Below is my column in The Hill on the controversial remarks of Sen. Tim Kaine (D. Va.) denouncing a nominee who believed in natural law and the concept of God-given rights. By the end of the hearing, Kaine effectively lumped Alexander Hamilton with Ayatollah Khomeini in his statement at the committee hearing.
Here is the column:
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) this week warned the American people that a Trump nominee for a State Department position was an extremist, cut from the same cloth as the Iranian mullahs and religious extremists.
Riley Barnes, nominated to serve as assistant secretary of State for democracy, human rights and labor, revealed his dangerous proclivities to Kaine in his opening statement when he said that “all men are created equal because our rights come from God, our creator; not from our laws, not from our governments.”
It was a line that should be familiar to any citizen — virtually ripped from the Declaration of Independence, our founding document that is about to celebrate its 250th anniversary.
Yet Kaine offered a very surprising response in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
“The notion that rights don’t come from laws and don’t come from the government, but come from the Creator — that’s what the Iranian government believes,” he said. “It’s a theocratic regime that bases its rule on Shia (sic) law and targets Sunnis, Bahá’ís, Jews, Christians, and other religious minorities. They do it because they believe that they understand what natural rights are from their Creator. So, the statement that our rights do not come from our laws or our governments is extremely troubling.”
In my forthcoming book celebrating the 250th anniversary, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution, I detail how the Declaration of Independence (and our nation as a whole) was founded on a deep belief in natural laws coming from our Creator, not government.
That view is captured in the Declaration, which states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Kaine represents Virginia, the state that played such a critical role in those very principles that he now associates with religious fanatics and terrorists.
In fact, Kaine’s view did exist at the founding — and it was rejected. Alexander Hamilton wrote that “The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.”
Although the Framers were clear, Kaine seemed hopelessly confused. He later insisted that “I’m a strong believer in natural rights, but I have a feeling if we were to have a debate about natural rights in the room and put people around the table with different religious traditions, there would be some significant differences in the definitions of those natural rights.”
This country was founded on core, shared principles of natural law, including a deep commitment to individual rights against the government. The government was not the source but the scourge of individual rights.
This belief in preexisting rights was based on such Enlightenment philosophers as John Locke who believed that, even at the beginning when no society existed, there was law, “The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one,” he wrote. “And reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind.”
Note that a natural law can also be based on a view of the inherent rights of human beings — a view of those rights needed to be fully human. Like divinely ordained rights, these are rights (such as free speech) that belong to all humans, regardless of the whim or want of a given government. They are still not “rights [that] come from our laws or our governments.”
The danger of legal positivism is that what government giveth, government can take away. Our prized unalienable rights become entirely alienable if they are merely the product of legislatures and courts.
It also means that constitutional protections or even the constitutional system itself is discardable, like out-of-fashion tricorn hats. As discussed in the book, a new generation of Jacobins is rising on the American left, challenging our constitutional traditions. Commentator Jennifer Szalai has denounced what she called “Constitution worship” and argued that “Americans have long assumed that the Constitution could save us. A growing chorus now wonders whether we need to be saved from it.”
That chorus includes establishment figures such as Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the Berkeley Law School and author of “No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States.”
Other law professors, such as Ryan D. Doerfler of Harvard and Samuel Moyn of Yale, have called for the nation to “reclaim America from constitutionalism.”
That “reclamation” is easier if our rights are based not in natural law, but rather in the evolving priorities of lawmakers like Kaine. Protections then become not the manifestations of human rights, but of rights invented by humans.
Kaine’s view — that advocates of natural law are no different from mullahs applying Sharia law — is not just ill-informed but would have been considered by the founders as constitutionally blasphemous.
He is, regrettably, the embodiment of a new crisis of faith in the foundations of our republic on the very eve of its 250th anniversary. This is a crisis of faith not just in our Constitution, but in each other as human beings “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and a best-selling author whose forthcoming“Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution” explores the foundations and the future of American democracy.
Escambia County School District in Florida has pulled dictionaries from schools as part of an “inappropriate content review”.
Makes sense.
Nothing scares the MAGA cult more than children who are able to define “racism”, “fascism’ and ‘dictatorship’.
The next logical step is to ban reading.
MAGA !!!
“Ignorance is bliss”
The new MAGA motto.
If ignorance is bliss then obviously Florida is by far the happiest state in the Union.
Is the Bible next?
Lots of smut, crime, incest, rape, etc. in the good old Bible.
Nahhh.
Republicans love that stuff
I think the next move is to outlaw thinking.
Professor Dershowitz taught me to read.
You know what they say about Florida.
It’s not the heat, it’s the stupidity.
