Trump Atlantic City Casino Boss Claims President, Epstein Were Best Friends
Posted on: July 17, 2025, 12:50h.
Last updated on: July 17, 2025, 01:04h.
- A Trump critic claims Donald Trump was best friends with Jeffrey Epstein
- Jack O’Donnell was president and COO of Trump Plaza in Atlantic City for four years
- Trump says he barely knew O’Donnell
Trump Plaza in Atlantic City was partially imploded in February 2021, but the many stories the Boardwalk casino resort holds live on, including rumors and gossip regarding the property’s 30-year run.
Jack O’Donnell served as the president and chief operating officer of the Atlantic City resort when Donald Trump owned it. O’Donnell, a frequent critic of his former boss, has regularly appeared on CNN dishing disparaging remarks about the 45th and 47th president of the United States.
During his latest appearance on the cable news outlet, O’Donnell said Wednesday evening that Jeffrey Epstein was among the billionaire’s closest friends in the late 1980s and early 1990s. O’Donnell claims that Epstein was among the businessman’s “best friends.”
He frequently came down to Atlantic City, the two of them, to attend special events,” O’Donnell told CNN’s Erin Burnett. “In my mind, [Epstein] was his best friend.”
O’Donnell worked at Trump Plaza for four years until April 1990, when he quit following a disagreement with the New York and Atlantic City real estate magnate. O’Donnell went to work at Resorts up the Boardwalk before transitioning to a writing career that largely centered on criticizing Trump.
O’Donnell’s full CNN appearance can be found here.
Epstein Allegations
Trump has long acknowledged being at least friendly with Epstein, though he maintains he never visited the financier’s private island in the Caribbean, where many of the child sex offenses occurred. Trump has never been charged in connection to Epstein, but O’Donnell maintains his relationship with the convicted child sex offender, who reportedly died by suicide in a federal prison in August 2019, is much more than what the president has let on.
I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you,” Trump said in the Oval Office in 2019. In 2002, however, long before Epstein’s nefarious life came to light, Trump said Epstein was “a terrific guy, a lot of fun to be with.”
O’Donnell says Trump is trying to rewrite history. The Trump critic says one early Sunday morning in the late 1980s, the future president and Epstein entered the Trump Plaza casino floor with three women who state gaming regulators believed weren’t old enough to be in the gaming area.
I asked them [gaming commission officials] how they knew that. One of them was the No. 3 tennis player in the world, and this guy happened to be a tennis fan. He said, ‘Jack, I know she’s 19 years old,'” O’Donnell said.
“To get on a helicopter with a friend and three other people and fly down to Atlantic City… I mean, you can connect the dots. At 1:30 in the morning,” O’Donnell said.
Trump Refutes Relationships
Along with O’Donnell claiming Trump has downplayed his relationship with Epstein, the president has downplayed his relationship with O’Donnell.
After O’Donnell published his book, “Trumped!” in May 1991, Trump said he “met the guy two or three times total. And this guy goes off and writes a book about me, like he knows me.”
“He’s a f***ing loser,” the future president continued. “I brought the guy in to work for me. It turns out he didn’t know that much about what he was doing.”
Last Comments ( 3 )
It took frump 4 years to realize his casino president didn't know anything about running a casino?
Now I need a proofreader. What l meant is I wouldn't trust anything Trump says about anything.
Given Trump's well known proclivity for lying, I would anything he says about anything.