Even Leavitt can't spin the joke check to Epstein from "DJTrump"

Even Leavitt can’t spin the joke check to Epstein from “DJTrump”
The press secretary's feeble deflection can't hide the experiences of multiple women

By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published September 12, 2025 6:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is good at her job. Not only does she fulfill the traditional duty of spokesperson for President Donald Trump, but she also serves as chief gaslighter of the nation. Leavitt consistently contradicts reality with ease — it’s a skill that would cause mental collapse in a person with a conscience. On Tuesday, this knack for playing dumb was on full display when she was asked by a reporter about a telling page from convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s birthday book, which was revealed earlier this week by the Wall Street Journal.

The book, compiled by Epstein associate and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, included a photo of Epstein holding what the Journal described as “a poster board-sized check for $22,500.” Presented to him by Joel Pashcow, a businessman, Mar-a-Lago member and mutual friend of Epstein and Trump, the fake check was a sort of in-joke, made to appear as if Trump had sent it to Epstein. The caption said it was for a “fully depreciated” woman that Epstein was selling to Trump.

....(snip)....

No one had accused Trump of signing the check. Leavitt, who isn’t as stupid as she pretends, knew full well what was going on. Pashcow was teasing his two friends by suggesting Trump was dating a woman that Epstein had “depreciated.” The joke’s premise was that both Epstein and Trump saw women not as human beings, but as objects to be used however men see fit. As the word “depreciation” suggests, the metaphor here is that this woman was more like a car than a person; she had no rights that a man needed to respect.

....(snip)....

Leavitt’s efforts to maneuver her way around the implications of the check photo were slick enough, but undermined by two important points. First, the president’s public attitudes about women are in keeping with the misogyny behind Pashcow’s attempt at humor. Then there are the experiences of at least three women who felt victimized in the world inhabited by Trump’s close friend Epstein and those in his orbit. .................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/09/12/even-leavitt-cant-spin-the-joke-check-to-epstein-from-djtrump/