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The rush to resurface Trump clips isn't fair to the president
News organizations are dumpster-diving for connections between the president and Jeffrey Epstein. They're going to turn up a lot of trash
Alex Galbraith
July 22, 2025
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The news, in brief …
Former police officer sentenced to 33 months over Breonna Taylor raid
The Department of Justice had requested a sentence of just a single day. Read more.
Greene warns Trump there’s “no going back” on Epstein files promises
Marjorie Taylor Greene continued to fume at the DOJ’s decision to not release a so-called “client list” for late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Read more.
Hunter Biden blasts Democrats, Clooney in interview
Hunter Biden attacked James Carville, Jake Tapper, Nancy Pelosi and others in a fire-breathing sit-down. Read more.
Harvard University and the Trump administration battle in court
The nation’s oldest institution of higer learning is fighting to have its federal funding restored. Read more.
Migrants describe “disgusting” conditions at Miami ICE facilities
The detainees were forced to eat off paper plates without the use of their hands. Read more.
Make me smarter …
MAGA’s tantrum over “woke” Superman is nastier than their usual whining
Lying about the character's legacy is part of the larger right-wing project to rewrite history. Read more.
Getty Images
The king of crass cameos
Donald Trump has spent his entire life breaking the rules and working the refs. His cons large and small are enough to fill up a shelf full of biographies, some made with the help of Trump himself. And since he’s become president, the judiciary has bent itself into untenable positions to give him whatever he wants and excuse any of his blatantly unconstitutional behavior. So, please take this with a grain of salt the size of the Ts in Trump Tower: the media is not being fair to the president.
Following the publication of a letter from Trump to late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, reporters are digging deep into the archives to try and find further connections between the pair. When they don’t find any more of that than is already available, many outlets settle for evidence of general creepiness. And while we’re not going to defend Trump’s ‘90s antics, using them as proof of some greater wrongdoing misunderstands the man and the era.
Before Trump became the MAGA figurehead of today, he was mostly known for being extremely rich and incredibly crass. The upstart son of a Queens slumlord, Trump’s gaudy tastes and tendency to brand everything he touched with gilded letters spelling out his name got him noticed inside the New York elite (as a boor from the hinterlands) and elsewhere in America (as a funny, flashy rich guy).
He parlayed his name recognition into frequent media appearances, showing up as a big-shot in various sitcoms and movies and building a micro-empire of televised beauty pageants. Back home in New York, he teamed up with equally despised mogul Vince McMahon to stage billionaire v. billionaire matches in WWE and swung by the studios of Howard Stern with regularity.
The latter is the deepest vein of “Trump the creep” history, with the president regularly yukking along to talk about ogling the very young or under-aged. Trump was never just a passive listener in these chats, and the “Access Hollywood” tape wasn’t the first time Trump admitted to acting inappropriate in dressing rooms, but dragging the clips up into the air of 2025 removes them from their context.
Stern was one of the most popular radio hosts in the history of the medium and he got to that lofty point by being unbelievably gross. He was the king of the shock jocks at a time when syndicated DJs were running regular segments on incest and building countdown clocks to underaged celebrities 18th birthdays. It was all disgusting and wrong then, but it was also the done thing.
Trump has proven himself to be a people-pleaser above all. His inconsistency on the issues stems from a desperate need to be adored, and he’s willing to switch his views quickly based on what room he’s in. That’s the context that bears considering when you see clips of him agreeing that his daughter is a “piece of ass” or talking about his maximum age limit for partners.
Dumpster-diving is bound to turn up plenty of old and gross junk. But what can we expect when we’re rooting around in the trash heap?
What do you think? Does Trump deserve any level of generosity? Should the general creepiness of the ‘90s and toxicity of the ‘00s be weighed with new Trump clips? Sound off in the comments.
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Before you go …
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