That’s clever.
The stupidity is beyond belief
Don’t they realize that every kid has a dictionary on their phone.
“Don’t they realize that every kid has a dictionary on their phone.”
You might want to look into the pervasive corruption of the English language in current dictionary editions…
An observation of daily life living in a snake pit? Odd what people will do.
Isn’t it a little bit early to be publicly jacking off like that?
Good. Why does a 5th grader need to knw the definition of “creampie”
Nice try numbnuts, assuming you have them. Here’s the truth, The list, which shows that fewer than 70 have so far been analyzed, indicates that the books are being reviewed for their compliance to HB 1069 – a bill approved by Gov. Ron DeSantis last year that, along with requiring schools to teach that “reproductive roles are binary, stable and unchangeable” and limiting education regarding sexual health, also bans schools from having books that depict or describe “sexual conduct” or “is inappropriate for the grade level and age group for which the material is used.” In other words, the woke bullschiff is being removed and sanity returned to materials used to teach our children.
Correct, The list, which shows that fewer than 70 have so far been analyzed, indicates that the books are being reviewed for their compliance to HB 1069 – a bill approved by Gov. Ron DeSantis last year that, along with requiring schools to teach that “reproductive roles are binary, stable and unchangeable” and limiting education regarding sexual health, also bans schools from having books that depict or describe “sexual conduct” or “is inappropriate for the grade level and age group for which the material is used.”
“. . . has pulled dictionaries . . .”
Nice lie by omission.
The 2024 list of books *under review* does not include a single dictionary. And the District has not banned a single dictionary.
Something much more interesting,
FBI probing whether its own agents obstructed or interfered with politically sensitive cases
https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/mondirty-cops-fbi-probes-whether-own-agents-obstructed-politically
Something else that is much more interesting.
https://x.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1964847053487657215
“FBI probing whether its own agents obstructed or interfered with politically sensitive cases”
Ha! It should be evident to all that “whether” is a foregone conclusion: the real questions are “who”, “when”, “why”, and “how”. NTM what the attendant consequences need be for those guilty of this.
John Henry Newman (1801-1890), an Anglican priest who later became a Cardinal in the Roman Catholic church, observed that humans are the only species to possess a conscience, the inner voice that guides us in what is right and wrong. Even the most Aboriginal person among us has it. Newman said it was given to all of us by God to guide us home. No matter what we call ourselves, i.e., Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, etc., we all have the same GPS giving us directions for how to get home. Senator Kaine’s GPS is re-routing him at this point.
The Capitol rioters obvisously didn’t have this GPS.
Their mothers didn’t raise them right.
“. . . we all have the same GPS . . .” Yet: “Senator Kaine’s GPS is re-routing him . . .”
Such are the contradictions caused by determinism.
Sam: Thank you for your comment. I think you and Anon may have misunderstood what I was saying about conscience. It does not cause us to do anything but allows us to consider and make the choice. It simply presents the relative merit for the choices before us. We ultimately decide what to do, that is to determine which of the choices before us to pursue. It’s called free will and rebuts the notion of determinism. The analogy of the GPS seems fitting because you can consult your GPS but are free to choose an alternate course or one not at all. The GPS simply presents the choice as determined by your initial inquiry.
JJC,
Those were very interesting comments, especially the part about free will.
“The analogy of the GPS seems fitting . . .”
All you’ve done is to reassert the contradiction — which is religion’s contradiction.
Your “GPS” is a metaphor for an innate moral sense. That which is innate, e.g., a genetic blueprint, is not subject to control or change by free will.
You’re trying to have your cake and eat it, too.
There are flaws in every single “homing device” in this world and many others. Are there worlds without flaws? Yes. They are perfect worlds. Christianity tells Christians this in – all have sinned and come short or the blind spot in the human eye.
Another sacred right of mankind is the Hamilton Beach food processor. Versatile & easy to use – steams, chops, shreds, slices and purees. Easy cleanup with dishwasher safe parts.
No one who isn’t trying to dismantle our country is having a crisis of faith. This piece, though very generously written inclusively, once again points directly at the modern left, and only the modern left, when held up to scrutiny. Further scrutiny reveals they are the same old lying fascists that have always scourged humanity.
I can understand the notion of radical chic in the 1920s before many fully understood the ramifications, today we know better, and the modern left are totalitarians, wholly incompatible with a free society.
And an aside: though the troll bombing means the article is indeed right over the target, it is the worst it’s been in some time today. Would love it if ‘Anonymous’ could be modded out of the comments.
PS – and the ayatollah nonsense – pure projection, as we have come to expect. The modern dems are simply vile, top to bottom.
