Politics – Page 10

Trump contradicts US intelligence on Iran, doesn’t address regime change as before

March 2, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Monday claimed the U.S. was “very nearly under threat” from Iran, contradicting U.S. intelligence assessments as he sought to justify his administration’s ongoing attack.

“An Iranian regime armed with long-range missiles and nuclear weapons would be an intolerable threat to the Middle East, but also to the American people,” Trump said at a medal of honor ceremony at the White House, marking his first public remarks on the military operation.

“Our country itself would be under threat, and it was very nearly under threat,” Trump continued.

American intelligence agencies, however, believe Iran would not have had missiles capable of reaching the U.S. for another nine years, until 2035.

And sources confirmed to ABC News that Trump administration officials told congressional staff that U.S. intelligence did not suggest Iran was preparing to launch a preemptive strike against the United States interests.

The officials said there was more of a general threat in the region from Iran’s missiles and proxy forces, sources told ABC News.

Still, Trump argued Iran would have “soon” had the capability to reach the American homeland and that “this was our last best chance to strike.”

“The regime already had missiles capable of hitting Europe and our bases, both local and overseas, and would soon have had missiles capable of reaching our beautiful America,” Trump said.

Trump, in Monday’s remarks, laid out U.S. objectives for the military campaign.

“Our objectives are clear,” Trump said. “First, we’re destroying Iran’s missile capabilities, and you see that happening on an hourly basis, and their capacity to produce brand new ones and pretty good ones they make. Second, we’re annihilating their navy. We’ve knocked out already 10 ships. They’re at the bottom of the sea. Third, we’re ensuring that the world’s number one sponsor of terror can never obtain a nuclear weapon … And finally, we’re ensuring that the Iranian regime cannot continue to arm, fund and direct terrorist armies outside of their borders.”

Trump notably did not address the issue of regime change after speaking extensively on leadership change over the weekend, as he called for Iranians to rise up and take over the government.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also shifted focus away from regime change in a press conference at the Pentagon earlier Monday, telling reporters the operation was not a “so-called regime-change war.”

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, was killed in an attack launched by Israel and the United States.

Trump told ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl on Sunday that individuals that the U.S. had identified as potential leaders in a post-Khamenei Iran were also dead.

“The attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates,” Trump told ABC’s Karl. “It’s not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they are all dead. Second or third place is dead.”

As for what’s next, Trump again promised not to drag the U.S. into prolonged foreign conflicts but said the operation will go on for as long as needed.

“We’re already substantially ahead of our time projections, but whatever the time is, it’s okay. Whatever it takes. We will always, and we have right from the beginning, we projected four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that. We’ll do it.”

“Somebody said today, they said, ‘Oh, well, the president wants to do it really quickly, after that, he’ll get bored.’ I don’t get bored,” Trump added. “There’s nothing boring about this.”

Hegseth defends US attack on Iran as ‘our retribution’

March 2, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday defended the ongoing U.S. attack on Iran as necessary because of Tehran’s missile arsenal and nuclear ambitions, calling it “our retribution” for its yearslong role in sponsoring terrorism.

Hegseth declined to say how long the operation would last or rule out the potential of sending U.S. troops on the ground.

“We didn’t start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it. Their war on Americans has become our retribution against their Ayatollah and his death cult,” Hegseth said.

Hegseth’s press conference was his first since the large-scale operation began two days ago. The attack resulted in the death of Iran’s supreme leader and some of its senior leadership.

President Donald Trump in recent days told reporters he expect the operation could last four to five weeks — a timeline Hegseth wouldn’t commit to.

Four U.S. service members have died, with several more severely wounded, according to U.S. Central Command.

Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who also briefed reporters on Monday, said the U.S. is sending additional forces into the region, primarily aviation assets.

“We expect to take additional losses and, as always, we will work to minimize U.S. losses,” Caine said, later adding, “this is major combat operations.”

When pressed on the missions objectives, Hegseth insisted the goals were clear.

“The mission of Operation Epic Fury is laser-focused,” Hegseth said. “Destroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure, and they will never have nuclear weapons. We’re hitting them surgically, overwhelmingly and unapologetically.”

Critics of the administration have questioned the timing of the operation though because of U.S. intelligence that has found the threat from Iran was not imminent. According to the Defense Intelligence Agency, Iran is working on developing a missile capable of reaching the U.S. by 2035.

The U.S. also bombed three of Iran’s nuclear sites last year. Experts say there are recent signs of Iran trying to rebuild its program and begin again enriching uranium, but that there was no evidence they were close to building a bomb.

