Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Trump Takes Questions During Oval Office Announcement; Justice Department To Provide Epstein-related Records To House Committee; Trump Says He Knows Nothing About FBI Search Of Bolton's Home, Calls Him a Low Life; Lyle Menendez Face Parole Board After Brother Erik Denied Release. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired August 22, 2025 - 13:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[13:30:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Thank you so much. Let's go now to the Oval Office. President Trump is taking questions.

KRISTI NOEM, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Everybody will be thoroughly vetted, but they'll be welcome to this country. It will happen quickly, and we are excited for them to come. So, I would hope that around the world, people know that the United States is excited to bring their family here to enjoy this event.

GIANNI INFANTINO, FIFA PRESIDENT: America welcomes the world --

NOEM: Yes.

INFANTINO: -- and I can read it from the collaboration that we have, testified for that. Absolutely. Thank you.

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: And I was just sent a picture from somebody that wants to be there very badly. He's been very respectful of me and of our country, but not so respectful of others. But he'll -- I'm going to sign this for him, but I was sent one and I thought you would like to see it. That's a man named Vladimir Putin, who I believe will be coming, depending on what happens. He may be coming and he may not, depending on what happens. We have a lot of things happening over the next couple of weeks. So, but I thought it was a nice picture of him. OK of me, but nice of him. So, that was very nice that it was sent to me. OK?

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, on that subject, have you talked to Vladimir Putin about the fact that yesterday, a big U.S. factory was hit in a Russian air strike in Ukraine? What's your reaction to that?

TRUMP: I told him I'm not happy about it, and I'm not happy about anything having to do with that war. I said, I settled not -- seven wars. And actually, if you think about pre-wars, add three more, so it would be 10. I thought this would be in the middle of the pack in terms of difficulty. Now, I'm not happy about anything about that war, nothing, not happy at all. We'll see what happens. I think over the next two weeks, we're going to find out which way it's going to go. And I better be very happy.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A very good call with Prime Minister Carney of Canada yesterday morning.

TRUMP: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Actually, Canada is taking away some retaliatory tariffs.

TRUMP: He's removing his tariffs, yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Exactly.

TRUMP: He's removing his retaliatory tariffs, which I thought was nice. And we're going to have another call soon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.

TRUMP: Yeah, we had a very good call.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're getting closer in towards (inaudible) on trade.

TRUMP: Well, I like him. Look, I'm fighting for the United States. Canada and Mexico have taken a lot of our business over the years, over 25, 30 years, especially during the Biden years. They took a lot of our business. And it's basically all coming back into the United States now. We are hard (ph) as a pistol and it's coming back in because of tariffs and the incentives we give. It's coming back. And it's impossible, I think, for another country to stop it. And we are working on something. We want to be very good to Canada. I like Carney a lot. I think he's a good -- good person. And we had a very good talk yesterday, so I think it'll bring be good.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, I have a question about, the search of Ambassador Bolton's home. The vice president recently just did an interview saying that it's about classified documents, but that there's also broad concern about him. What are -- what are the concerns that they have?

TRUMP: Well, I haven't spoken to Pam and the group yet, but I will be. I saw that just like everybody else. I try and stay out of that stuff. I'm allowed to be, and I'm chief law enforcement officer, believe it or not. I don't like to go around saying that, but I am. That's the position. But I purposely don't want to really get involved in it. I'm not a fan of John Bolton. I thought he was a sleazebag, actually. And, he's -- suffers major Trump derangement syndrome, but so do a lot of people. And they're not being affected by anything we do.

I don't know anything about it. I saw -- just saw that. I'll find out about it. But, if you believe the news, which I do, I guess his house was raided today, but my house was raided also, called Mar-a-Lago. They went through everything they could, including my young son's room and my wife's area. They went through her drawers as the expression goes. They went through everything you can imagine. And when she came back, she looked, she said, she's very neat, she's meticulous. And she looked and she said, woo, this wasn't -- this wasn't the way that she had it. So, I know the feeling. It's not a good feeling. Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, how long will you give Putin?

TRUMP: A couple of weeks. We're going to figure it out. We'll find out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think you'll have to intervene at some point?

