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Trump Defends Ag Bondi Amid Epstein Files Controversy; Bongino's Future in Limbo as GOP Base Demands Epstein Answers; Supreme Court Lets Trump Proceed With Plan to Gut the Education Department; HHS Slashes Thousands of Jobs Across Health Agencies; Former National Security Adviser, Mike Waltz, Defends Use of Signal and Again Says Classified Info Was Not Shared. Aired 2-2:30p ET
Aired July 15, 2025 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": An extraordinary plan is unfolding in Texas, one that could give Republicans more seats in Congress and put control of the House of Representatives out of Democrats' reach in the next election.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Plus, demanding answers, new polls showing that Americans aren't happy with how much information the government has released about Jeffrey Epstein and the public wants more, the controversy fracturing President Trump's base. We could hear from Attorney General Pam Bondi this hour. And have you been on the receiving end of the infamous Gen Z stare? I'm not really sure what it is, but it ignited a generational fight online. And we're going to discuss as we follow these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."
KEILAR: We're standing by here in Washington where any moment Attorney General Pam Bondi will speak as controversy swirls around the Trump administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case. It has been just over a week since the DOJ and the FBI both concluded that the accused sex trafficker died by suicide and did not have a so- called client list. But many in President Trump's most faithful, diehard supporters are simply not buying this, insisting instead that Bondi release documents as she once promised that she would do.
Sources tell CNN that, privately, the president is urging his team to let this political firestorm die down. And breaking just moments ago, he again defended his attorney general.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, your daughter-in-law said that there should be transparency in the Epstein case. Do you agree with her, sir?
DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The Attorney General has handled that very well. She has really done a very good job and I think that when you look at it, you'll understand that. I would like to see that also. But I think the Attorney General, the credibility is very important and you want credible evidence for something like that. And I think the Attorney General has handled it very well.
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KEILAR: CNN's Alayna Treene is in Pittsburgh where President Trump is also set to speak here in a few minutes. Alayna, what more are you learning about how the White House is handling the fallout here?
ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah, look, I mean, it's very clear from our reporting, our conversations with White House officials, Trump administration officials, that he wants specifically this story -- people to move on from this story. He's trying to get his base to let this go away, and he's directing some of his team behind closed doors to do what they can to help it die down. That's why we actually saw the president directly making calls this weekend.
We know he reached out to Charlie Kirk, a fierce supporter of his, the head of the Turning Point USA, and they held a summit this weekend. He had tried to convince him to knock off with the criticism, tamp down some of the criticism of the handling of this Epstein case. And we actually saw Kirk yesterday say that for now, he is not going to comment further on all of this.
And we also know that the Vice President J.D. Vance, he was trying to play peacemaker with people within the administration where there's been infighting on this between the FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino. He also called Kash Patel, the Director of the FBI and Attorney General Pam Bondi were reporting. But, just to add to some of what we heard from the president right there, he's been very full throated in his defense of Bondi repeatedly now in the last several days. But he also argued that he believes that if she believes that they can put out some more of these files and have them do it in a credible way that she should, but then he also tried to argue and really cast the blame on some of his political opponents, saying they made up some of this idea that there was a file list or a client list in the first place. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- on Epstein. The review of the files, Attorney General Pam Bondi (inaudible).
TRUMP: A very, very quick briefing. Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did she tell you -- what did she tell you about the review and specifically, did she tell you at all that your name appeared in the file?
TRUMP: No, no. She's given us just a very quick briefing and in terms of the credibility of the different things that they've seen. And I would say that these files were made up by Comey. They were made up by Obama. They were made up by the Biden -- we -- and we went through years of that with the Russia -- Russia hoax, with all of the different things that we had to go through. We've gone through years of it, but she's handled it very well. And it's going to be up to her. Whatever she thinks is credible, she should release.
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TREENE: So a few things to note there. And of course, I want to really point out that when he references former presidents Obama and Biden, or former FBI Director James Comey, saying that they made up the Epstein files, I'd remind you that a lot of people in the president's base and even some people in the administration had been the ones who had really been pushing this idea that these Epstein files needed to be released, that there was more to them, that there was potential accomplices listed in them.
