President Donald Trump erupted the moment an aide handed him a printout of billionaire Elon Musk’s post claiming he was in the Epstein files, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said.
Cruz described the scene during an interview published Wednesday on the PBD Podcast, hosted by Patrick Bet-David. The Texas Republican said he was in the Oval Office arguing for school choice when the post landed.
Musk published the post on June 5, 2025, as his alliance with Trump collapsed, according to CNN. He wrote that Trump appeared in the government’s files on the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and that this was why the records had not been released.
“Natalie comes in, [with the tweet] printed on a piece of paper, and hands it to us. And he literally reads that tweet,” Cruz explained. “And I’m sitting in the Oval, and his knuckles turn white.”
The aide is Natalie Harp, Trump’s executive assistant, whom West Wing colleagues call his “human printer,” according to The Daily Beast. She follows the president, carrying a portable printer, and hands him news stories and social media posts throughout the day.
Cruz said he had no idea what the paper said until Trump showed it to the room.
“I don’t know what it is yet,” Cruz said. “It happens that second. Like, that second they hand it to him.”
“And he was so p—ed. I joked, I learned some curse words I didn’t even know,” Cruz said.
That’s when the school choice “went off the rails,” Cruz said. “We were done talking about school choice, and Trump had some technicolor views to say about Elon. That’s a moment I will never forget, of just, ‘Okay, there’s a hand grenade thrown in the middle of everything.’”
The post had gone up less than an hour after Trump threatened to cancel federal contracts and subsidies for Musk’s companies, CNN reported.
“Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files,” Musk wrote on X at the time.
“That is the real reason they have not been made public,” Musk continued. “Have a nice day, DJT!”
Musk took the post down within two days and later said it “went too far,” ABC News reported.
Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy, Todd Blanche, had already delivered the same news to Trump privately. They told him in May 2025 that his name appeared multiple times in the Epstein files, the Wall Street Journal reported. The two officials also told Trump they did not plan to release any more documents, and Trump said he would defer to that decision, according to the Journal.
The Department of Justice and the FBI put that position in writing that July. A joint memo said no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted, according to Newsweek.
For months after that, Trump would dismiss the matter as the “Epstein Hoax.”
The House voted 427-1 in November 2025 to force the release of the records, passing the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The Senate followed. Trump eventually signed the bill.
The department missed the deadline set by the law for Dec. 19. Blanche told Fox News that several hundred thousand documents would go out that day and several hundred thousand more over the following weeks. Independent journalist Katie Phang sued Blanche and the department in April, arguing that it was still withholding records the law required it to produce, Forbes reported.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan sided with her in June, finding the department had violated the law, CBS News reported.
“The Attorney General has conceded that he is in violation of the Act,” Sullivan wrote. Among the material Sullivan ordered turned over are the handwritten notes from an FBI interview with a woman who accused Trump of assault.
The department released the typed reports of those interviews but not the notes underneath them. The claims were never corroborated, and Trump has denied them.
Blanche appealed rather than comply. Sullivan warned the department in August that it was risking contempt proceedings, Courthouse News Service reported.
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