Trump laughingly agreed with being called a 'sexual predator' on 'Howard Stern Show'
@LongTimeHistory/X
Claim:
A video authentically shows U.S. President Donald Trump jocularly mouthing the words "It's true" or "That's true" after someone says he's a sexual predator during a 2006 appearance on "The Howard Stern Show."
Rating:
Rating: True
A rumor that circulated online in July 2025 claimed a video showed U.S. President Donald Trump jocularly mouthing the words "It's true" or "That's true" after someone says he's a sexual predator during a 2006 appearance on "The Howard Stern Show."
Users shared the old clip from the longtime SiriusXM satellite radio show amid renewed interest in Trump's connections to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Trump's past filled with numerous women alleging sexual impropriety on his part, and authentic pictures and a video showing Trump with the deceased financier, as well as more photos of Trump with Epstein's associate, convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In a magazine article from 2002, Trump called Epstein a "terrific guy," and added, "It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side."
As an example of users sharing the video, on July 15, an X user posted (archived) the clip with the imprinted caption, "Trump says, 'That's true,' when accused of being a sexual predator on Howard Stern, 2006." The post received more than 1 million views, and featured a text caption asking of Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., also present for the interview, "What exactly is so funny about your dad being a sexual predator?" The end of the video displays the words, "He literally muttered the words 'that's true,'" then shows a zoomed-in view of Trump allegedly making the remark.
Who needs the Epstein files? — Trump admitted to being a sexual predator on camera.
HOST: Donald, seriously, you know about sexual predators and things like that?
TRUMP: Right.
HOST: You are one!
TRUMP: That’s true.
Trump makes his confession sitting next to Ivanka & Don Jr. —… pic.twitter.com/0wiub5e3Qi
— LongTime🤓FirstTime👨💻 (@LongTimeHistory) July 15, 2025
Some users expressed skepticism about the video's authenticity, including mentions of potential artificial-intelligence manipulation. However an examination of the evidence confirmed the clip as genuine, and that no one altered it with AI or video editing software.
The clip, taken from a half-hour interview filled with jokes, shows Trump smiling, mildly laughing and quietly mouthing the words "It's true" or "That's true." Stern then laughingly repeats Trump's remark as "It's true." The larger context surrounding this moment in the interview appears later in this story.
Snopes emailed the White House to ask about the years-old video. White House spokesperson Harrison Fields responded by asking for our deadline. We shared our deadline but did not receive a response by that given time on the following day. We will update this story if we receive more information.
Full audio recording of Stern-Trump interview
Thanks to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine website, the audio recording from the radio show's episode remains available via an archived capture of the trumponstern.com website. The pertinent part of the conversation begins at around the 22:40 mark. Also, the Fourble.co.uk website includes a link to the full episode labeled "33. 022706-cf (44.9Mb)," with the relevant moment starting at the 2:12:22 mark.
Further, while the Inside Edition YouTube channel features a report (archived) about the video with an Oct. 14, 2016, upload date, they presented the pertinent part of the conversation, beginning at the 0:19 mark, with out-of-sync audio. People magazine also published an article, also archived by the Wayback Machine, about the clip on the same day, noting that Trump was "apparently saying, 'That's true. That's true.'" As of July 2025, that story no longer appears on the People.com website.
We found another clip from the interview but did not locate a video showing the full conversation or episode.
The context of the 2006 conversation
On Feb. 27, 2006, Trump, along with Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., sat for an interview filled with jokes and laughs in Stern's New York studio, to promote that same evening's fifth-season premiere of their reality TV series, "The Apprentice." In the latter half of the interview, Stern asked Ivanka Trump, then 24, about her dating life, including her former relationship with film producer James "Bingo" Gubelmann. Stern also repeatedly pressed Donald Trump on whether he liked Gubelmann, to which Trump responded by calling him a "nice guy."
