"I have no problem" - Trump's disturbing age comment in an old Stern interview raises new questions

It is one of those moments that, in retrospect, are hard to believe - and yet it happened exactly like that on the airwaves of American talk radio. In 2006, Donald J. Trump sat down with Howard Stern, the king of unrestrained entertainment, and was asked whether he had something like an age limit when it came to sexual relationships. Trump's answer: a wavering no. And a comparison that is not only tasteless but plainly false. Now, almost two decades later and shortly after new revelations surrounding his connection to Jeffrey Epstein, the interview has resurfaced - and it carries an explosive charge far beyond what many might have expected. "Do you think you could still sleep with 24-year-olds?" Stern asked. Trump, confident as ever: "Oh, absolutely. I have no trouble." Stern pushed further: "Would you do it?" Trump's answer: "I have no problem." Then co-host Robin Quivers chimed in - "Do you have an age limit? Or would you...?" - and the future president began to stammer: "If I... no, no, I have no ag... I mean, I have an age li..." And then this: when asked about his "upper bracket," Trump said, "I don't want to end up like Congressman Foley - with, you know, 12-year-olds."

A sentence that is hard to top in cynicism - and at the same time reveals how flippantly Trump handled a real case of abuse. He was referring to Mark Foley, a Republican congressman from Florida whose career collapsed in 2006 when it was revealed that he had sent sexually suggestive messages to underage congressional pages. The scandal shook political America - but Trump's account is factually wrong. There was never any mention of 12-year-olds. The pages were at least 16, and Foley was never charged. And yet Trump named that number - 12 - in a sentence that apparently wasn't even meant as a joke. An evasive, self-incriminating maneuver that now appears in a new light. Because the timing of its resurfacing is no coincidence. Just a few days earlier, the Wall Street Journal had published a previously unknown birthday note Trump wrote to Jeffrey Epstein in 2003 - a typed message framed by the hand-drawn outline of a naked woman. The content: a fictional dialogue between Trump and Epstein. "We have certain things in common, Jeffrey." - "Yes, we do, come to think of it." - "Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?" And finally: "May every day be another wonderful secret."

These are the kinds of phrases that might once have passed as trivial in another context - but today they echo like voices from a darker past. Trump's relationship with Epstein has long been the subject of speculation, rumors and accusations - but after the release of the Justice Department statement that there was "no indication of an Epstein client list," a new chapter began. The debate was no longer about a list, but about everything Trump himself has publicly revealed about his preferences, his past, and his circle. And that is not a small amount. Amid this pressure, Trump recently filed a ten-billion-dollar defamation lawsuit - apparently against media outlets that linked the reappearance of the Epstein letter to his presidency. It’s a familiar pattern: attack instead of reflection. But the interview with Howard Stern cannot be sued out of existence. It was broadcast, archived, documented. And it shows a Trump who, even in 2006, openly said he had "no problem" with very young women - without ever clarifying where he would draw the line. A Trump who invoked the Foley abuse scandal to distance himself from an accusation that no one had actually made. The real scandal, then, lies not in a single sentence. But in the ease with which it was spoken. In the showbusiness world Trump lived in back then - and continues to live in today. And perhaps also in the fact that it took almost 20 years for someone to really listen again.

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