A podcast host who was friendly to President Donald Trump during his campaign is needling Vice President JD Vance over the Jeffrey Epstein case — a sign that interest in the issue isn’t going away even as the White House works to contain it.
Podcaster Theo Von reposted a video clip Wednesday on social media from his June interview with Vance in which the vice president agreed that the government should release files about the criminal investigation into the accused sex trafficker.
The original social media post included a message from a progressive activist account saying “Hey JD, what changed?”
Von reshared the post and added his own message: “Yeah, what changed?” he asked.
The president’s biggest MAGA supporters have been steaming since the White House announcement on July 7 that an FBI and Department of Justice investigation found no evidence of an incriminating client list connected to the disgraced financier, who authorities say died by suicide in a New York prison in 2019.
Trump’s attempts to declare the matter closed have escalated interest in the case, especially among some of his conspiracy-minded supporters with large followings on social media.
Calling it the “Jeffrey Epstein Hoax” perpetrated by Democrats in a social media post on Wednesday, the president angered voters who supported him in part due to his embrace of conspiracy theories while on the campaign trail last year.
Vance, in particular, long publicly pushed for answers in Epstein’s case before entering the White House.
“If you’re a journalist and you’re not asking questions about this case you should be ashamed of yourself,” he wrote in a December 2021 post on X. “What purpose do you even serve?”