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So I just want to give you that quick fact check, but look, all to say, I think the big point on this is, this is a story now that has been out for over a week and the backlash we have seen from his base, from the MAGA wing of his party, has not really quieted down despite the president's efforts to get them to move on from this. And so, that's why he's continuing to really have to come out here and defend the Attorney General. But it doesn't look like he's changing his tune on that just yet. Brianna?
KEILAR: Yeah, it does not. Alayna Treene, thank you for that report. Let's go now to CNN Chief Data Analyst, Harry Enten. And Harry Enten, there's a new CNN poll that's just out. How's the controversy impacting the president's support?
HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Yeah, I would say that the word is dissatisfied. That is how Americans feel in terms of the releases so far of the Epstein case. Take a look here. Epstein case, amount of info released, the winner here, 50 percent dissatisfied. Doesn't matter 29 percent, not heard enough 17 percent. But look at the bottom of your screen. The percentage that are satisfied is just 3 percent. That's one, that's two, that is just 3 percent. I feel like the count on Sesame Street, just 3 percent of Americans are satisfied so far with the amount of information released. The clear winner in this particular case is 50 percent, half of the public is dissatisfied, at least so far.
KEILAR: And are you seeing a big difference between how Republicans and Democrats are viewing this?
ENTEN: No. And that I think is kind of the interesting sort of nugget in what's going on here. You see this 50 percent dissatisfied and let's break it down by party. OK. Epstein case, amount of info released. Look at this, you get 43 percent of lean GOP, that's Republicans and independents who lean towards the Republican Party who are dissatisfied. Look at this, just 4 percent satisfied. My goodness gracious, when you only have 4 percent, that is with Donald Trump on a particular issue, that is ridiculously low. I've never seen anything quite like it.
How about Lean Democrat? 60 percent dissatisfied. Compare that to 3 percent who are satisfied. Again, 4 percent, 3 percent, Republican, Democrat, you rarely ever see this type of agreement. Now, of course there's another divide in American politics, one that has increased over the past few decades, and that is whites with a college degree, whites without a college degree. But in this particular case, we see agreement. What are we talking about? This Epstein case, amount of info released, dissatisfied 55 percent of white college graduates and 53 of white non-college graduates, Donald Trump's historic base, yet the majority are dissatisfied.
KEILAR: Really interesting numbers. Harry Enten, thank you so much. Boris?
SANCHEZ: Let's dig deeper on this with former FBI Deputy Director, Andrew McCabe. Andy, thanks so much for being with us. I want to start with what you make of this rift between the current Deputy Director and the DOJ and then by extension, the White House.
ANDREW MCCABE, FORMER FBI DEPUTY DIRECTOR: Sure, Boris. The tension between the Deputy Director and the AG is really untenable. This is a bad thing for the FBI, bad thing for the Department of Justice, and really not the kind of thing that in my experience, having worked for many attorneys general, never seen anything like this before. And I can't imagine any other Attorney General ever tolerating an act of disrespect along the lines of what allegedly took place between Pam Bondi and Dan Bongino in the White House when they got into some trading accusations and some sort of shouting match in front of the president's chief of staff.
I can't imagine that happening. DOJ and FBI frequently knock heads on issues and have different opinions about the way to handle investigations. But those conversations always take place in the house, within the family. You never let those things spill over into the public. It's important for the leadership -- for the workforce in both organizations, that they see the leadership together as one team in which the Attorney General makes the final call on everything. No exceptions.
SANCHEZ: I wonder whether you think it's likely that Bongino continues in this role because even though we just heard less than an hour ago, President Trump say that he likes Dan Bongino, he has been much more effusive in his support for Attorney General Bondi. It doesn't seem like she's going anywhere.
MCCABE: And you know Boris, that makes total sense, right? It's very hard to replace an Attorney General. I mean, he had a hard time getting Pam Bondi, obviously, with the problems they -- the administration had initially selecting Matt Gaetz. You don't have any of those sorts of issues replacing a Deputy Director, as I myself learned. A Deputy Director can be reassigned, can be removed. Dan Bongino, I would expect, could be convinced to resign if he's leaning that way.
He said several negative things about his experience so far, so that he doesn't like the job, that sort of stuff. So, I find it almost hard to believe that Dan will be able to continue in that role with all of the drama that they've put forth in the last week on top of his already fairly negative reviews about the role.
