Ivana Trump's Legacy Casts a Shadow Over Trump's Birthday

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2:27Ben Meiselas:Ivana Trump, Donald Trump's first wife, is haunting him from the grave. She's buried in Bedminster in the back lot of one of Donald Trump's golf courses. She died under very mysterious circumstances in July 2022. She was relatively healthy, but she fell down steps purportedly in July 2022 of her New York City townhouse. She was then quickly buried in the back lot of one of Donald Trump's golf courses. How ghoulish. And she was buried in an area under bushes and grass in an area that fell under disrepair. Again, how ghoulish. She obviously knew a lot about Donald Trump's dark past, and she made very serious accusations against Donald Trump about things that Donald Trump did to her.

3:11Ben Meiselas:And she made these statements under oath in a deposition that she gave in connection with divorce proceedings. She got divorced from Donald Trump. Donald Trump had affairs while they were married, and she gave a deposition where she gave this testimony about Donald Trump. Now, how is this connected to what's happening right now, and how is it haunting Donald Trump? Well, a Situation Room emergency meeting was held by J.D. Vance, not once, but multiple times where Donald Trump's dark past has been addressed in connection with the release of the Epstein files. A New York Times expose bombshell talked about this meeting.

3:52Ben Meiselas:According to sources who were there, whether that source is J.D. Vance or people close to J.D. Vance or other sources there, maybe Dan Bongino or sources close to Dan Bongino, J.D. Vance's position was Donald Trump has such a sick and dark past to begin with. why would we withhold anything in the Epstein files as bad as these files are? They're not worse than what Donald Trump did in the past, or it will just be noise, J.D. Pence argued, because Donald Trump's past is already filled with sickening accusations. It's already filled with Donald Trump being found civilly liable for sexual assault.

4:29Ben Meiselas:So just release everything, and then we can all just deny everything. And then you had people like Susie Wiles, Donald Trump's chief of staff and others saying, no, we can't release that. And there were very serious, as you now know, because this came out, accusations against Donald Trump that were in the Epstein files and a lot that's still being covered up by the Trump regime. And you had people in the White House who were saying, release it all. You had people saying, hide it. And thankfully, because Democrats worked with some Republicans like Thomas Massey and others, these files were able to be released.

5:04Ben Meiselas:And Donald Trump still covering up a lot about what's in those files. And to think about Donald Trump's dark past continuing to haunt him, especially as he heads to his 80th birthday right now, certainly front and center on his mind is his dark past regarding Ivana. Now, I want to give you some data points here as well. And the first thing I want to share with you is what she said in her deposition, because it's absolutely sickening. This comes from a book about Ivana, and I will read to you what is in this right now. The book is called The Last Tycoon, and here's what it says. Ivana Trump has been relaxing in the master bedroom of the Trump Tower triplex, thinking about the trip she will be going to take to Tahiti.

5:54Ben Meiselas:This is when she was married to Donald Trump. The trip will not just be for a vacation. It has to do with Donald's business. Lauren Ettes, the widow of the late Trump gaming division executive, Mark Ettes, 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 onto the bed. Then he pins back her arms and grabs her by her hair. The part of her head he is grabbing corresponds to the spot in his head where the scalp reduction operation has been done.

6:30Ben Meiselas: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 is 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. 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 some of her closest confidence.

6:59Ben Meiselas:He raped me. When the Donald finally pulls out, Ivana jumps up from 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. The Donald is there waiting for her. He leaves no doubt that he knows exactly what he did to her the night before. As she looks in horror at the ripped out hair scattered all over the bed, he glares at her and asks with menacing casualness, does it hurt? On April 7th, 1993, when the first printing of The Lost Tycoon, that's this book that I just read from you, was awaiting shipment.

7:33Ben Meiselas: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 the differing points of views on an important event. Statement of Ivana Trump. During a deposition given by me in connection with my matrimonial case, I stated that my husband had raped me. I wish to say that on one occasion during 1989, Mr. Trump and I had marital relations in which he behaved very differently toward me than he had during our marriage.

8:06Ben Meiselas:As a woman, I felt violated as the love and tenderness which he normally exhibited toward 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. Any contrary conclusion would be an incorrect and most unfortunate interpretation of my statement, which I do not want to be interpreted in a speculative fashion. I do not want the media to misconstrue it. I want to also talk about other aspects of Donald Trump and Ivana's dark past right here. Go to the art of the deal, page 364, especially now with Trump being such a Putin bootlicker. This fascinated me.

8:43Ben Meiselas:In January, 1987, I got a letter from Yuri Dubin and the Soviet ambassador to the United States that began. It is a pleasure for me to relay some good news from Moscow. Went on to say the leading Soviet state agency for international tourism. The Gaskiman tourist has expressed interest in pursuing a joint venture to construct and manage a hotel in Moscow. On July 4th, I flew with Ivana, her assistant, Lisa Calandra and Norma to Moscow. It was extraordinary experience. We toured a half dozen potential sites for a hotel, including several near Red Square. We stayed in Lenin Suite at the National Hotel.