Trump said over the weekend that a preemptive attack on Iran was justified by “imminent threats” from the Iranian guard, though he provided no evidence, and to topple the Iranian regime.

Hegseth said Monday that Iran was “stalling” during recent negotiations with U.S. officials to buy time to build up its ballistic missile program and restart its nuclear ambitions.

“Their goal: hold us hostage, threatening to strike our forces. Well, President Trump doesn’t play those games,” Hegseth said.

Iran has responded with a massive attack on U.S. allies across the Middle East, targeting Israel, regional U.S. bases and Gulf nations. Four U.S. service members have been killed, which Hegseth said occurred when Iran hit a tactical operations center that had been fortified.

The attack resulted in the death of Iran’s supreme leader and some of its senior leadership.

In a phone call with ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl, Trump said the “attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates” to lead Iran.

Hegseth, though, on Monday said the operation was not a “so-called regime-change war.”

“Turns out the regime who chanted ‘death to America’ and ‘death to Israel’ was gifted death from America and death from Israel. This is not a so-called regime-change war, but the regime sure did change, and the world is better off for it,” Hegseth said.

The defense secretary rejected that the U.S. would be involved in another “forever war” in the region, though he gave little detail on what comes next.

Hegseth declined to give a timeline on how long the military operation could last, after Trump told ABC News the attacks could last four or five more weeks.

“President Trump has all the latitude in the world to talk about how long it may or may not take. Four weeks, two weeks, six weeks. It could move up, it could move back. We’re going to execute at his command the objectives we’ve set out to achieve,” Hegseth said.

ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.

Iran operation could last weeks, Trump tells ABC News, saying of Khamenei, ‘I got him before he got me’

March 2, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — An Iranian plot to kill then-candidate Donald Trump was clearly on the president’s mind when he ordered the attack that killed Iran’s supreme leader.

“I got him before he got me,” Trump Sunday night, not long after he announced Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been killed. “They tried twice. Well, I got him first.”

President Trump was referring to an Iranian plot to kill him during the 2024 presidential campaign. During the summer of 2024, U.S. intelligence believed the Iranian government was plotting to kill then-candidate Trump.

The plot was not tied to the assassination attempts against the candidate in Butler, Pennsylvania, or West Palm Beach, Florida, but Trump was briefed on the threat and additional resources were added by the Biden administration to his Secret Service detail.

When I spoke with President Trump late Sunday night after he had returned to the White House from a weekend overseeing military operations in Iran from his club in Mar-a-Lago, he sounded like a president who is feeling invincible.

He said he believes the military operation has been an unmitigated success.

“Nobody else could have done this but me, and you know that,” Trump told me.

Trump told me the Iranians had made significant concessions in the last round of talks. He suggested his decision to cut off talks those and order the attack was driven in part by the success of the military operations to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, whom the U.S. said was an illegitimately elected president , and to strike the Iranian nuclear facilities last summer in coordination with Israel.

“A year ago, it would have been great to accept that deal for me,” he said on Sunday, “but we have become spoiled.”

Trump told me that someone in the Iranian government reached out to him, but he would not say who.

“I probably shouldn’t tell you,” he said. “One of the few remaining people who are still alive. He doesn’t report to the Supreme Leader anymore.”

Before the attacks, the administration had identified possible leaders of a post-Khamenei Iran, but Trump said they are all gone. Khamenei was killed on Saturday alongside around 40 senior Iranian officials, the Israel Defense Forces said.

“The attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates,” Trump said. “It’s not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they are all dead. Second or third place is dead.”

When asked about his statement earlier in the day that there would be more American casualties.

“It’s war and you have casualties in war,” he said.

Trump marveled at the level of American losses so far, pointing to last summer’s attack and the operation against Maduro in Venezuela as evidence of his administration’s military precision.

“All the things we went through and we lost three people. We lost three,” he said. “But if you ask Iran how many they lost, they can’t count that high.”

U.S. Central Command on Monday said another member of the U.S. military had been killed during the operation against Iran, bringing the total known U.S. deaths to four people. At least 555 people have been killed in Iran in U.S.-Israeli strikes, the Iranian Red Crescent Society said in a statement on Monday.

When asked on Sunday how long the war would go on, Trump said, “We always thought it was a four-to-five-week deal.”

Was he prepared to go longer?

“Sure. We have a lot of ammunition,” he said. “It could also go less.”

