‘This barely moves the needle’: We know Trump was on Epstein’s list, but will the public shrug off newly released audio tapes revealing just how close of friends they were?

It’s known that Donald Trump and many other powerful people were named in unsealed Jeffrey Epstein documents, sometimes called “Epstein’s list.” But a few days before the 2024 presidential election, never-before-heard Epstein interviews were released. And in them, Epstein describes just how close he and Trump truly were.

Trump, Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, and many other high-profile figures were named in Epstein documents unsealed in January. Epstein, a once-powerful financier, died by suicide in 2019, awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. So far, none of those mentioned in Epstein’s list, including Trump, have faced charges related to the case.

“Like if R. Kelly got mad at you for leaving the toilet seat up”

The night before the 2024 election, however, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel mentioned that in newly-released audiotapes, Epstein called Trump his closest friend for a decade, but added that Trump has “no moral compass,” and provided other sordid details of their time together, proving that Trump was more than just a name on Epstein’s list.

Referring to the moral compass comment, Kimmel said, “Do you know what kind of lowlife you have to be, for Jeffrey Epstein to say you have no morals? It’s like if R. Kelly got mad at you for leaving the toilet seat up.”

Author Michael Wolff recorded the Epstein conversation two years before Epstein died, while researching his Trump bestseller, Fire and Fury, according to The Daily Beast.

Released so close to the election, Kimmel noted the bombshell tapes seemingly barely registered. “Remember Mitt Romney went down because he put a dog carrier on the roof of his car?” Kimmel said. “We just got a hundred hours of Jeffrey Epstein saying he and Trump were BFFs. I didn’t even get an alert about it on my phone. I got no texts on this.”

According to the Trump campaign, the Wolff tapes are “false smears” and “election interference.” A Trump campaign spokesperson 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.”

The spokesperson also called Wolff a “failed journalist” and “disgraced writer who routinely fabricates lies in order to sell fiction books because he clearly has no morals or ethics.”

“Even Jeffrey Epstein was appalled”

Referring to the recently released tapes, Wolff wrote in The Daily Beast, “Among the reasons he agreed to talk to me was his own incredulity that Donald Trump, a man who, in their friendship, had displayed so many disqualifying attributes to high office, was on his way to becoming president—indeed, who became president. In short, even Jeffrey Epstein was appalled.”

Trump has been accused of sexual misconduct and abuse before. Before the 2016 election, an explicit taped conversation between Trump and Access Hollywood host Billy Bush from 2005 was leaked, in which Trump used vulgar and misogynistic language to describe women, while also describing his behaviors towards women in terms that could constitute sexual assault.

Once publicized, the Access Hollywood tape seemed like the death of Trump’s candidacy, but Trump still won the White House. In 2023, Trump was found criminally liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll years earlier, but he has otherwise dodged numerous sexual misconduct and abuse allegations. While campaigning in 2024, former model Stacey Williams said she met Trump through Epstein, and in 1993, Trump groped her.

Like the Access Hollywood bombshell recording and these other examples, Kimmel understandably feels the Epstein revelations might be ignored, but it could have been too early to tell. We’ll see what the voters have to say on Nov. 5.