The leader of MAGA is very proud of how vile he can be.
“ PS – and the ayatollah nonsense – pure projection, as we have come to expect. The modern dems are simply vile, top to bottom.”
I strongly disagree. Kaine struck a nerve because his statement, while controversial, resonates with an underlying truth. Christian Nationalists share similar goals and ideas about how government should function—promoting Christian values and ensuring they remain dominant. While Iran permits Christians and Jews to practice their faith, they carefully manage the influence of these religions to prevent them from becoming widespread. In the U.S., some radical Christians exhibit the same mindset: advocating for freedom of religion only when it means maintaining their dominance. Kaine’s observation is valid, and many Christians may be offended by the comparison, but that’s simply because it hits too close to home.
“promoting Christian values and ensuring they remain dominant. While Iran permits Christians and Jews to practice their faith, “
1) You know nothing about Iran.
2) I hope we promote Christian values. That and Jewish values are the values most prominent in our civilization. The failure we face is from people like you who have no values at all.
They certainly have a flawed GPS, Dorothy.
Are you sure about that?
The “radical left” has done what exactly to push this supposed decline of morality or order?
The right, the crazy religious ones, are already salivating at the prospect of putting their long-held vision of enforcing religious morality on others because this nation was supposedly created with the idea that it was and always has been a Christian nation. Eh, I doubt it. In Texas, there is already a serious push to make one particular version of Christianity dominant over all others. Catholics won’t be happy about that, and neither will Methodists, Episcopalians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, etc. The whole point of freedom of religion in our constitution is not having one religion dominate over all others. Evangelicals will never accept the idea of being “equal” to all others. They are all about freedom of religion until another seeks equal treatment. In the eyes of the Christian nationalist, they are above all others. That’s how zealots see the world. From Individuals like Ken Paxton and Oklahoma’s Secretary of Education Walters, both are really radicals of the right. They are not hiding it anymore and Kaine’s statement will of course offend them because he pointed out the reality that their goals are no different than those of Ayatollahs and Mullahs.
Is t it funny that X has the exact same views on Christianity as George does.
What a stooge.
*. Morality cannot be forced or it’s false. It’s rationally accepted. Morality can conflict with instincts. Preparedness is recommended.
“Would love it if ‘Anonymous’ could be modded [?] out of the comments.” So says anonymous James. Your comment is lacking in intelligence. Yours truly, Anon
James,
Well said.
Seems our annony moron, the slow and dumb one are desperate to deflect or lame attempts to smear the good professor. Their idiotic, moronic and juvenile comments only highlights how desperate they are. Generally I just scroll past as they are not worth reading, but sometimes they do allow for bringing up facts they are uncomfortable with, like how corrupt the Biden admin was, the DNC and MSM.
@Upstate
Again, very much agreed. and it isn’t censorship. There are rules of civility posed plain as day on this site, even if they are just guidelines. Nevertheless, yes, they are absolutely like cornered animals, ironically, something they have likely never encountered in real life.
Virginia, home to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and many other stalwarts of our nation’s founding, should be embarassed today as one of it’s senators completely missed the point as to why and how our nation conceived it’s liberty in the way and manner that it did. If Kaine isn’t stupid, then his mouth should, at least, be on a time out right now.
You’re going out on a limb Walt. Was the US created by God? As matter of fact yes. I’m sure there’s a reason.
Kaine’s observation is valid. This issue is already taking shape in Texas, where Attorney General Ken Paxton is advocating for prayer in schools, specifically requiring the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer from the King James Version.
Additionally, he is working to ensure that Christian views are prioritized. For instance, Muslim students would not be permitted to pray five times a day, and other religions would not receive equal treatment. The ongoing debate about religious liberty is bound to revive discussions around the principle of “separation of church and state.” This raises problems about certain religions being favored over others.
The agenda of Christian nationalism is not unlike the views held by the Ayatollah. What is offensive about Kaine’s view is that he’s on point about his observation. Christian nationalists don’t like being reminded that their views are also radical and extremist. Citing the Declaration of Independence is only used as a pretext to claim some sort of devine right. The Constitution says different. The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. The Constitution was ratified in 1788 and went into effect in 1789. That is over a decade later. A lot can change in that span of time. Views can change, perspecrtives can change. The views and ideas they had when the Declaration of Independence was signed are not going to be the same as the views and ideas that evolved or changed when the Constitution was debated and ratified. The Idea of separation of church and state was not created in a vacuum. It was created over a long period of reflection and debate and ultimately they arrived at the correct view that government and Religion should not mix. When it does, you end up with something like example Kaine brought up, the Ayatollah’s and the use of religiouns influence on government decisions to dictate morality and behavior. Free speech is not a Biblical enshrined right and neither is freedom and liberty. That is how we ended up with slavery, the civil war, and fighting for civil rights for all, not just a privileged few.
as predicted, George is here to share his wisdom.
