According to recordings obtained by The Daily Beast, Jeffrey Epstein claimed intimate knowledge of Trump's behavior, including allegations about his treatment of women. The recordings, made by author Michael Wolff in August 2017, capture Epstein speaking at length about his relationship with Trump two years before his death in a jail cell. "I was Donald's closest friend for 10 years," Epstein told Wolff in the tapes. According to Epstein's recorded account, he and Trump frequently socialized together in New York and Atlantic City.
🚨BREAKING: In a new leaked tape, Jeffrey Epstein says he was Donald Trump's "closest friend" for 10 years.
Epstein also revealed that the first time Donald Trump slept with Melania was on his "Lolita Express" private jet.pic.twitter.com/8jCZgLEwsb
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) November 3, 2024
The tapes were made public by Wolff, who interviewed Epstein for his bestseller "Fire and Fury." Wolff says he possesses up to 100 hours of recordings from his conversations with Epstein, who was found dead in his prison cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Among the most striking claims, Epstein alleged that Trump and his now-wife Melania first became intimate aboard Epstein's private plane, known as the "Lolita Express." "The first time he slept with her was on my plane," Epstein claimed in the recording.
Epstein described what he claimed was an elaborate plan by Trump to pursue relationships with his friends' spouses. In the tapes, Epstein alleged that Trump would invite male associates to his Trump Tower office for conversations about their intimate lives, including offering encounters with beauty pageant contestants. Epstein claimed their wives were secretly listening on speakerphone, which was unknown to these men. Trump would then allegedly use the recorded conversations to pursue relationships with the wives by revealing their husbands' expressed interest in other women.
That's funny because there's a whole ass presidential candidate pictured with both Diddy and Epstein and it isn't Kamala Harris https://t.co/l3jTdILsql pic.twitter.com/56o1vdk7nM
— I Smoked You Garbage Trump Supporters (@BlackKnight10k) November 1, 2024
He described specific incidents, including allegations about Trump's behavior in what Epstein called "the Egyptian Room" in an Atlantic City casino. "He came out afterward and said, 'It was great, it was great. The only thing I really like to do is f--- the wives of my best friends. That is just the best,'" Epstein claimed on the recording. "He's a horrible human being. He does nasty things to his best friends, best friends' wives, anyone who he first tries to gain their trust and uses it to do bad things to them," Epstein said.
The Trump campaign forcefully rejected the recordings' contents. A spokesperson said that Wolff is "a disgraced writer who routinely fabricates lies in order to sell fiction books because he clearly has no morals or ethics. He waited until days before the election to make outlandish false smears all in an effort to engage in blatant election interference on behalf of Kamala Harris. He's a failed journalist that is resorting to lying for attention." Campaign sources added that it was "widely known" that Trump had "kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago" when he learned about the sex-trafficking allegations.
The relationship between Trump and Epstein has been previously documented through photographs, flight logs, and Trump's own past comments. In 2002, Trump told New York Magazine of Epstein: "I've known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side."
On the tapes, Epstein offered a mixed assessment of Trump's character, calling him "charming" and "always fun" while also describing him as "functionally illiterate" and claiming he was "incapable" of reading a balance sheet. "He's charming. In a devious way, he's charming," Epstein said. "To some extent, it's a typical tragedy where he believes his own bulls---. He has delusions of grandiosity, then he takes it on board."
The recordings emerged days before the election and followed recent allegations by former Miss Switzerland Beatrice Keul, who claimed Trump groped her in 1992. Trump has been accused of sexual misconduct by 28 women, but has denied all allegations made against him.
The release of these tapes adds to the complex history between two former friends whose paths diverged dramatically – one toward infamy, prison, and suicide; the other toward power, the Oval Office, and his own criminal conviction for paying hush money to a porn star.
