by WorldTribune Staff, July 16, 2026 Non-AI Real World News
In a nearly 3-hour interview on the Joe Rogan Experience, Vice President JD Vance disputed the notion that the Trump Administration sought to hide anything from the American people regarding the Epstein Files.
Vance instead attributed the controversy to poor public communications about the files.
“We absolutely screwed up the comms of the Epstein files,” Vance said.
“We just did. But do I think the reason we screwed up the comms is because we were trying to hide something? No.”
He faulted then-Attorney General Pam Bondi for having “overstated what we had and what we didn’t have,” as she was caught up in “the political moment.”
Though he stopped short of saying Epstein was working for Israel, Vance emphasized Epstein’s links to both U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies:
“He clearly had connections to the upper— the highest levels of American intelligence. He clearly had connections to the highest levels of Israeli intelligence.”
Vance added: “I’ve asked whether there were documents connecting Jeffrey Epstein directly to our intelligence agencies or anybody else’s, and the answer is no. But if that stuff existed, it wouldn’t exist in 2026.”
JD Vance gets annoyed as Joe Rogan questions why MAGA influencers were given Epstein file binders pic.twitter.com/cbjjMMFlmy
— grizzy (@Furbeti) July 15, 2026
The vice president also told Rogan that there are “elements” within Israeli government that prefer to keep the U.S. engaged in war with Iran “indefinitely.”
These “elements” are pursuing an aggressive campaign to manipulate U.S. public opinion, going so far as to vilify Vance for his role in pursuing a diplomatic solution.
Vance said: “There are some people within [Israel’s] system, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt, who are manipulating and trying to change American public opinion to keep the war going on indefinitely. Again, not towards any objective, but just indefinitely.”
Vance pointed Rogan and his audience to read a recent Time article describing the big-budget mechanism Israel has sponsored to try to shore up Republican support for the war and for Israel.
“It’s like worth reading because it lists a bunch of people who have quite literally been paid by a former Trump campaign person who was himself paid by certain elements within the Israeli government. And those people are attacking me viciously for quite literally trying to accomplish the negotiation objective that the president set for the country.”
Zero Hedge noted that Vance was “referring to former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, who now runs a communications firm called Clock Tower X. He is also Chief Strategy Officer of Salem Media Group, a conservative multimedia conglomerate. Last summer, Israel started paying Parscale’s firm $1.5 million a month to create 100 pieces of digital content every month to be shared across multiple social media platforms.”
Vance defended diplomacy against those who only want to “bomb them to oblivion.”
“You can bomb them. You can take away their radar. You can take away some of their drones and some of their missiles, but it’s just too easy to fire at ships in the straits. So, you’ve got to actually be willing to talk and to try to figure out the problem,” the vice president said.
President Donald Trump has explicitly stated that the conflict would not be an “endless war.”
(The full interview can be seen here.)
You can see Vance trying the thread the MAGA needle when it comes to Iran in this Rogan interview. He hints heavily that he’s against the war, but he supports Trump publicly. pic.twitter.com/usuFwZPTGC
— Elijah Cone (@ElijahCone) July 15, 2026
