The past, the attendant shenanigans, and now the undoing keep reflecting on Donald Trump. His unflattering suits, too

Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein in 1992

It’s a party that keeps giving. Or a ghost that keeps haunting. Decades later, that organised outbreak of joy at Mar-a-Lago continues to reverberate. The year was 1992 and the bash was held in the gilded confines of Mar-a-Lago, the Donald Trump-owned private club. There, about a dozen women danced in a less-heralded space that, by contrast, looked like a small ballroom of a three-star hotel. The revelers’ had a particular look; they seemed to have just arrived from the hairdressers’ after a day on the beach, but news reports identified them as cheerleaders for the Buffalo Bills (the professional American football team) though not by their official Buffalo Jills moniker that night. Some were said to be from the Miami Dolphins. Looking with relish at the women dancing were Donald Trump, the late Jeffrey Epstein and an unidentified man. Why Mr Trump would host a gaggle of cheerleaders at his private residence, and the questions it now prompts, especially when footage of the event is now re-emerging online with the ferocity of traditional Californian wildfires, underscoring the unsettling details that continue to surface.

That grainy, VHS quality video was found in an NBC archive, the network revealed, and it might now be the only true unvarnished record of Mr Trump’s partying days, especially with the disgraced New York financier, veritably enjoying themselves in the company of women who seemed to be having a raucous time. NBC had arranged for an interview with Mr Trump to cover his life after the divorce between him and his first wife, Ivana Zelníčková, originally from Czechoslovakia. The uncontested divorce was granted in December 1990 on the grounds of “cruel and inhumane treatment” by Mr Trump. He was now a free 44-year-old man and NBC understandably wanted to showcase his new, unfettered-by-conjugal-obligations lifestyle for a ‘Dateline NBC’ profile. It is not clear if the bash was staged for the televised event, but given Mr Trump’s love for splashy events, it looked rather like a house party, now appearing to be a dulling to his once dazzling persona.

Donald Trump dancing with his guests at Mar-a-Lago

The women on the dance floor wore the tell-tale threads of the ’90s: blonde hair teased to the skies; shoulders so padded, they seemed perpetually expecting; hip-hugging short skirts (this was not yet the era of the bootylicious) to enhance their pelvic thrusts, and dresses, including long ones, that did not betray their unambiguous aesthetic roots—Miami Vice on Palm Beach. Fashionable in Florida, it probably was, but there was scant indication that it was decoding runway looks. The women’s appearances predated what is now described as “Mar-a-Lago beauty”, leftover of the Ivana Zelníčková excesses that Mr Trump had not tired of, and seemingly has not. The history of his sexual fascination reads like a budget reprint.

The camera did not dwell on the dancing lasses long. It cut to two smiling men on the periphery, seemingly chummy in their interaction and ageless in their singular libido-satisfying pursuit. Donald Trump, ever the same, his signature coif a gravity-defying constant, only then, it was not the “bleach blonde” that it is now. And beside him, a more vigorous Jeffrey Epstein, still in the prime of his copulative years. His strong jaw looked like it could crack Brazil nuts; his relaxed posture a precursor to the notorious swagger. The two of them, in that moment, with women of undulating torsos in the foreground, were a frozen testament to appetites that, for one of them, would calcify into infamy, and for the other, would merely mutate into a political platform. Or worse, in the wake of “grabbing” women’s genitalia, tolerance for “locker-room talk”.

Donald Trump receiving the guest who would continue to be a footnote of his political career

Despite their shared pursuit of women as prey for the perpetually parched, they presented themselves very differently. Their fashion sensibilities were polar opposites, even if that unlikely affected their mutual appreciation. Trump, for the most part, had not changed much. Sartorially, he remained affixed between the opening of Trump Tower in 1984 and the announcement of his presidential campaign in 2015: baggy, lumpy suits and white shirts with an over-long tie that went way past his belt, except now he has dropped them in cheap-icing pink. By contrast, Mr Epstein was dressed more casually, and often affected a cooler image, even if a more country-boy-in-the-city way. In that video, he wore what could be a chambray shirt, with patched pockets on both sides of the chest and contrast buttons holding down the pocket flaps and dotting the placket. You could not tell that he was a successful financier. He was an equivalent of a rom-com lead.

