In short
The episode claims Ivana Trump’s death and burial were “ghoulish,” revisits alleged circumstances of her July 14, 2022 death, and links her to Epstein/Maxwell, alleged KGB/secret-police connections, and FBI counterintelligence inquiries.
Guest backgrounds
No podcast guests are identified in the transcript.
Key claims
Ivana died after a fall down spiral stairs; NYC medical examiner ruled blunt impact injuries and “accidental.” The episode alleges Ivana appeared in “Epstein files,” was close to Ghislaine Maxwell, and had connections to Czechoslovak and Russian intelligence via her father Milo Zelnik. It also repeats an account from Harry Hurt’s Trump biography alleging Donald Trump raped Ivana during their marriage, which Trump denies.
Notable examples
Bedminster burial location “behind the first tee”; FBI/Bloomberg excerpts about counterintelligence inquiry; a 1987 KGB-sponsored trip; Maria Farmer describing Ivana as Maxwell’s “best friend.”
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOIvana Trump: Life and Death
4:33 to 5:56
An exploration of Ivana Trump's mysterious death and its implications.
“Ivana Trump, Donald Trump's first wife and the mother of Eric, Don Jr., and Ivanka.”
Allegations and Assault
5:56 to 10:22
Discussing allegations of assault involving Ivana and Donald Trump.
“You'll remember the scene where then her alleged casket was moved and then it was transferred to Bedminster.”
Ivana's Statement and Aftermath
10:22 to 12:28
A look at Ivana's statements regarding her marriage and the ensuing fallout.
“She later describes what the Donald is doing to her in no uncertain terms.”
Ivana's Impact and Legacy
12:28 to 14:06
Reflections on Ivana's life and her father's influence on her.
“I wish to say that on one occasion during 1989, Mr.”
Ivana's Trauma and Its Impact
14:06 to 15:05
Explore Ivana Trump's reflections on her divorce from Donald and its emotional toll.
“Here's a video of Ivana talking about how the divorce from Donald in 1990 or so was so traumatic for her and her father that that's potentially one of the reasons that her dad died of a heart attack, she says.”
Donald Trump's Reflections on Marriage
15:06 to 17:57
Donald discusses his regrets about having Ivana work in his businesses and its effects on their marriage.
“When I interviewed him last year, Donald said he regretted having had Ivana run his Atlantic City casinos and the Plaza Hotel.”
Ivana's Connection to Czechoslovakian Intelligence
17:58 to 19:16
Discussion on Ivana Trump's alleged connections with Czechoslovakian spies and the FBI's investigations.
“The inquiry spans several countries with U.S.”
Ivana's Final Days and Controversial Connections
19:17 to 21:05
Delve into Ivana's relationships with Ghislaine Maxwell and their implications.
“Then victims of Ghislaine, victims of Jeffrey Epstein, describe Ghislaine as being very close friends with Ivana.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Drama, romance, competition, chaos. Welcome to Reality TV with Hulu on Disney +, featuring the hottest reality TV every day. Turn on larger-than-life docu-soaps, like Season 4 of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, and the hit new series Love Thy Nader, featuring superstar model Brooks Nader and her sisters. Obsess over the seasons of iconic dating shows like Love Island UK and Farmer Wants a Wife. Get hooked on irresistible food competitions like MasterChef. Dive into hit game shows like Celebrity Family Feud. And revel in show-stopping fashion competitions, including the one and only Project Runway.
0:40It's the very best of reality TV. Every single day, all in one place. Every tear. Every triumph. Every jaw-dropping twist. This is where reality lives. This is where Hulu gets real. Stream now on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply. Drama, romance, competition, chaos. Welcome to Reality TV with Hulu on Disney Plus. Featuring the hottest reality TV every day. Turn on larger-than-life docu-soaps, like Season 4 of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and the hit new series Love Thy Nader, featuring superstar model Brooks Nader and her sisters. Obsess over the seasons of iconic dating shows like Love Island UK and Farmer Wants a Wife Get hooked on irresistible food competitions like MasterChef Dive into hit game shows like Celebrity Family Feud And revel in show-stopping fashion competitions, including the one and only Project Runway It's the very best of reality TV Every single day, all in one place Every tear, every triumph, every jaw-dropping twist This is where reality lives.
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2:32Drama, romance, competition, chaos. Welcome to Reality TV with Hulu on Disney +, featuring the hottest reality TV every day. Turn on larger-than-life docu-soaps like Season 4 of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and the hit new series Love Thy Nader featuring superstar model Brooks Nader and her sisters. Obsess over the seasons of iconic dating shows like Love Island UK and Farmer Wants a Wife. Get hooked on irresistible food competitions like MasterChef. Dive into hit game shows like Celebrity Family Food and revel in show-stopping fashion competitions including the one and only Project Runway.
