By Alexander Chris,
Former President Donald Trump appears eager to move on from lingering questions about his connection to Jeffrey Epstein. But his own recent comments have only stirred the controversy back up—raising deeper concerns about how much he really knew about Epstein’s behavior.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Tuesday, Trump clarified remarks he had made just a day earlier about his falling out with Epstein. Trump said that Epstein had “stolen people that worked for me,” which reportedly led to their severed relationship. When pressed, Trump confirmed that those individuals were young women working at the spa in his Mar-a-Lago resort.
“The answer is yes, they were,” Trump said when asked directly if those poached employees were young women. That admission significantly reshapes the narrative, connecting his own inner circle—young female staffers at Mar-a-Lago—to Epstein’s recruitment activities.
This revelation raises serious questions—not just about Trump’s honesty regarding his past with Epstein, but about his awareness of Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking operations, which were known to involve underage girls. (Trump himself has not been accused of any criminal wrongdoing related to Epstein.)
Just one day prior, Trump had told the press that Epstein hired away his staff—without specifying they were young women. He also claimed he warned Epstein to stop, but when he didn’t, Trump banned him from the club.
Last week, the White House echoed that stance, saying Epstein was kicked out of Mar-a-Lago for “being a creep.” On Tuesday, Trump himself said the two reasons—employee poaching and inappropriate behavior—were “sort of a little bit of the same thing.”
But this account clashes with a widely reported 2019 explanation: that Trump and Epstein fell out while competing over the same high-end Palm Beach property, Maison de l’Amitié. At the time, the White House declined to comment on those reports.
Adding more complexity, Trump acknowledged this week that one of the young women Epstein “stole” from his resort may have been Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most well-known accusers. Giuffre died by suicide earlier this year.
“I think she worked at the spa,” Trump told reporters. “I think that was one of the people, yeah. He stole her.”
Despite the layers of explanation now coming from Trump and his team, many details remain murky. Trump described Epstein’s behavior as simply “hiring help,” and said, “I wouldn’t talk to him because he did something inappropriate… He stole people that worked for me.”
Those characterizations seem alarmingly light, given what we now know about Epstein’s pattern of using seemingly legitimate job opportunities to recruit young women into his trafficking ring.
Trump’s past comments only add to the scrutiny. In 2002, he infamously told New York Magazine, “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
A Florida businessman once recalled warning Trump against Epstein’s presence at a calendar girl event, saying: “Look, Donald, I know Jeff really well. I can’t have him going after younger girls.”
Trump’s longtime associate Roger Stone also wrote in a 2016 book that Trump once described Epstein’s estate as having “a swimming pool full of beautiful young girls,” joking that Epstein “let the neighborhood kids use his pool.”
There’s also the account from a 2020 book by Miami Herald and Wall Street Journal journalists, which claimed Epstein was ultimately kicked out of Mar-a-Lago for hitting on the teenage daughter of a club member. That, according to the book’s authors, was seen as a direct threat to the Trump brand—forcing Trump to cut ties.
What makes all this especially troubling is the timeline. According to former Trump aide Sam Nunberg, the falling out happened years before Epstein was publicly accused in 2005—suggesting Trump may have had early knowledge of Epstein’s disturbing behavior. Giuffre was reportedly working at Mar-a-Lago as a teenager during that period.
Trump, for his part, insists he acted appropriately. But as he continues offering fragmented explanations years later, his statements are only deepening the mystery.
And for many, the question remains: What exactly did Donald Trump know—and when?
