Last week, a report in The Wall Street Journal alleged that Trump sent Epstein a card on his 50th birthday in 2003, with a drawing of a naked woman and inscribed “may every day be another wonderful secret”. Trump immediately denied doing so, claiming: “it’s not my language … it’s not my words.” He added he did not “draw pictures of women”.

Donald Trump’s bid to smother the uproar over accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein shows that he’s already achieved one goal his critics most feared from his second presidency.

The two socialized together frequently in New York City and Palm Beach from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. In 2002, Trump praised Epstein to a reporter as a “terrific guy” — and curiously added that he “likes beautiful women” on “the younger side.”

Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend and associate, has reemerged in recent days as a pivotal figure in what the White House hopes will be the cure for the threat to President Donald Trump’s relationship with his base.

Here is a timeline of Epstein and Trump’s relationship. Though it is not known when Epstein and Trump first met, Trump told New York magazine in 2002 that he had known Epstein for 15 years, which would date back to the late 1980s. “Terrific guy,” Trump said in the 2002 interview.

Resting his hand on Jeffrey Epstein’s shoulder, Donald Trump smiled as he posed for a photograph with his old friend in Palm Beach in 1997.

Donald Trump's past ties with Jeffrey Epstein are under scrutiny after the US president slammed a Wall Street Journal report that he sent a lewd letter to the infamous sex offender as "fake news."In 2003,

A year ago, we scrubbed the public record. Here are our updated findings. “It’s all been a hoax that’s perpetrated by the Democrats. And some stupid Republicans and foolish Republicans fall into the net.”

As Trump continues to spar with parts of his political base over his handling of the Epstein files, attention is turning to the relationship between the two men. John Yang speaks with New York Times White House correspondent Luke Broadwater,

Through any number of controversies over the years, President Donald Trump’s modus operandi has been to never give an inch. Steve Bannon calls it Trump’s “fight club mentality,” and it’s certainly more pronounced in his more bare-knuckle second term.