TRUMP: Look, it takes two to tango, you understand that? I wanted to have a meeting with those two. I could have been at the meeting, but -- and a lot of people think that nothing's going to come out of that meeting. You have to be there. Maybe that's true. Maybe it's not. But we're going to see. In the meantime, people continue to die. But I've solved seven of them where they were in wars for 31, 35 and 37 years. We had three of them that were for more than 30 years, Gianni, and I got them solved.

And we solved one that could have been a nuclear war with India and Pakistan. That was getting ready to be a nuclear war. I solved them all. And this one, I thought we would've had it done by now. But it's more difficult. There is a lot of anger, a lot of hatred. There's a tremendous amount of hatred there. So, but we'll see what happens. I think in two weeks, we'll know which way I'm going, because I'm going to go one way or the other and they'll learn which way I'm going.

(CROSSTALK)

[13:35:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, I've got two questions for you. One on FIFA, the other one on D.C. Let's talk -- can you talk about the economic impact that FIFA will have in these cities? And what's your message to the mayors to get their cities prepared, not only the beautification process, but also the safety aspect?

TRUMP: Well, Los Angeles is an example. You know, it's poorly run. We have a mayor there that can't even get permits to the people that lost their houses. Lee Zeldin got every permit. The hardest permit is the federal permit. Within 20 days, every single permit was there for the people to build their houses. But people are writing us and they're saying they won't give us -- the mayor is incompetent. The governor is incompetent. You know Gavin -- I know Gavin very well. He's an incompetent guy with a good line of bullshit, and he doesn't get the job done.

And frankly, those people want to build their houses. It's terrible. They could have been built -- some of them could have been built already. But think of it, the federal government that has the most complex part -- and it's the most complex environmental thing to do. We got it. Everybody had it within 30 days, and they're not even close to getting their permits. And now, they're talking about taking some of those sites and building low-income housing on them. These are high-end neighborhoods.

And I'm all for low-income housing. I built a lot of low-income housing. I know all about 236; I know every program that there is in the government. I used every one of them. I know more about low-income housing than probably almost anybody, and it's great. It's fine. It's wonderful. But you don't build it in Pacific Palisades. You don't build it there, and you don't build it in the other areas that burned down. So they're talking about putting up low-income housing, and you talk about riots. They're going to have riots if that happens because you're taking the people's property away. They want to build their houses and they're unable to get permits from the mayor and from the governor.

And that's a terrible thing. But, and let me tell you, if I didn't send in the troops in Los Angeles, Gianni wouldn't be in Los Angeles. You wouldn't be having your World Cup there.

INFANTINO: Yeah.

TRUMP: I said to the troops, and we kept it. And even the police commissioner, the sheriff, and the police commissioner, they all said the same thing. They said we could have never handled what was happening. You saw that; you were there. He said, we could have never handled what was happening. And then you hear Gavin Newsom, after it's all quelled, your Newsom got up and said, we could've done this by ourselves. No, they couldn't have. And if they could have, I wouldn't have taken the chance either.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. My second question is on crime prevention, would you be open to expanding the national concealed carry to apply to D.C. like it does in other states like Texas?

TRUMP: Yeah. Well, they have it in some states and they feel strongly about it. As you know, I'm in favor of it all. People have to protect themselves. I'm a Second Amendment person, very simply, people have to be able to protect themselves. Especially like in Washington, you walk down the street, a guy comes up and slugs you. He's got a -- he's got a pistol in his hand. You can be tough. You're can be in great shape. You can be a powerful person, or you can be a guy that weighs a hundred pounds with a gun in your hand.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

TRUMP: And I'(LAUGH) bet on the guy with a gun a hundred percent of the time. Right? And so, you need protection. So I'm a Second Amendment person all the way. Yeah, please.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Trump, you said this morning that you were working with Congress to get $2 billion to help clean up D.C. Have you had any conversations with Mike Johnson and John Thune about where they're going to get that money from?

TRUMP: Which money?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You said this morning you're going to get $2 billion from Congress to help clean up D.C.

