Enigmas Never Age
Plus: Throuple reproduction, weight-loss drug competition, and more...
May every day be another wonderful…secret? Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal published new revelations about the relationship between financier/pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and President Donald Trump. For Epstein's 50th birthday, his longtime partner Ghislaine Maxwell put together a leather-bound book with notes from his friends. One was allegedly written and signed by Trump.
Trump's entry "contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the woman's breasts, and the future president's signature is a squiggly 'Donald' below her waist, mimicking pubic hair," reports The Wall Street Journal. The text within the naked-lady outline appears to be an imagined conversation between Epstein and Trump. "Voice Over: There must be more to life than having everything," the note begins.
Donald: Yes, there is, but I won't tell you what it is.
Jeffrey: Nor will I, since I also know what it is.
Donald: We have certain things in common, Jeffrey.
Jeffrey: Yes, we do, come to think of it.
Donald: Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?
Jeffrey: As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you.
Trump: A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday—and may every day be another wonderful secret.
"This is not me," said Trump. "This is a fake thing. It's a fake Wall Street Journal story. I never wrote a picture in my life. I don't draw pictures of women," he said. "It's not my language. It's not my words."
Epstein has a long track record of sexually abusing young girls. He died in 2019 in jail under circumstances still debated to this day (suicide? Offed by someone who wanted him dead?) after being arrested by the FBI on sex trafficking charges. This was his second round: In 2008, he had pleaded guilty to a state charge of procuring a minor for prostitution and served 18 months; he had received extraordinarily lenient treatment in prison, which sure looked a bit like corruption. His associate/girlfriend, Maxwell, was convicted in 2021 for sex trafficking and conspiracy, helping Epstein procure girls as young as 14 for prostitution.
Get your morning news roundup from Liz Wolfe and Reason.
An outstanding question is how much his rich and famous friends knew about his perversions and horrifying crimes. "I've known Jeff for 15 years," Trump told New York magazine back in 2002. "Terrific guy."
"It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side," said Trump. "No doubt about it—Jeffrey enjoys his social life."
Trump appears all over Epstein's flight logs, indicating he took trips with him on his private jet: Trump's name appears four times in 1993, once in 1994, once in 1995, and once in 1997. One of Epstein's victims said she was recruited by Epstein while at Trump's club, Mar-a-Lago, and that she was "passed around like a platter of fruit" as a teenager to the rich and famous of Palm Beach. (The woman who was abused as a teenager died by suicide earlier this year.)
Trump's base has long been riled up about what the government might be hiding about Epstein, and Trump has at times stoked this, at other times hedged, saying that there might be "phony stuff in there." The Department of Justice and the FBI under Trump have indicated that the uncovered Epstein files don't include evidence that justifies further, deeper investigations into specific linked parties. "The video recordings of child sexual abuse material found by investigators were not videos that Mr. Epstein recorded of crimes by himself or his friends, but material he downloaded," according to Attorney General Pam Bondi, per a New York Times writeup. Phase 1 of the Epstein files release—initially lauded as a Trump administration attempt at transparency—came under lots of heat because a) they were released to various right-wing influencers who don't have great reporting chops, per se, and b) they didn't really contain anything new or of note that wasn't already public.
"I don't understand it—why they would be so interested," Trump said of his base. "He's dead for a long time. He was never a big factor in terms of life. I don't understand what the interest or what the fascination is, I really don't."
Now, following The Wall Street Journal's reporting on the Trump signature-as-pubic-hair story and the "enigmas never age" thing, Trump has threatened to sue the Journal.