X offers way more than you do. At least he’s making a point.
^^^^ posted and liked by X
Same old George, always making it about his hate for Christianity
What hate? He made a valid point. Christians as just as likely to do what Muslims have done mixing religion and government. Using Texas own attempts at injecting more religion into public schools and I will add Oklahoma as another example is on point.
^^^^ George responding.
Most Christians don’t mix them except they do carry around morality when making decisions.
Hey George, can you give us that definition of perjury again?
Now hear this, Christianity caused slavery
That’s why you can read so many references to slavery in the Old Testament.
The old testament is not a christian document, moron.
Please educate yourself.
ugh. It is voluntary time for prayer or reflection (Muslim kids could pray what they wanted). Voluntary/parental consent required/up to each school district. Paxton supports his preferred religion but never said others would not be allowed or that all kids would ‘have to’. Do a quick google search if you can’t be bothered to read source material
Now do the mandatory posting of the Ten Commandments on classroom walls.
Which one do you have a problem with?
Dont commit murder, or honor your father and mother?
Are you forced to read it… Nope.
Carle, a quick Google search confirmed my point.
“ In a news release the same day, the attorney general’s office went further: “Recent news reports have indicated that the high school’s prayer room is … apparently excluding students of other faiths,” the release said.”
https://www.texastribune.org/2017/03/20/texas-ag-sued-keep-bible-quote-school-now-hes-troubled-muslim-prayers/
The AG tried to make an issue of a school not allowing Christians to use a prayer room that Muslim students were using. The AG used the incident to claim Christians were being discriminated against and Muslim students were given preferential treatment.
A government official saying he would “prefer” students recite the Lord’s Prayer, KJV version, is a pretext to encourage schools to require it eventually. It’s no secret that Ag Paxton would prefer that it be mandatory.
Its always a quick google search that confirms your point, George.
Thats your entire education on every subject. A 5 minute google search. Thanks for finally admitting it, even if its with your new coward monicker.
Problem: Barnes is not a Christian nationalist, and what he said had nothing to do with Christian nationalism.
As far as the separation of Church and state goes: when the Constitution was ratified, five states still had an Established church, including Massachusetts. Again, the Constitution was meant to limit the powers of the federal government, not the states.
Sundays are for prayer in church for children to learn morality kindly or for gramma to cook Sunday dinner or to rest. Take your pick.
2/11
Epstein painted a complicated portrait of Trump. He called
him “charming,” and “always fun,” capable of extraordinary
salesmanship, and suggested he was personally in favor of
Trump’s policies on“the transgender stuff.” But he alleged
Trump was a serial cheat in his marriages and loved to “f—
the wives of his best friends.”
He also claimed that while Trump has friends, he was at heart a friendless man incapable of
kindness. And he alleged that Trump had undergone scalp reduction surgery for baldness
and called himself “The Trumpster.”
The new tapes shed light on a barely explored part of Trump’s past, his long-term friendship
with a man who would become one of America’s most notorious sexual predators. Trump was
in the last three days of campaigning on Saturday in Salem, Virginia. Brian Snyder/Reuters
Asked by Wolff, “How do you know all this?” Epstein replied, “I was Donald’s closest friend
for 10 years.”
Wolff shared the tape with the Daily Beast ahead of discussing it on his Fire and Fury
podcast on Monday. Last Thursday he caused shockwaves by revealing a few seconds of a
separate recording in which Epstein spoke in detail about the inner workings of the Trump
administration. Wolff also said Thursday that the pedophile showed off photos of Trump with
topless young women sitting in his lap.
3/11
Wolff, a veteran journalist and author who was also the biographer of Rupert Murdoch, has
long attracted praise and bromides. When Fire & Fury was published in January 2018,
Trump tried to stop it with a failed cease and desist order, then threatened to sue. No case
ever materialized, and it sold 5 million copies worldwide. Wolff, who appears regularly on his
Fire and Fury podcast, wrote two more books on Trump after Fire and Fury, and about
Epstein in 2021’s Too Famous.
Wolff says he has up to 100 hours of recordings of
interviews with Epstein, including from using him as a
source for Fire and Fury, and from years of meetings when
the disgraced financier appeared to want Wolff to write a
biography of him. Wolff said he decided to release parts of
the archive after a new accuser, a former Miss Switzerland,
alleged last week that Trump had groped her in 1992.
