Among the comments President Donald Trump made when speaking from the U.K. on Monday was that he had turned down the "privilege" of going to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein's private island — a location believed to be a center for his abuse of underage girls.
The phrase left onlookers aghast.
"And by the way, I never went to the island, and Bill Clinton went there, supposedly 28 times," Trump claimed during the press conference. "I never went to the island, but Larry Summers, I hear, went there. He was the head of Harvard, and many other people who are very big people. Nobody ever talks about them.
"I never had the privilege of going to his island, and I did turn it down, but a lot of people in Palm Beach were invited to his island. In one of my very good moments, I turned it down. I didn't want to go to his island."
It prompted those online to highlight the idea that Trump would call the trip to the island a "privilege."
"He never had the “privilege” of going to Epstein’s island?!?!" exclaimed podcaster and political commentator Jo Carducci.
Podcaster Brian Allen posted on X, “'Privilege' is doing a lot of work here."
Filmmaker Jeremy Newberger questioned, "The privilege of going to a rape island?"
"'The privilege' is crazy," commented the Never Trump organization, The Lincoln Project.
Former MSNBC newsman Keith Olbermann posted on X, "Trump describes going to Epstein's Island as a 'privilege.' Last Friday he said of the names he spouts here 'I'll give you a list.' Trump is burying himself."
The Tennessee Holler media outlet said on X, "Trump claims nobody has asked him about the pardon, says the Epstein files are a 'hoax' Garland/Comey/Biden tampered with (and forgot to release?), says he never had the 'privilege' of going to Epstein’s Island."
Meanwhile, AltNationalParks, a "resistance" account created in 2017 in response to Trump's first term, observed, "Trump is working really hard to convince people the Epstein files are just a 'hoax' now. During his meeting with Starmer on today in Scotland, he brushed off questions, claiming, 'They can put things in the files that are fake.'"
"He said he hadn’t been paying much attention to his own MAGA base’s demands to release them because the files were 'run by my enemy.' And his final defense? 'If there was anything in there, they would have used it in the last election.' He’s sounding more nervous by the day," the account also said.
That last point prompted a response from former metro editor at Chicago Tribune, Mark Jacob, who questioned Trump's logic on Bluesky, "Trump says 'bad, sick' Democrats could have doctored the Epstein files to make him look bad. Great logic by Cheetolini. He's suggesting the Dems framed him, but forgot to release the dirt, let him win the election, and then quietly turned over the Epstein files to him."