Iran strike was Pentagon’s 1st use of 1-way drones, CENTCOM says

February 28, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Saturday’s attack against Iran was the Pentagon’s first use of one-way drones in combat, CENTCOM said, and only about three months since its first notable test in the field — a rapid turnaround for a weapon system in the United States’ arsenal.

The use of one-way drones comes as military planners have been rapidly building up a squadron in the Middle East of Low-Cost Unmanned Combat Attack System, or LUCAS, a one-way attack drone produced by Arizona-based SpektreWorks.

Each unit costs about $35,000 — much cheaper than a $30 million Reaper drone and subsequent munitions.

The drones are brand new, being deployed to the Middle East in December and having their first test flight from a Navy ship that month.

The American drone was reverse-engineered from Iran’s Shahed drones that have been used by Iran against Israel and by Russia against Ukraine.

The new drones are part of CENTCOM’s Task Force Scorpion Strike, which was founded shortly after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed acceleration of the acquisition and deployment of cheap drone technology last summer.

LUCAS drones are designed to operate autonomously, according to CENTCOM. They can be launched with different mechanisms to include catapults, rocket-assisted takeoff, and ground and vehicle systems.

“Autonomous” doesn’t always refer to technology that doesn’t require humans for a designate a target, just that it doesn’t necessarily require human involvement after a target is selected, according to Pentagon policy.

One-way attack drones became notable in the war in Ukraine and spurred enormous investment into the technology from the Pentagon as a significantly cheaper option with relative ease of use compared to other weapons and aircraft.

“The first hours of the operation included precision munitions launched from air, land, and sea,” CENTCOM said in a statement.

Trump orders US government to cut ties with Anthropic, threatens ‘criminal consequences’

February 27, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump has ordered U.S. government agencies to stop using Anthropic’s products, just hours before the deadline the Pentagon set for the AI company to agree to its terms.

“I am directing EVERY Federal Agency in the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic’s technology. We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again! There will be a Six Month phase out period for Agencies like the Department of War who are using Anthropic’s products, at various levels,” Trump posted on his social media platform.

“Anthropic better get their act together, and be helpful during this phase out period, or I will use the Full Power of the Presidency to make them comply, with major civil and criminal consequences to follow,” Trump added.

ABC News has reached out to Anthropic for comment.

The AI company’s CEO has made clear that despite threats from the Pentagon, they refuse to drop their two key demands: no use of its artificial intelligence for fully autonomous weapons — meaning AI, not humans, making final battlefield targeting decisions — and no mass domestic surveillance.

Anthropic told ABC News that amid negotiations, the latest contract language from the Pentagon does not fully commit that the military will not use their technology for those two use cases.

In fact, Anthropic said the “new language” added into the contract by the department would allow their safeguards to be “disregarded at will.”

“The contract language we received from the Department of War made virtually no progress on preventing Claude’s use for mass surveillance of Americans or in fully autonomous weapons,” Anthropic told ABC News.

The company added, “New language framed as compromise was paired with legalese that would allow those safeguards to be disregarded at will. Despite DOW’s recent public statements, these narrow safeguards have been the crux of our negotiations for months.”

Top members of the Senate Armed Services Committee have sent a private letter to Anthropic and the Pentagon, urging them to resolve their fight.

The Senate leaders are urging Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the CEO of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, to extend their negotiations and work with Congress to find a solution, according to the letter obtained by ABC News.

The Pentagon claims it has no intention of using Anthropic’s AI for cases that involve mass domestic surveillance or autonomous kinetic operations. However, it says Anthropic’s guardrails could jeopardize military operations.

The Pentagon said that if Anthropic does not agree to its demands by 5:00 p.m. ET Friday, they will terminate the partnership with Anthropic and label the company a “supply chain risk” – a designation usually reserved for foreign adversaries.

“The Department has stated that it does not intend to conduct mass surveillance or use autonomous weapons without humans on the loop — positions that we in Congress endorse,” the letter from the Senate leaders reads. “It is clear, however, that the issue of ‘lawful use’ requires additional work by all stakeholders. We must determine whether additional legislative or regulatory language is required, and, if so, what that law and regulation should entail.”

“By Friday, February 27, the DOD could essentially declare war not on a foreign nation but on one of America’s most successful frontier AI companies if it does not bow to its demands,” Adam Conner, the vice president for technology policy at American Progress, wrote in an article on their website.

“This would be an unprecedented and unnecessary peacetime move that sends the signal to other private companies that they must do the Trump administration’s bidding or face existential consequences,” Conner wrote.

