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Claim 1: Howard Lutnick promised in an interview that he cut all ties with Epstein in 2005

Verdict: True.

• The interview: On October 1, 2025, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick appeared on the New York Post podcast Pod Force One with Miranda Devine. The Post's write-up of that episode is the contemporaneous public record of what he said about Jeffrey Epstein, his former next-door neighbor on Manhattan's Upper East Side.
• What he said: Lutnick described a 2005 coffee-and-tour visit at Epstein's townhouse after he and his wife moved in next door. He said Epstein showed them a massage table, said he got a massage "every day," then got "weirdly close" and added "the right kind of massage." Lutnick said they left, and that on the walk home they decided he would never be around Epstein again.

and in the six to eight steps it takes to get from his house to my house, my wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again.

• He said it again in stronger terms on the same show: Later coverage of the same podcast, and House investigators reading the tape back to him, also quote him saying he "was never in the room with him socially, for business, or even philanthropy," and that if Epstein was going to be somewhere, "I wasn't going, because he's gross." That is a public claim of a hard cutoff after 2005, not a claim of "limited later contact."
• He later tried to shrink the words: In a May 6, 2026, transcribed House Oversight interview, counsel read the "never be in the room" line back to him and asked if that was an accurate characterization of the podcast. Lutnick did not deny saying it. He called the podcast version "informal" and "incomplete," and said what he meant was that he, unaccompanied by his wife, would not put himself in a room with Epstein. The words he actually broadcast in October 2025 did not include that limit.

In plain language: Yes. On the October 2025 podcast Lutnick said that after a 2005 visit he decided he would never be in the room with Epstein again, and that he never was, socially, for business, or for philanthropy. “Cut all ties” is a fair short version of that claim.

Claim 2: He was a guest on Epstein's island in 2012

Verdict: True.

• The files: Justice Department records released January 30, 2026, include emails arranging a December 2012 visit to Little Saint James, the private island Epstein bought in 1998. On November 20, 2012, Epstein assistant Lesley Groff emailed Howard Lutnick that Epstein understood the Lutnicks would be in St. Thomas over the holidays and wanted to pass along numbers "so the two of you can possibly get together."

• His wife booked lunch: On December 21, 2012, Allison Lutnick emailed Groff: "We are looking forward to visiting you." She said two families with eight children ages 7 to 16 were coming from Caneel Bay on a yacht called Excellence, and "We would love to join you for lunch." On December 23 she wrote that they were heading over from St. Thomas and asked where to anchor.

• He later admitted it: On February 10, 2026, before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee, Lutnick confirmed the visit. He said he had lunch on the island for about an hour with his wife, four children, and nannies. He added that he did not recall why they did it. In the May 6 House interview he said he visited Little Saint James "around just before Christmas 2012" for lunch, and that he would not dispute a date of December 23, 2012.

I did have lunch with him, as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation. My wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies. We had lunch on the island, that is true, for an hour.

• What "guest" means here: The records and Lutnick's own testimony describe a family lunch of about an hour, not an overnight stay. That is still a guest visit to the island, seven years after the 2005 cutoff he described on the podcast, and four years after Epstein's 2008 Florida guilty plea to soliciting prostitution and soliciting a minor for sex.
• It was not the only later contact: Lutnick has also described a 2011 visit to Epstein's New York foyer that he said was about scaffolding. Senators later pointed to additional emails and calendar items after 2005. He has not been accused of taking part in Epstein's crimes. The Commerce Department's line after the emails dropped was that he had "limited interactions with Mr Epstein in the presence of his wife and has never been accused of wrongdoing."
• The viral post from @cturnbull1968 (January 31, 2026) put the contrast in one sentence: Lutnick promised he cut ties in 2005, then showed up on the island in 2012. Both halves check out.

In plain language: Yes. Justice Department emails show the 2012 island lunch being planned, and Lutnick later told Congress he went, with his family, for about an hour.