3:12It's the very best of reality TV. Every single day, all in one place. Every tear, every triumph, every jaw-dropping twist. This is where reality lives. This is where Hulu gets real. Stream now on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply. Drama, romance, competition, chaos. Welcome to reality TV with Hulu on Disney Plus, featuring the hottest reality TV every day. Turn on larger-than-life docu-soaps like season four of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and the hit new series Love Thy Nader featuring superstar model Brooks Nader and her sisters. Obsess over the seasons of iconic dating shows like Love Island UK and Farmer Wants a Wife.
4:01Get hooked on irresistible food competitions like MasterChef. Dive into hit game shows like celebrity family feud and revel in show-stopping fashion competitions, including the one and only Project Runway. It's the very best of reality TV. Every single day, all in one place. Every tear, every triumph, every jaw-dropping twist. This is where reality lives. This is where Hulu gets real. Stream now on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.
4:34Ben Meiselas:Ivana Trump, Donald Trump's first wife and the mother of Eric, Don Jr., and Ivanka. Well, Ivana is haunting Donald Trump from her grave right now. She is buried in the back lot of Bedminster, where, according to the latest photographs from the Daily Mail, the burial site was surrounded by all of these shrubs and was kind of cast aside. It's just so utterly ghoulish what the Trump family has done to Ivana. But as you'll recall, she died under very mysterious circumstances back on July 14th, 2022. She was found unresponsive in her Upper East Side Manhattan apartment after allegedly falling down a steep set of spiral stairs.
5:26Ben Meiselas:You see right here those spiral stairs, which it's alleged that she was walking down and then slipped and fell. And then paramedics allegedly responded to a call for cardiac arrest around 1230 p.m. and pronounced her dead at the scene. The New York City office of the chief medical examiner ruled the cause of death blunt impact injuries to the torso from the fall. and the matter of death was called accidental. You'll remember the scene where then her alleged casket was moved and then it was transferred to Bedminster. You can see on this map right here where it was buried in Bedminster. It's kind of like right behind the first tee, kind of in like the foresty area.
6:15Ben Meiselas:I mean, again, like just kind of put it aside in that area. But let's talk about what's going down because, you know, her name appeared recently in the Epstein files as well. We know that she was friends with Ghislaine Maxwell. She was described as being close friends with Ghislaine Maxwell. And also, as Donald Trump continues to go out of his way to help Vladimir Putin, there are indeed connections in the form of investigation that was actually taking place. counterintelligence investigations into potential connections of Ivana in Czechoslovakia, where her father was allegedly working in the intelligence services there.
7:01Ben Meiselas:And then Donald Trump and Ivana took a very suspicious trip to Russia in 1987 with a KGB sponsored group, and they were given a tour there. But you take a look at some of these documents from the Epstein files, like this message right here from Hollywood publicist Peggy Seagal to Jeffrey Epstein. This is in 2009 about Donald Trump's ex-wife, Ivana. Here's what this email said that's been surfacing lately. It says, on the way to Club 55 for the last time, it says, saw Ivana Trump last night. She is a shell of the gal she was from all of the booze. Very sad, barely recognizes her friends. Joan Collins holds in court, have to schlep to her mountaintop cabin for cocktails, got out of dinner.
7:58Ben Meiselas:So she's mentioned that way. And then, of course, there is the interview that Donald Trump gave recently with CBS, where I'll just show you what he said after the manifesto surfaced from the individual who they're alleging was the shooter in the D.C. correspondence dinner. I hear it play this clip of what Donald Trump said just to remind you. You're horrible people. Horrible people. Yeah, he did write that. I'm not a rapist. I didn't rape anybody. I'm not a pedophile. Do you think he was referring to you? Excuse me. I'm not a pedophile. You read that crap from some sick person. I got associated with stuff that has nothing to do with me.
8:46Ben Meiselas:I want to give you a trigger warning here. But as Donald Trump said that, you can see what was going on in his mind because The Last Tycoon, a biography of Donald Trump, and it's called The Lost Tycoon, rather, The Many Lives of Donald Trump by Harry Hurt. And here's what was described in this book by Harry Hurt. But again, trigger warning right here. This is about Ivana Trump. Ivana Trump has been relaxing in the master bedroom of the Trump Tower triplex, thinking about the trips you will be going to take to Tahiti. The trip will not just be for a vacation. It has to do with the Donald's business.