If Donald Trump’s suits were a sartorial uniform, a visual manifesto of power, then Jeffrey Epstein’s wardrobe, particularly in those nascent days of their shared social ascent, was a more elusive cipher. Yet, the twain did meet. The shared territory between them was never about similar sartorial elegance or kindred intellectual pursuits, but a more primal appetite unequivocally aligned: the profound, immoderate, and ultimately disturbing love (or rather, appetite for) women, with Mr Epstein’s chillingly specific penchant for the young, one that Trump himself disturbingly alluded to. In a 2002 interview with New York magazine, he offered what is now widely quoted: “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. No doubt about it—Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”

Donald Trump enjoying himself in the company of young women at Mar-a-Lago

So did the real estate tycoon. While it is doubtful that Mr Trump himself chose underage women, his seeming approval of Mr Epstein’s obsession would nevertheless haunt him in his separate presidential terms. At the time, such comments were probably boyish boasts. But their significance has shifted dramatically with the subsequent revelations about Mr Epstein’s still-shocking sex crimes. It is now, for so many—including the MAGA masses—damning evidence of their favorite president’s awareness or willful blindness. “Many of them are on the younger side” continues to ring in the head like a bad TV ditty. It is looking worse for him, now that the Wall Street Journal has shared a letter, described as a pretend third-person conversation supposedly between Mr Trump and his financier friend, and it reportedly ends with the line: “Happy Birthday—and may every day be another wonderful secret.”

With the WSJ reveal, everything suddenly takes on a far more sinister meaning. Now, the Mar-a-Lago party of 1992 does not look as frivolous or innocent as it seemed. The context has dramatically shifted. That Epstein was a convicted sex offender engaged in child sex trafficking fundamentally alters how any association with him is now perceived. His “social life” is no longer just unseemly; it’s understood to be deeply criminal and predatory. And may have involved the participation of others. While there’s no direct evidence currently linking specific illegal activity to the 1992 Mar-a-Lago party itself, the subsequent revelations about Mr Epstein’s crimes do frame that event as suspicious, especially in the wake of the other celebrity-organised bashes, such as Sean Combs’s admittedly wilder “freak-offs”.

Both men seemingly enjoying the sight of Mr Trump’s dancing guests

Donald Trump acquired Mar-a-Lago in 1985 for US$7 million, though contemporary reports suggest the total outlay, including additional land or associated expenses, neared US$10 million. Initially, he used it as a private residence. It was not until 1994 that he converted the estate into the members-only Mar-a-Lago Club, with various amenities, that were, unsurprisingly, marketed as “high-end”. The Trump family still maintains private quarters within the property. After its conversion into a private club, Mar-a-Lago became a prominent social hub and arguably party central for a certain wealthy and influential set in Florida, following the estate’s long history of lavish social events, even predating Mr Trump’s ownership, when they were hosted by former owner Marjorie Merriweather Post, known as America’s wealthiest woman throughout her life.

Mr Trump and Mr Epstein continued to party in Mar-a-Lago and elsewhere throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. They were spotted hobnobbing at what magazine social pages called “high-profile gatherings”, cementing the belief that even if they were not buddies in crime, they clearly enjoyed each other’s company and were, up to a time, moving within a certain social orbit. But after Mr Epstein was arrested, his pal, as the first-term president, said in an interview with Fox News: “He was a creep. He was a bad guy. I knew him like a lot of people knew him, I was not a fan.” This change in tune, from calling him a “terrific guy” in 2002 to a “creep” in 2019, and then more recently minimising the entire Epstein saga as “boring stuff”, even a “hoax”, is a calculated effort to revise history as circumstances change. The differing descriptions of Jeffrey Epstein lead to questions about Mr Trump’s past knowledge, judgment, and the sincerity of his later condemnations. Yet, the truth, like a poorly knitted sweater, threatens to unravel, easily—the more yarns he play with to create an open weave of deceit, the easier the fibres will come undone.

Screen shots: nbc/YouTube