Vice President JD Vance Embraces Epstein-Mossad Conspiracy Claims
US Vice President JD Vance has stepped directly into one of the right’s most volatile conspiracy arenas, openly entertaining claims that Jeffrey Epstein had ties to the “highest levels” of Israeli intelligence.
The remarks came during a lengthy appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” where Rogan floated a theory that has circulated for years on the fringes and increasingly in the conservative mainstream: that Epstein’s money and influence, particularly in American academia, were backed by Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service.
“Most people think he was Mossad,” Rogan said on the episode released Wednesday.
Vance didn’t push back. He leaned in.
“Yeah, Mossad or CIA, or some other deep state, whether in America or Israel or another country,” he replied, before going further. Epstein, he said, “clearly had connections to the upper — the highest — levels of American intelligence,” and “clearly had connections to the highest levels of Israeli intelligence.”
For a sitting vice president, it was an extraordinary embrace of a theory long dismissed as baseless by officials and experts — and one that has drawn repeated accusations of antisemitism.
Conspiracy talk from the West Wing
The conversation, part of a nearly three-hour podcast that roamed across politics and culture, marked a jarring moment: a top U.S. official validating suspicions that American and Israeli intelligence services were entangled with a convicted sex offender whose life and death already fuel countless dark narratives.
The public record does not support that leap. Millions of pages of documents released by the U.S. government related to Epstein have produced no proof that he worked as an intelligence agent or asset for Mossad or any other service. Vance acknowledged as much on air.
“I’ve asked, were there like, were there documents connecting Jeffrey Epstein directly to our intelligence agencies or anybody else’s, and the answer is no,” he said. Then he added a line that only deepened the intrigue for his audience: “But if that existed, it wouldn’t exist in 2026.”
The implication was clear — if there was a paper trail, it would have been scrubbed before it could ever see daylight.
Inside the administration, there was no attempt to soften the comments afterward. Asked for clarification, Vance’s office released a statement from an unnamed White House official insisting that “everything the vice president had said was true” and dismissing critics as acting out of “bad faith, stupidity, or both.” Aides declined to elaborate on what, exactly, Vance believes to be true or what evidence he was relying on.
Israel’s government, whose prime minister’s office oversees Mossad, did not immediately respond to questions about the vice president’s remarks. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously rejected the idea that Epstein operated on Israel’s behalf.
A fracture inside conservatism
The reaction on the American right exposed a widening rift over conspiracy politics, Israel, and antisemitism.
Some influential conservatives, already uneasy with Vance’s posture on Israel and his reluctance to forcefully denounce antisemitism, saw the Rogan appearance as a tipping point.
Former Representative Peter T. King, a New York Republican and staunch Israel supporter, blasted the comments as a “dog whistle” to a faction of the GOP that he described as “antisemitic, is anti-Israel, is conspiratorial and is unhinged.”
“It’s not like you’re a junior congressman,” King said in an interview. “You’re the vice president of the United States. Unless you know what you’re talking about, unless you have absolute facts to back it up, before you undermine an ally — before you undermine your own intelligence agencies — you better know what you’re talking about.”
Ben Shapiro, one of the most prominent conservative voices in the country, joined the criticism. In a newsletter, the Jewish commentator wrote that Vance’s performance on Rogan’s show left him “concerned.” On his own program, he called the vice president’s commentary “unworthy of the office” and said it cut against what he considers a core conservative instinct.
“Conservatives, generally, are not in favor of baseless conspiracy theorizing,” Shapiro said, “because that undermines the idea that you have capacity in the world to act.”
The pushback underscored how far Vance has traveled from traditional Republican foreign policy rhetoric, even as he aligns with figures such as Tucker Carlson, who has given oxygen to the Epstein–Mossad narrative and other sweeping plots.
Epstein, Israel and a thin factual thread
Strip away the speculation, and the factual basis for the claims is narrow but politically explosive: Epstein’s long-running ties to a former Israeli prime minister.
For years, Epstein maintained a friendship and business relationship with Ehud Barak, the center-left ex-premier. Vance seized on that history with Rogan, saying, “Epstein seemed to be connected to the elements of the Israeli deep state that were left of center. I’ve always found that fascinating.”
Barak has said that Shimon Peres, another former Israeli leader, first introduced him to Epstein in 2002. Barak attended meals at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse, received about $2.3 million in payments from a foundation linked to Epstein, and, in 2015, took a reported $1 million investment from Epstein into a limited partnership he had set up.
Those ties are documented. They are also, so far, the only solid connection between Epstein and any senior Israeli figure. Barak has repeatedly denied any involvement in or knowledge of sexual abuse and has said he “deeply” regrets having had any association with Epstein at all.
The leap from that relationship to talk of “the highest levels of Israeli intelligence” is where conspiracy takes over from fact. Vance’s own admission that no documents tie Epstein to any intelligence agency did little to restrain his broader insinuations.
A vice president’s gamble
For Vance, the political calculation is stark. By echoing a theory that has long simmered on the edges of right-wing media and now courses through parts of its mainstream, he speaks directly to voters who distrust institutions, loathe the “deep state,” and see Epstein’s story as proof of elite corruption.
He also risks something else: being cast, even by fellow conservatives, as a vice president willing to traffic in rumors he concedes are unsupported by evidence, at the cost of straining relations with a key U.S. ally and casting doubt on his own intelligence services.
In a party wrestling with its identity on foreign policy, antisemitism, and the role of conspiracy in its message, Vance has made his choice. The question now is how many Republicans are prepared to follow him down that path — and what it will mean the next time a vice president speaks with the authority of the office about America’s closest allies and its darkest scandals.
