By Jim Geraghty
Thursday, July 16, 2026
Vice President JD Vance appeared on
Joe Rogan’s program yesterday, and while the conversation covered many
topics, in the second hour, the host steered the conversation to the scandals
involving Jeffrey Epstein. The vice president had quite a lot to say on that
subject:
VANCE: So, what I think a lot of
people — I’ve heard this argument is this idea that Donald Trump, you know, was
sort of — I’ve even heard people say he was blackmailed into this.
ROGAN: Yeah. A lot of people
believe this.
VANCE: . . . It’s just it’s just
not true. I’ve seen the decision making up close. Again, whether you agree or
disagree with our negotiation or whether you agree or disagree with the
decision to launch the campaign Epic Fury to begin with, the idea that Donald
Trump is being like blackmailed is crazy to me because, again, I see the way
that he makes decisions. I see the way that he processes this stuff. Like, the
idea that he picks up the phone with anybody and says, “Hey, like, I’m going to
take orders from you.” No, that’s just not how Donald Trump operates.
ROGAN: Can you understand though,
why people would come to that conclusion, especially because of the Epstein
files?
VANCE: What do you mean?
ROGAN: Well, the Epstein files
were supposed to be released. We were — and there was a tremendous amount of
resistance to those files being released.
VANCE: Sure.
ROGAN: And that concerned a lot
of people, because . . . you’re talking about very wealthy, powerful people
that were engaged in crimes.
VANCE: I see. So, you’re — you’re
basically saying, like, there’s a — the fear is that whatever’s in the Epstein
files was used to blackmail, like, the administration into doing the Iran
thing.
ROGAN: Or at the very least the
people that were involved in the Epstein files, that didn’t want them coming
out, had undue influence.
VANCE Well again, like, say this
with all candor, like, we absolutely screwed up the comms of the Epstein files.
Like, we just did. But do I think the reason we screwed up the comms is because
we were trying to hide something? No. I think the reason we screwed up the
comms of the Epstein files is one, you know, Pam said, Pam Bondi said the
client list is on my desk, right?
ROGAN: Well, see, they had
binders.
VANCE: 100 percent.
ROGAN: They were sitting in
front–
VANCE: But those binders were
largely documents that had already been released, right? So, so here’s — let me
try to defend—
ROGAN: So, what was the purpose
of that performative display of the Epstein files, and she was saying there’s
tens of thousands of hours of film.
VANCE: I don’t know what the
purpose of it was, but I know that the effect of it was to make people mistrust
the entire effort. And I think — what I think was happening, 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
had and what we didn’t have. And I think that she, you know, got roasted for it
publicly by a lot of people, including me. Like, you know, you and I have
talked about this a lot. I’m like one of the OG [original gangster, or
long-time] Epstein conspiracy theorists. I’ve probably gone down every single
rabbit hole. We could go down most of them today.
I would make a joke about Bondi getting thrown under the
bus, but the former attorney general deserves to get raked over the coals for erroneously telling a Fox News anchor, on live television,
that the list of Epstein’s clients is “sitting on my desk right now to review.”
A bit later in the conversation, Vance continues:
VANCE: Epstein gets pinched. I
think he goes to prison, or maybe this is when he was on house arrest. But,
like, anything that existed from the ’80s and ’90s up to 2006, 2007, anything
that existed that we didn’t get back then, was disappeared. Right? So, like,
when people say, has what you’ve seen on the inside make you think that, you
know, 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’s comments are, ironically, echoing the assessment
in the unsigned two-page memo released by the U.S Department of
Justice and FBI in July 2025 that their investigation had found “no
incriminating ‘client list.’ There was also no credible evidence found that
Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. We did not
uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third
parties.”
Vance continued:
Now, look, again, in our defense,
yes, was there some, you know, b****ing and moaning and was there some back and
forth? Yes. But there we eventually collected 6 million documents as part of
the effort. The president — people say the president was forced into releasing
the documents. Like again, the idea that Donald Trump could not have killed
that legislation, especially with the United States Senate, is a joke. He
absolutely could have killed it. What did he do? He actually said, “Nope, we’re
going to release these files.” He thought, you know, he was annoyed by the
story. He was annoyed by the Democrats accusing him of doing things bad.
This is a convenient misremembering of history on the
part of the vice president. Yes, the president eventually called for releasing
the files, but only after furiously opposing it for months, and after it became
clear that increasingly vocal congressional majorities opposed keeping them
secret.
