Newsweek, September 2025
President Donald Trump is finding that the scandal surrounding his past ties to Jeffrey Epstein is refusing to fade. This week, Jeffrey Epstein’s name came back to the fore with the release of a birthday note allegedly sent by Trump to the disgraced financier, published by The Wall Street Journal and circulated by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee.
Trump’s authorship of the note – scrawled inside the sketched outline of a woman’s body – was immediately disputed by the White House. “As I have said all along, it’s very clear President Trump did not draw this picture, and he did not sign it. President Trump’s legal team will continue to aggressively pursue litigation,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. Trump himself told NBC News on Tuesday that the matter was a “dead issue.” But for a growing number of Americans—including many in Trump’s own base—the issue is anything but over.
Trump’s association with Jeffrey Epstein dates back to the early 1990s, when both men moved in the same social and business circles in Palm Beach, Florida, and New York City. Photographs from the period show them together at parties, and Trump even noted Epstein’s taste for younger women. In a 2002 interview with New York Magazine, Trump described Epstein as a “terrific guy” who “likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
