J.D. Vance Goes Off on 'Scumbag' Jeffrey Epstein as He Fiercely Defends Donald Trump

Following a series of humiliating losses in Hungary and Pakistan, Vice President J.D. Vance fiercely defended President Donald Trump, claiming dead child predator Jeffrey Epstein hated him because he ratted him out.

Just days after Vance traveled to Budapest to campaign for Viktor Orbán, the long-serving Hungarian Prime Minister suffered a landslide defeat in the national elections. Immediately following his trip to Hungary, Vance flew to Islamabad, Pakistan, to lead high-stakes peace negotiations with Iran, which also failed.

“I have to defend the president on this — when he said Epstein was a hoax, he is talking about the Democratic idea that he was somehow Epstein’s best friend,” Vance said at a sparsely attended Turning Point USA event in Athens, Ga, on Tuesday, April 14.

“The president said he knew him and was a scumbag, but what you see in those emails is that Epstein hated Donald Trump — one of the emails is about Trump narcing on him to the local Sheriff,” he added.

According to an FBI report released in early 2026, Trump called the Palm Beach Police Chief in July 2006 — shortly after the local investigation began — to express support and provide information:

He highlighted a specific email that allegedly showed Trump contacting a local sheriff to report Epstein, saying, "This guy's a scumbag, you should go and pick him up.”

Vance asserted that Trump has nothing to hide and has advocated for full transparency, contrasting this with previous administrations that he claimed "went easy" on Epstein for decades.

These remarks followed the recent dismissal of a $10 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Trump against the Wall Street Journal over a report concerning a lewd 2003 birthday card he allegedly sent to Epstein.

MS NOW host Lawrence O'Donnell didn't mince words about Vance's defense of Trump in the Epstein scandal, blasting him for lying about the president's involvement and calling it a hoax.

"That's how sad it is now to be Vice President of the United States," O'Donnell said. That was James David Vance's desperate attempt today to defend Donald Trump in Georgia. What you can see in J.D. Vance now is a politician trying to move with Trump-led weights on his ankles, while handcuffed to Donald Trump, and J.D. Vance will never get those Trump handcuffs off. Not for the rest of his life."

Trump has consistently stated he severed ties with Epstein years before his 2019 arrest. He claims the rift occurred because Epstein "stole" staff from Mar-a-Lago, including his late victim Virginia Giuffre, to work at his own estate.

Trump’s name appears extensively in the Epstein investigation records, though the exact count depends on the type of search conducted.

While some Democratic lawmakers claim he is mentioned "more than a million times" in unredacted internal databases, official reviews of public document tranches released by the Justice Department through early 2026 place the number of references between 38,000 and 1,000,000+ across millions of pages.

The files contain uncorroborated allegations from a woman (often referred to as "Jane Doe" or "Katie Johnson") who claimed Trump and Epstein sexually assaulted her in the 1980s or 90s when she was a minor. One specific 2019 FBI interview summary details her claim that Trump struck her after she resisted an assault.

Vance’s defense of the president comes as polling shows him as the least popular vice president in modern polling history at this stage of his term.

CNN data analyst Harry Enten noted that Vance's standing is historically the lowest for a vice president at this point in their tenure, showing a 21-point net favorability swing since January 2025.

Analysts have described the drop from Vance's initial +3 rating in January 2025 as an unusually steep decline for a vice president so early in their term.