In July 2025, President Trump raged on Truth Social that no one cared about Jeffrey
Epstein, and added an out-of-the-blue contention that unspecified “Epstein
Files” were created by former President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and other
officials from a Democratic administration.
On November 12, the administration invited Colorado GOP
Representative Lauren Boebert, “one of the Republicans pressing for more
Epstein disclosures,” for a briefing in the White House Situation Room with Bondi and
FBI director Kash Patel to discuss her demands.
The same day, the seating of Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva gave the 218th
vote to a discharge petition on the Epstein Files Transparency Act. (If the
speaker of the House opposes bringing a piece of legislation to the floor, it
requires 218 signatures on a discharge petition to overrule the speaker and
bring the bill to the floor for a vote.)
On November 16, Trump posted on Truth Social, “House Republicans should
vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide!” Two days
later, the Epstein Files Transparency Act passed the House 427–1 and the Senate
then passed it without a formal roll-call vote.
(Also, it’s an easily forgotten detail, but under the
Act, the DOJ was supposed to release all relevant files by December 12; the majority of the files
were released January 30.)
Later in the conversation, Vance adds:
VANCE: The problem is if you go
back to the original investigation, it was designed in a way that was way too
narrow. If there was a broader conspiracy, and you know, my view is that there
probably was. The evidence that existed in 2007, that was the opportunity to
get.
ROGAN: So, when you say there
probably was a broader conspiracy, what exactly are you saying?
VANCE: I think there are a few
different options. I mean, look, man, like, you could –you and I could
literally do two episodes about this. I’ve gone on down every rabbit hole.
There’s this funny New York Times story that’s somewhat true, somewhat
false, but where Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, says, ‘Well, we
know JD’s a conspiracy theorist on this.’ Like, I am, actually. I’ve gone down
every rabbit hole here.
Look, so there’s the theory that
whether it was American intel, or foreign intel, that Epstein was sort of using
— Epstein was using sort of the sex ring to blackmail rich and powerful people.
There’s that piece of it.
Vance went on to speculate about Epstein’s involvement
with billionaire Les Wexner; their longtime relationship is well established,
and Wexner told Congress he was “duped by a world-class con
man.” Vance told Rogan, “Epstein was, like, the genius at identifying weird tax
strategies that would allow you to not have to pay taxes,” and “Epstein like
doing a lot of tax stuff that was not on the up and up and is that one way in
which he gained blackmail. It’s not opposite of the sexual blackmail story,
but, in some ways . . . you could imagine both things being true.”
Epstein has been dead for 2,532 days.
It’s a free country, and the vice president is free to
speak his mind. But one can wonder how helpful it is for the
second-highest-ranking figure in the executive branch to go on one of the
country’s most popular podcasts and lay out all of his theories involving
Epstein, and to declare that any evidence that would back up his theories has
long since been destroyed.
Are we really to believe that Epstein was an agent of
U.S. intelligence using sex trafficking and blackmail as a tool for American
policy for some considerable period of time, and there’s absolutely no way for
anyone in this administration to determine if it is true?
Or are we really to believe that Epstein was an agent of
some foreign intelligence agency, using sex trafficking and blackmail as
a tool for that country’s policies for some considerable period of time, and
there’s absolutely no way for anyone in our intelligence community to determine
if it is true?
Inevitably, someone will ask or complain, “Jim, why are
you writing about this?” For starters, the vice president talked about the
subject at length.
ADDENDUM: Our Christian Schneider, keeping us up-to-date on the
sterling choices of the Democrats out in Wisconsin: “The Democratic
front-runner in the gubernatorial race is 37-year-old State Assemblyman
Francesca Hong, a self-described Democratic Socialist who was taken to court last month for failing to pay a decades-old
credit card debt of nearly $30,000.”
Capital One was asking Hong, quite literally, what was in
her wallet, and why it hadn’t been used to pay down the $29,344
debt she had accumulated since 2011. (If you’re doing the math on this,
Hong started accumulating that debt at age 22. Her debt is older than iPads,
Instagram, Google Chrome, and any of Netflix’s original programming.)
I don’t understand how a person can choose to not pay her
debts for decades, live what seems like a pretty happy life serving in the
state assembly — base salary of about $61,000, for what is effectively a part-time job — and then somehow complain
that capitalism is unfair.
No comments:
Post a Comment