sábado, 11 de abril de 2026
The Sphinx Thinks It Stinks
Opinion
Maureen
Dowd
The
Sphinx Thinks It Stinks
April 11,
2026, 7:00 a.m. ET
Maureen
Dowd
By
Maureen Dowd
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/11/opinion/melania-trump-epstein-statement.html
Opinion
Columnist, reporting from Washington
President
Trump is desperately trying to move on from his ruinous war in Iran. But there
was no way he expected to be moving on — or moving back — to the Epstein files.
Thanks,
Melania.
The world
gasped when the first lady emerged from the mists on Thursday to give a
statement that ended up yanking America’s eyeballs back to Jeffrey Epstein.
“Be
Best,” this was not.
After
firing the prevaricating Pam Bondi and threatening on Easter that the Iranians
might soon be “living in Hell,” the president surely thought he was finally
wriggling away from the sordid, sticky pedophile scandal.
For
mysterious reasons, the Slovenian Sphinx stunned the West Wing, walking into
the grand entrance hall of the White House to dump kerosene on the flickering
Epstein fire.
In
effect, Melania’s dramatic message was: Hey, guys, we’re not done here yet.
Everybody come look at what my husband so terribly doesn’t want you to look at!
No one,
not even Trump’s inner circle, seemed to know that this bizarre monologue was
coming or what was driving it.
Gobsmacked
aides scrambled to answer reporters’ questions about what the president knew
and when he knew it.
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When
Jacqueline Alemany of MS NOW called Trump, he told her he knew nothing in
advance about the first lady’s statement.
The next
day, he clarified to The Times’s Shawn McCreesh that, while he did not know
that his wife was making the statement, he had known that she was upset by
rumors that she was closer to Epstein than she had said, and wanted to clear
the air.
“It
doesn’t bother me,” he said, contradicting those who sniggered that she threw
him under the bus. She had “a right to talk about it,” he said.
But he
mused: “Would I have done it that way? Perhaps not, perhaps, I don’t know.”
For the
first time, the first lady — who glided so serenely on skyscraper stilettos in
her infomercial, “Melania” — looked shaken.
“The lies
linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today,” she told
reporters, adding: “The false smears about me from meanspirited and politically
motivated individuals and entities looking to cause damage to my good name to
gain financially and climb politically must stop.”
The irony
of Melania bitterly complaining about the sort of slimy tactics that fueled her
husband’s rise was not lost on listeners.
“To be
clear,” she said, “I never had a relationship with Epstein or his accomplice,
Maxwell.” They had “overlapping social circles” in Palm Beach and Manhattan,
which explained the photo of her partying with Donald, Epstein and Ghislaine
Maxwell.
Melania
turned up in the Epstein files with a 2002 email to Maxwell, complimenting her
on a picture that ran with a magazine piece about Epstein, asking how Palm
Beach was, and telling Maxwell to call her when she was back in New York. She
called Maxwell “G” and signed off, “Love, Melania.” Ghislaine wrote back,
calling Melania “Sweet pea.”
“My
polite reply to her email doesn’t amount to anything more than a trivial note,”
Melania said.
The first
lady called on Congress “to provide the women who have been victimized by
Epstein with a public hearing specifically centered around the survivors” so
they could tell their stories.
Shouldn’t
the men doing the alleged crimes be the ones called to answer?
It was
also astonishing that she felt compelled to clear up the little matter of how
she and Donald met.
“I am not
Epstein’s victim,” she said. “Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump. I
met my husband, by chance, at a New York City party in 1998.”
In her
memoir, the first lady recounted that a friend took her to the Kit Kat Club in
Manhattan, where she met the celebrity developer.
She
described how Trump flirted with her and asked for her number even though he
was with a “beautiful” blond date. She refused but said that she would take his
instead.
“I tucked
the card into my clutch before his date returned to the table,” she wrote.
That
should have been an early warning for her about Donald the Duplicitous.
The party
was hosted by Paolo Zampolli, a former Italian modeling agent who recruited the
young Slovenian model to come to America and who takes credit for introducing
Donald and Melania. Zampolli has now been elevated by the president to be a
special envoy for global partnerships, whatever that means. The flashy Trump
acolyte got a D.C. townhouse where he throws parties and shows off pictures of
the Trumps.
Zampolli
posted photos on X this week showing himself with Vice President JD Vance and
Viktor Orban at a table in Hungary. He has offered to testify before Congress
that he played Cupid for the pair.
As The
Times recently reported, Zampolli asked ICE to interfere in a nasty custody
battle he was having with Amanda Ungaro, his Brazilian ex-girlfriend and the
mother of his child.
Ungaro,
in jail in Miami on a fraud charge, was deported after Zampolli’s call. He
claims that he was merely inquiring about her case, not trying to get her
deported.
The
Epstein obsession among Trump’s base was planted by his henchmen and most
devoted followers and then it came back to bite him — including this new chunk
taken out of him by Melania. Conspiracy theories about Melania feed off a web
of intersections. Through the modeling world, Zampolli had met Epstein and they
had talked about buying a modeling agency together. His name pops up several
times in the Epstein files, where Epstein refers to Zampolli as “trouble.”