The new recording offers extraordinary insights into Epstein, who in 2017 was shuttling freely
on his two private jets between his Manhattan townhouse, his Palm Beach, Florida, estate
and Little St. James, a private island in the Virgin Islands.
In 2017, Epstein was free to travel between his properties on a choice of two planes—this
Gulfstream, and his Boeing 727, dubbed the “Lolita Express,” on which he claimed Melania
and Donald Trump first had sex. U.S. Department of Justice
Epstein had been convicted in 2008 in Florida of procuring a child for prostitution and
soliciting a prostitute in a plea deal thatallowed him to escape prosecution for victimizing
multiple underage girls, in return for an 18-month sentence. He spent the years after his
release associating with billionaires—including Leon Black, the co-founder of Apollo Global
4/11
Management who paid him more than $150 million for financial advice, and Microsoft
founder Bill Gates—and dining behind closed doors with members of the financial and
political elite.
In July 2019, however, he was arrested by the FBI and charged with child sex trafficking. Six
weeks later Epstein’s body was found hanging in his prison cell; authorities said he had died
by suicide.
Wolff told the Beast he interviewed Epstein, then 64, in a “gargantuan” study in his
townhouse on East 71st Street in Manhattan two years before his death. The Beast has
reviewed the entire recording, which is one hour, 44 minutes long. The voice on the
tapeclearly matches recordings of Epstein’s voice from depositions in 2012 and 2016.
The Trump campaign has already attacked Wolff for releasing audio of Epstein, calling the
author “a disgraced writer who routinely fabricates lies in order to sell fiction books because
he clearly has no morals or ethics.”
A spokesperson renewed that attack Saturday, and said, “He 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. He’s a failed journalist that is resorting to lying for
attention.” Sources in the Trump camp also suggested it was “widely known” that Trump had
“kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago” when he learned about the sex-trafficking
allegations.
5/11
Wolff interviewed Epstein at his vast Manhattan townhouse on a day in August 2017. Just short
of two years later it was raided by the FBI. Eduardo Munoz via Reuters
Trump’s long friendship with Epstein, which spanned the late 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s
has been well documented. In the 1990s, the two publicly partied at Mar-a-Lago and went to
a Victoria’s Secret Angels show together. In 2002, Trump told New York Magazine of
Epstein, “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. 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.”
Epstein’s infamous leaked addressbooks had Trump’s own phone number as well as
Melania’s, while Trump’s name appeared seven times in the passenger logs of Epstein’s
planes. (The books and logs also included princes, politicians and potentates such as Bill
Clinton, former British prime minister Tony Blair, former Israeli PM Ehud Barak, Prince
Andrew and celebrities and billionaires including Mick Jagger and Les Wexner.)
6/11
The long friendship between Trump and Epstein saw them party at Mar-a-Lago, including in
February 2000 when they posed with their then-girlfriends, Melania Knauss and Ghislaine
Maxwell. Melania became First Lady; Maxwell is serving 20 years in federal prison. Davidoff
Studios/Getty Images
In 2022 Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend who procured him underage girls,
would be sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for the sex trafficking of minors. Upon
hearing of her arrest in 2020, Trump, then president, said he wished her well. “Her friend or
boyfriend was either killed or committed suicide in jail. Yeah, I wish her well… Good luck.”
In 2004, Epstein and Trump fell out when they both tried to buy a Palm Beach estate, Maison
de L’Amitié, out of bankruptcy. The next year, the FBI began investigating Epstein for child
sex trafficking.
In 2019, on the day after Epstein’s arrest, Trump said in the Oval Office, “I was not a fan of
his, that I can tell you,” and that they had not been friends for 15 years. He said it “did not
much matter” what the fall-out had been over. This September, asked about Epstein by the
tech podcaster Lex Fridman, Trump said: “He was a good salesman. He was a hailing,
hearty type of guy. He had some nice assets that he’d throw around like islands, but a lot of
big people went to that island. But fortunately, I was not one of them.”
However, the financier’s version of their relationship has never been heard until now.
7/11
The two men fell out in 2004 over the purchase of the Maison de L’Amitié, an estate and
mansion in Palm Beach which Trump bought from under Epstein.
He offers a portrait of Trump womanizing, yelling at staff and living a basically friendless life
with only his daughter Ivanka, his secretary and his bodyguard truly loyal to him.
Trump, he said, was almost “functionally illiterate” but did read the Page Six gossip column in
the New York Post. He was “incapable” of reading a balance sheet, and any “act of kindness”
would have been an accident, Epstein said
But it is Epstein’s description of Trump’s conduct toward women which is likely to attract most
attention, given the pair’s long friendship, and the 28 women who have made accusations
against the former president of sexual misconduct (all of which he denies). Many of the
attacks are alleged to have occurred when he and Epstein were friends.
