Joe Rogan has condemned the Trump administration over its failure to release more files from its sex trafficking investigation of Jeffrey Epstein.
The podcaster and comedian, who backed President Donald Trump in the 2024 election, was incredulous on Tuesday’s episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast that the Justice Department and FBI reversed their position on the disgraced financier.
Rogan joins a growing right-wing backlash after the departments announced they wouldn’t be releasing any additional files about Epstein, concluding there was no evidence he kept a “client list” to blackmail influential figures.
But Rogan was anxious to call out how the Trump administration had previously insisted it was in possession of previously unseen compelling evidence.
“They’ve got videotape and all a sudden they don’t,” Rogan said on his Tuesday show with guest and fellow podcaster Danny Jones. “You had the director of the FBI on this show saying, ‘If there was [a videotape], nothing you’re looking for is on those tapes,’” referring to FBI Director Kash Patel’s interview with Rogan in June.
During his appearance, Patel made clear there was no video evidence of people committing crimes on Epstein’s private island.
“Why’d they say there was thousands of hours of tapes of people doing horrible shit? Why’d they say that? Didn’t [Attorney General] Pam Bondi say that?” Rogan continued, referring to Bondi in May saying the FBI was reviewing “tens of thousands of videos” of the wealthy financier “with children or child porn.”
Bondi had already fanned the flames in a Fox News interview in February when she suggested she had an Epstein client list on her desk. The White House has lately insisted Bondi was merely referring to the overall Epstein case files.
Even so, Bondi had for weeks suggested more material was going to be revealed after a “phase 1” document dump failed to tamp down the Epstein controversy.
Of Patel’s dismissal of the videotape on his show, Rogan reflected, “Oh, OK. OK. I mean, what am I gonna do? I’m gonna push back?”
The podcaster went on to suggest he isn’t buying the administration’s new position and even suggested that June’s airstrikes on Iran were designed as a distraction.
“Just bomb Iran. Everybody forgets about it,” Rogan said.
Another Trump-supporting podcaster and comedian, Andrew Schulz, has also called out the administration for covering up a “global pedophile blackmail ring.”
Both Rogan and Schulz — influential “podcast bros” who are credited with helping sweep Trump back to power — have hit out at the president recently.
Rogan earlier this month blasted Trump’s “insane” immigration crackdownamid a series of high-profile Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.
Meanwhile, Schulz last week said on his podcast, “Flagrant,” that Trump is “doing the exact opposite of everything I voted for.”
On Wednesday, Trump urged his supporters to move on from the Epstein furor, accusing them of falling prey to a “hoax” and declaring that he doesn’t “want their support.”
