GB News grinds to screeching halt for Melania Trump update after shock speech | TV & Radio | Showbiz & TV

GB News presenters Ellie Costello and Stephen Dixon had to halt their regular broadcast as guest Kinsey Schofield delivered a breaking news update about Melania Trump following her shock speech in the White House about convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.On Thursday, April 9, the First Lady delivered an unexpected public statement to address long-standing rumours and recently surfaced documents regarding her connections to Epstein. She said: “I have never been friends with Epstein.” She then categorised any interaction with him or Ghislaine Maxwell as “casual correspondence” and “overlapping social circles”. Reflecting on the press conference, Costello began: “This was a press conference which had us all by surprise.”

Showbiz reporter Schofield replied: “Insiders in the White House were struck by the force of the First Lady delivering this speech, and a lot of people are asking why. What has happened to make her want to do this?”

She then posed two theories about Melania’s statement as the breaking news banner continued to flash across the screen.

“One of these theories is this email, which circulated after the DOJ drop, that’s friendly from Melania to Ghislaine,” Schofield added. “She mentions seeing Epstein in, I believe, the magazine, The New Yorker and says she looks forward to being back in Florida. Some have said she just really wants to distance herself from that.”

The reporter said she felt the more interesting theory was from a lawyer who said it looked like the First Lady and her legal team “may be laying the ground work for potential legal action”.

Schofield added: “In the United States, the bar for a public figure to win a defamation case is intentionally very high. Free speech is a cornerstone of healthy democracy, [the lawyer says]. But it should never be weaponised as a shield for knowingly spreading falsehoods.

“So he believes by issuing such a clear and definitive public statement, the First Lady may be positioning herself to strengthen a potential claim that anyone who continues to publish these false claims about her and her relationship with Epstein would be doing so with actual malice, which is a critical threshold in a successful defamation case.”

GB News airs daily on Sky, Freeview and YouTube.