On the tape Epstein can be heard saying, “He’s a horrible human being. He does nasty
things to his best friends, best friends’ wives, anyone who he first tries to gain their trust and
uses it to do bad things to them.”
On one occasion, Epstein alleged, Trump took a woman to what he called “the Egyptian
Room” in an Atlantic City casino. Epstein alleged, “He came out afterward and said, ‘It was
great, it was great. The only thing I really like to do is f— the wives of my best friends. That is
just the best.’”
8/11
He alleged that he and Trump would pick up women by combining to split them from their
male companions. “We always used to go to Atlantic City to try to find girls in the casino,” he
said. “And if there was a guy, I would say, ‘I’m here to invite the guy to go out to dinner.’ And
he’d say, [to the woman], ‘Let me show you the casino.’ And as he walked out, he put his
arm around the girl’s shoulder, and the bodyguard would walk up and Donald, whoosh, take
the girl away.”
Epstein also alleged that Trump had an elaborate scheme to procure sex with his friends’
wives. He would call the men into his Trump Tower office to ask them about their sex lives
and offer them sex with beauty pageant contestants, the pedophile said. He would do this
while the wives were—unknown to their husbands—listening on speakerphone, so that he
could then seduce the wives on the basis their husbands had betrayed them, Epstein
claimed.
“You must have had a better f— than your wife, tell me about it”
— What Epstein alleges Trump would ask his friends
Epstein can be heard acting out what he alleged was Trump’s elaborate seduction technique
to Wolff, using Wolff’s name and that of his wife, Victoria, to demonstrate it. Epstein said,
“And he’d say, ‘What’s it like to do that?… Do you like having sex with your wife? How often
do you have sex with her?’” Epstein claimed Trump would also say, “You must have had a
better f— than your wife, tell me about it.”
Then, the pedophile alleged, Trump would say, “We can, you and I can go upstairs or
tomorrow, come over, there’s this girl’s coming in from Los Angeles, part of the, whatever
Hawaiian Tropic contest, so come over, we can have a great time. I promise you, Michael,
you know, it’s just me and you, we can have a great time.” Epstein added, “The whole time,
your Victoria’s with us on the phone.” Then he would use the wives’ anger to seduce them,
he claimed.
9/11
In April 1997, Trump and Epstein went to the Victoria’s Secret Angels party together in
Manhattan. Outside Trump posed with Belgian model Ingrid Seynhaeve. Sonia
Moskowitz/Getty Images
The Epstein tape includes an allegation—which is impossible to verify—that Trump had an
affair with a politician while in the White House. Epstein offered no proof or sourcing for the
claim. He also alleged that Trump cheated on both his first wife Ivana and second wife Marla
Maples with “a Black girl.” At one section, Epstein used a Yiddish racial slur to refer to Black
women and alleged Trump boasted to him, “I’m f—ing all these Black women.”
The tape mixes sexual allegations with other aspects of Trump’s life. Early in the recording
Epstein is heard to say, “You probably know he had a scalp reduction. He’s getting the same
male pattern baldness that we all have. He had his scalp reduced. It’s hysterical.” Trump has
long refused to release full medical records while his White House medical reports did not
disclose any prior surgeries.
“He’s charming. In a devious way, he’s charming. To some extent it’s a typical tragedy where
he believes his own bulls—”
— Epstein on Trump
And Epstein offers his eyewitness account of Trump Tower and Trump’s office where, he
said, Trump had “fake honors” on the wall. Trump, he claimed, would yell at his personal
assistant Rhona Graff, “who’s a loyal, perfect, secretary,” as well as Matthew Calamari Snr.,
his bodyguard, and Michael Cohen, his attorney who is now an enemy. Epstein compared
Trump to “an emotionally challenged 9-year-old,” and said, “He screams and yells at Rhona
10/11
more than anybody else. His screaming is how he treats people. He has a tantrum, not a
temper. If you don’t understand him, it’s frightening. Once you understand him, it’s sort of
silly.”
Epstein also told Wolff he had positive things to say about Trump. “He’s charming. In a
devious way, he’s charming,” he said. “To some extent it’s a typical tragedy where he
believes his own bulls—. He has delusions of grandiosity, then he takes it on board.” He
added that he had a “self-deprecating nature” and was “not vulgar.”
“He’s funny,” Epstein said. “Self-awareness means you’re self-aware. He’s aware of that
person, Donald Trump. He talks about The Trump, The Trumpster. ‘Trump’s getting laid.’”
