by With just four campaign days to go in the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump is facing new claims about his past friendship with late billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Journalist Michael Wolff, who wrote three books about the first Republican administration between 2017 and 2021, has released an audio clip on his podcast Fire and Fury what he says is Epstein talking in detail about the inner workings of Trump’s Cabinet.
Wolff says the audio was recorded, to his memory, at the SoHo branch of Ladurée, a Manhattan patisserie, in 2017 when he met Epstein, who died in a New York jail cell in August 2019, to the prospect to discuss. writing his biography.
Speaking on the background of the restaurant, Epstein can be heard in the audio telling Wolff how then President Trump played his administration officials against each other.
“His people are fighting each other and then he poisons the well outside,” he says.
Offering him examples, he names Trump officials at the time Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus and Kellyanne Conway: “He will tell ten 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 you’re a problem and I shouldn’t keep you. And I talked 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 a real card. And then he says to Bannon, ‘You know I want to keep you but Kellyanne hates you.’”
Wolff claims the recording shows Trump’s divisive and domineering approach to management during his first term in office.
Wolff says the excerpt is just a fraction of about “100 hours of Epstein talking about the inner workings of the Trump White House and his longstanding deep relationship with Donald Trump” he claims to have.
The Independent He has contacted the Trump campaign for comment.
Responding to The everyday beastReporting on the clip, Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for Trump’s 2024 election campaign, said: “Michael Wolff is a disgraced writer who routinely lies to sell fiction books because he clearly has no morals or ethics.
“He waited until the days before the election to make a false smear about the country in an effort to openly fight elections on behalf of Kamala Harris.
“He is a failed journalist who is resorting to lying for attention.”
Wolff has previously faced questions about the accuracy of some of his reporting, particularly during the publicity tour for his first Trump book, also titled Fire and Furyin 2018 when he claimed he was “absolutely certain” 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 mentioned in the book, including Tony Blair, Anna Wintour and Sean Hannity, also came forward with alleged disputed passages.
Speaking on the podcast, Wolff said of Trump and Epstein: “These are two men who are driven by the need to do whatever they want 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 had photos in its possession of Trump from “the late 90s” posing with “young topless 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 are sitting in his lap. I mean, and, and then there’s one that I remember in particular where there’s a stain, a telltale chin and on the front of Trump’s pants, and the girls are pointing at him and laughing.”
Wolff alleged that Epstein showed him the photos – and believes the FBI seized them from a safe during raids on Epstein’s homes in July 2019.
The Trump campaign similarly denied this claim, again calling Wolff “disgraceful” and accusing him of lacking “morals or ethics.”
Trump once knew Epstein socially in New York City and Palm Beach, Florida, with the two men caught on video chat 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 partner Ghislaine Maxwell.
Trump also praised Epstein highly in a conversation with him New York Magazine in 2002, calling him “a great guy” and noting his taste in “younger” women.
More recently, their relationship has been sued by former model Stacey Williams, who last month alleged that Trump sexually assaulted her at Trump Tower in 1993 after being tipped off by Epstein as part of a “complicated game” between the two. man
The Trump campaign vehemently denied her accusation.