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It just -- it's -- he's a guy that is going to have a hard time getting the confidence of the workforce because he's not an FBI agent. He doesn't come from the organization. And this certainly has not made that any easier for him.
SANCHEZ: Just a moment ago, you, you were being self-deprecating, saying that it was easy to find a replacement as a Deputy FBI Director. But there was something that President Trump said this afternoon that I found interesting and I wanted to get your thoughts on, because he suggested that in a White House briefing in which he was presented evidence regarding the Epstein files, he found whatever was in the briefing to not be credible. And he charged that James Comey, among others, had something to do with that information not being credible, insinuating perhaps that it was tampered with, that they made up these files.
You took over as Acting FBI Director when Trump fired Comey back in May of 2017. It wasn't until summer of 2019 that Jeffrey Epstein was even arrested. So, I wonder if at any point while you were serving in the bureau, whether as Deputy or as Acting Director, you came across any information at all related to Jeffrey Epstein.
MCCABE: Yeah. Short answer, Boris, is none, not in any way. And there's a -- when you understand the timeline, it makes perfect sense. Right? Epstein's initial investigation by local authorities and the FBI in southern Florida ended with an indictment in 2008, I believe, if I have that year correct. And that was the indictment that was mysteriously, essentially given away by then U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta, who then later served in Trump's first term as his Secretary of Labor. So, Mr. Acosta basically washed the case away with what we call a non-prosecution agreement in which Epstein was able to plead guilty to two very minor local offenses and survey a pretty relaxed form of incarceration for 18 months.
There was no activity, investigative activity on Epstein until 2019, as you indicated, when the Southern District of New York opened the investigation that ultimately landed him in jail and where he killed himself. So, Jim Comey was not in the FBI when the early investigation was tanked by Alex Acosta, or the later one was started by Geoffrey Berman, who was the attorney, the U.S. attorney in the Southern District at the time. So, that allegation is absolutely preposterous. That's standard Donald Trump, whenever he's in trouble, to start to throw rocks at Jim Comey, Barack Obama, myself, our former colleagues. We just expect that now and disregard it anytime we hear it.
SANCHEZ: Andrew McCabe, always appreciate your time. Thanks for joining us.
MCCABE: Thanks, Boris.
SANCHEZ: Still to come, with the Supreme Court Approving President Trump's job cuts at the Department of Education, what other federal agencies might be next. Plus, the president pushing for new congressional district maps in an already red state. Exactly how many seats he believes Republicans could pick up. And later these subway surfers caught on camera, yikes. That much more coming your way in just moments. Don't go anywhere.
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KEILAR: Just now, President Trump praising the Supreme Court ruling that greenlit his plan to cut the Education Department.
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TRUMP: We had a big win with the Supreme Court on the Department of Education and we wanted -- as you know, we want to bring education back to the states, take the federal government out of it. A little tiny bit of supervision, but very little, almost nothing like to make sure they speak English. That's about all we need.
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KEILAR: The president also posted that it's "a major victory to parents and students." We have CNN's Sunlen Serfaty here on this story. Sunlen, what happens next?
SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, essentially Brianna, this gives them the go ahead, for the Trump administration to push forward and effectively work to dismantle the Department of Education, which is their stated goal. Now, they started the year with just over 4,000 workers at the department. This SCOTUS ruling now means that they are cutting that in half. Justice Sotomayor in the ruling yesterday, she was part of the descent, she called it indefensible. She went on to say the majority is either willfully blind to the implications of this ruling or naive, but either way, the threat to our constitution, separation of powers is grave.
And with such a massive reduction, Brianna, experts here really raising red flags. Can this department operate as it was? And it's worth remembering what exactly this department does, especially in the context of Trump wanting to push more responsibility to the states. Main department responsibilities are of helping fund K-12 schools, manages federal student loans, investigates criminal complaints. That's done through the Office of Civil Rights. What it doesn't do, it doesn't set K-12 curriculum. It does not tell teachers what they should teach. It doesn't certify teachers or set graduation rates. So worth remembering here, what will change and what will not change.
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Another big thing that will change is this is just one step of the overall process. The Education Secretary has been very clear, what is left, they likely will break it up and send it to other agencies. Just today, they said they are moving adult education and family literacy over to the Department of Labor. So again, this shows that they're emboldened to make big changes now with this ruling.