TRUMP: Yeah, I've spoken to Mike Johnson. I've spoken to John Thune, the Senate, the House. And I think it's going to be very easy to get. It's going to be not a lot of money. I wouldn't even know where to spend the number that you mentioned, but it's going to be money to beautify the city. Yeah, they're ready. Everybody wants to save D.C. In one way, it's the easiest. The violence was more than any other city in the country actually, by far. It may have been more than any other city in the world, if you could think, we looked at some of the worst cities in the world. It was worse.

And that's why it angers me to see the mayor saying about how they have it on the -- not on the slide. It was worse than ever. Yeah. We have no problem getting that money. That money will come out of Congress. I think it'll be even bipartisan.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And is the plan to get it --

TRUMP: I mean, I would imagine Democrats would vote for that one.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is the plan to get it before the September 30 spending deadline on the Hill?

TRUMP: Well, I don't know if there is a headline -- you know, a deadline. Because if I declare a national emergency, which this was, that ends the deadline. So, I mean, I keep seeing about a 30-day deadline, of which we have 22 days left or something. But, if I think we're in great shape here, that's one thing. But if I don't, I'm going to just say it's a national emergency. And if I have a national emergency, I can keep the troops there as long as I want. People are not going to want to have the troops. In 30 days, it's one thing to get them out. It's another thing to keep them out for a long period of time.

You've got to train people. You can't do this. You can't bop people over their head.

[13:40:00]

And a lot of those people are in courts right now, going to court. They're going to go to jail for a long time. So that's going to take more than 30 days. But if I have to, I'll declare a national emergency, which I don't think I'll have to do. Yeah?

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, you said in two weeks, you'll know whether you go --

TRUMP: Yeah, I think I'll know -- I think I'll know the attitude of Russia and frankly, of Ukraine. It takes two. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What are the two ways -- you can go at the end of two weeks then?

TRUMP: Well, then I'm going to make a decision as to what we do and it's going to be a very important decision. And that's whether or not it's massive sanctions or massive tariffs or about -- or do we do nothing and say, it's your fight. Look, I would've never been in this war if I were president. You wouldn't have -- you wouldn't have had this war. It was never going to happen. This was caused by stupid people that fought. And you know, people say, well, how do we know? Because for four years, it was never even a subject. And Vladimir knew and you see his picture right here, it was nice that he sent. But Vladimir knew very strongly, he -- we wouldn't have stood for it. It wouldn't have happened. A hundred percent wouldn't have happened, but it did happen.

And now, they're losing from five to seven young kids. Think of it, you are parent and your son is leaving. He's Russian, or he is Ukrainian, and he's leaving and they're waving him by. Nice, beautiful kid, nice crew cut, all set, he wants to be a soldier. And he goes there, his first week, he has his head blown off. And he's no different than you people, me. And it doesn't matter where, I mean, I solved a problem in the Congo that was vicious, Rwanda and the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, and they were fighting for 31 years. And it was machetes. People were getting their heads chopped off. That was going on for 31 years. I got it solved. You saw it. They came to the White House that we signed an agreement. It was amazing.

People can't believe we got it done. I love to stop killing. I really do. People thought it would be just the opposite. Hillary Clinton said, oh, he'll get us into a war. No, I'm getting everybody else out of wars.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you saying there's a real possibility then that you do nothing if Putin doesn't come to the table for a ceasefire (inaudible)?

TRUMP: I'll see whose fault it is. If there are reasons why, I'll understand that. I know exactly what I'm doing. We're going to see whether or not they have a meeting. That'll be interesting to see. And if they don't, why didn't they have a meeting? Because I told them to have a meeting. But I'll know in two weeks what I'm going to do. I have a pretty good idea of all that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Your Justice Department is also sending some of the Epstein files over to the House Oversight Committee today. Are you --

TRUMP: That's OK.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you in support of them releasing all of them?

TRUMP: (Inaudible) keeping it open.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If they wanted to release?

TRUMP: People shouldn't be hurt. But I'm in support of keeping it totally open. I couldn't care less. You got a lot of people that it could be mentioned in those files that don't deserve to be, people -- because he knew everybody in Palm Beach. I don't know anything about that. But I have said to Pam and everybody else, give them everything you can give them, because it's a -- it's a Democrat hoax. That's just a hoax.

