While the other Republican presidential hopefuls took swipes at each other on the debate stage in Milwaukee, Donald Trump sat down with Tucker Carlson for a 45-minute interview for Carlson’s show hosted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
In the interview, Trump’s opinion flip-flopped on the fate of the billionaire child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s controversial death in a federal prison in Manhattan in 2019.
The interview covered a range of subjects from the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riots, whether America is headed toward a civil war, aggravation over water efficiency regulations, and President Joe Biden, reported Rolling Stone.
“Do you think Epstein killed himself, sincerely?” Carlson asked Trump after bringing up former Attorney General William Barr’s memoir in which Barr talks about his handling of the case.
“I don’t know,” Trump replied at first. “I will say that he was a fixture at Palm Beach.”
Trump and Epstein were long-time friends in the ‘90s before an alleged falling out, and Epstein frequented Trump’s Mar-A-Lago Club in Palm Beach.
Carlson asked why Barr never did a proper investigation into Epstein’s death and asked why Barr would be covering up the death of Jeffrey Epstein.
“Bill Barr didn’t do an investigation on the election fraud, either,” Trump said, claiming Barr was petrified of being impeached by “the left, the lunatics.”
“Do you think it’s possible that Epstein was killed?” Carlson asked.
“Oh sure, it’s possible,” Trump stammered, “I mean I don’t really believe—I think he probably committed suicide.
“A lot of people think he was killed,” Trump continued. “He knew a lot on a lot of people.”
“Trump responding to ‘Did Epstein kill himself?’ with ‘Well he did have a nice house in Palm Beach’ is the funniest answer physically possible,” X user @Deep_red_bells commented.
“This is literally the least interesting question you could possibly ask Trump about Epstein,” user @gumby4christ said.
“I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York magazine in 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
While Epstein’s procurer and long-time girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell was awaiting trial, Trump, who was frequently photographed with Maxwell at social events, said he’d “met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach, and I guess they lived in Palm Beach … But I wish her well, whatever it is.”
Maxwell was convicted of child sex trafficking in 2021 and subsequently sentenced to 20 years in prison for conspiring to sexually abuse minors with Epstein.
In a 1997 New Yorker piece, Mark Singer reported that Maxwell hitched a ride on Trump’s Boeing 727 into Mar-A-Lago.
According to New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, after Maxwell was arrested, Trump kept asking his advisers if Maxwell had said anything about him.
“Lol Trump in his most ‘let's talk about something else now’ zone,” X user @KyleORe66179644 said.
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