Early
Thursday just after midnight, Ungaro, clearly upset that Melania didn’t help
her in the ICE deportation, posted threatening messages directed at her on X.
One now-deleted post read: “I have nothing left to lose in my life. I will tear
down the entire system — be careful with me bitch.” In another, she said:
“Maybe you should be afraid of what I know … of who you are, and who your
husband is.”
Melania’s
statement came later that day, but who knows if there’s any connection?
As always
with the sphinx on the Potomac, it’s a riddle.
Iran Unable to Find Mines It Planted in Strait of Hormuz, U.S. Says
Iran
Unable to Find Mines It Planted in Strait of Hormuz, U.S. Says
The lost
mines have prevented Iran from quickly complying with President Trump’s demand
to allow more ships to pass through the waterway.
Julian E.
Barnes
By Julian
E. Barnes
Julian E.
Barnes reports on national security and has been tracking the Iranian effort to
mine the Strait of Hormuz.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/10/us/politics/iran-mines-strait.html
April 10,
2026
Iran has
been unable to open the Strait of Hormuz to more shipping traffic because it
cannot locate all of the mines it laid in the waterway and lacks the capability
to remove them, according to U.S. officials.
The
development is one reason Iran has not been able to quickly comply with the
Trump administration’s admonitions to let more traffic pass through the strait.
It is also potentially a complicating factor as Iranian negotiators and a U.S.
delegation led by Vice President JD Vance meet in Pakistan this weekend for
peace talks.
Iran used
small boats to mine the strait last month, soon after the United States and
Israel began their war against the country. The mines, plus the threat of
Iranian drone and missile attacks, slowed the number of oil tankers and other
vessels passing through the strait to a trickle, driving up energy prices and
providing Iran with its best leverage in the war.
Iran left
a path through the strait open, allowing ships that pay a toll to pass through.
Iran’s
Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has issued warnings that ships could collide
with sea mines, and semiofficial news organizations have published charts
showing safe routes.
Those
routes are limited in large part because Iran mined the strait haphazardly,
U.S. officials said. It is not clear that Iran recorded where it put every
mine. And even when the location was recorded, some mines were placed in a way
that allowed them to drift or move, according to the officials.
As with
land mines, removing nautical mines is far more difficult than placing them.
The U.S. military lacks robust mine removal capabilities, relying on littoral
combat ships equipped with mine sweeping capabilities. Iran also does not have
the capability of quickly removing mines, even the ones it planted.
In a
social media post on Tuesday discussing a pause in the American-Israeli war
with Iran, President Trump said a two-week cease-fire was contingent on the
“COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING” of the Strait of Hormuz.
On
Wednesday, Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, said that the strait
would be open to traffic “with due consideration of technical limitations.”
American officials have said Mr. Araghchi’s comment about technical limitations
was a reference to Iran’s inability to quickly find or remove the mines.
Mr.
Araghchi is now in Islamabad for meetings on Saturday with Mr. Vance. Given Mr.
Trump’s demands to open the strait, the issue of how quickly safe passage
through the waterway can be increased is likely to be a point of discussion.
The U.S.
military sought to destroy Iran’s navy, sinking ships and targeting naval
bases. But Iran has hundreds of small boats that it can use to harass ships or
lay mines. Destroying all of those small boats has proved impossible.
Even
before Iran began laying mines, threats from its leaders quickly disrupted
global shipping and sent oil prices up sharply. On March 2, a senior official
with the Revolutionary Guards announced that the strait was closed and claimed
Iran would set ships “ablaze” if they entered the waterway, according to state
media.
In the
days after that threat, Iran began mining the strait, even as the United States
intensified strikes on Iranian naval assets. At the time, American officials
said Iran was not planting mines quickly or efficiently.
Because
it was difficult to track the small boats deploying the mines, the United
States is uncertain precisely how many Iran has placed in the strait or where
they are located.
Julian E.
Barnes covers the U.S. intelligence agencies and international security matters
for The Times. He has written about security issues for more than two decades.
Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Rally (RN), held a secret dinner with Bernard Arnault, the world's richest man and CEO of LVMH, and other major French business leaders on Tuesday, April 7, 2026.
Le Pen
met France’s richest man and other major CEOs at secret dinner
Marine Le
Pen, leader of the National Rally (RN), held a secret dinner with Bernard
Arnault, the world's richest man and CEO of LVMH, and other major French
business leaders on Tuesday, April 7, 2026.
The
meeting, held at the exclusive Drouant restaurant in Paris, signifies a
strategic shift as France’s business elite seeks to "build bridges"
with the far right ahead of future elections. Attendees described the evening
as a "robust exchange of views" rather than a formal endorsement.
Key
Attendees
According
to reporting from Le Nouvel Obs and Politico, the dinner included more than a
dozen CEOs and influential figures:
Bernard
Arnault: CEO of LVMH.
Patrick
Pouyanné: CEO of TotalEnergies.
Catherine
MacGregor: CEO of Engie.
Sébastien
Bazin: CEO of Accor.
Cyrille
Bolloré: CEO of the Bolloré Group and son of billionaire Vincent Bolloré.
Jean-Dominique
Senard: Chairman of Renault.
Henri de
Castries: Former CEO of AXA.
Paul
Hermelin: Former CEO of Capgemini, who reportedly organized the event.
