A newly promoted TMZ documentary has brought the Epstein-Trump “white trash” anecdote back into circulation. William Mersey says Jeffrey Epstein told him the story while both men were imprisoned at Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Center in 2019, shortly before Epstein’s death.
The clip may be new. The claim is not.
What Mersey says Epstein told him
Mersey said he asked Epstein for an anecdote that captured the essence of Donald Trump. According to his account, Epstein described a private jet, a French woman and a proposed stop in Atlantic City.
Epstein allegedly said he rejected the stop because Atlantic City was full of “white trash.” Trump then supposedly defined the term as someone like himself, but without money.
The Daily Beast reported that Mersey, a writer and journalist, was serving time for tax fraud from January 3 to November 18, 2019. Mersey said he monitored Epstein while Epstein was on suicide watch and spent considerable time talking with him. Epstein died in the jail on August 10, 2019.
TMZ reported in May 2026 that Mersey remains convinced Epstein died by suicide, saying the financier lost hope after a judge denied him bail.
Where the story appeared before
A version of Mersey’s account was already public by 2020. Kirkus Reviews included it while covering Barry Levine’s book The Spider, which examined Epstein’s network and relationships.
An almost identical story appeared even earlier in Michael Wolff’s 2018 book Fire and Fury. That version involved Trump travelling with an unnamed billionaire friend and a foreign model. It did not clearly identify the billionaire as Epstein, an attribution difference that matters when a second-hand anecdote is being treated as revealing evidence.
Wolff later presented Epstein as the person who told the story on his Fire and Fury podcast. The anecdote has therefore accumulated several published versions and narrators. That is not the same as accumulating independent confirmation.
TMZ’s documentary, TMZ Studios Presents Jeffrey Epstein: The Devil’s Rolodex, adds footage of Mersey recounting the exchange. It does not turn the underlying claim into a newly discovered episode.
Why Trump’s break with Epstein remains disputed
The White House told TMZ that Trump expelled Epstein from Mar-a-Lago because he was a “creep.” Trump supplied a more specific explanation in July 2025, saying Epstein repeatedly hired spa employees away from the Florida club. The Associated Press reported both accounts.
Those explanations are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but the public record has not reconciled them. In 2019, Trump said he had not spoken to Epstein in approximately 15 years and added that he was “not a fan.”
TMZ also said Epstein shifted during his conversation with Mersey to a story about former President Bill Clinton, although its accompanying report did not provide enough detail to assess that allegation. Clinton told House investigators in February 2026 that he “did nothing wrong,” would have reported Epstein if he had known about his crimes and ended contact before Epstein’s misconduct became public.
