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Editor’s be aware, June 5, 2025, 4:25 pm ET: On Thursday, amid an obvious feud between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the tech billionaire posted on X that Trump was “within the Epstein information,” saying, “That’s the actual motive they haven’t been made public.” The story under was initially revealed on November 5, 2024.
In media and politics, timing is every thing — which leaves many individuals questioning why journalist and creator 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, creator of Hearth and Fury, a bestselling 2018 ebook in regards to the Trump White Home, dropped a short clip from the tapes final week on his Hearth 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 employees. After it made headlines over the weekend, Wolff shared a wider collection of the “hundred hours” of his Epstein recordings with the Each day Beast, which revealed excerpts Monday.
On the tapes — which, it have to be famous, characteristic solely Epstein’s model of occasions — Epstein proclaims he was Trump’s “closest pal.” 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 buddies,” Trump allegedly informed Epstein after a tryst. “That’s simply one of the best.’”
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 putting 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 file for the reason that ’90s, with loads of accompanying salacious gossip. No fewer than 28 girls have come ahead to publicly accuse Trump of sexual misconduct in opposition to them over the a long time. The 2 most up-to-date allegations had 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 gave the impression to be treating her like the thing of a “twisted” sport.
Wolff mentioned 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 latest allegation of sexual assault in opposition to the previous president.
Wolff claimed to the Each day Beast that he’d tried unsuccessfully to curiosity varied media shops within the tapes at varied factors prior to now. These editors seemingly handed on the clips as a result of issue of fact-checking them or verifying any of the claims made by Epstein, who died in 2019 whereas awaiting trial on intercourse trafficking costs.
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 actual 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 actually confront.
Jeffrey Epstein was, ostensibly, a cash supervisor, although whose cash he managed was all the time considerably unclear. You possibly can study extra about him right here or right here, however at a primary degree, it’s necessary to know that by the Nineteen Nineties, he was rich sufficient to purchase a non-public island within the US Virgin Islands and that he moved in circles with among the richest and strongest males on this planet.
Throughout that point, dozens of ladies say that he sexually abused them, usually whereas they had been underage, then provided them cash to search out him extra women or younger girls to abuse. “He informed me he needed them as younger as I may discover them,” one lady informed 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 passed off, known as it a “sexual pyramid scheme.”
However Epstein averted any authorized penalties till 2008, when he pleaded responsible to costs of solicitation of prostitution and procurement of minors for prostitution, and served an incredibly mild sentence: simply 13 months in a non-public wing of a Palm Seaside county jail.
In July 2019, nevertheless, thanks partially 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 might be tried, he was discovered lifeless in jail; the New York Metropolis health worker dominated his dying a suicide.
Epstein has since turn out to be a form of image for essentially the most wicked kind of sexual abuser, a person who, in accordance with the ladies who got here ahead, knowingly and repeatedly focused youngsters, manipulating them and forcing them to turn out 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 reviews have continued for the reason that cash supervisor’s dying — in a 2020 lawsuit, for instance, the lawyer normal of the Virgin Islands mentioned Epstein had run a intercourse trafficking operation from his personal island there, bringing women as younger as 11 to be abused.
Trump and Epstein had been greater than acquaintances — they had been self-professed shut buddies who partied collectively for over a decade
On episode 22 of the Hearth 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 mentioned. “I imply, this was a real BFF state of affairs: 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 informed New York journal in 2002, in a profile that now reads like an indictment of the numerous highly effective individuals in Epstein’s orbit. Archival pictures 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 launched in 2019, Trump seems to level out girls 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 visitor of Epstein’s till not less than 2003.
Trump informed New York journal that “Jeffrey enjoys his social life” and “he’s quite a lot of enjoyable to be with.” He additionally informed the journal, “It’s even mentioned that he likes stunning girls as a lot as I do, and plenty of of them are on the youthful aspect.” A supply as soon as informed Web 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.) Photographs of Trump and Maxwell — now serving her conviction on intercourse trafficking costs for having procured underage victims for Epstein — additionally abound.
Along with Epstein steadily attending Trump events at Mar-a-Lago, Trump allegedly additionally steadily partied at Epstein’s former New York townhouse. This included allegedly having intercourse with not less than certainly one of Epstein’s victims “on common events,” in accordance with an Epstein survivor who later testified in court docket to witnessing the conferences. One other Epstein accuser testified in court docket 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 decreased costs of procuring a toddler 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 thought” of Epstein’s crimes.
The Wolff tapes, if true, add some new dimension to the dissolution of their friendship and Epstein’s downfall. In line 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, in accordance with Wolff, Epstein got here to suspect that Trump was the one that initiated the following legal investigation into Epstein’s now-infamous events.
For Epstein’s half, primarily based on his feedback to Wolff, it appeared he remained excited by 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 pal, 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 via the media panorama or to be investigated and fact-checked. There’s additionally a widespread perception that no accusation in opposition to Trump, irrespective of how damning, can actually injury his standing together with his supporters: He was caught on tape bragging about his means to seize girls “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 each other within the press, for a few years. What’s new on these tapes is essentially Epstein’s perspective on their friendship. In line with Epstein in his conversations with Wolff, that social gathering life included sexual exploits — a suggestion that Trump himself teased within the New York journal piece. Williams’ latest allegation in opposition to Trump additional bolsters the theme of Trump and Epstein competing over girls; in her recounting of the incident, Trump groped her aggressively whereas he and Epstein allegedly smiled at one another, after which Epstein grew indignant with Williams.
“After all, we see now Epstein because the sexual monster,” Wolff mentioned on the podcast episode, “however actually, not less than in Epstein’s telling, he and Trump had 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 girls, he has been discovered civilly responsible 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 kind.”
American voters could by no means understand how 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 discuss,” a bit joke to share amongst buddies. Trump has by no means made a secret of what he thinks about girls 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.
