What catches your attention first is the 1992 of it all. The video that shows Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein partying at Mar-a-Lago, which surfaced today from NBC News archives, starts with the perfect era-appropriate tunes. “Rhythm Is a Dancer” by Snap! was making its rise up the charts, while the Romantics' “What I Like About You" would have seemed like a delightful throwback. (It had been in an episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 the year before.) There are the women—cheerleaders for the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins—with their soda-can bangs, invited into what Trump calls, on camera, his “party palace.” Their perms are breezily relaxed compared to the tight curls favored a few years earlier. Their hot pants are patterned, sometimes neon—lime green in the case of the woman whom Trump grabs by the waist and pats on the behind. There’s a flicker of surprise on her face.

When confronted last week about his friendship with Epstein, who pleaded not guilty to charges related to sex trafficking last week, Trump claimed, “I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him.” He added that he “was not a fan.” But in this video—originally filmed for a segment on Faith Daniels's daytime talk show A Closer Look about Trump in the wake of his divorce from Ivana—Trump and Epstein look closer to what we all suspected was the truth: two men at least somewhat friendly with each other, and exceedingly comfortable leering at the younger women in their company, all with a camera watching. “Look at her back there. She’s hot,” Trump seems to whisper into Epstein’s ear later in the video. Later, he says something to Epstein that makes the financier, who pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution in 2008, double over in laughter.

The fashion, the music, the casual groping—it does all make 1992 seem a world away, all of this happening on-camera and so un-newsworthy it’s been utterly forgotten. But even with Epstein behind bars, thus far denied bail, and facing up to 45 years in prison, the loucheness and disrespect on display in this video never went away, of course. It was right there when Trump got on that Access Hollywood bus with Billy Bush in 2005. It’s everywhere men get away with abuse, whether or not you need to comb back through the tapes to find it. (And with Trump, there are always more tapes.) Then, as now, the ratings are all that seem to matter. “We’re going to get great ratings on your show,” Trump hollers at the cameraman taping for Daniels's talk show. It was cancelled two months later.

More Great Stories from Vanity Fair

— It has already been a summer full of hell in the Hamptons

— Inside Meghan and Harry’s plans for baby Archie’s future

— The in-depth profile on surfer-mom micro-influencers that you absolutely need to read

— Inside John F. Kennedy Jr.’s lifelong struggle

— The prestige-TV drama roiling HBO

Looking for more? Sign up for our daily newsletter and never miss a story.