President Donald Trump told reporters Thursday that he would be okay with Congress holding public hearings with survivors of the late-convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, after his wife supported the idea last week.

First lady Melania Trump said last week that Congress should hold a public hearing that centers on Epstein's survivors, so their stories can be logged into the congressional record and to give them a public platform to tell their stories. 

"I'm okay with it," the president told reporters, according to The Hill. “I think we’ve had a lot of public hearings. I’m OK with it, but I understand that the women didn’t want to go under oath. That’s what I heard that the women, the victims or whatever, they refused to go under oath, which was a little surprising."

The president also defended his wife's recent comments that denied any relationship with Epstein and accusations that Melania Trump was introduced to her husband through Epstein and his former associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

“Melania felt strongly about it because she was accused of — that I met her through Epstein, but it turned out to be totally false,” the president said. 

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche have also supported a public hearing with Epstein's accusers.

“We have said repeatedly from day one that if there’s any victim that wants to come forward and talk about what they know, whether it’s something that happened by Mr. Epstein, who’s dead, or another individual or individuals, that’s what the FBI does,” Blanche told Semafor at its World Economy summit Wednesday.

The acting attorney general also said he believes the public is correct in feeling that the country did not get closure with Epstein and that the Justice Department is not merely moving on from the case under his leadership.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.