In a previously unreported comment to the now-defunct Maximum Golf magazine, Donald Trump singled out a “young socialite” at his club at Mar-a-Lago by telling a reporter, “there is nothing in the world like first-rate pussy.”
The remark never made its way to print, as a top editor of the magazine forbade the reporter from putting it in the publication. But the former journalist who wrote the article, Michael Corcoran, and another editor, both confirmed that it was said by Trump as Corcoran followed him around at his Florida golf club for a profile.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
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Trump’s use of the word fits a pattern he exhibited before he found himself at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. In the run-up to the 2016 election, Trump took great pleasure in repeating a comment yelled from a supporter about Ted Cruz. “You’re not allowed to say… She said he’s a pussy! Terrible. Terrible,” he said to an elated crowd. And Tucker Carlson remembers Trump responding to a jab about his hair with the observation, “But I get more pussy than you do.”
As president, however, Trump has sought to downplay or even deny this part of his past. He has reportedly floated the notion that the infamous Access Hollywood tape—which caught him bragging that his stardom allowed him to grope women without their consent—is a fake. Despite a pre-election public apology for the 2005 recording, Trump has backtracked, according to The New York Times. It’s not his voice, the president told a senator. And “Grab ’em by the pussy,” he’s told aides, just does not sound like something he would say.
Trump has also liberally shared allegations of sexual impropriety aimed his political enemies, including executives at NBC, where Matt Lauer was just fired for misconduct. He also called out Democratic Sen. Al Franken for a photo where he appeared to grope a woman.
In 2000, Corcoran was a guest on Trump’s 727 that weekend, and he wasn’t the only one. The article published in Maximum Golf magazine notes Trump had to wait at the marine terminal for now-disgraced pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein and his society gal-pal Ghislaine Maxwell—who have since been accused by dozens of women of running what amounted to a “sex slave” ring. Corcoran, who didn’t know the pair at the time, remembers Trump standing in the doorway of the plane yelling to them, “You broke the cardinal rule, Jeffrey! Never be late for someone else’s plane!”
Though not mentioned in the article, Corcoran now recalls a young woman boarding with them. “I honestly couldn’t guess her age, but she was young made up to look a bit older,” he says, adding that nothing “untoward” happened during the flight.
Trump’s friendship with Epstein isn’t news. Before the mysterious financier was jailed for operating a sexual pyramid scheme where he allegedly paid minors around $200 for sexual massages that included groping and rape, Epstein was a regular at Mar-a-Lago and had, according to a sworn deposition from Epstein’s brother, ferried the future president at least once on his plane. It has never been reported that Trump returned the favor.
“I’ve known Jeff for 15 years,” Trump told New York magazine in 2002, calling Epstein a “terrific guy,” and “a lot of fun to be with.”
“It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side,” Trump said at the time.
The remainder of the Maximum Golf article is an account by Corcoran of a couple of anodyne days with Trump in which the future president brags about the superiority of his properties, takes mulligans freely, waves off a photographer (“I feel fat”), asks his golf buddies whether they like the look of his then-girlfriend Melania (“Is that as good as it gets?”), and throws his club in the water over a missed putt.
At dinner that evening, Corcoran describes Trump scanning the diners on the veranda and a “young socialite” catching his eye, inspiring the vulgar quote.
Corcoran used the quote as the kicker in his piece, but says it was changed by the editor in chief, who replaced the obscenity with the word “talent.”
Joe Bargmann, Corcoran’s editor at Maximum Golf, confirmed Corcoran’s account.
“I was asked to change the last word of the story from ‘pussy.’ When I refused, my top editor changed the quote,” Bargmann told The Daily Beast.
Maximum Golf’s top editor at the time, Michael Caruso, now the editor-in-chief of Smithsonian Magazine, has not responded to requests for comment.
The article ran in Maximum Golf’s August 2000 issue. The magazine was News Corp’s sexy answer to the stodginess of other golf publications. An earlier issue features a 26-year-old Melania Trump (then still Melania Knauss) pouting in a bathtub filled with just enough golf balls to keep the magazine edgy, but on the proper side of the magazine stand.
