While discussing a bill that would stop voting by mail in most cases, President Donald Trump described a scenario involving a young child.
As he promoted the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE America Act, to a group of Republicans, Trump mentioned daughters being “of age” at “above six years old.”
“You know your daughter, she has to be of age, like above six years old,” Trump said.
The comment quickly drew attention from Democrats and others on social media who have linked Trump to Jeffrey Epstein, who died in federal custody in 2019 after his arrest on federal sex trafficking and conspiracy charges.
The Democratic National Committee’s Facebook account posted a photo of Epstein and Trump, along with Trump’s words “like, above six years old.” Text on the photo also said: “Trump on what it means to be ‘of age’.”
(Screenshot of the DNC’s Facebook page.)
It’s not clear precisely what point Trump was seeking to make about the child; we asked the White House for clarity and the response we received did not address it, the answer focused instead on his urgency to pass the bill.
We also reached out to the Democratic National Committee for comment about its post and received no reply.
Numerous social media posts also shared Trump’s quote along with references to his relationship with Epstein. But Trump’s comments were not spoken in the context of Epstein or sex crimes.
Trump and Epstein knew each other, but the pair had a falling out some time between 2004 and 2007. Trump spoke in 2025 about his estrangement from Epstein, saying he barred Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago club for poaching spa staffers. Trump is mentioned in a batch of Epstein files released by the Justice Department, according to The New York Times. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told CNN that the DOJ decided not to investigate Trump’s connection to the sex offender, however, citing a lack of credible information.
Trump’s statement could be related to his pressure on Senate Republicans to add a provision to the SAVE America Act banning gender-affirming surgery for minors, an operation rarely performed. Senate Democrats are currently filibustering the bill after it passed in the House of Representatives, but Trump said he will not sign any bills until his version of the SAVE America Act is passed.
Here are more of Trump’s March 9 remarks to the Republican Members Issues Conference in Doral, Florida. We bolded the portion Democrats and others shared out of context:
“So you have ID and you have citizenship. So far, so good. No mail in ballots except for illness, disability, military or travel. Mail-in ballots are a disaster. Jimmy Carter, the best thing he ever did, he headed a commission after he was president. It was the single best thing, and he did a thing on mail-in ballots. He said mail-in ballots should not be allowed because they are inherently dishonest, and we have seen it time and time again and we just keep going with it, and I put that down as a top three — look, no mail in — now, you have the exceptions for the military, and I would even say foreign-based military, but for the military, for disability, for illness and if you’re traveling, you know, you have an excuse. I was lenient on that, but those three things.
“Then, I added two more. These are best of, you know best of. These are called best of Trump. We should also add on to this bill — and so what I’ve asked (House Speaker) Mike (Johnson) to do is to draw a new one with these few things added, and let’s go for the gold. Let’s not just get one like voter ID, but you know, it can be given to you by your daughter. You know, your daughter, she has to be of age, like above 6 years oldshe’s allowed to say. You had to see, some of this stuff is so bad.
“They’re doing everything possible because they know if we get this, they probably won’t win an election for 50 years, okay, and maybe longer, and they’re going to fight like hell.”
…
“Then I wanted to add two more to it because they’re – I say 95%, maybe 100% – no men in women’s sports, very simple, add that in. And I wanted to add in one other – I’m not even adding in no open borders because, you know, there’s some people that like open borders. These people are crazy, but that’s OK because I want five things that are like close to 100%. No transgender mutilation surgery for our children. You can’t have transgender for our children.”