9:26Ben Meiselas:Lori Eddis, the widow of late Trump gaming division executive Mark Eddis, will be going with her. Ivana has been hoping the trip will help them get over the tragedy of the helicopter crash. Suddenly, according to Ivana, the Donald storms into the room. He's looking very angry and he's cursing out loud. Your fucking doctor has ruined me, he screams. The Donald flings Ivana down onto the bed. Then he pins back her arms and grabs her by the hair. the part of her head he's grabbing corresponds to the spot in his head where the scalp reduction operation has been done the donald starts ripping out ivana's hair by the handful as if he's trying to make her feel the same kind of pain that he's feeling ivana starts crying and screaming the entire bed is being covered with strands of her golden locks but the donald does not finish he rips off her clothes and unzips his pants then he jams his penis inside her for the first time in more than 16 months.
10:19Ben Meiselas:Ivana is terrified. This is not lovemaking. This is not romantic sex. It is a violent assault. She later describes what the Donald is doing to her in no uncertain terms. According to the version, she repeats to some of her closest confidants, he raped me. When the Donald finally pulls out, Ivana jumps up from the bed, then she runs upstairs to her mother's room. She locks the door and stays there crying for the rest of the night. The next morning, Ivana musters up the courage to return to the master bedroom that Donald is there waiting for her. He leaves no doubt that he knows exactly what he did to her the night before.
10:53Ben Meiselas:As she looks in horror at the ripped out hair scatter all over the bed, he glares at her and asks with a menacing casualness, does it hurt? On April 7, 1993, when the first printing of The Lost Tycoon was awaiting shipment, the publisher who had met with Donald Trump and his lawyers on March 3rd received the following communication from Donald Trump's lawyers. The statement by Ivana Trump does not contradict or invalidate any information contained in this book, and it is included here only to give full expression to differing points of view on an important event. Let me just share with you what Harry Hurt says himself, so you don't have to hear it from me.
11:29Ben Meiselas:This was the Trump biographer, and here's what he says, and then he reads the statement from Ivana after this was published. year play this clip he comes in in a rage and starts pulling avana's hair and then according to her sworn deposition testimony in their divorce uh he raped me she said uh she was so um this is according to her deposition sworn under oath during the divorce case he raped me he raped me at this point she is terrified she runs out of the room runs down the hall to her mother's room and locks the door behind her, stays up crying all night. The next morning, again, according to her testimony, she comes creeping out of the thing, sees him, and he goes, Did it hurt?
12:20The subsequent divorce settlement included a gagging order preventing Ivana from publicly discussing their marriage. When Hurt's book was published, it included a statement from Ivana. I wish to say that on one occasion during 1989, Mr. Trump and I had marital relations in which he behaved very differently towards me than he had during our marriage. As a woman, I felt violated as the love and tenderness which he normally exhibited towards me was absent. I refer to this as a rape, but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense. Trump denies this story and more recently Ivana has described it as being totally without merit did he ever threaten to sue you over the publication of those details no he did not there was nothing they could could say because it was sworn testimony by Ivana beyond the just the sexual particulars here it is evidence to me of a very unstable personality that's been unstable for a very, very long time.
13:29And this isn't someone whose hand should be on the nuclear football. It's just quite that simple, I think.
13:35Ben Meiselas:Now, I want to share this with you as well. This is Ivana before. This was kind of shortly before she died under these mysterious circumstances. Let's play it. The old life? Life with Donald? I don't, no. Nothing really changed. I have a beautiful home here. I have a spectacular apartment in Miami. I have 300-year-old fisherman houses in harbor of the Saint-Tropez. What more can I have? Here's a video of Ivana talking about how the divorce from Donald in 1990 or so was so traumatic for her and her father that that's potentially one of the reasons that her dad died of a heart attack, she says. Here, play this clip.
14:24In the same year, Ivana lost the other most important man in her life when her father died suddenly of a heart attack. I was a little bit numb and maybe that helped me also when my father passed away because I just, I just cannot get any worse. It just has to get better. You say in the book you thought the divorce perhaps contributed to your father's heart condition. I just know that my father was devastated and my father was humiliated because, you know, I was his pride and joy in his life. I know that he took it very hard. It's just unfortunate it did happen at the time when I didn't need him most.
15:01How did you compensate for that, Ivana? You don't. As for her ex, Donald's new life now includes Marla, baby Tiffany, and reflections on why it is not a good idea to put your wife to work for you. When I interviewed him last year, Donald said he regretted having had Ivana run his Atlantic City casinos and the Plaza Hotel. I think that was the single greatest cause of what happened to my marriage with Ivana. If I look at it now, I think it was a terrible idea. Ivana would get angry at somebody over the telephone all of a sudden who was at the casino. And she'd start shouting. and I'd say, I don't want my wife shouting at somebody like that.