Trump says he hasn’t made a final decision on Iran, ‘not happy’ with current negotiations

February 27, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Friday told reporters he hasn’t made a final decision about what comes next in his pressure campaign on Iran but he made clear he was “not happy” with the current negotiations over his demand that Tehran end its nuclear program.

Trump spoke as left the White House for a trip to Texas amid the massive U.S. military buildup he’s ordered in the region.

“I’m not happy with the fact that they’re not willing to give us what we have to have,” Trump said. “So, I’m not thrilled with that. We’ll see what happens with talking later. We’ll — we’ll have some additional talks today. But no, I’m not happy with the way they’re going.”

“Well, we haven’t made a final decision,” he added. “They cannot have nuclear weapons, and we’re not thrilled with the way they’re negotiating. So, we’ll see how it all works.”

Asked if there’s a risk that U.S. strikes could lead to prolonged conflict in the Middle East, Trump said “there’s always a risk. You know, when there’s war, there’s a risk in anything both good and bad.”

Trump, who has yet to explain why he might soon order a strike on Iran and what his overall objective is, also spoke of regime change in Tehran, but only in vague terms.

Asked if his team had told him U.S. strikes now will lead to regime change right away, Trump said no.

“No, nobody’s told me that. You don’t know. I mean, nobody knows. There might be and there might not be,” he said.

Trump repeated that he preferred diplomacy over military action.

“We have the greatest military anywhere in the world. There’s nothing close. I’d love not to use it, but sometimes you have to,” he said.

His remarks came after it was announced earlier Friday that Secretary of State Marco Rubio would travel to Israel on Monday and Tuesday, with rising tensions with Iran said to be high on his agenda.

That trip announcement came just hours after the U.S. embassy in Israel ordered the departure of nonessential employees and family members.

Meanwhile, in an interview aboard Air Force Two on Thursday, Vice President JD Vance told The Washington Post that there was “no chance” of a drawn-out war in Iran as a result of potential strikes that are being weighed by the White House.

“The idea that we’re going to be in a Middle Eastern war for years with no end in sight — there is no chance that will happen,” Vance told the Post.

Vance’s comments come as the U.S. and Iran held indirect talks on Thursday in Geneva, Switzerland, which concluded without a resolution so far.

Vance added that while he doesn’t know what President Donald Trump will do in Iran, he described the range of options as strikes that would “ensure Iran isn’t going to get a nuclear weapon” or actions that could lead to a diplomatic solution.

The vice president told the Post that he remained a “skeptic of foreign military interventions” and said he believed the president was as well. He added that “we all prefer the diplomatic option,” while conceding, “but it really depends on what the Iranians do and what they say.”

Vance dismissed questions from the Post about his past criticisms of the U.S. involvement in Iraq and if he could have foreseen being part of an administration now flirting with the prospect of regime change.

“Well, I mean, look. Life has all kinds of crazy twists and turns,” Vance said. “But I think Donald Trump is an ‘America First’ president, and he pursues policies that work for the American people.”

“I do think we have to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. I also think that we have to avoid overlearning the lessons of the past. Just because one president screwed up a military conflict doesn’t mean we can never engage in military conflict again. We’ve got to be careful about it, but I think the president is being careful,” he said.

Vance’s comments came ahead of his meeting with Omani Foreign Minister Badr Al Busaidi and other U.S. officials Friday in Washington to discuss Iran, a source familiar with the meeting confirmed to ABC News.

The scheduled meeting follows Thursday’s gathering in Geneva between special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, with Al Busaidi for indirect talks between Iran and the United States.

Progressives take on Democratic incumbents as midterm primaries kick off

February 27, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — As the first primaries in the 2026 midterm elections kick off on Tuesday, Democrats once again are dealing with divides in their party, including over generational change and immigration enforcement, in contests where progressives are taking on incumbents.

One of these faceoffs is set for Tuesday in North Carolina. Nida Allam, 32, vice chair of the Durham County Board of Commissioners, is mounting a primary challenge from the left to Democratic Rep. Valerie Foushee, 69. Allam previously lost to Foushee in the 2022 primary in North Carolina’s 4th Congressional District.

“We have an opportunity to push and champion not just Trump and the right-wing administration, but also our own party; that this seat could be the most powerful tool for progressives and Democrats in the South, but it’s only as powerful as the person sitting in that seat,” Allam told ABC News in an interview.

