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The comments came as part of the president’s efforts to distract, deny and deflect from his long-running relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
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President Trump asserted on Monday that he had never been to Jeffrey Epstein’s island. He also accused former President Bill Clinton of having frequently visited, an assertion Mr. Clinton has long denied.
Persona non grata. I threw him out and that was it. I’m glad I did, if you want to know the truth. And by the way, I never went to the island. And Bill Clinton went there, supposedly, 28 times. I never went to the island but Larry Summers, I hear, went there. He was the head of Harvard. And many other people that 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.
July 28, 2025, 7:35 p.m. ET
President Trump said on Monday that he had “never had the privilege” of visiting Jeffrey Epstein’s private Caribbean island because he had turned down an invitation from the financier.
As part of a continued effort by Mr. Trump to distract, deny and deflect from his long-running relationship with Mr. Epstein, the president vigorously denied that he had ever visited Mr. Epstein’s private islands in the Caribbean, while in the same breath baselessly accusing his predecessor, former President Bill Clinton, of visiting the islands, his latest bid at conspiracy deflection.
“I never went to the island, and Bill Clinton went there supposedly” a number of times, Mr. Trump said during a trip to Scotland. Mr. Epstein owned two islands in the U.S. Virgin Islands — Little St. James and Great St. James, where he entertained famous friends and allegedly trafficked underage girls for sex.
He continued, “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.”
Mr. Clinton has denied visiting the islands or having any knowledge of Mr. Epstein’s criminal behavior, and has said he wishes he had never met him. When asked about Mr. Trump’s accusations, an aide to Mr. Clinton pointed to that original denial, adding that it had been 20 years since Mr. Clinton had been in contact with Mr. Epstein.
In 2002, Mr. Clinton had flown on a private jet owned by Mr. Epstein as part of a visit to Africa — a trip which brought a flurry of media attention — but the former president has not been linked by prosecutors or officials to any of the criminal accusations against Mr. Epstein. Between 1993 and 1997, while Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein remained friendly, Mr. Trump’s name appeared seven times in Mr. Epstein’s flight logs.
