President Donald Trump told his wife to move forward with legal action against Hunter Biden after the former president’s son claimed Jeffrey Epstein introduced the first couple.
First Lady Melania Trump is threatening to sue Hunter Biden for $1 billion over statements he made about her alleged connection to the convicted sex offender. The dispute started when Biden appeared on a YouTube show on August 5, 2025, and said Epstein brought the Trumps together.
Trump confirmed Thursday that he encouraged his wife’s legal response. “Well, I said go forward. I’ve done pretty well in these lawsuits lately,” the president told Fox News Radio’s Brian Kilmeade.
The president denied that Epstein had any role in his relationship with Melania. Trump said people make up stories to hurt his family’s reputation and offered to let his wife use his lawyers for the case.
Melania Trump’s attorney sent Hunter Biden a cease-and-desist letter on August 6, demanding he take back his comments and apologize. The letter called Biden’s statements false and harmful to the first lady’s reputation.
In the August 5, 2025, YouTube interview with journalist Andrew Callaghan, Hunter Biden claimed that “Epstein introduced Melania to Trump” and said “the connections are, like, so wide and deep.” Biden said he got this information from journalist Michael Wolff, who has written books about the Trump family.
The first lady’s lawyer, Alejandro Brito, gave Biden until August 7 to respond to their demands. When that deadline passed without compliance, sources told Fox News that Biden had leaked the letter to reporters instead of following the legal demands.
Hunter Biden refused to apologize when given another chance during a follow-up interview on Thursday. When asked if he would say sorry to Melania Trump, Biden responded:(expletive) that. That’s not going to happen.”
Biden said he stands by his comments and challenged the Trumps to answer questions under oath about their relationship with Epstein. He claimed he would be happy to give them a platform to explain their side through depositions.
The Trumps have always said they met through modeling agent Paolo Zampolli at a New York Fashion Week party in 1998. Melania Trump wrote about this meeting in her memoir, saying Donald Trump was on a date with another woman when they first met at the Kit Kat Club.
The Daily Beast website published an article based on Wolff’s allegations, but quickly took it down after receiving a legal letter from Melania Trump’s team. The publication then apologized for any confusion. Democratic strategist James Carville also had to apologize and remove content from his podcast.
Legal experts are split on whether the lawsuit would succeed. Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told Newsweek that Melania Trump could have a strong case if Biden’s statements are false. However, she would need to prove Biden knew his claims were wrong or acted recklessly.
Another former prosecutor, Shanlon Wu, thinks the case would be difficult to win. He said it’s hard for public figures to prove defamation, especially when statements come from other published sources.
The controversy comes as the Trump administration faces criticism over its handling of Jeffrey Epstein documents. The Justice Department announced last month that it would not release additional records related to Epstein, despite earlier promises from officials to make the files public.
Epstein died by suicide in a federal jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Trump and Epstein were once friends but reportedly had a falling out in the early 2000s.
Hunter Biden has experience with legal battles. His father recently pardoned him for federal criminal convictions. He has also filed lawsuits against people who allegedly misused information from his laptop.
The first lady’s spokesperson said her legal team is working to get retractions from anyone spreading false information. The spokesperson emphasized that the true story of how the Trumps met is told in Melania’s memoir.
Biden cited New York Times reporting from 2019, saying journalists Annie Carney and Maggie Haberman reported that sources claimed Epstein said he introduced the couple.
Whether Melania Trump will actually file the billion-dollar lawsuit remains unclear. Legal experts say such a case would test the limits of defamation law and could generate significant attention for both sides.