Despite Epstein speaking of his “Democratic friends,” he offered praise for some aspects of
Trump’s time in office, and said, “I think he’s doing a pretty good job at certain things and
he’s not getting credit for it. All the transgender stuff, the bathroom stuff, giving police back
their weapons.”
This is the last public picture of Epstein, the mug shot taken when he entered federal custody
after his attest in July 2019. He died weeks later in his cell. Authorities said it was by suicide.
Kypros/Kypros
11/11
On the tape Epstein, speaking in a New York accent, also mentioned the rich and powerful.
(In a deposition released after his death Epstein admitted under oath that he dropped the
names of people he had never met.) The names he mentioned on tape include: Former
president Bill Clinton; Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner; then-Defense
Secretary James Mattis; and the billionaires Carl Icahn and Tom Barrack, both of whom are
friends of Trump.
Clinton was a long-standing friend of Epstein but has denied any association after the
pedophile’s disgrace in the mid-2000s. Mattis has no known association with him. Ivanka
was photographed with him as a child but Kushner has never been known to be linked to
him. Barrack appeared in a leaked appointment diary for Epstein from 2016, while Carl
Icahn, a corporate raider and long-time Trump friend, was in Epstein’s 1997 address book.
Startlingly for a man who became one of the world’s most notorious sex offenders, Epstein
on the tapes offers a damning judgment of Trump, telling Wolff, “The moral compass just
does not exist.”
Editor’s note: The Daily Beast’s Chief Content Officer Joanna Coles holds an investment in
Kaleidoscope, the maker of the Fire and Fury podcast.
Hugh Dougherty
Executive Editor
hugh.dougherty@thedailybeast.com
Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.
YAWN… all that and no one will read it.
People with open minds will, so I suppose you are right.
Turning a blind eye to the Trump-Epstein relationship is like turning a blind eye to the Holocaust.
If you fools had anything of Prez Trump. The Biden gang would have released it. Yet they didn’t, gezz I wonder why.
DustOff,
Of course no one is going to read it. It is the Daily beast. Who would read that garbage?
Lmao at your sad existence.
How pathetic.
NOT long enough BOZO!
A well-funded psychological information operation at the behest of the DNC-Open Foundation Society group of NGOs, no doubt. Not a shred of credibility, but don’t let that deter you.
Ohhh. I guess I need to believe whatever Jeffery Epstein says. He must be The Daily Beasts’ Hero.
We know Wolff is a fantasist from his claim to have sat unobtrusively in the West Wing day after day, watching and listening. The West Wing is just too small for that, and nobody without business there could just hang out even ONE day.
Great article. Two points.
An alternative approach to Kaine’s thinking, if it be so called, is the many on the left have developed flexible morals that adjust depending on what they want and how to get it.
The second point is that after his many years in politics, one would think Kaine is something of an expert on such matters, not to slip into well-worn political put downs. However, what it reveals is the decided decline in the intellectual capacity of the entire Congress over the past two generations. Just like our public schools.
And just wait until Artificial Intelligence fully takes hold in the coming years as the people that rely on it grow up and become our leaders. In my opinion Artificial Intelligence will destroy what intelligence people may gain by thinking.
YAWN again, you fools still have zip
Eyeroll
The Image That Killed the Democrats in 2026 and Beyond
https://pjmedia.com/athena-thorne/2025/09/07/the-image-that-killed-the-democrats-in-2026-and-beyond-n4943417
0 AP stories on this deadly attack
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0 WAPO stories on this… pic.twitter.com/962qmFOBNm
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) September 7, 2025
Rights, properly understood, do not create an obligation on someone else when you exercise your rights.
For example, free speech is a right because when I speak nobody is obligated to listen. When I exercise that right it does not create a burden on anyone else.
On the other hand, so called “free” healthcare is not a right because someone has to pay for healthcare. An enormous burden is created on others when you access “free” healthcare.
A right to keep and bear arms does not create a burden on anyone else. But pretending everyone is entitled to “free” food, housing, education, etc. creates an obligation on others to fund it.
And so on.
Most of the “rights” Bernie, AOC, Mamdani and other Democrats talk about are not rights as that word has been defined traditionally. It’s another perversion of language to achieve a political goal by manipulating emotions.
What they really want to do is shift the financial burden for some things to someone else and call it a “right”.
To sum it up… they are believers in socialism and communism, religions that espouse nihilism.
I agree completely with this point of view. A defense of positive rights, usually accompanied by conditioned views of justice (“environmental justice,” “social justice,” etc.) are how some seek to reorganize the liberties of everyone else. They have the right to do it, but we don’t have to listen to them, bless them.
“Rights, properly understood . . .”