"The Wall Street Journal, and Rupert Murdoch, personally, were warned directly by President Donald J. Trump that the supposed letter they printed by President Trump to Epstein was a FAKE and, if they print it, they will be sued. Mr. Murdoch stated that he would take care of it but, obviously, did not have the power to do so. The Editor of The Wall Street Journal, Emma Tucker, was told directly by Karoline Leavitt, and by President Trump, that the letter was a FAKE, but Emma Tucker didn't want to hear that. Instead, they are going with a false, malicious, and defamatory story anyway. President Trump will be suing The Wall Street Journal, NewsCorp, and Mr. Murdoch, shortly," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "The Press has to learn to be truthful, and not rely on sources that probably don't even exist. President Trump has already beaten George Stephanopoulos/ABC, 60 Minutes/CBS, and others, and looks forward to suing and holding accountable the once great Wall Street Journal. It has truly turned out to be a 'Disgusting and Filthy Rag' and, writing defamatory lies like this, shows their desperation to remain relevant. If there were any truth at all on the Epstein Hoax, as it pertains to President Trump, this information would have been revealed by Comey, Brennan, Crooked Hillary, and other Radical Left Lunatics years ago. It certainly would not have sat in a file waiting for 'TRUMP' to have won three Elections. This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS!"
I like that he says "sources that probably don't exist" (emphasis mine). He seems moderately sure that this defense will work, but not completely, like he wants to keep the door open to take another tack if need be. And now, vast swaths of the right wing keep coming to Trump's defense, claiming the Journal—not a particularly left-wing paper, mind you!—fabricated it all.
This is not how Trump talks at all. I don't believe it. https://t.co/XVAReN80ZL
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) July 17, 2025
This is the dumbest attempted hit piece I've ever read. https://t.co/QSPdtnNWat
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) July 17, 2025
Trump doesn't talk like this at all. And this was several years before Epstein was originally arrested https://t.co/O8mWy2XrQh
— Jack Poso ???????? (@JackPosobiec) July 17, 2025
Forgive my language but this story is complete and utter bullshit. The WSJ should be ashamed for publishing it.
Where is this letter? Would you be shocked to learn they never showed it to us before publishing it? Does anyone honestly believe this sounds like Donald Trump? https://t.co/KHsTFOSl34
— JD Vance (@JDVance) July 17, 2025
I don't know what's true or false here, what's being hidden, what the Journal's sourcing is like (though they tend to be pretty careful with their reporting), what is boilerplate bawdiness versus admission of knowledge of Epstein's crimes. I won't claim to. I do find it extremely implausible, though, that you can be friends with someone for decades, and travel with them on their private jet, and have no awareness of their horrifying and perverted sex crimes. Powerful people enabled this man in some form. I can't judge the extent of their knowledge; I shudder at the extent of their soul-rot. Also, it's a little wild that Trump indulged the conspiracy-obsessed wing of his base, and then has now chosen to backpedal and be rather dismissive of them. Will this create political backlash within Trumpworld, or does their loyalty to him run deeper than this?
Scenes from New York: You've had enough, what with all the Epstein and Trump.
QUICK HITS
- Our long national nightmare is over. Perhaps John Oliver can be next?
- Bloomberg investigates "how Hims became the king of knockoff weight-loss drugs."
- "Eight healthy babies who have genes derived from three different parents have been born healthy in the United Kingdom," reports Ronald Bailey for Reason, calling it a "happy result." He continues: "The treatment involved taking the nucleus from a fertilized egg that contained defective mitochondria and installing it into a donor egg with healthy mitochondria whose nucleus had been removed. Thus, the DNA comprising these babies' genes are derived from the mothers, fathers, and the egg donors." I fear there will increasingly be a difference of opinion between libertarians of faith, like myself, who are concerned about what we lose or destroy when humans play God, and libertarians who greet assisted reproductive technology developments as progress to be welcomed, and who cheer our increasing ability to master and control our biological limitations.
- A very good point:
My sense from a million miles away is that undergraduate education has rapidly become more pre-professional (look at the flows into and out of comp-sci, for example, in the last few years) and much less about "reading books, getting drunk, and going to parties."
But college… https://t.co/LvFcCpJ9Gp
— Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) July 17, 2025
- Darkly funny:
Someone at Fox has must've hit the emergency switch because now they're airing a Biden blunder mix pic.twitter.com/0aiEoAHlYR
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 18, 2025
