Memory Does Not Forget – And the Internet Even Less - Trump Defended Mike Tyson

Sometimes it takes decades for a sentence to come back and catch up with its author. Donald Trump is experiencing exactly that moment this week. Just now, as the debate over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell flares up again, a television clip from 1992 pops up - and spreads like a poorly kept state secret. Back then, appearing on Late Night with David Letterman, the real estate mogul spoke about the convicted heavyweight champion Mike Tyson. Just a few months earlier, Tyson had been sentenced to six years in prison for the rape of 18-year-old beauty queen Desiree Washington. Trump, however, waved it off - that was "too much," he told the host and millions of viewers. In other words: the court, the jury, the victim - all had, in his view, overreacted. The subtext was unmistakable: it was Tyson who should be pitied here.

That this appearance is now coming back into focus has less to do with nostalgic TV archaeology than with a political constellation that resembles a mix of soap opera and Greek tragedy. Trump is under massive pressure: the president is facing new speculation that he might throw his old acquaintance Ghislaine Maxwell - the woman who, together with Epstein, is alleged to have recruited underage girls - a presidential lifeline in the form of a pardon. The irony of the moment: in a political climate where every half-sentence is dissected and every misstep is instantly replayed in a loop, it is this 33-year-old TV moment that fuels the collective memory. The parallel is obvious - a powerful man criticizing another powerful man for being punished too harshly for a sexual offense, while questions about his own moral compass grow louder.

On social media, the old video footage and the current Maxwell rumors are merging into a sinister collage. Users splice together Tyson's case, Epstein's network and Trump's public statements - producing an image the White House can hardly be pleased about. It is the kind of viral perception that cannot be erased with a few tweets or a press statement. Trump himself has - at least so far - not responded to the resurfaced footage. That may be because in his universe an apology is about as likely as a climate conference at Mar-a-Lago. But it is precisely this mix of defiance and historical amnesia that gives his opponents the material from which campaign ads are made. And so, in the end, stands a president who, in an old television appearance, expressed sympathy for someone convicted of a sexual offense - and who today is grappling with rumors about a possible pardon for an alleged accomplice in perhaps the most notorious sex trafficking case of recent US history. That is no political coincidence, but a bitter twist that life itself could hardly have written better.

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