The interview continued with Stern believing Trump disliked Gubelmann, before going into the moment when Stern asked Trump about the dangers of women encountering sexual predators:
STERN: And you didn't give into [Gubelmann] … you didn't give into him sexually, I hope? You did not give into him sexually?
IVANKA TRUMP: (talking as if smiling) Of course not, Howard.
STERN: Good.
IVANKA TRUMP: Of course not.
STERN: You're still a virgin, I assume?
IVANKA TRUMP: Of course.
ARTIE LANGE: Hey Howard?
STERN: Donald, do you ever discuss sex with your daughter?
DONALD TRUMP: No.
STERN: You do not?
DONALD TRUMP: No.
STERN: You've never sat her down …
IVANKA TRUMP: (laughing) And I have a feeling we're not going to here.
STERN: Well, maybe we need to bring this up. Donald, seriously … you, you, you know about sexual predators and things like that, I mean …?
DONALD TRUMP: Right.
ROBIN QUIVERS: You are one!
(room erupts into laughter)
STERN: All right, that, I wasn't going to say that, but uh …
(Trump mouths the words "It's true" or "That's true" toward Ivanka)
STERN: (laughing and repeating Trump's remark) "It's true."
(Quivers laughing loudly)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Oh my God.
STERN: But I mean, seriously, that's an uncomfortable topic for you, as a father?
DONALD TRUMP: Yeah, I think so. I mean, the kids probably know more about it than I do anyway when you get right down to it.
STERN: Yeah.
DONALD TRUMP: But they've been good kids. They've been always hardworking. They've gotten tremendous marks in schools, and no matter where they went. And you know, I'm very proud of them, and now they're in business with me. Don has been in longer. He's doing a fantastic job. Ivanka just came in recently.
The reposted radio show clip circulated at a time of high tensions in summer 2025, in the weeks after tech billionaire Elon Musk, former adviser to Trump, alleged, without providing evidence, that the president appears in damning, undisclosed files associated with Epstein's acts. "That is the real reason why they have not been made public," Musk added, before deleting the post.
Then, in early July 2025, the Department of Justice and FBI announced in a memorandum that no Epstein "client list" existed, despite Attorney General Pam Bondi claiming on Fox News in February 2025 that it was on her desk for review. After the memo's release, Bondi sought to clarify her earlier remarks, claiming "on my desk" simply referenced a general file related to Epstein, and not a "client list."
Trump also called Epstein a "creep" and even slammed some of his own supporters as "stupid" for allegedly falling for an unspecified "hoax" involving Epstein's case that he said was "perpetrated by the Democrats." However, Trump himself said in a June 2024 interview, "I would," to the question of releasing documents related to Epstein's case. Vice President JD Vance, as well as others appointed by Trump, also previously stressed the importance of releasing the Epstein case files.
For further reading, a previous fact check examined whether Stern lost nearly 1 million subscribers after a 2024 interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Sources:
Adams, Char. "'That's True!' Donald Trump Laughs Off Being Called a 'Sexual Predator' in 2006 Howard Stern Interview." Internet Archive Wayback Machine, People.com, 14 Oct. 2016, https://web.archive.org/web/20170625085417/http://people.com/politics/thats-true-donald-trump-laughs-off-being-called-a-sexual-predator-in-2006-howard-stern-interview/.
Anderson, Curt. "Prosecutors Want to Meet Victims of Sex Offender Epstein." The Associated Press, 11 May 2019, https://apnews.com/general-news-5dd7ef9c0ddb4b35ab0e5b1cdef9d4a3.
"Bingo Gubelmann." IMDb, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1292502/.
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"FBI Memo, July 2025." U.S. Department of Justice, https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1407001/dl?inline.
Fowler, Stephen. "Trump Tells Supporters Not to 'waste Time' on Epstein Files. They're Not Happy." NPR, 15 Jul. 2025, https://www.npr.org/2025/07/14/nx-s1-5467151/trump-epstein-files-doj-fbi-maga.
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