Ali Vitali Skips Bill Clinton’s Epstein Flights, Defends Hillary, Suggests Deposing Melania

Appearing Thursday on Morning Joe, MS NOW’s Ali Vitali conceded there are “valid questions” about Bill Clinton’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein — enough to justify a House Oversight deposition.

But the only connection Vitali mentioned? “He appears in photos.”

Left unmentioned was what ABC News has reported: Bill Clinton was listed on 26 Epstein flight legs — though some were segments of the same international trips. Still, 26 entries in the logs. Not one. Not “a couple.” Twenty-six.

Morning Joe viewers would never have known it.

Instead, Vitali pivoted to a curious feminist-adjacent defense of Hillary Clinton, seasoned with a dash of apophasis:

“I think there's also a fascinating dynamic of Hillary Clinton once again being forced to answer for her husband. That, I think, has a ton of gender dynamics that we won't get into before 7 in the morning.”

Not get into it? She just did. Morning Joe is becoming your go-to destination for liberal-media apophasis. Just yesterday, Joe Scarborough declared, apropos of Trump, “I’m not going to talk about fascism or Nazism” — immediately after doing exactly that. Scarborough blustered about Hillary having to testify: "the whole thing is a farce."

No one is arguing that Hillary is responsible for her husband’s conduct. The question is whether she could be a relevant witness, given her proximity during the years Epstein orbited the Clinton world.

If spouses are off-limits, say so. But that’s not where Vitali ended.

Moments later, Vitali turned to tit-for-tat politics:

“If we are asking spouses to talk about what their husbands might have been privy to, why are we not also asking Melania Trump that question?”

So Hillary is framed as a victim of sexist scrutiny — but the remedy, Vitali suggests, is expanding that scrutiny to Melania. One could argue that Melania married Trump in 2005, after his friendship was Epstein was already on the rocks, while Hillary was married to Bill through everything. They also share the Clinton Global Initiative, which Epstein's collaborator Ghislaine Maxwell helped to set up.

In the long run, Vitali can't stand that women haven't elected Hillary or Kamala to the White House. In 2022, she wrote a book about Hillary and Kamala and the rest titled Electable: Why America Hasn't Put a Woman in the White House... Yet. Her colleague Katy Tur offered a blurb: "Ali Vitali confronts the possibilities we may not want to consider and explains in this sharp and often poignant book what it’s going to take to break the single dumbest losing streak in politics.”

But on Morning Joe, viewers only heard that Bill Clinton “appears in photos.” They didn’t hear that he was listed on 26 Epstein flight legs — a revealing omission.

Here's the transcript.

MS NOW
Morning Joe
2/26/28
6:07 am ET

JOE SCARBOROUGH: You have with Hillary Clinton, somebody that, again, hardly ever spoke to Jeffrey Epstein, never on his plane, had nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. 

She's being deposed today, while the Justice Department clearly, clearly got caught in a cover-up by NPR, clearly got caught in a cover-up. As reported by the New York Times, as reported by Murdoch's Wall Street Journal. 

And again, it's just a farce. The whole thing is a farce. If I were Hillary Clinton, and of course Hillary Clinton is much smarter than me, but if, I would spend the whole time saying, I didn't know him. What do you think are in those files? What do you think are in those files with a young woman who was 13 years old, who's accusing the president of doing X, Y, and Z? 

I mean, here we have a scandal. Just, probably the biggest scandal of the entire Epstein files right now, the cover-up by the Justice Department of these files that reveal testimony of the most terrible things about Donald Trump. We don't know whether they're true or not. But they cover those up after the law orders that they be released. And at the same time, they're dragging Hillary Clinton into a deposition? 

. . . 

ALI VITALI: I think you're right to bring up the hypocrisy that this then raises. Because it raises the question of, if you want to talk to former President Bill Clinton, which I think there's some valid questions to be asked. He appears in photos. Let's ask those questions. Why are you then not asking the same of President Trump? 

I've asked James Comer, the chairman of the Oversight Committee, that very question. He doesn't have a clear answer. In fact, he said, well, the president has talked many times on the record about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Okay. Hasn't done that under oath to Congress. I think that's probably a valid conversation to have. 

And then I think there's also a fascinating dynamic of Hillary Clinton, once again, being forced to answer for her husband. That, I think, has a ton of gender dynamics that we won't get into before 7 in the morning. But I think there's also then the question of, if we are asking spouses to talk about what their husbands might have been privy to, why are we not also asking Melania Trump that question?