In a series of newly-released tapes posted this weekend by the Daily Beast, convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein is heard speaking with author Michael Wolff about his relationship with Donald Trump. In the recordings, Epstein tells Wolff that he was Trump’s best friend for a decade, and spells out plenty of their scandalous exploits.
Audio clips from Wolff’s August 2017 interview with Epstein — two years before he was found dead in a jail cell — can be found at the Daily Beast’s website. It’s the kind of shocking reveals that would normally torpedo a political campaign. But as “Jimmy Kimmel Live” host Jimmy Kimmel noted during his Monday night monologue, it’s had no impact.
“We heard a bombshell audio tape in which Jeffrey Epstein says he was Trump’s ‘closest friend’ and shares a bunch of crazy stories – this barely moves the needle,” Kimmel noted. “Remember Mitt Romney went down because he put a dog carrier on the roof of his car? We just got a hundred hours of Jeffrey Epstein saying he and Trump were BFFs. I didn’t even get an alert about it on my phone. I got no texts on this.”
Kimmel noted that Wolff “took his sweet time releasing this information.” He pointed out that at one point, Epstein described Trump as having “no moral compass.” Quipped Kimmel: “Do you know what kind of lowlife you have to be, for Jeffrey Epstein to say you have no moral? It’s like if R. Kelly got mad at you for leaving the toilet seat up.”
He added: “But none of the many child welfare advocates who wear his hats seem to care about any of this. The truth means almost nothing.”
Wolff was researching his book “Fire and Fury” while interviewing Epstein in 2017. (For their part, the Trump campaign called the tapes “false smears” and “election interference” in a statement to the Daily Beast.)
Kimmel shared footage of a Pennsylvania rally where Trump joked about reporters getting shot. “I don’t know, at least he’s being honest for once I guess,” Kimmel said.
He then noted Trump spokesperson Stephen Cheung’s attempt to explain that the statement has nothing to do with the media being harmed” (although Trump very clearly in the clip says he “wouldn’t mind” reporters getting shot).
“Spoken like a proud Trump University graduate,” Kimmel said.
Meanwhile, Kimmel ended his monologue by making a closing argument to the American public: Let’s move on from the drama and stress.
“Forget about what side you’re on,” he said. “I want you to take just take a moment to imagine a world in which you wake up in the morning, you check the news, and no one says the words ‘Donald’ or ‘Trump.’ Just a bunch of normal, boring stuff. Wouldn’t that be nice? No lawn signs. No red hats. No arguing with your grandfather. You check the sports, Al Roker does the weather – off to work you go. Wouldn’t that be wonderful ? Let’s remove this cancerous polyp from our collective national colon and move on already. And don’t forget to vote!”