US vice president JD Vance said that the Trump administration "absolutely screwed up the communications" surrounding the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, saying the issue was mishandled. He also suggested that Epstein had links to intelligence agencies "Mossad or CIA or some other deep state".
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Speaking on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast released on Wednesday, Vance acknowledged that the administration mishandled the rollout of the files but denied claims of a cover-up.
"I say this with all candor, like we absolutely screwed up the comms of the Epstein files, like we just did," Vance said when asked whether there had been "undue influence" in keeping the files under wraps.
"But do I think the reason we screwed up the comms is because we were trying to hide something? No," he added. Vance said the administration should have "just dropped everything at the very beginning" instead of allowing confusion to grow over the release.
"If people want to say we mishandled the Epstein release, guilty. We did mishandle it, especially the communications of it," he said.
"I think that we should have just dropped everything at the very beginning. We should have just done it as quickly as possible," he added.
During the interview, Vance also addressed speculation about Epstein's alleged links to intelligence agencies. When host Joe Rogan asked about theories involving Israel's Mossad, Vance replied, "Yeah, Mossad or CIA or some other deep state."
"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 said, though he did not provide any evidence to support those claims.
