Tapes of Epstein talking about Trump labeled 'too hot': president's biographer

The author Michael Wolff is “still waiting for the right context to tell” the story of Jeffrey Epstein’s long friendship with Donald Trump, because the “hours and hours and hours and hours and hours” of tapes Wolff has of the late sex offender discussing the current president have proved “too hot to handle” for a series of publishers.

“I have had discussion after discussion after discussion with media outlets about these tapes,” Wolff said, “and it always comes to, you know, ‘Life is too short and this is too hot to handle.’ And these are … a list of major media organizations.”

Wolff was talking to Clinton aide turned Lincoln biographer Sidney Blumenthal and Princeton historian Sean Wilentz on their podcast, The Court of History, as the scandal over Trump’s links with Epstein continued to build.

This week, Attorney General Pam Bondi enraged Trump supporters when she said there was no Epstein “client list” of famous men connected to Epstein’s exploitation of young girls, and that the disgraced financier killed himself in a New York jail in 2019, rather than having been murdered. Bondi previously said the list was on her desk, being readied for release.

Trump supporters — prominently including Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, now director and deputy director of the FBI — have long advanced Epstein conspiracy theories and campaigned for files to be released, claiming to do so will expose top Democrats and other establishment figures.

Trump’s extensively documented friendship with Epstein makes this dangerous territory for the president and his administration.

On Saturday, Trump raged: "I don’t like what’s happening. We have a PERFECT Administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD, and 'selfish people' are trying to hurt it, all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein.

"For years, it’s Epstein, over and over again. Why are we giving publicity to Files written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration, who conned the World with the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, 51 'Intelligence' Agents, 'THE LAPTOP FROM HELL,' and more?"

Critics said Trump’s claim that the Epstein files were concocted by his enemies, as he claims various first-term scandals were, appeared to indicate worry that his name is in the files, whatever form they take.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a former Trump aide, has said Trump’s name is in the Epstein files.

Elsewhere on Saturday, a former Florida State Attorney for Palm Beach County told MSNBC some sort of files existed.

"In 2019, there was a raid of Jeffrey Epstein's New York mansion, and there was a safe, and they had to use a saw to get in the safe,” Dave Aronberg said. “And there were hard drives or thumb drives in there.

“What's on the thumb drives? We really still don't know. So I think there's a lot of images. I think there are ties to individuals. And perhaps the DOJ thinks there's not enough evidence to file a lawsuit."

On The Court of History, Wolff repeated previous descriptions of compromising photos of Trump with Epstein and young girls, which he said he had seen and presumed were in Epstein’s safe and thus now with the FBI.

Wolff said he made his tapes with Epstein while using him as a source, including for bestselling books about Trump.

He did not discuss how last year, shortly before the presidential election, he shared a taped conversation with The Daily Beast. Its headline read: “Listen To The Jeffrey Epstein Tapes: ‘I Was Donald Trump’s Closest Friend’.”

“Epstein painted a complicated portrait of Trump,” the Beast reported. “He called him ‘charming,’ and ‘always fun,’ capable of extraordinary salesmanship … but he alleged Trump was a serial cheat in his marriages and loved to ‘f--- the wives of his best friends.’

“He also claimed that while Trump has friends, he was at heart a friendless man incapable of kindness.

“… Asked by Wolff, ‘How do you know all this?’ Epstein replied, ‘I was Donald’s closest friend.”

A Trump spokesman said Wolff “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.”

Trump beat Harris. Six months into his second term, Wolff said his tapes included Trump and Epstein discussing girls and real estate.

Wolff added: “There was one moment where Epstein says, ‘Donald Trump has no scruples.’ So I just went to that, that the man who represents, you know, evil incarnate, can stand back and say, ‘Donald Trump has … no scruples.”

Saying Epstein had “a very comprehensive deep-dive view of Trump, of what he could do, what he couldn't do,” Wolff said the financier “always pointed out … that Trump was innumerate. He couldn't read a balance sheet … [and] in terms of a larger sense of administration and management and executive function, … was utterly hopeless.”

Such tapes, Wolff said, have convinced him Trump and Epstein’s long friendship is “a central story of our time,” making his failure to agree a deal to publish work based on his tapes all the more frustrating.

“I can't believe that people would not want it told, even from a commercial perspective,” Wolff said.

“I mean, I keep saying to people, you know, have you been on the internet? This is what the internet is about … one of its pillars is Jeffrey Epstein.

“But there is an incredible reluctance to take on this story now. Maybe now, it feels like something is changing. The Wall Street Journal … did quite a comprehensive review of all of the known connections Trump and Epstein had. And I thought that was pretty notable.

“This is, of course, against the backdrop of Trump always saying, ‘I barely knew the guy, you know, we once passed in the hall,’ or something like that.

“So I … wait for the right context in which to tell this story.”