I've Told a Story About Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein for Years. Suddenly People Are Interested—Including the White House.
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Early one Sunday when I was the president of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, Donald Trump and his friend Jeffrey Epstein arrived at the casino unannounced. But there was a problem: They had brought guests too young to be there.
Casino security and regulatory personnel had been intimidated by Trump and had failed to verify their birthdates. The following Monday, the incident was brought to my attention by the independent chief gaming inspector permanently stationed at the property. He told me Trump had brought an underaged woman onto the casino floor.
When I inquired how he could know, in the absence of identification checks, his response was quick: “I'm a tennis fan, and recognized the woman with Trump, the world's No. 3 tennis player, Gabriela Sabatini.” He said he knew she was 19 at the time. The other two with them appeared significantly younger, but I never discovered their ages. (Sabatini did not respond to a request for comment.)
The inspector said he would overlook Trump's offense if I delivered a warning that any recurrence would incur not merely financial penalties, but also a public shaming when the media exposed this fortysomething casino owner hanging out with teenagers.
I later raised the incident with Trump himself. “Oh shit. I never even thought about it. I didn’t realize. I never would have done that,” he responded. “Am I in trouble?”
When I told him he was getting a break this time, he responded with shock. “I can't believe this guy is giving me a break. No one ever gives me a break.” (The leniency of the Casino Control Commission ironically may have obscured the entire event forever. A formal documentation of the offense would have provided a permanent record, but it's now lost to time.)
Trump then proceeded to made extended crude comments about the body of Sabatini, the tennis star. Finally, he returned to Epstein. “Jeffrey likes them young—too young for me,” he told me.
This month, I recounted this story to CNN's Erin Burnett on the network. This recollection, from an incident so long ago, has drawn considerable criticism; some, including the White House, have branded my account false. (“This is completely fabricated story from his warped imagination,” White House communications director Steven Cheung said.) But my memory of this event remains clear all these years later—not least because I recounted most of it in a book I authored in 1991, Trumped! The Inside Story of the Real Donald Trump—His Cunning Rise and Spectacular Fall . It has been right there all these years.
At the time, my publisher wanted me to remove Epstein's name. I did. Years later, when Epstein was arrested and killed himself, I pointed back to this story. Few were interested in the connection then.
The sheer volume of reasons why Donald Trump should never have been elected, let alone reelected, to the presidency is staggering. His business career is a monument to spectacular failure: six Chapter 11 bankruptcies and more than a dozen other disastrous business failures. From the Trump airline to Trump University , and ill-fated schemes to sell vodka , steaks , mortgages , and more, it's a list of complete incompetence. Countless small investors, bondholders, and vendors, seduced by his image of success, suffered devastating financial losses, a testament to a lifetime of predatory business practices that long preceded his entry into politics. I witnessed plenty of his incompetence myself when I worked for him, and I tried to tell people, then and now. Yet it was once again disregarded or minimized by the American electorate and, and thus, a Republican Party hungry for power.
Yet the most egregious oversight, the one that should have ended Trump's political aspirations from the outset, remains his association with Epstein, the notorious child trafficker and sexual predator. I believe that this deeply disturbing connection, had it been thoroughly investigated and exposed as it should have been, might have prevented the Republican Party from becoming Trump's willing accomplishment to the presidency. But as with everything else about Trump, the party of morality and family values looked the other way in the face of his popularity.
The omission of scrutiny surrounding this friendship with Epstein is baffling. Why did Trump embrace such a friendship for so long? Rumors persist that Trump was aware of Epstein's behavior, at least to some degree; in addition to the comments he made to me, he joked about it in New York magazine in 2002 . The prolonged relationship, reportedly 15 years or more, raises profound questions, and that was before the Wall Street Journal reported he passed birthday notes to Epstein about their “secrets.” Again, why did Trump maintain this friendship with a guy who he knew liked girls “too young for him”—indeed, younger than the 19-year-old tennis star he had been ogling that day in the casino?
This raises a question in turn: Why the delayed reckoning about this? Why did it take so long for so many to take that question seriously? Did the public become numb to the relentless conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein? Did the media? The answers remain elusive, yet the crucial point is this: Demands for transparency are rising, even within the Republican Party. A chorus of voices is now demanding the complete release of the Epstein files reportedly held by the Department of Justice. In all the years I've tried to sound the alarm on Trump, I've never seen anything quite like this.
Trump is trying to head all this off with his well-worn, predictable tactics. His habitual response—a strategy of denial and aggressive counterattack—remains his unwavering modus operandi. And I expect it will continue, even though this time, his angry denials actually make it seem more likely that he is hiding something.
But Epstein's depravity is undeniable. He was a predator, exploiting vulnerable young girls to satisfy his own lust, and, allegedly, that of other powerful figures. He escaped justice by choosing suicide in his cell rather than confronting the aftermath of what he had done. The reality is that his deeds remained shrouded in a web of complicity, with numerous individuals possessing knowledge of his crimes, some for years, and remaining silent.
Trump, who is reportedly mentioned several times in the Epstein files , may not have fully known about Epstein's activities, though each day a new report seems to shed deeper and more damning light on the relationship. But I can again tell you what I saw: A man totally unbothered by his friend's behavior, even when he raised legal eyebrows on the floor of his own casino. I am glad the public, including many of the president's supporters, is finally turning its attention to Trump's actions with Epstein. I wrote about his behavior in 1991, and I will say it again now, this time with the benefit of people listening.
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