The whole Epstein thing is a Democrat hoax. So we had the greatest six months, seven months in the history of the presidency. And the Democrats don't know what to do. So they keep bringing up that stuff, but it affected them. The Bill Clinton was on his plane and went to the island supposedly 28 times. I don't want to bring that up, frankly. You have Larry, whatever his name is, Summers, the head of Harvard, who was Jeffrey Epstein's best friend. Nobody ever talks about that. I mean I -- but I don't want to hurt Larry Summers. But he was best friends with Jeffrey Epstein.

No, this is a democratic hoax to try and get the significance of what we've done over the past seven months. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. They say it's number one in history, what we've done, including stopping seven wars. I mean, just include that. And now, you look -- and now you look at the stock market today, it's way up to start off with, from where I took it and this market was going to crash. If Joe Biden or Kamala were president, this market would've -- we would've had a crash like in 1929. You're not going to have that. It's only a question of how high is it going to go.

I had the strongest economy in the history of our country. And despite COVID, we had the strongest economy in the history of our country. And we're going to blow it away this time. I was always good at making a lot of money. And whether it was for myself or whether it was -- I like doing it this way better. I mean, I like -- I like making it for the country. Our country's been ripped off by friend and foe, nations all over the world ripped off. And the friends have been much worse than the foes for the most part. And they're not ripping us off. We just signed a deal with the European Union. They're paying us essentially $950 billion, like a signing fee. They're going to buy $750 billion worth of energy. They weren't buying much of our energy there. And --

KEILAR: All right, we're listening to President Trump.

[13:45:00]

He was asked about this search of his former National Security Adviser, John Bolton. He said he is allowed to sort of be involved or apprised of it. He said he's the chief law enforcement officer. Although that is actually -- for him to be apprised of it is actually strange. That would be traditionally unusual, we should say. But he said he purposely doesn't want to get involved in it. That would actually be a more traditional approach there. But he said he is going to find out about it. He pointed out -- he said, my house was rated also. And we've been seeing this sort of campaign of retribution, this pattern where the levers of power in his administration are wielded against some of his enemies and there are a lot of people questioning, including a Democratic lawmaker we had on right before.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Yeah.

KEILAR: If this is one of those instances, he did pivot very quickly to talk about sort of how he felt law enforcement had been used against him.

SANCHEZ: Yeah. He said, I know the feeling. It's not a good feeling. Interesting that he brought up the comparison to the search --

KEILAR: That's right.

SANCHEZ: -- at Mar-a-Lago. Notably, the president also held up a photo of he and Vladimir Putin during their meeting one week ago today, in Alaska. The president saying that Putin sent him that photo, saying that he has been very respectful of me and our country, not so respectful of others. He says he's going to sign that photo for Putin. And he was asked repeatedly about when this meeting that he said that he sort of set up between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy is going to happen. He again pivoted to what we often hear from President Donald Trump when there's an undetermined date set on the horizon. Two weeks is what the president said. He said it takes two to tango.

We'll find out what direction this is going to go. He sort of gave a tacit threat to Russia saying that they could mean massive sanctions, massive tariffs, or it could mean a bilateral meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin. Though he noted that people are telling him, maybe you have to be there and make it a trilateral meeting.

KEILAR: It is very clear he wants to get something done though.

SANCHEZ: Yeah.

KEILAR: And he's making the case for himself as this peacemaker. He's saying that he has stopped seven wars. He kept emphasizing the Congo, but we really just should fact check that one specifically. There is a ton of violence since the U.S. mediated a peace agreement there, and it is really on a razor's edge. So, a question about whether what the Trump Administration was able to achieve there is even going to stand for very long at all. That is a question. But he is certainly trying to paint a rosy picture of what he's been able to do as he tries to paint himself as this peacemaker.

SANCHEZ: He also notably tried to distance himself from anything related to the Epstein files, which the Oversight Committee is now getting the first batch of files from the Department of Justice and releasing it to the public, ostensibly before the end of the day. We should note the president there saying that there could be people mentioned in those files that shouldn't be. He suggested again that this is a Democratic hoax trying to detract from his accomplishments in the first eight months or so of his administration. It was actually a campaign promise that he and others in his orbit made that they would release all these files.

