President Donald Trump declined to take questions just hours after an attorney with the Department of Justice said that the administration would defy a law requiring all of the files on Jeffrey Epstein to be released by the end of the day.
Trump ended a Friday meeting with pharmaceutical CEOs by announcing that he had suddenly had an idea to meet with health insurance companies. The president insisted that he didn't want to "soil" his idea by taking questions from the media.
"I said to myself, you know, look at what they've done. They've done something that, and as you said, something that you never thought was possible to get done," Trump explained after the pharma CEOs spoke about lowering prices. "And I said to myself, standing watching these great leaders ... I said, you know... I think that the insurance companies, we should have a meeting or we should talk to them. Because I would say that maybe with one talk, they would be willing to cut their prices by 50, 60, or 70%."
"So we're going to be calling a meeting," he continued. "And I'd prefer not talking and asking questions only for the reason that this is such a big announcement, meaning what these people have said and what the other four companies are going to say, which is exactly the same thing that I really don't want to soil it up by asking questions, even questions that are very fair questions, that I'd love to answer."
Earlier on Friday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed to Fox News that not all of the Epstein files would be released by the deadline.
"I expect that we're going to release more documents over the next couple of weeks. So today, several hundred thousand. And then over the next couple weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more," he said.