Allam has the support of progressive stalwart independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who campaigned for her in mid-February and told supporters at a rally, “At a moment when the oligarchs are tightening their grip on our society, we need leaders like Nida, leaders who answer to working families and not the billionaire class.”

Foushee, in a statement to ABC News, pushed back on Allam’s claims that she is not progressive or present enough, pointing to her endorsement by the Congressional Progressive Caucus and to securing millions for the district.

“My opponent’s claim that I have been absent from my role with zero ability to describe what more she would have done in Congress under the Republican majority demonstrates that she is trying to apply for a job that she does not understand,” Foushee wrote.

Similar primary rumbles are set to play out over the coming months, including in Colorado’s June 30 primaries. Melat Kiros, 28, a Ph.D student and barista, is running against longtime incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette, 68, who has represented the state’s 1st Congressional District since 1997.

Kiros previously worked for a law firm and wrote an open letter in 2023 criticizing how law firms were responding in 2023 to pro-Palestinian protests. “I was asked to take the letter down. I said no, and then I was fired,” Kiros said. (The firm, Sidley Austin, did not reply to a request for comment from ABC News.)

Kiros says she draws a direct contrast with DeGette on the U.S.-Israel relationship and that DeGette’s opposition to further offensive aid to Israel does not go far enough.

The debate surrounding U.S. support for Israel, or whether Israel’s actions in Gaza amount to genocide, has sometimes been cast as a divide between younger and older Democrats. (Israel strongly disputes the allegations of committing genocide in Gaza and has said it took care to avoid civilian casualties during its military campaign against Hamas.)

Kiros believes the divide is more complicated than a generational one, but said young people “are seeing on our phones a genocide happening in real time … and want to see representatives who are committed to actually holding Israel accountable and ending this genocide.”

DeGette’s campaign did not provide comment or respond to a request for an interview when contacted by ABC News. She told NBC News in December more broadly, “We must defend our democracy against Donald Trump and work to solve our problems with dignity, justice, and a future grounded in compassion, not cruelty.”

Matthew Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University, says the divide among Democrats over support for Israel — or even how to refer to its actions — reflects a “broader debate within the party about both Israel, but also America’s role in the world and what it should stand for … it’s a moment of flux in that way for the Democratic Party.”

“The moderates are in a tough spot,” he added, as moderates may oppose policies by Israel’s leadership but disagree with the claim that Israel was committing a genocide and feel Israel had the right to defend itself. “It’s a bit harder to message or navigate the complexities of the issue.”

Another flashpoint in some of these primaries is the future of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), especially in the wake of the shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good by federal law enforcement in Minneapolis last month.

Jonathan Paz, a 32-year-old former city council member from the Boston suburb of Waltham, is mounting a primary challenge to Massachusetts Rep. Katherine Clark, 62, who currently serves as the House Minority Whip — the second-most powerful Democrat in the House.

Paz told ABC News, “She seems determined to write strongly worded letters. I’m calling to disband ICE and cut all their funding … [people] don’t want that empty rhetoric. They want to dismantle this agency because they want to see the violence stop.”

He added that he feels Clark did not do her job as whip — the whip works to get party members aligned on how to vote — given that 21 House Democrats voted for continuing Department of Homeland Security funding as part of ending a partial government shutdown.

Clark has called for guardrails and restrictions on ICE, and urged voting against the appropriations bill with DHS funding; she also said in early February that she was denied access to an ICE facility in her district while trying to conduct oversight.

“Katherine is doing the work to hold ICE and the Administration accountable and end its reign of terror in our neighborhoods,” Clark’s reelection campaign said in a statement to ABC News.

The progressive challengers more broadly lay bare another ongoing debate within the Democratic Party: whether the party should stand behind incumbents or usher in a new generation of younger and potentially more progressive lawmakers.

“What the voters in this country are fed up with is the corruption of this political system that continues to reward and profit billionaires at the expense of everyone else,” Usamah Andrabi, communications director at the progressive group Justice Democrats, told ABC News.

The group recently unveiled a slate of 12 primary endorsements, including Allam and Kiros.

But others within the Democratic ecosystem have cautioned against reading too much into the progressive versus moderate primary challenges.

David de la Fuente, deputy director for politics and research at the centrist group Third Way, told ABC News he would point to how those challenges are happening often in safely blue districts, not competitive toss-up seats.

He also argued against conflating generational change with an ideological shift to the left.

“Young candidates, whether they’re moderate or progressive, are representing change and a generational shift. That is a tale as old as time,” he said.