KEILAR: Right.

SANCHEZ: We should note.

KEILAR: Yeah. Pretty creative if it's a Democratic hoax for it to have started as a Trump campaign promise.

SANCHEZ: Yeah.

KEILAR: Nonetheless, a make or break day for one of the Menendez brothers ahead. We're talking about Lyle Menendez, the elder of the two brothers here, facing the California Parole Board just one day after his brother did and was denied parole. We'll have new details next on "CNN News Central."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:53:10]

SANCHEZ: Today is a long-awaited day for Lyle Menendez. He's facing a Parole Board for the very first time since spending more than 30 years in prison for murdering his parents. His hearing comes a day after his brother Erik's bid for parole was rejected. In its decision, the Board said that Erik still poses an "unreasonable risk to public safety." In tearful testimony during the hearing, many family members spoke in support of Erik, expressing their forgiveness despite deep emotional scars the murders left behind. They're still holding out hope both brothers get a second chance.

Under California law, Governor Gavin Newsom does have final say over parole decisions. He could also notably grant clemency. With us now, CNN Legal Analyst and Criminal Defense Attorney, Joey Jackson. Joey, great to see you as always. According to the Parole Commissioner, Erik was denied parole because of his behavior in prison. Lyle's case, of course, is going to be considered on its own merits. I wonder if you think he has a better chance.

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST AND CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yeah, I mean, it remains to be seen, Boris. Good to be with you. And I think certainly it'll track much of the questions that we saw yesterday with respect to what he was doing in prison. The disconnect to me with Erik, the younger brother who went yesterday, was they spoke about the cell phone. And that's serious. It brings dangers, gang activity, other things can result from that. But if you're going to tether the denial on really a threat to public safety, I would be looking for more conduct relating to violence while in prison.

Not of course to disregard bars, the nature of the crime, shooting your parents 12 times is a problem and certainly a big deal. But I think that what they have to do, and what I'd look for today is tethering the conduct in jail to what you're expected to do when you're outside of it. And that's to obey the rules and certainly not pose an unreasonable risk of danger to anyone else.

[13:55:00]

SANCHEZ: There was an exchange that struck me when the Parole Commissioner asked Erik if there was any part of him that believed that this was self-defense. And Erik replied, no. What do you make of that?

JACKSON: I mean, the nature of the defense has always been that it was self-defense. Why? Because there was this purported abuse, both physically and psychologically with regard to what the father was doing to them, right? And that was of course, at issue. In the first trial, it was permitted that as the first trial of both brothers, the jury was permitted to hear evidence of that abuse. They had separate jurors and it was a hung jury. In the second trial, of course, the jury was not permitted to hear so much evidence about it. And that was the basis, many believe, for the conviction.

And so, the self-defense, without that, why did you do it? And so, very unusual answer to be sure when you're alleging and claiming all along that that's what was your motivation for killing your parents.

SANCHEZ: And Joey, Erik May be up again for parole in three years. Does the criteria for denying him parole now potentially change over the next three years?

JACKSON: So it won't change, Boris. I think what's going to happen is, is that the Parole Commissioners are going to look to see whether he has taken it seriously. Meaning what they noted to him. Look, what you do in jail matters and they seem to focus, that is the Parole Commissioner's hearing on it, on what he was doing in jail. The issue with the cell phone, the drug use, et cetera., and that's important and they're going to look to see whether he's cleaned that up.

But what you learn also is that whatever they focus on, as we look there at his infractions, that they found problematic, at the end of the day, it should really be based on are you safe to be released and are you not? One quick thing, Boris, and that is, even though they deny that as the Parole Board denied him, the governor can still reverse that. Of course, we don't anticipate that, but that certainly could be an outcome should Governor Newsom choose to do so.

SANCHEZ: Joey Jackson, appreciate the analysis. Thanks for joining us.

JACKSON: Thanks, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Still ahead, President Trump says Chicago could be the next city that his administration targets for a federal crime crackdown. We have new details coming your way in just moments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)