Trump-Epstein statue disappears from National Mall as mysteriously as it materialized

Theresa Braine, New York Daily News on Sep 24, 2025

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A bigger-than-life statue of President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein flirtily holding hands in a dance-floor-worthy pose disappeared from the National Mall on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after it mysteriously materialized.

The anonymous artists who erected the 12-foot-high statue inscribed with a tribute to Friendship Month had a permit to display it until 8 p.m. on Sunday, Washingtonian magazine reported. But the United States Park Police and the National Park Service took it down early Wednesday on grounds that the artwork “was not compliant with the permit issued,” without elaborating.

The bronze-painted statue depicted the prancing pair gazing knowingly into each other’s eyes, each with one arm flung out in abandon and a leg cocked behind as if caught mid-Lindy hop. A Mona Lisa-style smile played about their respective sets of lips. Their bodies were separated just enough to frame the White House between them, less than a mile away.

The work was titled “Best Friends Forever,” and plaques adorning its base said the goal was to “celebrate the long-lasting bond” between the two men.

Trump and Epstein were famously friendly for years, until they had a falling-out because the financier “stole” young female employees from the spa at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, the president has said. Trump especially distanced himself after Epstein’s 2019 arrest for trafficking and exploiting legions of young women for sex, declaring, “I’m not a fan.”

Epstein died of apparent suicide while in jail awaiting trial.

The statue’s plaques also referenced a naughty 50th-birthday letter that Trump allegedly wrote to his then-pal that ended with, “May every day be another wonderful secret.”

A Trump aide on Tuesday blasted the statue as a case of liberals “wasting their money.”

The artists, who call themselves The Secret Handshake, heard late Tuesday that “some people within the parks department, aka most likely the Trump administration, were trying to find ways to say we were not in compliance,” one of them told NPR. They also contended that the pre-dawn stealth takedown is what violated their permit, which granted them 24 hours to remove it themselves if required.

“Instead, they showed up in the middle of the night without notice and physically toppled the statue, broke it, and took it away,” a member of the group told NPR. “We do not know where it is.”

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