Well said.
Senator Kaine is a Left Wing Woke DEM NUT CASE
So says an anon.
The Hitler BS is worn out. Try something else.
Seriously?
Can Kaine possibly be that stupid?
Iran doesn’t believe that the rights of the people come from God.
They believe the power of the government comes from God,
What kind of simpleton doesn’t understand the difference?
What came first, the chicken or the egg?
^^^ That kind
Answer it please.
^**^simpleton
Egg?
“ They believe the power of the government comes from God,”
So do Christians. Kaine was not wrong. Romans 13:1-7, which says that “all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God”.
How is that any different than what Muslims believe?
Paul is speaking to the Church at Rome, you moron.
Nice of you to cough up a dem talking point like a cat with a fur ball, but educate yourself, simpleton.
Clearly the founding fathers took a different view of that passage than you and the left wing rag you lifted it from. Else we would still be under British rule.
Its nice to see that as X, you still hold the same uneducated views of Christianity.
Tell us the definition of perjury again, George.
I would prefer
a positivist theory underlying a system of law where the result was freedom and rule of law or a system based on natural law with that same result. Whatever system you believe in – it can be taken away by government. We know that from the onset. There are fascists in Europe saying free speech who are jailing people and there are people here who will do that if they can get away with it.
I am going to vote for the person who does not want to control me, outside of what we need to have an orderly society. Right now, at this time in history, and for decades at least, that means I should vote for Republicans. It’s not that I like them or think they are just nifty. I just think they want the same kind of freedom that I do, for the most part.
It’s about culture more than law.
Every so often, as here, a Democrat reveals the true purpose of the Democrat Party–to trash our Constitution and way of life and replace it with an all-powerful oppressive government run, of course, by them. Karl Marx and George Orwell are smiling.
Slow down there, the true purpose of the Democrat Party is to be a front for their organized crime operations. That other stuff is to keep their rabble roused.
True
Every Single Democrat Hates America…that is clear
No they do not, they hate you for being what you are. That is clear.
Viewing God thru a faulty lens yields faulty reults.
Tim Kaine represents the narcissist arrogant majority branch of government. Exactly the kind of person who the founders created our constitution to defend against!
Kaine and his ilk need for natural rights to not exist in order to accomplish their goals.
The stable idiot, X, Formerly known as George, previously stated that there are no such things as natural rights.
I am sure that he will be along shortly, to enlighten Turley again.
His argument was that you can’t see them, so they must not exist.
The same thing goes for air and gravity, I suppose
And lawn boy Elvis bug, pretending to be some British dude named Oliver, chimed in that natural rights dont exist because they were theorized by man. Much like the atom and black holes.
What was it Orwell said about rewriting history? Kaine is so wrong he should be embarrassed.
Alas, he is not
Nor should he be. He made a statement. If in your Christian ideology you find that heresy, then time to think long and hard what your deeply held beliefs are based on. I gave up on organized religion after 8 years of Catholic Parochial school education; that left a lot of mental scars.
Having a religion can do as much damage as a no religion life philosophy.
Still, however I do not know how many countries insert a God-head into their constitutions. Would be interesting to know.
t more
left a lot of mental scars
______________________
Just maybe the issue is you?
Um… how enlightening. So all western religions must be abided by or the wrath of the church and its ilk will destroy you on Thurley’s blog. Sounds like pure Ayatollah stuff.
Where did I say anything about God or heresy? Read some Social Contract theory. Read something about the theories underlying the Declaration.
Socrates drank hemlock – no legal positivist he
“Socrates drank hemlock – no legal positivist he”
Very true. (And very clever.)
Tragically, what his pupil later argued for is even more disastrous.
Clearly you are scarred
Cankles lost in 2016 because she is a horrid creature. Having Kaine as her running partner, did not help the situation.
It is statements and actions like this and many others that makes the democrat party the greatest threat to our Republic in history. Believing that our rights come from our creator is fundamentally one of the things that sets us apart from other nations and the reason or government can’t take our rights without a fight.
Understood, but Kaine still has a point. A valid one at that. Lets get the priests, rabbis and ayatollahs to sort out that issue.
Obviously this is not an issue the blog participants here can wrap their small minds around.
Then please enlighten all of us constitutionalists in error of our thinking and bow down to Kaine and his ilk.
I think that’s an issue you have to deal with alone. Or get your blog friends here to help you.
No need to apologize for being ignorant sir. Best regards, T. Moore.
When you get a response that includes the “enlighten us” or “prove it”, you know you’re dealing with a small mind.
This would include all of the minds here.
You that’s for sure
T moore is the lawn boy, elvis bug