President Donald Trump says he played a role in First Lady Melania Trump’s latest legal move against Hunter Biden after their feud escalated on Thursday, Aug. 14.
During an interview on The Brian Kilmeade Show on Fox News, host Brian Kilmeade asked President Trump about Melania’s decision to threaten Biden with a $1 billion lawsuit. Biden had repeated disputed claims that Jeffrey Epstein was the one who introduced the Trumps to each other.
“Was that the right thing to do?” Kilmeade asked the president.
Trump, 79, said he encouraged Melania, 55, to go ahead with the lawsuit. “I told her, ‘Let’s go ahead and do it,’” he said, explaining that he even let her use his own lawyers.
On Wednesday, Aug. 12, Fox News reported that Melania’s lawyer had sent Biden a letter demanding he retract comments he made in a YouTube interview with Andrew Callaghan. In that interview, Biden repeated a biographer’s allegation that Epstein introduced Melania to Donald Trump — a story the couple has long denied.
In her memoir Melania, published in October 2024, the first lady wrote that she met Trump in 1998 at the Kit Kat Klub in New York City while he was on a date with another woman.
Trump’s attorney Alejandro Brito wrote in the letter that Biden’s comments were “false, disparaging, defamatory, and inflammatory.” The letter warned that the remarks had been widely shared online, spreading misinformation to “tens of millions of people worldwide.”
The letter gave Biden until Aug. 7 to retract his statements and issue an apology. It also warned that Melania would sue for $1 billion in damages if he refused.
Instead of apologizing, Biden appeared again on Callaghan’s show Thursday morning, saying: “F— that. That’s not gonna happen.”
Biden argued the lawsuit threats were just a “distraction” and said the Trumps were trying to intimidate him. “They think that a billion dollars is going to scare me,” he said, adding that he would gladly sit for a deposition if it meant discussing Epstein and his ties to people at the time the Trumps met.
Melania’s team also pointed to author Michael Wolff as the source of Biden’s claims, calling him a “serial fabulist.” The Daily Beast recently deleted a story based on Wolff’s claims after being threatened with legal action.
Political commentator James Carville also apologized to the first lady last week after her lawyers contacted him over similar remarks.
Nick Clemens, a spokesperson for Melania, told PEOPLE: “First Lady Melania Trump’s attorneys are actively ensuring immediate retractions and apologies by those who spread malicious, defamatory falsehoods. The true account of how the First Lady met President Trump is in her best-selling book, Melania.”
Speaking to Kilmeade, President Trump said firmly: “Jeffrey Epstein had nothing to do with Melania… I did meet through another person actually. But it wasn’t Jeffrey Epstein.”
