With just four days of campaigning to go in the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump is facing new claims about his past friendship with the late billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Journalist Michael Wolff, who wrote three books about the Republican’s first administration between 2017 and 2021, has released an audio clip on his podcast Fire and Fury of what he says is Epstein talking in intimate detail about the inner workings of Trump’s Cabinet.
Wolff says the audio was recorded, to the best of his recollection, at the SoHo branch of Ladurée, a Manhattan patisserie, in 2017 when he met with Epstein, who died in a New York jail cell in August 2019, to discuss the prospect of writing his biography.
Speaking over the background bustle of the eatery, Epstein is heard in the audio telling Wolff how then-president Trump played his administration officials off against each other.
“His people fight each other and then he poisons the well outside,” he says.
Offering examples, he names then-Trump officials Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus and Kellyanne Conway: “He will tell 10 people ‘Bannon’s a scumbag’ and ‘Priebus is not doing a good job’ and ‘Kellyanne has a big mouth – what do you think?’
“‘[JPMorgan Chase CEO] Jamie Dimon says that you’re a problem and I shouldn’t keep you. And I spoke to [financier] Carl Icahn. And Carl thinks I need a new spokesperson.’”
Epstein continues: “So Kelly[anne] – even though I hired Kellyanne’s husband – Kellyanne is just too much of a wildcard. And then he tells Bannon, ‘You know I really want to keep you but Kellyanne hates you.’”
Wolff claims the recording shows Trump’s divide-and-conquer approach to management during his first term in office.
Wolff says the excerpt is a mere fraction of some “100 hours of Epstein talking about the inner workings of the Trump White House and about his long standing, deep relationship with Donald Trump” that he claims to have.
The Independent has contacted the Trump campaign for comment.
Responding to The Daily Beast’s reporting on the clip, Karoline Leavitt, the national press secretary for Trump’s 2024 election campaign, said: “Michael 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.”
Wolff has previously faced questions about the accuracy of some of his reporting, notably during the publicity tour for his first Trump book, also entitled Fire and Fury, in 2018 when he claimed to be “absolutely sure” the president was involved in an affair with future rival Nikki Haley without providing evidence. Both parties angrily denied the claim.
A number of other people quoted in the book, including Tony Blair, Anna Wintour and Sean Hannity, also subsequently came forward to dispute quotes attributed to them.
Speaking on the podcast, Wolff said of Trump and Epstein: “Here are these two guys both driven by a need to do anything they wanted with women: dominance and submission and entertainment. And one of them ends up in the darkest prison in the country and the other in the White House.”
In the podcast, Wolff also alleged that the FBI has in its possession photographs of Trump from “the late ‘90s” posing with “topless young women” sitting on his lap.
Wolff said of the images: “They were with Trump at Epstein’s Palm Beach house sitting around the pool with these young girls, and the young girls are topless.
“And in some of the pictures, they’re sitting in his lap. I mean, and, and then there’s one I especially remember where there’s a stain, a telltale stain and on the front of Trump’s pants, and the girls are pointing at him and laughing.”
Wolff alleged that Epstein had showed him the photos – and that he believes they were seized by the FBI from a safe during raids on Epstein’s homes in July 2019.
The Trump campaign has likewise rejected this claim, again calling Wolff “disgraced” and accusing him of lacking “morals or ethics.”
Trump once knew Epstein socially in both New York City and Palm Beach, Florida, with the two men caught on video chatting at a party at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate by NBC News in 1992. They were also photographed at the same venue in 2000 in the company of Trump’s wife Melania Trump and Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.
Trump also once notoriously praised Epstein in conversation with New York Magazine in 2002, calling him “a terrific guy” and noting his taste in “younger” women.
Most recently, their relationship was invoked by former model Stacey Williams, who alleged last month that Trump had groped her at Trump Tower in 1993 after being brought there by Epstein as part of a “twisted game” between the two men.
Her accusation was vehemently denied by the Trump campaign.
