Donald Trump was excited for his historic second visit to the U.K. until the specter of his old friend Jeffrey Epstein came to haunt him, the president’s biographer said.
In a Wednesday episode of the Daily Beast podcast Inside Trump’s Head, author Michael Wolff said Trump was privately upset that Peter Mandelson, the British ambassador to the U.K., was fired by Prime Minister Keir Starmer over ties to Epstein just days ahead of his royal visit.
“Trump, who has had enormous difficulties principally escaping the Jeffrey Epstein story, was looking for this trip and his appearances with the royal family and this white tie dinner that the king is throwing for him to overshadow his problems,” Wolff told host Joanna Coles. “The difficulty he has run into is that last week the prime minister fired the U.K. ambassador to Washington, Peter Mandelson.”
Mandelson got sacked days after a bombshell Bloomberg report revealed the extent of his steadfast support for Epstein.
A day before Epstein turned himself into a Florida jail in 2008 to serve time for soliciting sex from a minor, Mandelson wrote him an email, obtained by the outlet, that read: “I think the world of you and I feel hopeless and furious about what has happened. I can still barely understand it. It just could not happen in Britain.”
The never-before-seen trove of emails was piled on top of Mandelson’s photos and handwritten notes to Epstein, which were part of a now-infamous book put together for the late sex offender’s 50th birthday.
“So Peter Mandelson got hoisted on that and he was fired, plunging Donald Trump into something of a rage with Keir Starmer,” Wolff said. “Because Trump went around saying to aides, you know, ‘Why couldn’t they wait until after the trip? This is just going to remind people of Epstein and then Epstein, Epstein, Epstein.’”
The U.K. Foreign Office said Mandelson was terminated after the emails showed the “depth and extent” of his relationship with Epstein, which it said was “materially different from that known at the time of his appointment.”
“Had I known then what I know now, I’d have never appointed him,” Starmer said.
The White House did not immediately return a request for comment. Administration officials refused to say whether Trump would bring up Mandelson’s firing or suggest a new ambassador during his meeting with Starmer, according to CNN.
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung has previously called Wolff “a lying sack of s—t” who “has been proven to be a fraud.”“He routinely fabricates stories originating from his sick and warped imagination, only possible because he has a severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his peanut-sized brain,” he previously told the Beast.
Trump has been trying to shake off the ghost of Epstein since their years-long friendship generated intense public scrutiny, most recently after the Wall Street Journal and Democrats in the House Oversight Committee published a sexually suggestive letter the president allegedly wrote for the convicted sex offender’s 50th birthday. Trump has denied authoring the letter.
Protesters in the U.K. were determined not to let Trump forget about his old pal, who died in jail in 2019.
A day before Trump landed in London, protesters unfurled a massive banner of him with Epstein.
As British officials welcomed the American president to the U.K. on Tuesday night, the iconic Windsor Castle became the backdrop for images of Trump and Epstein.
The following morning, a van displaying images of Trump and Epstein drove around the town of Windsor.
British officials and royalty, on the other hand, were equally intent on lavishing Trump with pomp and pageantry to appease the Anglophile in him.
Britain pulled out all the stops for Trump, treating him to a massive gun salute and a carriage procession through Windsor Great Park. King Charles and Queen Camilla, as well as Prince William and Princess Kate, showed Trump and his wife, Melania, around.
Wolff said Trump’s visit was also an opportunity for Starmer to redeem himself after a flurry of scandals that have sent his popularity into a nosedive, including the firing of Mandelson and the resignation of Angela Rayner as deputy prime minister.
The U.S. and U.K. agreed to a $42 billion technology pact to boost cooperation in AI, quantum computing, and civil nuclear energy.
“Keir Starmer wants to come out and say, this is what I’ve got. And I’ve bowed down to Donald Trump,” the biographer said.
“The problem with Trump is that he gives and he takes and he gives and then he forgets that he’s given you something, and it has no consistency, no staying power,” Wolff went on. “I’d say that they are playing a game here, that the Labour government is playing a game that they’re, in the end, not going to get much of a return.”