Bill Clinton denies knowledge of Epstein’s crimes in House Oversight Committee deposition

February 27, 2026 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Former President Bill Clinton, in his historic deposition with the Republican-led House Oversight Committee on Friday, denied any knowledge of the crimes committed by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, going on to say the subpoena of his wife Hillary Clinton “was simply not right.”

In his opening statement, he stated that he will often say, “I do not recall” throughout his questioning because the events were “all a long time ago.”

“I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong,” Clinton said, according to a release of his opening statements.

The former president is facing questions from the committee as part of its investigation into Epstein in Chappaqua, New York — marking a historic moment for a former president. Friday’s deposition is the first time a former president has appeared in front of a congressional panel since former President Gerald Ford in 1983.

He is facing questions under oath about his relationship with Epstein and photos that show the former president with both Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s co-conspirator who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking and other crimes.

The former president’s testimony comes a day after the committee questioned former Secretary of State and first lady Hillary Clinton over the couple’s dealings with the convicted sex offender.

In her deposition Thursday, Hillary Clinton said she did not know Epstein, could not recall ever encountering him and never visited him on his island or at his home or office.

Hillary Clinton, on Thursday, also gave a preview of how her husband, former President Bill Clinton, will handle his own deposition.

“I think it is fair to say that the vast majority of people who had contact with him before his criminal pleas in ’08 were like most people — they did not know what he was doing. And I think that that is exactly what my husband will testify to tomorrow,” she said.

Hillary Clinton said after her deposition that the committee asked her over and over if she knew Epstein. She said there were also questions that were off subject — about UFOs and the debunked “Pizzagate” conspiracy.

“So if they are going to fulfill their responsibilities to literally investigate the investigations, which is what they originally said was the scope of their work, I think they could have spent the day more productively,” she said.

Neither Bill Clinton nor Hillary Clinton has been accused of wrongdoing and both deny having any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.

No Epstein survivor or associate has ever made a public allegation of wrongdoing or inappropriate behavior by the former president or his wife in connection with his prior relationship with Epstein.

“No one is accusing, at this moment, the Clintons of any wrongdoing,” Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said Thursday morning ahead of Hillary Clinton’s deposition. “They’re going to have due process, but we have a lot of questions, and the purpose of the whole investigation is to try to understand many things about Epstein.”

Bill Clinton’s association with Epstein was first noted publicly in 2002 after reporters learned of the former president’s flight that year on Epstein’s jet for a humanitarian mission to multiple African nations.

Bill Clinton told New York Magazine through a spokesperson at the time that “Jeffrey is both a highly successful financier and a committed philanthropist with a keen sense of global markets and an in-depth knowledge of 21st century science.”

Maxwell said in a recorded interview last year with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, that it was she, not Epstein, who had a friendship with Bill Clinton, and that she was the one who suggested and organized his trips on Epstein’s aircraft.

The Clintons were subpoenaed to appear under oath in front of the committee for a deposition in January, but failed to comply, arguing the subpoenas were without legal merit. Rather, they proposed a four-hour transcribed interview instead.

David Kendall, the Clintons’ lawyer, argued that the couple has no information relevant to the committee’s investigation of the federal government’s handling of investigations into Epstein and Maxwell, and should not be required to appear for in-person testimony.

Kendall contended the Clintons should be permitted to provide the limited information they have to the committee in writing.

Comer had long threatened to hold the Clintons in contempt if they failed to appear before the committee, so when they didn’t, a contempt resolution was drafted and put to a vote.

The Oversight Committee passed the contempt resolution with nine Democrats voting in favor of it, teeing it up for a full House vote.

At the last minute, just before the resolution was to be voted on in the House, the Clintons agreed to sit for a deposition, postponing further consideration of a contempt vote.

Democrats on the committee said they hope this week’s testimony from the Clintons spark Republican committee members to investigate more of Epstein’s ties to President Donald Trump.

Trump has repeatedly denied any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and has said that he cut off contact with his former friend more than 20 years ago.

While the Clintons have agreed to speak with the committee behind closed doors, they have still pushed for public hearings as part of the committee’s investigation.

“I will not sit idly as they use me as a prop in a closed-door kangaroo court by a Republican Party running scared,” Bill Clinton wrote in a lengthy post on X. “If they want answers, let’s stop the games & do this the right way: in a public hearing, where the American people can see for themselves what this is really about.”

Bill Clinton blasts Republicans for deposing Hillary, says ‘I did nothing wrong’