US Politics
Joe Rogan accuses Trump of ‘gaslighting’ over the Epstein files as schism with president grows
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Joe Rogan has accused President Donald Trump of “gaslighting” his supporters over the Epstein files.
The podcaster, who has previously been supportive of the president, slammed the administration’s handling of the information regarding the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein during a 25 July episode of the Joe Rogan Experience with guest Mike Baker, a former CIA covert operations officer.
“This one’s a line in the sand, because this is one where there’s a lot of stuff about, you know, when we thought Trump was going to come in and a lot of things are going to be resolved, going to drain the swamp, going to figure everything out, and when you have this one hardcore line in the sand that everybody had been talking about forever, and then they’re trying to gaslight you on that,” said Rogan.
Trump supporters grew furious earlier this month when the administration released a memo rejecting conspiracy theories regarding Epstein’s death by suicide in a Manhattan jail in August 2019. The memo stated that there was no “client list” and that no more information about the case would be released.
The Epstein files have been the subject of a litany of conspiracy theories, mostly stemming from the right.
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Following their public breakup, billionaire and former Trump adviser Elon Musk claimed that Trump is in the files in a since-deleted tweet.
Trump participated in an interview with Rogan lasting nearly three hours shortly before the 2024 election, and the podcaster endorsed the then-presidential candidate ahead of his victory.
Rogan is just one of a number of conservative media personalities to slam Trump in connection with the Epstein files.
As he discussed the Epstein case and the surrounding conspiracy theories with Baker, Rogan mentioned the footage from Epstein’s cell in Manhattan, where both the FBI and the Department of Justice found that he had died by suicide.
“Metadata from raw Epstein prison video shows approximately two minutes and 53 seconds were removed from one of the two stitched together clips. The cut starts off at the missing minute,” said Rogan.
“So a guy like that decides, yeah, he’s gonna off himself,” Baker responded.
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“But here’s the thing … these guys that are all involved in this are still, they’ve been around for a long time, and they have this mentality that existed before the Internet, where you could just kind of put stuff out there, and you wouldn’t have all these psycho sleuths out there that are gonna go over everything with a fine-tooth comb, especially guys who are tech wizards who can look at the metadata, and you can figure this kind of stuff out,” said Rogan.
“They’ve called the recess on Capitol Hill because they figured by the time they come back in September, everybody will have moved on from this. I think they are wrong,” Baker replied.
“This feels like and just looks like that one of those handful of conspiracies, again, you go to JFK or whomever, that’s just gonna hang around,” he added.
