U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media aboard Air Force One, en route to Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., following a two-day visit to Ireland, September 13, 2026. REUTERS/Kylie Cooper
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed President Donald Trump personally ordered the cover-up of federal files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and admitted as much to him, according to a new report.
Carlson, 57, described the private conversation in an interview with Vanity Fair, the Daily Mail reported Wednesday.
The former Fox News host said he pressed the president on the files in the summer of 2025, when the administration was under intense scrutiny over its handling of them.
"The order to cover it up came from Trump," Carlson claimed to the magazine.
"I asked him why. And he gave me this long, very emotional explanation that this was all a plot against him, like Russiagate," he continued.
"My position from the beginning … was, 'I don't understand why you would ever keep any of this stuff secret.' And I got like a bunch of different answers," Carlson said.
"I don't feel any need to cover for Epstein," he added. "So I said, 'You shouldn't either.' In the end, it came from Trump directly."
Carlson is the first person to say the order came from Trump himself, the Daily Mail reported, though earlier accounts described only the West Wing's scramble to contain the fallout.
The White House did not directly deny the account, the Daily Mail reported, but said Trump has "been totally exonerated on anything relating to Epstein" and has done more for victims "than anyone before."
Carlson has broken sharply with Trump over the past year, attacking him over the Epstein case, the war with Iran and a failure to govern as a true "America first" conservative, the Daily Mail reported.
"Of course, I dumped him a few months ago, because I just felt it wasn't appropriate," Trump told radio host Sid Rosenberg on Friday, according to the Jerusalem Post.
Vice President JD Vance had pressed the same case from inside the White House, telling a Situation Room meeting in July 2025 that the administration should release all of its Epstein files before Congress forced their publication, CNN reported.
The account comes from a book by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, CNN reported.
The files Vance wanted released are still not fully public. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled in June that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche had effectively conceded he was violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the federal law requiring their release, Politico reported.
Blanche, who served as Trump's personal defense attorney before joining the administration, has run the Justice Department since April, when Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi.
The judge's order covers FBI interview notes behind four reports that referenced Trump, Politico noted. Those notes record a woman's allegation that Epstein introduced her to Trump in the 1980s, when she was about 13, and that Trump assaulted her, according to the outlet.
The allegations are unverified, and no charges were brought, according to Politico. An administration official told the Guardian in February that the material was duplicative and not legally required to be released.
A Justice Department spokesperson said that Blanche "has not conceded anything" and that the department would appeal the ruling.
Blanche still has not turned over the handwritten notes and attorneys for Katie Phang, the journalist who sued for the records, asked Sullivan on Sept. 2 to inspect them himself within five days, MeidasNews reported.
"Again, Your Honor, it is forthcoming," Justice Department attorney Andrew Block told Sullivan at an August hearing when the judge pressed him on a missing log of the redactions, according to MeidasNews.
"I mean, Christmas is forthcoming," Sullivan replied, the outlet reported. "Let's be realistic."