Claim:
During a press gaggle on Air Force One, U.S. President Donald Trump said “Quiet, piggy!” to a reporter asking about the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Rating:
In November 2025, the U.S House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released more than 20,000 documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, including emails to and from his account discussing President Donald Trump, who had a years-long relationship with the late financier. While waiting for House vote on a bill that would compel the Department of Justice to release the so-called Epstein files, many people speculated about what Epstein knew about Trump.
Video footage spread across the internet claiming Trump snapped at a reporter asking about the release of the files, saying “Quiet, piggy!”
The above footage is authentic and shows Trump calling a reporter “piggy.” Snopes reviewed the footage several times and looked at eyewitness accounts from the scene. As such, we rate this claim as true.
A White House official did not deny to Snopes that Trump said those words. The official said: “This reporter behaved in an inappropriate and unprofessional way towards her colleagues on the plane. If you’re going to give it, you have to be able to take.” The official did not provide any evidence of inappropriate behavior by the reporter.
The full video is available on the White House YouTube page and showed an interaction that took place Nov. 14, 2025 (emphasis ours):
FIRST REPORTER: Mr. President, what did Jeffrey Epstein mean in his emails when he said you knew about the girls?
TRUMP: I know nothing about that. They would’ve announced that a long time ago. It’s really what did he mean when he spent all the time with Bill Clinton, with the president of Harvard, who, you know who that is. Summers, Larry Summers, whatever his name is. And all of the other people that he spent time with. Jeffrey Epstein and I had a very bad relationship for many years. But he also saw strength because I was president. So he dictated a couple of memos to himself. Give me a break. You’re going to find out what did he know with respect to Bill Clinton, with respect to the head of Harvard, with respect to all of those people that he knew, including JP Morgan Chase. Yeah, Johnny, go ahead.
[Crosstalk]
SECOND REPORTER: Sir, if there is nothing incriminating in the files, why not [inaudible].
TRUMP [pointing]: Quiet, quiet, piggy!
Trump then responded to a question about Venezuela.
CBS News reporter Jennifer Jacob shared notes from the press gaggle on Air Force One on X, saying the question came from a Bloomberg reporter: “‘Quiet, quiet, piggy,’ he told a Bloomberg reporter who asked why, if there’s nothing incriminating in the files, he’s acting like there is.”
The Guardian reported that the Bloomberg reporter in question was Catherine Lucey. We reached out to Lucey for comment on Trump’s remark and will update this report if we receive a response.
Trump addressed some of his comments on Air Force One in a Nov. 16 post on Truth Social (emphasis ours):
As I said on Friday night aboard Air Force One to the Fake News Media, House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide, and it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party, including our recent Victory on the Democrat “Shutdown.” The Department of Justice has already turned over tens of thousands of pages to the Public on “Epstein,” are looking at various Democrat operatives (Bill Clinton, Reid Hoffman, Larry Summers, etc.) and their relationship to Epstein, and the House Oversight Committee can have whatever they are legally entitled to, I DON’T CARE!
We have covered numerous rumors about Trump’s relationship with Epstein, including an email in which Epstein called Trump the “dog that hasn’t barked” and said Trump spent hours with a sex-trafficking victim at Epstein’s home.
Sources
Barr, Jeremy. “Trump Faces Criticism for Referring to Female Bloomberg Reporter as ‘Piggy.'” The Guardian, 18 Nov. 2025. US News. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/18/trump-calls-reporter-piggy-bloomberg. Accessed 18 Nov. 2025.
Esposito, Joey, and Anna Rascouët-Paz . “19 Rumors about Trump’s Relationship with Epstein, Fact-Checked.” Snopes, 12 Nov. 2025, https://www.snopes.com//collections/trump-epstein-rumors-collection/. Accessed 18 Nov. 2025.
“President Trump Gaggles with Press on Air Force One, Nov. 14, 2025 .” YouTube, The White House, 14 Nov. 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LcBiPnvqPc. Accessed 18 Nov. 2025.
Rascouët-Paz, Anna. “7 Rumors about Epstein’s Emails, Investigated.” Snopes, 18 Nov. 2025, https://www.snopes.com//collections/epstein-emails-rumors/. Accessed 18 Nov. 2025.