15:48Well, you know, if you go into work and if you have 4 ,500 employees and the vice president, you cannot be a little pussycat. There was a great softness to Ivana, and she still has that softness. But during this period of time, she became an executive, not a wife. Suddenly the whole romance and whole evening goes because, you know, you're talking business And you're talking about has to be done and repaired and this rather than being romantic with each other.
16:16Ben Meiselas:And here was Donald Trump and Ivana on Oprah. You can see how Donald Trump treated her on Oprah. Here play this clip. You all argue? Yes. Yes. But not greatly. I'll tell you truthfully, we don't have tremendous fights. We should have world record setting fights, but we really don't. We get along very well. And there's not a lot of disagreement because ultimately, Ivana does exactly as I tell her to do. You see, wait a minute. Stop in it. Right, right, man. Is that right?
16:52Ben Meiselas:Then there's this from The Guardian. Czechoslovakia ramped up spying on Trump in the late 1980s. The Communist Intelligence Service in Prague stepped up its spying campaign against Donald Trump in the late 1980s, targeting him to gain information about the upper echelons of the U.S. government. It goes and talks about how the Czechoslovakian secret police carry out a long-term spying mission against Trump following his marriage in 1977 to his first wife, Ivana. It talks about Ivana's father, Milo Zelnik, gave regular information to the local secret police about his daughter's visits from the U.S.
17:29Ben Meiselas:on his celebrity son-in-law's career in New York. Zelnik was classified as a conspiratorial informer. His relationship with the secret police lasted until the end of the communist regime. And it talks about how there was lots of Russian spying on Trump and Ivana through Ivana's dad, it was alleged. Here's a photo of Donald Trump and Ivana in their visit on a KGB-sponsored trip back in 1987. Then going to this Bloomberg article from 2023, FBI releases secret files on Ivana Trump. Donald Trump's first wife, Ivana, was under FBI counterintelligence inquiry into allegations about her connections in her home country of Czechoslovakia in the 1990s, according to excerpts from her FBI file obtained by Bloomberg.
18:18Ben Meiselas:The inquiry spans several countries with U.S. legal attaches in Canada and Europe, instructed to inquire about the circumstances of her immigration from then communist Czechoslovakia to Austria, and then later to Canada, and then to look into her associations with individuals associated with the KGB and with secret police there as well. And then I'll leave you with this also, two more facts. Ivana's townhouse where she died recently sold for$14 million after a$12.5 million price cut. Property records show the opulent Upper East Side townhouse sold on February 27th for$14 million. It's a$12.5 million price cut from the original$26.5 million that they were selling it for.
19:09Ben Meiselas:And again, I just think about how ghoulish it was that the Trump family buried her in the back lot of Ben Minster. And you can get right behind that first tee, like right in the tree area, the area of the trees. It's so utterly disgusting. Then victims of Ghislaine, victims of Jeffrey Epstein, describe Ghislaine as being very close friends with Ivana. So in terms of what Ghislaine knows as Ghislaine's positioning for a pardon, here, play this clip of one of Epstein and Ghislaine's victim survivor, Maria Farmer. Here, play this clip. Ivana Trump was like her best friend. And with Ivana. Yeah, with Ivana then, yeah, describe that, you know, she'd be there.
19:55That was creepy. So at the time, Ivana had this, she was doing QVC, selling jewelry, right, online. I mean, on TV, she was like a QVC queen named Donald Trump. And Donald Trump was always hanging out with Epstein, and Ivana was always hanging out with G-Lan. Right. And Ivana would, she would say, we're going to go pick up Ivana or Ivana's going to come. And we'd ride in the car with her. And I remember one occasion where Ghislaine's like, I have to get out right now. And she went and got a number from a child. And I saw her in a uniform. Yeah. Everybody knew what they were doing. Everybody who surrounded them knew exactly what they were doing.
20:43and how often if did you go for rides often with her and ivana and would she would she pick up girls all the time yeah she didn't bring them in the car she would get their phone numbers right but she would drive by schools right so as they got out so would she and what's ivana doing at this point. It's sitting in the car. And I'll never forget, because one day I was really weirded out by what had happened. I was really weirded out. So, I'm sorry, my phone's beeping in, just give it a second. But anyway, I've got to go in a second, but I just wanted to tell you, I was weirded out when they were driving around with this.
21:27So Guilanda shut me up, gave me one of those cheap bracelets Ivana was selling on QVC, and said, Ivana wants you to have this. And I threw it in the garbage.
21:37Ben Meiselas:Well, there you have it, folks. Let me know what you think about all of this. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million. And thanks for watching.
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From the publisher
MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports in this investigate video about Ivana haunting Donald about his dark past and his conduct that he doesn’t want the world to know about.
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