Joe Rogan, one of the most influential podcasters in America, reportedly took aim at the Trump administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation — focusing his criticism on FBI Director Kash Patel, a former CIA officer and key Trump ally — for what he called a baffling lack of transparency surrounding the case.
Speaking with former intelligence officer Mike Baker during a Friday episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, Rogan revisited a recent interview with Patel and said he found the former federal prosecutor’s comments on Epstein to be evasive and inconsistent.
“The Epstein stuff is so crazy,” Rogan said, expressing frustration over Patel’s unwillingness to acknowledge basic facts about the disgraced financier’s decades-long pattern of abuse. “When Kash Patel was on here and he was like, there’s no — there’s nothing, and I was like, what are you talking? Yeah, I didn’t even know what to say.”
The central question, Rogan explained, was about the potential existence of video recordings from Epstein’s notorious private island, long rumored to have hosted high-profile individuals in the company of trafficked minors. Rogan asked Patel directly: “Is there video from the island?”
Patel’s response — “Not of what you want” — struck Rogan as both cryptic and dismissive. “That doesn’t make any sense,” Rogan said, voicing a sentiment that is increasingly widespread, even among members of the MAGA base.
Patel, who was tapped by Trump to lead the FBI during his second term, insisted in the earlier interview that Epstein’s death was a suicide, and said any footage that could be released, would be.
His defense mirrored a recent Department of Justice memo that denied the existence of an “Epstein client list” and reaffirmed that the financier died by suicide in 2019.
But even that report has failed to stem the public’s doubts — especially given that nearly three minutes of surveillance footage from Epstein’s jail cell is mysteriously missing.
Rogan noted that many of his own listeners demanded he press Patel harder, but he explained his approach: “My thought was like, I’m just gonna put this out there and let the internet do its work.”
His skepticism was clear: “There’s no tapes, there’s no video. That doesn’t make any sense. Everyone knows it doesn’t make any sense.”
Adding to the confusion, Patel also appeared unaware of the findings of Dr. Michael Baden — the highly respected forensic pathologist hired by Epstein’s brother — who has publicly stated that the physical evidence was more consistent with homicide than suicide.
“Then he’s like, well we have a film, we’re gonna release that film and the film has a f***ing minute missing from it,” Rogan exclaimed. “Like, do you think we’re babies?! Like, what is this?!”
In a media environment increasingly shaped by distrust of institutional narratives, Rogan’s comments reflect a broader conservative frustration with how even a supposedly outsider administration has allowed one of the biggest scandals in modern American history to remain unresolved — and unanswered.
[READ MORE: Clinton Praised Epstein’s “Childlike Curiosity” in Birthday Note]
