Vice President JD Vance told Joe Rogan he believes the White House “mishandled” the Epstein files in an interview that aired Wednesday, and claimed Epstein had connections at the “highest levels” of both American and Israeli intelligence.
“We absolutely screwed up the comms of the Epstein files,” Vance told Rogan as the two discussed the dramatic 2025 release of the files. “We just did. But do I think the reason we screwed up the comms is because we were trying to hide something? No.”
Vance pointed to former Attorney General Pam Bondi’s claim that the “client list” was sitting on her desk — a falsehood that drew massive backlash toward the administration once it was confirmed no such list existed. Bondi’s team then offered binders of “Epstein files” to right-wing influencers that held no new information and prompted even more scrutiny.
“The effect of it was to make people distrust the entire effort,” Vance explained. “Look, I know Pam, I like Pam. I don’t think there was anything malicious going on. I think Pam was trying to respond to the political moment. I think she overstated what we have and what we didn’t have, and I think she got roasted for it publicly, by a lot of people, including me.”
The vice president maintained that he is one of the “OG Epstein conspiracy theorists,” and has gone down every possible rabbit hole on the subject. He’s convinced that the evidence showing Epstein blackmailed influential people was destroyed back in 2006 or 2007 — or that no one ever properly gathered that evidence.
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“You go back to the original warrant back in 2008,” Vance said, pointing to Alex Acosta, who originally investigated Epstein. “What was he looking for? What was he allowed to look for? What were they collecting? It was not looking at a broader conspiracy.”
“So that happens, Epstein gets pinched. I think he goes to prison or maybe this is when he was on house arrest,” Vance explained. “Anything that existed from the 80s, 90s, up to 2006, 2007, anything that existed that we didn’t get back then, was disappeared.”
He added: “So when people say, has what you seen on the inside make you think that Epstein never blackmailed people or that Epstein never engaged in broader sex trafficking? No, absolutely not. What I have seen, and I’ve looked at most of the files, is that there just wasn’t dispositive evidence. And if that dispositive evidence ever existed, it was probably destroyed after 2006, 2007.”
Vance agreed with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles’ assessment that on this topic, he is a conspiracy theorist. When Rogan pointed out that many people think Epstein was a Mossad agent, Vance lent credence to the idea.
“Yeah, Mossad or CIA or some other deep state, whether in America or Israel or another country,” he reflected. “Or both! Look he clearly had connections to the highest levels of American intelligence. He clearly had connections to the highest levels of Israeli intelligence.”
Vance then admitted there was no actual evidence in the files for those claims.
“I’ve asked, were there like, were there documents connecting Jeffrey Epstein directly to our intelligence agencies or anybody else’s, and the answer is no. But if that sh*t existed, it wouldn’t exist in 2026,” Vance claimed.
“One of the reasons I’m always careful and I say there are some elements within the Israeli government who don’t like our peace process, because there are a lot of elements within the Israeli government that actually do like our peace process, they recognize that this indefinite campaign is not good for them either.”
“The Epstein thing is interesting,” he continued, “because as much as I know Prime Minister Netanyahu is not a particularly popular person in the United States of America right now, Epstein seemed to be connected to the elements of the Israeli deep state that were left of center. I’ve always found that fascinating. It wasn’t like he was super connected to the right of center of Israeli politics.”
In the United States, Vance pointed out, Epstein was connected “across the board.”
“He had Republican friends, he had Democratic friends,” the vice president said. “He had much deeper connections to the Israeli left of center than right of center, I don’t know what that means, but I find that interesting.”
(Photo by Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
“I also just think there’s an element of, he was a scumbag, he was a very sick person, he built relationships with a lot of other rich and powerful people who just didn’t have any real moral judgement about the fact that the guy was obviously a scumbag,” Vance noted, before telling Rogan that Democrats continue to accuse the president of wrongdoing related to Epstein without any evidence.
“Who was the guy who narc’d on Epstein to the Palm Beach police?” Vance asked. “That’s in the Epstein files. It was Donald Trump!”
Asked by Rogan how the administration should have handled the matter, Vance responded that “we should have just dropped everything at the very beginning.” He acknowledged that it does take time to redact the documents when victims are involved, but they should have done it as quickly as possible.
Vance also said that he believes Epstein was absolutely trying to influence people and compromise people.
“There is a story there — I will go to my deathbed believing there is a story there, but I can’t prove it,” he said. “And I promise there’s not some document, that at least I’m hiding, that allows us to prove exactly what was going on and how.”
Vance also used the interview to allege that opponents of his negotiations with Iran were being paid by Israel, referencing a TIME Magazine investigation into former Trump campaign operative Brad Parscale’s paid lobbying efforts.
“I definitely think you have seen this very discreet, extremely well-funded campaign to try to derail the negotiation,” Vance told Rogan. “Those people are attacking me viciously for quite literally trying to accomplish the negotiation objective the president set for the country.”
“They’re leaking to reporters, they’re attacking me obsessively saying that we should not be negotiating with Iran, we should just keep the military campaign going indefinitely … people have come after me and said that I’m influenced by Qatar, that I’m influenced by foreign governments, that I take my marching orders from Tucker Carlson, there’s so much bullsh*t out there.”
“What I’m actually trying to do is accomplish what the president of the United States told me to accomplish,” Vance said.