KEILAR: All right, thank you so much for covering this. It's certainly a big deal. Sunlen, thank you. Boris? SANCHEZ: As of today, thousands of employees across U.S. federal health agencies are now jobless. They were let go by the Department of Health and Human Services less than a week after the Supreme Court gave the go ahead to the Trump administration. An email to employees obtained by CNN reads in part, "You're hereby notified that you are officially separated from HHS at the close of business on July 14th. Thank you for your service to the American people." CNN's Meg Tirrell joins us now. Meg, what have you learned about this?
MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris, these were employees that were told that they were going to be losing their jobs as far back as the beginning of April as part of this massive reorganization of the Department of Health and Human Services overseen by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. There, they announced at the end of March, they were going to be firing 10,000 health employees across agencies on top of another 10,000 employees that were leaving voluntarily, cutting the size of HHS from about 82,000 employees down to about 62,000. So, this included cuts of 3,500 at FDA, 2,400 at CDC, 1,200 at the NIH, and 300 at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Now since then, some of those folks had actually been hired back. Their firings had been rescinded, but for the majority of them, those firings were actually on pause as a court battle played out, challenging whether they could actually take place. And as you mentioned, with that Supreme Court ruling last week, HHS now says it's going forward with these firings. And it told people late in the day yesterday, that by close of business that day, they were out of a job.
SANCHEZ: Mike Tirrell, thank you so much for the update on that.
Still to come, former National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz in the hot seat on Capitol Hill, telling Congress it was appropriate for him to use the messaging app Signal to share details about a military strike. And later, unreleased music by superstar Beyonce stolen. We'll tell you what else the thieves made off with. That and much more coming up on "CNN News Central."
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KEILAR: Former National Security Advisor, Michael Waltz, is defending his use of the messaging app Signal and maintains that no classified information was shared during a leaked chat about military strikes in Yemen that included a journalist. He faced tough questions about his use of Signal from some Democratic Senators on Capitol Hill today, as he seeks confirmation to become the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
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SEN. CHRIS COONS, (D-DE): Were you investigated for this, expansion of the Signal Group to include a journalist?
MIKE WALTZ, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N. NOMINEE: The White House conducted an investigation and my understanding is the Department of Defense is still conducting an investigation.
COONS: Was any disciplinary action taken?
WALTZ: From the White House Investigation Center?
COONS: Yes.
WALTZ: No. The use of Signal was not only authorized, it's still authorized and highly recommended.
COONS: Would you recommend the use of Signal for classified information to be shared between folks who have access to --
(CROSSTALK)
WALTZ: Again, we followed the recommendation, almost the demand, to use end-to-end encryption, but there was no classified information shared.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: We're joined now by Shane Harris, a Staff Writer for The Atlantic. He has covered Signal Gate extensively for The Atlantic, and he co-wrote several stories with journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, who was included in that high-level chat group, which led to this whole unraveling of that story. OK, Shane, did you learn anything new from Waltz's testimony today about Signal Gate? What stood out to you?
SHANE HARRIS, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: Well, nothing new, Brianna, but what I thought was interesting is that he keeps insisting that the information that was shared in the chat was not classified. And we'll recall that right after we had published our first story about this chat existing, that was the line that a lot of administration officials took that surprised many people, me included, because the information was so sensitive that in my experience, it would be presumptively classified.
So, I think the fact that Waltz continues to push that line is significant. I mean, if he were to say it was classified that obviously would be a major shift in the administration's position, but they're still going with this description of what went on in that room as if it were somehow normal. And you heard him say even encouraged to use Signal. It's clearly not to be encouraged for things like they were using it for.
KEILAR: Yeah. Sources tell CNN the details that were shared by Hegseth were also classified. I think a lot of outlets have reported that. Did it stand out to you that he really was leaning on Hegseth's testimony about what was not shared in the chat, even though it did appear that some of that may have been shared?
HARRIS: Yeah, and we should remember too that the most sensitive information that was in there was shared by Pete Hegseth. He is the one who placed into the chat the times that certain planes would be over their targets in Yemen, the kinds of planes they were. And he talked about some of the initial battle damage assessment that officials were seen --
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