Jordan Klepper has the receipts.
The Daily Show co-host reminded MAGA of Donald Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein on Tuesday night as the president continues to deflect on the backlash to his administration’s apparent refusal to release the Epstein files.
“Let me offer one possible theory,” Klepper said. “Perhaps you’ve heard of Occam’s razor. It’s the idea that the most simple explanation is probably the correct one.“
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Klepper started detailing the sheer extent of Trump’s past interactions with Epstein, all supporting the argument that Trump knows more than what he is letting on.
“You’ve probably heard that Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, and Epstein’s partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, used to be friends,” Klepper said, ”But it’s worth understanding how close this friendship was..."
He showed a CNN clip playing footage of Trump and Epstein happily hanging out together at a 1992 party.
“Trump and Epstein didn’t just party together. They were neighbors,” Klepper pointed out. Quoting from an exclusive 2024 Daily Beast report surrounding the Epstein tapes, he added, “Epstein said he was Trump’s ‘closest friend for ten years.’”
Klepper continued, “In fact, Epstein’s infamous Little Black Book included 14 different numbers for Trump and his representatives. I mean, he had 14 separate ways to contact Donald Trump."
“And these guys didn’t just party together,” Klepper said. “Epstein was a part of some major milestones in Trump’s life.”
Klepper showed a news clip detailing how Trump apparently met his wife Melania through Epstein. Not only was Trump a “frequent passenger” on Epstein’s plane, but “the first time he slept with Melania was on [Epstein’s] plane.”
Klepper brought up Trump’s 2002 interview with New York Magazine, where Trump said about Epstein, “It is even said he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
Most damning of all, Klepper claimed, was Trump’s unusually empathetic reaction to Ghislaine Maxwell’s arrest in July 2020.
Klepper showed multiple clips of Trump at the time saying, “I wish her well” about Maxwell.
“You wish bad things on everybody, suddenly you’re wishing Ghislaine well?” Klepper said to Trump. “You were harder on Kristen Stewart for cheating on Robert Pattinson.”
Trump himself has repeatedly pushed back against his ties to Epstein.
“I had no idea,” Trump said in 2018, when asked if he’d had any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes. “I had no idea. I haven’t spoken to him in many, many years. But I had—I didn’t have no idea.”
In a 2019 meeting, Trump again described his relationship with Epstein as estranged:
“Well I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him. I mean, people in Palm Beach knew him. He was a fixture in Palm Beach. I had a falling out with him a long time ago. I don’t think I’ve spoken to him for 15 years. I wasn’t a fan.”
Speaking to NBC News last month, Trump added, “That’s called ‘old news.’ That’s been old news. That has been talked about for years. Even Epstein’s lawyer said I had nothing to do with it–it’s old news,” he said.
In response to the recent backlash over not releasing the long-promised Epstein files, Trump claimed on Tuesday, “I would say that these files were made up by [former FBI director James] Comey; they were made up by Obama; they were made up by Biden.”