9:19Ben Meiselas:And I was impressed with the ambition of the Soviet officials to make a deal. Or how about the fact that Czechoslovakia ramped up spying on Donald Trump in the late 1980s, seeking US intel, Czechoslovakia at the time, obviously, in the Soviet bloc. It was believed that Ivana's father was a member of the secret police there and reported back a lot to Soviets about Donald Trump's whereabouts. Yes, Russia, Russia, Russia. And so you have that going on as well. Additional data points too. Remember what she also knew. Trump kept Hitler's speeches by his bed, resurfaced, Ivana interview revealed. She talked about how Donald Trump kept Hitler interviews around.

10:05Ben Meiselas:Now, I want to share this with you as well. I'll share with you this data point when this is just, I'll play the B-roll right here, Ivana Trump's alleged casket arriving in New York church for her funeral service in July 20th, 2022. And now I'll show you this video right here, which I find fascinating, which was as people, as they were leaving the church for her funeral ceremony, the Trump family seemed to like pose, like let the casket go away, where it was eventually buried in Bedminster. And it seemed like they were using it as an opportunity in 2022 to like just pose, like they did like a stage photograph.

10:45Ben Meiselas:As I said, how ghoulish and how weird. Let me just show this for you. Let's play this clip right here. There you go.

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11:04Please, you're hitting me with your legs. Stop it.

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13:02Ben Meiselas:And now I'll just give you a few more data points. Right before Ivana died, this was an interview that she gave where she talked about her life. And, you know, you look at her right over here and you go, wow, she died shortly after this interview. I'll show you this clip. Let's play it. Do you miss the old life? 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 a 300-year-old fisherman houses in harbor of the Saint-Tropez. What more can I have? And to remind you how Donald Trump would treat Ivana publicly, here's an interview that they gave when they were on Oprah together.

13:45Ben Meiselas:Let's play it. Do you all argue? Yes. Yes, yes, but not not greatly. I'll tell you truthfully, we don't have 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. I'm going to show them it. Right. Right, man. Is that right?

14:14Ben Meiselas:And here's an interview that Ivana gave about her marriage to Donald Trump. And this kind of talk sums up what their relationship was like. Here, play this clip. But she didn't just lose her husband. In 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, it 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, his pride and joy in his life.

14:55I know that he took it very hard. It's just unfortunate it did happen at the time when I didn't need him most. How 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.

15:41And she'd start shouting. and I'd say I don't want my wife shouting at somebody like that well you know if you go into work and if you have four and a half thousand employees and the vice president you cannot be 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 what has to be done and repaired and this rather than being romantic with each other.

16:16Ben Meiselas:Now, even Megyn Kelly, a Donald Trump former bootlicker turned Trump critic right now in 2026. Here's what she had to say. Let's play this clip. Talk about a glass house. I mean, Trump has cheated on every wife he's had. He met Marla while he was still married to the mother of his children, Ivana. It was all over the New York papers. I'm from New York, upstate New York, but I was in New York when this all went down the city. And he was like being touted, like he was proud of the affair. It was all over the papers. So, and by the way, Ivana, his first wife accused him of raping her. She alleged in her first book that he was so angry over the hair transplant he got that she made him get, it was so painful that he raped her.

17:07And she later retracted that when he ran for president. But that stood on the books for some time. I don't know whether that's true or not. I'm just saying, clearly not a great relationship there. And then he winds up with Melania. And, you know, if you think Trump's been faithful to Melania, okay, that's great. You got bigger issues than I can solve here. But so the nerve, like the nerve for him to be judging somebody else's marriage or love relationships or choices, it just shows you like he's got chutzpah, I guess is the word for it, like beyond. And it was really inappropriate. No, it was wrong.

17:47What he said was wrong on many levels.

17:50Ben Meiselas:And then I would be remiss if I didn't mention this as well. Epstein victim Maria Farmer said that Ivana Trump was Ghislaine Maxwell's best friend. Of course, Ghislaine Maxwell being in the news a lot lately as well, as a lot of the reporting from the New York Times expose is, what do we do about Ghislaine? Ghislaine knew through Ivana all of the things that Donald Trump was engaged in. So, Ivana, Ghislaine were best friends, okay? And part of moving Ghislaine into this Camp Bryan facility is she knew a lot of secrets that Ivana told her. Here's a reminder of what Maria Farmer said about Ivana Trump.

18:30Ben Meiselas:Let's play. And Maria Farmer is one of Epstein's survivors, victims. Let's play it. Ivana Trump was like her best friend. And with Ivana. Yeah, with Ivana then, yeah. Describe that, you know, she'd be there. That 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 Ghislaine. Right. And Ivana, 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.

19:16And she went and got a number from a child, and I saw. and a uniform yeah and everybody knew what they were doing every body who surrounded them knew exactly what they were doing and how often if did you go for rides often with her and even 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 you know what is sitting in the car and i'll never forget because they went one day i was really weirded out by what had happened i was really weirded out so 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.

20:13I was weirded out when they were driving around with this. So 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.

20:26Ben Meiselas:There you have it, folks. Let me know what you think about all of this. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million subscribers. Thank you for watching.

20:43you