I suppose it’s possible that Trump thought that Epstein liked “young but legal” girls. That’s who he was often seen in public with. Trump could have bonded with him over that, and never realized that Epstein also liked the ones who were too young to be legal.

For Epstein, it would have been useful for people to know him as “that guy who likes young women, but always of legal age”. That way if someone ever spotted him with someone who looked too young, he’d have people coming to his defence saying “hey, he likes them young, but they’re always legal.”

I’m sure there were some people who knew the truth about Epstein, but what makes the most sense to me is that there was an inner circle that participated in the sex acts with underage girls, and a much bigger outer circle who just thought he liked young women. Otherwise, it doesn’t make sense to me how so many people with a lot to lose were eager to party with him and didn’t try very hard to hide it, like Bill Gates for example.

But yeah, maybe Trump was part of the inner circle. It would hardly be shocking given what we know about him.