When Elon Musk’s Epstein-Trump allegation dropped this week, U.S. Vice President JD Vance and director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Kash Patel, were taping podcasts.
After being rebuked by President Trump over the proposed tax and spending bill, the Tesla CEO alleged that the Commander-in-Chief was named in the Epstein files, thus why they haven't been released. Musk's tweet has since been deleted, but the blow-up caused a stir on social media and in Vance and Patel's respective podcast visits.
Vance, who appeared on Theo Von's This Past Weekend, said that the former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head was making a "huge mistake."
"I think he got into this for the right reasons. I think he's frustrated. I think he's an emotional guy, honestly," the V.P. said around the 26-minute mark below.
Earlier in the interview, Vance shared his hope for Musk to "come back into the fold." "Maybe that’s not possible now because he’s gone so nuclear," he continued.
Patel, who refused to give an opinion on the scandal, said that he didn't think Epstein was murdered given his background as a public defender. "There's just no way that you could have run an op and had people go into that cell and not have any video of it and not have any people come out and say, 'Hey, yeah, I saw that guy. He shouldn't have been there, the guard or this guy,'" Patel said around the 45-minute mark.
Since the fallout, President Trump has shown disinterest in making amends with Musk and denied being in the Epstein files. The politician was once friendly with the child sex offender, who died from an apparent suicide in 2019, although he later stated that he was "not a fan" of Epstein.