Jeffrey Epstein’s friendship with Donald Trump, defined

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Editor’s notice, June 5, 2025, 4:25 pm ET : On Thursday, amid an apparent feud between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the tech billionaire posted on X that Trump was “within the Epstein recordsdata,” saying, “That's the actual motive they haven't been made public.” The story under was initially printed on November 5, 2024.

In media and politics, timing is every thing — which leaves many individuals questioning why journalist and writer Michael Wolff waited till mere days earlier than the presidential election to drop a bombshell: what he says are recordings of Jeffrey Epstein discussing his intimate friendship with Republican candidate Donald Trump.

Wolff, writer of Fireplace and Fury , a bestselling 2018 e-book in regards to the Trump White Home, dropped a short clip from the tapes final week on his Fireplace and Fury podcast, on which he and co-host James Truman gab in regards to the information and political insider gossip. Within the clip, Epstein chit-chats about how Trump performed thoughts video games together with his workers. After it made headlines over the weekend, Wolff shared a wider choice of the “hundred hours” of his Epstein recordings with the Daily Beast , which printed excerpts Monday.

On the tapes — which, it have to be famous, function solely Epstein’s model of occasions — Epstein proclaims he was Trump’s “closest good friend.” He depicts the pair as bros who partied collectively for over a decade, and Trump as a devoted womanizer and adulterer.

“The one factor I actually love to do is fuck the wives of my finest pals,” Trump allegedly informed Epstein after a tryst. “That's simply the perfect.’”

The Trump marketing campaign has responded to the tapes by accusing Wolff of outright mendacity and “blatant election interference on behalf of [Trump’s opponent] Kamala Harris.”

What’s placing in regards to the allegations Epstein makes within the tapes is that they aren’t something we haven’t heard earlier than, about Trump’s friendship with Epstein or Trump himself.

The pair’s “ bromance ” has been a matter of public document for the reason that ’90s, with loads of accompanying salacious gossip. No fewer than 28 women have come ahead to publicly accuse Trump of sexual misconduct towards them over the many years. The 2 most up-to-date allegations have been made inside days of one another, with the twenty seventh accuser, Stacey Williams, claiming that Epstein had launched Trump to her and that the 2 males appeared to be treating her like the thing of a “twisted” sport.

Wolff stated on the podcast that he was motivated to launch the Epstein-Trump clip after the twenty eighth accuser, former Swiss pageant queen Beatrice Keul, additionally made a recent allegation of sexual assault towards the previous president.

Wolff claimed to the Day by day Beast that he’d tried unsuccessfully to curiosity numerous media retailers within the tapes at numerous factors previously. These editors seemingly handed on the clips as a result of problem of fact-checking them or verifying any of the claims made by Epstein, who died in 2019 whereas awaiting trial on intercourse trafficking fees.

Vox likewise makes no claims to the veracity of Epstein’s statements, however even when the claims Epstein makes about Trump can’t be verified, the recordings function a visceral reminder that the Epstein-Trump connection was real and well-documented .

It could even function a much-needed reminder in regards to the many, many accusations of sexual misconduct that Trump himself has but to essentially confront.

Jeffrey Epstein was, ostensibly, a cash supervisor, although whose cash he managed was all the time considerably unclear. You'll be able to be taught extra about him here or here , however at a fundamental stage, it’s vital to know that by the Nineteen Nineties, he was rich sufficient to purchase a personal island within the US Virgin Islands and that he moved in circles with among the richest and strongest males on the earth.

Throughout that point, dozens of ladies say that he sexually abused them, usually whereas they have been underage, then supplied them cash to seek out him extra women or younger ladies to abuse. “He informed me he wished them as younger as I may discover them,” one lady told Miami Herald reporter Julie Brown , saying she recruited 70 or 80 women for Epstein. A detective in Palm Seaside, the place a lot of the alleged abuse happened, referred to as it a “sexual pyramid scheme.”

However Epstein prevented any authorized penalties till 2008, when he pleaded responsible to fees of solicitation of prostitution and procurement of minors for prostitution, and served an incredibly mild sentence: simply 13 months in a personal wing of a Palm Seaside county jail.

In July 2019, nonetheless, thanks partly to Brown’s reporting on the Herald, Epstein was arrested and charged with intercourse trafficking, accused of recruiting younger women for abuse in each Palm Seaside and New York. A month later, earlier than he may very well be tried, he was discovered useless in jail; the New York Metropolis health worker ruled his death a suicide .

Epstein has since grow to be a form of image for essentially the most wicked kind of sexual abuser, a person who, in line with the ladies who got here ahead, knowingly and repeatedly focused youngsters, manipulating them and forcing them to grow to be his accomplices in harming others. Different males accused of serial sexual misconduct, like Sean Combs , are sometimes in comparison with Epstein. Investigations and studies have continued for the reason that cash supervisor’s loss of life — in a 2020 lawsuit , for instance, the legal professional basic of the Virgin Islands stated Epstein had run a intercourse trafficking operation from his personal island there, bringing women as younger as 11 to be abused.

