JD Vance Suggested Tucker Carlson Interview Ghislaine Maxwell To Help Clear Trump’s Name

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Vice President JD Vance is a bit of an enigma. Once a self-proclaimed “Never Trump guy,” he has stood by President Donald Trump and seemingly gone to great lengths to try to defend his controversial actions. His attempts at explaining the war in Iran were especially baffling to people, given that he previously portrayed himself as an “America First” anti-interventionist.

And as pressure to release all of the files connected to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein increased, Vance defended his boss by claiming, “President Trump is very much outside of the social circle.” Although numerous reports and anecdotes about Trump’s friendship with Epstein have come out at this point, Vance once said Trump “never really was friendly with Epstein in a way that a lot of these other people (in the files) were.”

A new report suggests that, behind the scenes, Vice President JD Vance was actually really worried about the scandal and how it would impact the Trump administration. According to The New York Times, he met with other Trump officials in the White House Situation Room in July 2025 to devise a plan on how to deal with the Epstein files controversy.

Apparently, Vance wanted to get Tucker Carlson involved.

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White House reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, who wrote “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” reported that when dealing with the Epstein controversy, Trump officials held a meeting without Trump. Vance reportedly told other officials that all the attention surrounding the Epstein files was “a huge problem” and sounded really concerned about it.

They claimed that he “appeared panicked to others in the room” because he was worried that, as a result of the Epstein scandal, support for Trump’s MAGA movement was already dwindling. In addition to pushing for the release of all the files for the sake of transparency (and to hopefully get people to stop talking about it and speculating so much), Vance apparently wanted Carlson to help clear Trump’s name.

His hope was that Carlson could get Epstein’s co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, on his podcast. Vance apparently thought this would be an effective PR strategy because Maxwell could say that Trump was not involved in Epstein’s crimes, and then people might be more likely to move on.

Vance pushed for the release of all the files, even if Trump was mentioned.

But according to the report, he and the other officials did not really see eye to eye. Vance seemed convinced that any information related to Trump’s ties to Epstein would get out eventually. He thought it would be better to just release everything all at once to increase trust in the administration. This included releasing anything involving “unsubstantiated allegations and anecdotes about Trump,” the New York Times reported.

The report raises concerns about whether Vance was involved in a “massive cover-up” attempt to protect Trump.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) is among those who are concerned about what the report might mean. On Thursday, June 11, he told reporters, “I think for the first time in this whole Epstein investigation, we have the Vice President of the United States that is now part of this massive cover-up,” per The Hill.

He added, “I mean, the fact that JD Vance is hosting meetings in the Situation Room, which is designed for national security issues, multiple meetings, he’s leading those meetings, he’s talking about protecting the president. He’s talking about strategy on Ghislaine Maxwell … she exonerates Donald Trump. That’s a huge, that’s huge bombshell reporting.”

READ NEXT: Trump Allegedly Sent Birthday Greeting To Epstein That Mentioned Their ‘Wonderful Secret’

Paige Sheffield (she/her)