Tim Dillon Was Part of the Epstein Coverup
A New York Times report adds new context to the podcaster's July 2025 dinner with JD Vance.
Maybe you saw the New York Times story this week about the high-stakes Situation Room meeting where a “panicked” JD Vance urged a gathering of White House officials to do whatever it took to protect Donald Trump from the boiling Epstein scandal. Vance, whom other officials believed to be all-in on the “darkest theories” about Epstein, reportedly told his colleagues they should release any and all unreleased Epstein files, including the ones that appeared to implicate Trump.
Prior to the meeting, Vance had been “privately pressing for the administration to release all the Epstein files, everything in the Justice Department’s possession, even encouraging a congressional investigation.” He had also proposed at some point that the administration recruit Tucker Carlson to interview Maxwell, who presumably would exonerate the president.
As described by the Times, the meeting approached the Epstein affair as a PR problem for the president, something to be batted away with the right comms strategy, rather than a serious criminal matter to be investigated further. Vance himself had previously voiced his concerns that the controversy might alienate young male voters who supported the administration not out of any ideological conviction, exactly, but because their favorite podcasters encouraged them to:
Vance made clear to colleagues that he feared losing some of the so-called low-propensity voters, the young men who were not traditional Republicans but who had voted for the Trump-Vance ticket in 2024. This was an audience tuned in to the “manosphere” podcasters like Joe Rogan, and it was worrisome that the podcast hosts themselves were now rebelling.
The administration saw those manosphere podcasters as an important part of their PR strategy. At “another Epstein crisis meeting” in late July 2025, White House officials discussed their plan to release huge volumes of Epstein files that would “overwhelm the MAGAsphere with far-greater volumes of real information,” and then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche suggested that he promote the release on Joe Rogan’s podcast. At another strategy meeting in August, Vance raised the same idea, suggesting that he speak to Rogan himself—and that, in fact, he already had:
The vice president once again pushed to release as much of the Epstein files as possible. And with an eye on the public messaging, he proposed that he should be the one to appear on Rogan’s influential podcast. Vance had just gotten off the phone with Rogan, and he later told others that Rogan said he wouldn’t have Blanche on his show but would take Vance.
Vance argued that if he were the one to appear on Rogan’s show, then only a part of the conversation would be about Epstein. The rest of the interview, he told the group, could be about the president’s recently passed legislation and what it would do for working families.
Rogan wasn’t the only podcaster Vance had spoken to. Let’s revisit the timing of the first Situation Room meeting: per the Times, it took place on July 17, 2025. That was the day after Vance had a private dinner with Tim Dillon to discuss the Epstein controversy. As Dillon relayed in a podcast on the 19th, Vance used a dinner the previous Wednesday (July 16th) to assure him that the administration was not covering up any evidence of Epstein’s connection with powerful people, like Trump or Bill Gates. He told Dillon that Epstein had been running a blackmail operation on behalf of intelligence agencies like Mossad or the CIA, and that when then-Attorney General Pam Bondi had said she had the Epstein files on her desk, she was referring to “porn Epstein downloaded from the internet,” not evidence incriminating other figures.
Seth Simons
As Dillon described it, he told Vance that the White House needed to fire Bondi, release everything it had on Epstein, and unseal grand jury records pertaining to Epstein. The last proposal was also made at the Situation Room meeting, with the Times explaining that it had the benefit of allowing the administration to shift the blame if Democratic-appointed judges blocked the release. Dillon also assured his fans that he wasn’t covering for Trump, stressing that Trump had “never been accused of anything with an underage person.” This was not true: in 2016, multiple former Miss Teen USA contestants accused Trump of walking through their dressing rooms when they were minors.
While it was certainly possible Epstein had compromising info on Trump, Dillon said, Trump hadn’t been accused of anything that would support this speculation, and the administration should embrace transparency as a means of quieting the conspiracy theories. He fully bought into the idea that Trump was not actually involved in anything untoward with Epstein, arguing that being friends with pedophiles is just part of being a billionaire:
Trump believes that connecting him to Epstein is a Democrat scam hoax whatever. Prove it. You gotta release everything. I know it'll be uncomfortable. It's gonna be uncomfortable. It's gonna be uncomfortable to release the things. It's just an uncomfortable reality. Sometimes you are friends with someone and they're a human trafficker. That's what is to be rich. Explain that to people. Tell them that what it is to be rich is to be best friends, sometimes, with a human trafficker satanic pedophile. You don't even know it. You just know that you both like boats. To be rich is to be friends with people who are implicated in the murders of their wives, the trafficking of children, coups, drug running, narco operations, arms dealing, false flag operations, this is what it is to be rich. It's not for everyone.
[…]
You gotta show people you weren't raping children. That's what you have to show people. I don't even care if he laundered a little bit of the money. No one does. No one does, Donald. If that's what you're worried about, no one cares. It's okay if he laundered some of your money, even a lot of your money if he laundered a lot of your money. 'Cause that's not what people are thinking. God, it would be fun if he just laundered some of your goddamn money. Just say that. Say that, Say, "I got a casino, it's a cash business, he laundered some money." Say it. Say it now. That's not impeachable. Who cares? He laundered some money. Goddamn it. Say that, please. We want it to be that, that's what we want it to be. I mean, of course a lot of people don't want it to be that, but I don't want Clinton fucking the kids either, even though there's a fucking breadcrumb trail there that isn't ideal. But I don't want any of our presidents to be having sex with children. This is not my idea of a good time.
Now, that unfortunately seems to be more than likely something that happened, so you need to prove that you did not do that. Please, God, just say he laundered the money. "He became my friend 'cause he knew how to make large sums of money disappear. I didn't want to pay taxes. I didn't wanna pay these taxes." People are okay with that. Just say you stole money.
Elsewhere in the podcast Dillon said he told Vance that Ghislaine Maxwell should testify to Congress—a proposal Vance made at the Situation Room meeting the next day. (“That is not on the table at the moment,” Dillon said he was told, but it had been suggested and considered.) A few days later, in a conversation with Alex Jones, Dillon elaborated further:
What I told Vance, I said, if you don't disclose everything, you're done. Nobody will support you guys. You are fully and completely part of this coverup if everything doesn't come out. I think it paralyzes their presidency completely.
Well, here’s the thing: Vance was fully and completely part of the coverup. As portrayed by the Times, he was never out to get to the truth of the matter, hold the perpetrators accountable, or help the survivors find justice. His priority was shielding the administration and himself from reputational and electoral consequences. In the pursuit of these goals, he sought the help of influential podcasters like Joe Rogan and Tim Dillon to send the message that Trump was innocent and that responsibility for the scandal rested with Pam Bondi and a few other officials who bungled the release of files that would clear things up once and for all.
Luckily for Vance, Dillon was fully and completely willing to help.
