A decade before he first ran for office, Donald Trump told Howard Stern in 2006 his only “age limit” is “12-year-olds,” according to recently resurfaced audio shared online.
This comes as NPR reports Trump’s Department of Justice withheld documents linking Trump to physical and sexual assault allegations involving a girl around 13 years old in the 1980s.
In the audio clip, drawn from Trump’s frequent appearances on Stern’s radio show in the 2000s, Stern asked Trump whether, at age 60, he could still date a 24-year-old woman. “No, I have no age—I mean, I have an age limit. I don’t want to be like Congressman Foley, with, you know, 12-year-olds,” Trump responded.
The comment referenced Mark Foley, the former Florida congressman who resigned in 2006 after revelations that he had sent sexually explicit messages to underage congressional pages.
The scandal became a major political controversy at the time and dominated headlines during the midterm election cycle.
The missing Trump files
The resurfaced Stern exchange comes amid a major new controversy over document transparency involving the U.S. Department of Justice and released files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. According to a February 24, 2026, investigation by NPR, the DOJ has withheld and removed pages from the publicly released Epstein files that reference allegations involving Trump.
NPR concluded that more than 50 pages of FBI interviews and notes appear in official DOJ logs but were not made available in the public Epstein database, despite the requirements of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law in November 2025 and mandated the release of all unclassified materials.
Among the missing material are interviews with a woman who alleged that, in the early 1980s, when she was about 13 years old, she was introduced to Trump by Epstein and then sexually abused and physically assaulted — claims documented in internal FBI records but absent from the publicly searchable files.
NPR found that the FBI questioned the woman four times about her experience, but only the first interview — which does not mention Trump — is currently accessible in the public database.
The White House and DOJ have stated that the documents were released in compliance with the law and that any redactions or omissions were to protect victim privacy. A White House spokesperson told NPR that Trump has been “totally exonerated” and that the missing claims are “untrue and sensationalist.”
“Ages don’t go 11, 12, 24”
On social media, the resurfaced Stern audio led some to respond, “Alright, as much as I dont like him being mentioned in the files a gazillion times we have to look at what he said ‘I have an age limit…I dont wanna be with 12 year olds.’ Come on folks. If youre gonna do it do it right.”
Others counter that framing the statement as a clear moral boundary misses the broader implications. “So while Trump was willing to mess with 24-year-olds, he was not willing to mess with children. Although I would argue that early 20s are still kids,” one commenter wrote. Another added, “12 isn’t the cut off for kids. Ages don’t go 11, 12, 24.”
Published: Feb 25, 2026 03:48 pm