In late 2017, while Donald Trump was still in his first term as US president, Jeffrey Epstein sent an email to journalist and Trump biographer Michael Wolff that has now resurfaced in newly released files. The message, dated 29 December 2017, was among a large batch of Epstein files made public by the Department of Justice.
In that email, Epstein told Wolff that people who had just been at dinner with Trump were worried about his mental state. “Some at dinner with Donald last night were concerned about dementia. Tons of makeup. Did not recognise old friends,” he wrote.
The line is brief and doesn’t spell out who was there, where the dinner took place or what exactly happened, but it adds to the public record of what people around Trump were saying about him at the time.
Long-running rumours about Trump’s health
Similar concerns had already been reported from inside Trump’s political circle. Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon was quoted in former 60 Minutes producer Ira Rosen’s book Ticking Clock as allegedly believing Trump had “early‑stage dementia”.
Rosen wrote that Bannon claimed Trump “had no attention span, didn’t read, and now doesn’t listen”, and that he would repeat the same story only minutes apart. Bannon later pushed back on that account, but the quotes have continued to circulate in coverage of Trump’s behaviour and decision‑making.
The question of Trump’s cognitive health has also come up within his own family. In a 2024 PEOPLE interview, his nephew Fred C. Trump III spoke about dementia in the Trump family and said his uncle’s recent behaviour reminded him of his grandfather’s decline.
“Like anyone else, I’ve seen his decline. But I see it in parallel with the way my grandfather’s decline was,” he said.
“If anyone wants to believe that dementia did not run in the Trump family, it’s just not true.”
Trump’s campaign strongly rejected that interview and described it as “completely fabricated and total fake news”.
Trump and Epstein’s history
All of this sits alongside the longer history between Trump and Epstein. The two men knew each other in New York and Florida social circles in the 1990s and early 2000s, and were photographed together at events during that period. In a 2002 interview with New York Magazine, Trump said: “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen 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.”
After Epstein was arrested on sex‑trafficking charges in 2019 and later died in an apparent suicide while in custody, Trump said he had cut ties with him years earlier and denied any wrongdoing.
More recent releases from Epstein‑related material have included photos of Trump at gatherings linked to Epstein, with other people’s faces blurred, as well as a picture of his likeness on novelty “Trump Condoms”.
When House Democrats publicised a batch of those images from Epstein’s estate, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson criticised the move, saying Democrats were “selectively releasing cherry-picked photos with random redactions to try and create a false narrative”.
Lead image: Getty
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