The Jeffrey Epstein scandal had largely faded from public view in recent weeks, especially as attention turned to the war with Iran, but it made an unexpected comeback on Thursday afternoon in a strange fashion.

From the White House, first lady Melania Trump delivered surprise remarks, in which she denied having any meaningful ties to convicted sex offenders Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell and condemned reporting to the contrary. The trouble was, no one had any idea what she was talking about: She appeared to be responding to allegations that the public hadn’t heard.

Complicating matters, the first lady endorsed congressional hearings with Epstein victims — a position that put her at odds with the Republican Party’s preferred approach — and seemed to suggest there might yet be more unindicted co-conspirators, which is definitely not the position taken by the president’s Justice Department.

Just as jarring as the first lady’s remarks were the circumstances under which she made them: Donald Trump told MS NOW he didn’t realize his wife was going to make these remarks, while her spokesperson told The New York Times that the president was informed in advance about her plans to make a public statement.

Unfortunately, this was not the only evidence of a chaotic and dysfunctional White House.

A couple of hours after the first lady’s decision to push the Epstein scandal back into the spotlight, her husband had a surprise declaration of his own. MS NOW reported as part of the network’s liveblog coverage:

Trump warned Iran [Thursday afternoon] that it ‘better not be’ charging tolls on ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz. ‘There are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait — They better not be and, if they are, they better stop now!,’ Trump said in a Truth Social post.

The presidential missive didn’t make a lot of sense. “There have been reports”? The odd online statement made it sound as if he, the chief executive of the world’s preeminent superpower, with unlimited access to a highly sophisticated global intelligence apparatus, simply had no idea whether or not Iran was imposing tolls.

Just one day earlier, the president told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl largely the opposite, saying his administration was considering a “joint venture” with Iran that would include tolls through the Strait of Hormuz. The Republican described the possible partnership as “a beautiful thing.”

So it was that, as Thursday came to an end, it wasn’t at all clear what his position was or which of his contradictory positions to take seriously.

In a functional West Wing, this sort of thing doesn’t happen.

At face value, the back-to-back oddities appeared wholly unrelated — the Epstein scandal and U.S. policy in the Middle East have nothing to do with each other —  but the juxtaposition offered a timely reminder that the current White House is a poorly run mess.

About a month into his first term, the president boasted that, as far as he was concerned, his White House was “running like a fine-tuned machine.” Even he no longer makes such claims, which no one is going to believe anyway.

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