The lewd doodle that President Donald Trump reportedly sent to the late financier and accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein has now been made public, and in response, Trump and Republicans resorted to a flat denial, claiming the signature on the letter was forged. That assertion was seen as laughable by MSNBC's Chris Hayes, who pointed out that what's known about both the signature and Trump's long history of inappropriate behavior towards women suggests that it is indeed genuine.
"Every single page seems to convey what Donald Trump, on the record in print, told New York Magazine about Epstein back in 2022," said Hayes. "Same kind of wink-wink, nudge-nudge, right? He's a lot of fun to be with. It even said he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. What more evidence do you need to know that as president, Donald Trump has been lying to cover up something about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the nature of it, the things they did together, their shared interests? But now he's been caught red-handed, and he's pushing Republicans to just keep lying their way out of it."
Hayes played clips of a number of Republicans parroting Trump's denials of the signature's authenticity, including Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) suggesting someone manufactured it with an "autopen," and Rep. James Comer (R-KY) saying the Oversight Committee will not investigate the matter any further because "What does it have to do with anything?"
"What does it have to do with anything that Donald Trump wrote that letter to Jeffrey Epstein?" echoed Hayes. "Now the Journal and others proved pretty conclusively that the signature, the syntax of drawing itself are all obviously identical to Trump's over the years, Trump's allies keep lying about it. And again, to believe the letter is a hoax, you'd have to believe that it was forged by some mysterious third party in 2003, and then included and given to Ghislaine Maxwell, who included [it] in the book, not knowing it's a forgery, it was bound to give Epstein more than two decades ago from Ghislaine Maxwell because ... some aliens came down and made it up."
"I mean, that's not a denial. That's a pathetic conspiracy theory," said Hayes. "But that's what they're saying. That is their contention."
He then played a number of clips of Trump making creepy statements about young girls, including a remark that Tiffany Trump, as an infant, had her mother's legs.
"A normal thing to say about your baby daughter, right?" said Hayes. "A normal thing to say about your baby daughter if you're also a guy who hangs out with Jeffrey Epstein, talks about how he likes them young and also writes that letter to him, right? Normal stuff. And all of that is what Donald Trump and Republicans want you to forget. There's a reason that they're failing miserably."
Watch the video below or at the link here.