By President Donald Trump offered his most direct explanation yet for cutting ties with Jeffrey Epstein, telling reporters in Scotland on Monday that the disgraced financier had been barred from Mar-a-Lago after repeatedly trying to hire away Trump’s employees.
“He took people that worked for me. And I told him, ‘Don’t do it anymore.’ And he did it,” Trump said, telling reporters that he barred Epstein from Mar-a-Lago, his estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
“I said, ‘Stay the hell out of here,'” he said.
Pressed for further details, Trump continued: “The answer is yes, they were in the spa,” the president said. “I told him, I said, ‘Listen, we don’t want you taking our people, whether it was spa or not spa.’ … And he was fine. And then not too long after that, he did it again.”
Trump: People were taken out of the spa, hired by Epstein… I told him we don’t want you taking our people, whether it’s spa or not spa. He did it again, I said out of here.
Reporter: Was one of the stolen people Virginia Giuffre?
Trump: I think so. He stole her. pic.twitter.com/sLoDdKNasn
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 29, 2025
The comments mark the most specific account to date of the rupture between Trump and Epstein, whose death in federal custody in 2019 while awaiting trial for child sex trafficking has continued to fuel public suspicion. Archival photos and video—including a 1992 NBC clip of Trump and Epstein socializing—have long kept their relationship in the public eye.
For years, media reports suggested the split came after a 2004 bidding war over a Palm Beach mansion. But Trump’s new remarks portray the break as the result of Epstein’s attempts to siphon staff from the Palm Beach club. “He became persona non grata,” Trump said.
The issue resurfaced amid renewed attention to Epstein’s network following the death of Virginia Giuffre, a central accuser in the Epstein saga who allegedly committed suicide earlier in the year. Giuffre, who had alleged she was recruited at age 16 while working as a spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago, died by suicide in April.
Meanwhile, Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime associate, remains imprisoned, serving a 20-year sentence for recruiting underage girls for abuse. Last week, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche held a closed-door meeting with Maxwell and her attorneys at a Florida courthouse. The meeting reportedly concerned the identification of additional individuals connected to Epstein’s trafficking operation.
Attorney General Pam Bondi—who had previously vowed to release investigative files—has since reversed that pledge, triggering a fresh wave of criticism over the Justice Department’s transparency. In response to mounting pressure, Bondi earlier this month directed prosecutors to seek the unsealing of grand jury transcripts related to both Epstein and Maxwell.
A White House spokesperson, when asked about Epstein’s ejection from Mar-a-Lago, described the financier as “a creep.” Trump’s more detailed version of events adds to a growing collection of conflicting explanations surrounding Epstein’s removal from the exclusive club.
Though Trump’s allegations of employee poaching provide a new thread in the narrative, they remain just one strand in a broader and unresolved web of high-profile associations, unanswered questions, and institutional failures about the high-flying human trafficker that has seen some of the president’s closest supporters criticizing the White House and Department of Justice.
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