The President of the United States, Donald Trump, stated yesterday, Tuesday July 29th, that he severed ties with Jeffrey Epstein and banned him from his private Florida club because Epstein betrayed him multiple times by recruiting people who had worked for him.
What Trump claimed about his friendship with Epstein
Speaking to reporters during his Air Force One flight, Trump reiterated that he ended his friendship with Epstein years ago because Epstein allegedly approached young women who worked at the Mar-a-Lago spa. Among them, according to Trump, was Virginia Giuffre, who later became one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers.
The former president was asked about his previous statement in Scotland that Epstein was removed from the club because he “did something that was inappropriate.” Trump clarified that he was referring to Epstein’s attempt to recruit staff members. When asked by a reporter if the specific employees were young women, he replied: “The answer is yes. They were. People who worked at the spa.”
Another reporter then asked Trump if one of the people he was referring to was Giuffre, who in a legal complaint said she was recruited from the Mar-a-Lago spa by Epstein’s associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, in 2000, when she was 16 years old. Giuffre, who died this year, claimed in her complaint that she was initially abused by Epstein and Maxwell together and was then “loaned to other powerful men,” including Prince Andrew.
Trump responded: “I think yes, I think she was one of the people, yes. He stole her.” Senior White House aides have repeatedly suggested in recent weeks that Trump “broke ties” with Epstein around 2004 and banned him from the Mar-a-Lago club for “inappropriate sexual behavior.”
The Republican president also spoke about Epstein at his golf course in Turnberry, Scotland, where he met with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. When asked to explain why their relationship had soured, Trump said: “That’s such old history, very easy to explain, but I don’t want to waste your time explaining it.”
He then explained, saying he stopped talking to Epstein after he “did something that was inappropriate.” “He stole people who worked for me. I said, ‘Never do that again.’ He did it again, and I kicked him out of his position, persona non grata.” “I threw him out and that was it. I’m glad I did it, if you want to know the truth,” he added. The president’s narrative that their relationship ended due to the annoyance caused by his friend stealing his employees sheds different light on the events.
His claim that one of these employees was 16-year-old Virginia Giuffre also complicates the timeline. Giuffre was recruited from Mar-a-Lago in 2000, but two years later, Trump spoke favorably about Epstein to a journalist and emphasized his friend’s taste for young women. “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York magazine in late 2002. “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.”
Sarah Blaskey, an investigative journalist with the Miami Herald, also noted in her 2020 book about Mar-a-Lago that Epstein remained on the club’s membership rolls until October 2007, more than a year after he was first arrested and charged with soliciting minors for prostitution.
Epstein died by suicide, authorities say, in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Trump and his top allies fueled conspiracy theories about Epstein’s death before Trump returned to power. Now they are struggling to manage the fallout, after the Justice Department stated that Epstein did indeed die by suicide and that it will not release additional documents related to the case. The president and his allies, some of whom are now in government, had promised to release the files.
The case has haunted Trump at home and abroad and even followed Vice President J.D. Vance during an appearance in his home state of Ohio on Monday. A small group of protesters gathered outside a factory in Canton that Vance visited, holding signs that read “J.D. Protects Pedophiles” and suggesting that “GOP” stands for “Guards of Pedophiles.”
