Tampa International Airport said on social media Thursday that it wanted to ban people from wearing pajamas at the Florida facility. No, it wasn't being serious.
A post on the airport's official X account said that after successfully going “Crocs-free,” Tampa International had “seen enough” of pajamas.
“The madness stops today. The movement starts now,” reads the post, which had been viewed 5.7 million times by mid-afternoon Eastern time and generated a debate about airport attire in the comments.
Beau Zimmer, an airport spokesperson, told The Associated Press the post was part of the airport’s longstanding social media persona — a tongue-in-cheek voice it has cultivated since its early days on Twitter, before the platform rebranded as X. The account has attracted a loyal global following, he said.
“Our regular social media followers just eat this stuff up," Zimmer said. "But obviously this is all in fun, and we encourage our travelers to be comfortable.”
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy reacted to the post with a GIF of actor John Krasinski from the TV show “The Office” looking into the camera and saying, “Yes!”
Duffy has been encouraging passengers to dress more formally while flying, part of a civility campaign he launched last November — called “the Golden Age of Travel Starts with You." The Transportation Department said the campaign was “intended to jumpstart a nationwide conversation around how we can all restore courtesy and class to air travel.”
The airport released a statement Thursday clarifying its post was intended as a joke.
“Today’s post about ‘banning’ pajamas was another playful nod to day-of-travel fashion debates," it said. "We encourage our passengers to travel comfortably and appreciate our loyal followers who enjoy the online humor.”
Zimmer said the airport's online personality has been around for at least a decade. In the earlier days of what was then Twitter, a young intern started posting light-hearted jokes, like poking fun at rival sports teams and fans, “and it really took off.”
Earlier this month, the day after the Tampa Bay Lightning rallied from a four-goal deficit to beat the Boston Bruins 6-5 in an NHL Stadium Series game in Tampa, the airport shared on X: “Oh, and safe flight home to all the Bruins fans today :)”
Last month, alluding to an ongoing joke about passengers mixing up the airport's code of TPA with TIA, an airport in Albania, the Tampa airport shared a New Year's resolution “to stress out less.”
“Unfortunately," the post continued, "some of y'all's resolutions is to continue calling us TIA so we will not be meeting our goal.”
One X user responded that Tampa airport should just change its code to “GOAT so people don't get confused,” referring to the acronym for “greatest of all time.”
FILE - Airplanes are parked at gates near the air traffic control tower at the Tampa International Airport, Nov. 11, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told members of Congress on Thursday that she had no knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein’s or Ghislaine Maxwell’s crimes, starting off two days of depositions that will also include former President Bill Clinton.
“I had no idea about their criminal activities. I do not recall ever encountering Mr. Epstein,” Hillary Clinton said in an opening statement she shared on social media. The closed-door deposition concluded Thursday after over six hours of Hillary Clinton giving an answer to every question.
The depositions in the Clintons' hometown of Chappaqua, a typically quiet hamlet north of New York City, come after months of tense back-and-forth between the former high-powered Democratic couple and the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee as it investigates Epstein, who killed himself in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial. It will be the first time that a former president has been forced to testify before Congress.
Yet the demand for a reckoning over Epstein's abuse of underage girls has become a near-unstoppable force on Capitol Hill and beyond.
President Donald Trump, a Republican who has expressed regret that the Clintons are being forced to testify, bowed last year to pressure to release case files on Epstein. The Clintons, too, agreed to testify after their offers of sworn statements were rebuffed by the Oversight panel and its chairman, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., threatened criminal contempt of Congress charges against them.
“Like every decent person," Hillary Clinton added in her opening statement, “I have been horrified by what we have learned about their crimes.”
She has previously said that her husband flew with Epstein for charitable trips but that she did not recall ever meeting Epstein. She had also interacted with Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend and confidant, at conferences hosted by the Clinton Foundation.
Maxwell, a British socialite, also attended the 2010 wedding of their daughter, Chelsea Clinton.
As she exited the event center where the deposition was held, Hillary Clinton told reporters that Maxwell had come to the wedding as a guest of someone else and that she had told the committee she only knew Maxwell “as an acquaintance.”
