were so happy to have a restroom added in the chamber's hallway in 1987 that they hung a plaque to honor then-state Rep. Arie Taylor, the state's first Black woman legislator, who pushed for the facility. The plaque, now inside a women's bathroom in the Capitol, reads: 'Once here beneath the golden dome if nature made a call, we'd have to scramble from our seats and dash across the hall ... Then Arie took the mike once more to push an urge organic, no longer do we fret and squirm or cross our legs in panic.' The poem concludes: 'In mem'ry of you, Arie (may you never be forgot), from this day forth we'll call that room the Taylor Chamber Pot.' New Mexico Democratic state Rep. Liz Thomson recalled missing votes in the House during her first year in office in 2013 because there was no women's restroom in the chamber's lounge. An increase in female lawmakers — New Mexico elected the largest female majority Legislature in U.S. history in 2024 — helped raise awareness of the issue, she said. 'It seems kind of like fluff, but it really isn't,' she said. 'To me, it really talks about respect and inclusion.' The issue is not exclusive to statehouses. In the U.S. Capitol, the first restroom for congresswomen didn't open until 1962. While a facility was made available for female U.S. Senators in 1992, it wasn't until 2011 that the House chamber opened a bathroom to women lawmakers. Jeannette Rankin of Montana was the first woman elected to a congressional seat. That happened in 1916. Willner insists that knowing the Kentucky Capitol wasn't designed for women gives her extra impetus to stand up and make herself heard. 'This building was not designed for me," she said. "Well, guess what? I'm here.' ___ ____
New York Post
2 hours ago
- New York Post
Chuck Todd blasts podcasters for platforming Hunter Biden, ‘spectacle' hurting Democrats
Former NBC News anchor Chuck Todd condemned media outlets for platforming former President Joe Biden's son, Hunter, arguing he is a hazard to himself and the Democratic Party. As Democrats struggle to chart a new course after their defeat in the 2024 election, the one thing many can agree on is that the Bidens should step away from public life. Advertisement Hunter Biden was in the news again after he spoke on Andrew Callaghan's 'Channel 5' podcast last weekend and Monday's episode of former DNC chair Jaime Harrison's 'At Our Table' podcast, making headlines for wild tirades defending his father and blasting his critics. Todd responded on his own podcast by declaring, 'I will never book Hunter Biden,' and explained why. 'Number one, he's not the candidate. He wasn't on the ballot. Anything he says in defense of his father, I don't know whether it's true or not, but it doesn't matter. He's a son defending his father,' he said. Todd reserved his full ire for those who platform Hunter, saying, 'I have a real problem with the folks that are booking him. If you've chosen to book Hunter Biden, you've chosen to book spectacle. You're not interested in – and you know, the two interviews that have gone viral were both designed to get attention, not to surface new facts, not to give you a better understanding of what may have happened. It was just, 'Let's give him a platform to settle some scores that maybe he wants to settle.'' 3 Chuck Todd condemned media outlets for platforming Hunter Biden. The Chuck ToddCast / YouTube Advertisement He continued, 'I don't think this does Hunter Biden any good. I don't think this does Joe Biden any good. It certainly doesn't do the Democratic Party any good. That's why it's surprising to see the former DNC chair start a podcast and decide that the best way to market it is Hunter Biden.' 'It's a choice who you book,' he argued. 'I make choices. Everybody makes choices. It's a choice who you book. If you're putting Hunter Biden on, you know what you're doing. Look, I think there's a lot of things going on there.' 3 Hunter Biden recently went on the 'Channel 5' podcast to defend his father and blast his critics. CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images 'I don't like it when politicians use the media or campaigns or voters for their own therapy.' Todd added he's a big advocate of going to therapy, 'but let's not do it in public. Try to deal with your issues amongst yourself.' Advertisement 'This is ultimately why I was critical of Joe and Joe Biden for running in the first place, because their family wasn't ready for this,' he added. 'And I think Hunter Biden's behavior now post-election is more proof the family wasn't in a position… this is why running for president can do major damage to a candidate's family.' 3 Both Hunter Biden and his father have been criticized for remaining in the public eye after the Democratic Party's defeat in November. AFP via Getty Images After surviving the death of his first wife and daughter in 1972, the death of his eldest son Beau in 2015 hit Biden very hard and Todd argued the family didn't take enough time to grieve and recover from it before he launched his 2020 presidential campaign. Advertisement In the past, the Bidens seemed to be 'the poster child' of balancing public service and supporting one's family to Todd. 'But that was a family in crisis internally,' he said. Fox News Digital reached out to the 'Channel 5' podcast, the 'At Our Table' podcast, representatives of Joe Biden, and the legal representation of Hunter Biden, and did not receive an immediate reply.