Trump and Epstein have been greater than acquaintances — they have been self-professed shut pals who partied collectively for over a decade

On episode 22 of the Fireplace and Fury podcast, launched October 31, Wolff discusses Epstein and Trump’s “longstanding deep relationship.”

“Epstein knew him, actually, I feel, higher than most,” Wolff stated. “I imply, this was a real BFF scenario: two playboys very a lot styling themselves as playboys in that Hefner sense, who palled round for the higher a part of 15 years.”

Trump’s personal earlier statements bear out this evaluation. “I’ve identified Jeff for 15 years. Terrific man,” Trump told New York magazine in 2002, in a profile that now reads like an indictment of the numerous highly effective folks in Epstein’s orbit. Archival photos abound of the pair hanging out at occasions, partying at Mar-a-Lago, double-dating with Melania Trump and Epstein’s girlfriend-turned-business accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. In a single video recorded at Mar-a-Lago in 1992 and released in 2019 , Trump seems to level out ladies to Epstein after which to whisper one thing in his ear, making him snicker. The earliest pictures hail from the early ’90s; Trump was a frequent dinner guest of Epstein’s till a minimum of 2003.

Trump informed New York journal that “Jeffrey enjoys his social life” and “he’s loads of enjoyable to be with.” He additionally informed the journal, “It's even stated that he likes stunning ladies as a lot as I do, and lots of of them are on the youthful aspect.” A supply as soon as told Page Six that Epstein had previously “use[d] the spa” at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago membership “to attempt to procure women.” (The membership claimed it had since banned Epstein, a declare Epstein disputed to Web page Six.) Pictures of Trump and Maxwell — now serving her conviction on intercourse trafficking fees for having procured underage victims for Epstein — also abound .

Along with Epstein incessantly attending Trump events at Mar-a-Lago, Trump allegedly additionally incessantly partied at Epstein’s former New York townhouse. This included allegedly having intercourse with a minimum of certainly one of Epstein’s victims “ on regular occasions ,” in line with an Epstein survivor who later testified in court docket to witnessing the conferences. One other Epstein accuser testified in court that Epstein launched her to Trump when she was simply 14. (Trump has denied the accusations.)

Epstein and Trump finally had a falling out in 2004 after they reportedly feuded over the since-destroyed Maison de l’Amitie property in Palm Seaside. In 2008, Epstein pleaded responsible to drastically lowered fees of procuring a baby for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute — crimes for which he served 13 months of an 18-month sentence. Trump has since distanced himself publicly from Epstein, claiming he was “not a fan” of the cash supervisor and had “no concept” of Epstein’s crimes.

The Wolff tapes, if true, add some new dimension to the dissolution of their friendship and Epstein’s downfall. In accordance with Wolff, Epstein first informed Trump that he was planning to purchase the Palm Seaside property, just for Trump, as court docket data lately revealed , to outbid him. Following this dispute, according to Wolff , Epstein got here to suspect that Trump was the one who initiated the following felony investigation into Epstein’s now-infamous events.

For Epstein’s half, primarily based on his feedback to Wolff, it appeared he remained involved in Trump’s trajectory and had hassle even greedy that Trump, who he described as “functionally illiterate,” may have made it into the White Home.

Within the tapes, Epstein emphatically confirmed his distaste for his former good friend, calling him “a horrible human being.”

It’s an open query whether or not Wolff’s revelations about Epstein and Trump will play any position within the 2024 election. The tapes have had little time to percolate by way of the media panorama or to be investigated and fact-checked. There’s additionally a widespread perception that no accusation towards Trump, irrespective of how damning, can actually harm his standing together with his supporters: He was caught on tape bragging about his capacity to grab women “by the pussy,” for instance, and nonetheless gained in 2016.

Nonetheless, the Wolff tape underscores what many Individuals already knew: that Trump and Epstein hung out collectively socially, chatting at events and praising one another in the press , for a few years. What’s new on these tapes is basically Epstein’s perspective on their friendship. In accordance with Epstein in his conversations with Wolff, that occasion life included sexual exploits — a suggestion that Trump himself teased within the New York journal piece. Williams’ recent allegation towards Trump additional bolsters the theme of Trump and Epstein competing over ladies; in her recounting of the incident, Trump groped her aggressively whereas he and Epstein allegedly smiled at one another, after which Epstein grew offended with Williams.

“After all, we see now Epstein because the sexual monster,” Wolff stated on the podcast episode, “however actually, a minimum of in Epstein’s telling, he and Trump have been just about, on this regard, brothers in arms.”

In addition to the truth that Trump himself has been accused of sexual assault or different misconduct by greater than 20 ladies, he has been discovered civilly answerable for sexual abuse and defamation of journalist E. Jean Carroll in 2023. When Carroll first got here ahead in 2019 to say that Trump had assaulted her in a dressing room within the mid-’90s, Trump responded that she was “ not my type .”

American voters might by no means know the way deep Trump’s affiliation with Epstein went. However we're accustomed to the truth that for Trump, abuse of ladies is a punchline, “ locker room talk ,” a little bit joke to share amongst pals. Trump has by no means made a secret of what he thinks about women and their our bodies.

In the end, the Wolff tape could also be much less of a revelation than a reminder of what’s all the time been out within the open, if voters select to see it.