Bill Clinton, however, has emerged as a top target for Republicans amid the political struggle over who receives the most scrutiny for their ties to Epstein. Several photos of the former president were included in the first tranche of Epstein files released by the Department of Justice in January, including a number of him with women whose faces were redacted. Clinton has not been accused of wrongdoing in his relationship with Epstein.
Comer has also pointed to Hillary Clinton's work as secretary of state to address sex trafficking as another reason to insist on her deposition. Clinton defended her work to address sex trafficking around the world, saying that it remained important to help the millions of survivors of sex trafficking.
The committee's investigation has also sought to understand why the Department of Justice under previous presidential administrations did not seek further charges against Epstein following a 2008 arrangement in which he pleaded guilty to state charges in Florida for soliciting prostitution from an underage girl but avoided federal charges.
Hillary Clinton accused Comer of running a one-sided investigation that has failed to hold Trump and other Republican officials to account. “This institutional failure is designed to protect one political party and one public official,” she said.
Yet conspiracy theories, especially on the right, have swirled for years around the Clintons and their connections to Epstein and Maxwell, who argues she was wrongfully convicted. Republicans have long wanted to press the Clintons for answers.
Hillary Clinton said that one Republican lawmaker asked her a line of questions about “vile, bogus conspiracy theories.”
The deposition was also paused after Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., sent a photo of Hillary Clinton in the private proceeding to a conservative influencer who posted it on social media, violating the committee's rules for depositions.
Democrats said that the incident underscored how important it was for there to be a clear public record of the deposition. Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the Oversight panel, said that Hillary Clinton, after the incident, repeated her longstanding demand that the deposition be made public, and Democrats called for a video and transcript of the complete proceedings to be released quickly.
Comer said that he would work quickly to release a video and transcript of the deposition.
“The purpose of the whole investigation is to try to understand many things about Epstein,” he told reporters outside the convention center where the depositions were being held. “How did he accumulate so much wealth? How was he able to surround himself with some of the most powerful men in the world?"
Democrats, now being led by a new generation of politicians, have prioritized transparency around Epstein over defending the former leaders of their party. Several Democratic lawmakers joined with Republicans on the Oversight panel to advance the contempt of Congress charges against the Clintons last month. Several said they had no relationship with the Clintons and owed no loyalty to them.
Garcia also called on Trump to testify in the investigation. He argued that Bill Clinton’s appearance sets a precedent that should apply to Trump as well.
"Let’s get President Trump in front of our committee to answer the questions that are being asked across this country from survivors,” Garcia said.
Comer previously said that the committee can’t depose Trump because he is a sitting president.
Still, Democrats are also coming off an effort this week to confront Trump about his administration's handling of the Epstein files by taking women who survived Epstein's abuse as their guests to Trump's State of the Union address.
Garcia and others are also challenging the Department of Justice's assertion that it has met the requirements of a law passed by Congress last year that mandates the release of many of the case files on Epstein.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said his caucus in the coming days would also review unredacted versions of the Epstein case files at a Department of Justice office. Schumer, who demanded that the department release all of the files and preserve all materials, said they will “pull on every thread” until they “reveal this massive cover-up."
Follow the AP's coverage of Jeffrey Epstein at https://apnews.com/hub/jeffrey-epstein.
Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif. Speaks outside the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center before the arrival of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who is testifying before U.S. House lawmakers as part of a congressional investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026, in Chappaqua, N.Y. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif. Speaks outside the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center before the arrival of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who is testifying before U.S. House lawmakers as part of a congressional investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026, in Chappaqua, N.Y. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
FILE - Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks during the Clinton Global Initiative, Sept. 24, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki, File)
A podium sits outside the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center before the arrival of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who is testifying before U.S. House lawmakers as part of a congressional investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026, in Chappaqua, N.Y. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
A motorcade carrying former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives at the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center where Clinton is scheduled to testify before U.S. House lawmakers as part of a congressional investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026, in Chappaqua, N.Y. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
A motorcade carrying former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives at the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center where Clinton is scheduled to testify before U.S. House lawmakers as part of a congressional investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026, in Chappaqua, N.Y. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
A New Castle police officer sets up barricades outside the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center as members of the media await the arrival of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who is testifying before U.S. House lawmakers as part of a congressional investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026, in Chappaqua, N.Y. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
FILE - Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks at the inaugural Mumbai Climate Week in Mumbai, Feb. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/ Rafiq Maqbool, File)
