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Trump Expected to Tout His Economic Policies in Pennsylvania; Top Lawmakers Briefed on U.S. Boat Strike That Killed Survivors; Trump Admin Plans for Possible Maduro Ouster in Venezuela; Federal Judge Grants Release of Ghislaine Maxwell Court Documents; Mangione Defense Team Trying to Get Key Evidence Tossed From Case. Aired 2-2:30p ET
Aired December 09, 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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PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: -- Even though they stay in the declarations, they don't want to be separated from their kid. They are just trying to get their kids back to the life that they had in the United States. And others will just face deportation because they may be at the end of their immigration proceedings. So it can really be a mixed bag, but they are there to be deported. So that would be the final outcome. And a lot of these families are scrambling to try to see if there's any way that they can keep their kids here. And a lot of these cases were still ongoing when they were picked up to begin with.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": That is heartbreaking. Priscilla, great reporting. Thank you so much. A new hour of "CNN News Central" starts right now.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Convincer in chief, the president giving himself high marks for the economy. But can he sell that to Americans struggling with higher costs? We'll see at a speech set for tonight in Pennsylvania. Plus, new files soon to be unsealed in the criminal case of sex trafficker, Ghislaine Maxwell. Will the public ever see them though? We're going to break down why the Justice Department requested them in the first place. And what happens if Venezuela's leader Nicolas Maduro is ousted from power? Sources tell CNN the administration is working on a plan if it happens. We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming your way right here on "CNN News Central."
President Donald Trump is giving himself high praise ahead of a visit to Pennsylvania later today. He's expected to highlight his administration's economic policies since retaking office some 11 months ago. The affordability issue propelled Trump back into the White House in 2024. But his handling of that key campaign promise may be a tough sell almost a year later. Voters are increasingly feeling the pinch of higher prices, but the president is remaining upbeat.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DASHA BURNS, WHITE HOUSE BUREAU CHIEF, POLITICO: But I do want to talk about the economy, sir, here at home. And I wonder what grade you would give your economy. DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A+.
BURNS: A+?
TRUMP: Yeah. A+++++.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: Let's go to the White House with CNN's Kristen Holmes. Kristen, the White House, according to sources, is planning on reframing the thinking of voters by sending president out into the country to try to persuade them.
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. And by talking about what he has done for the economy. He is going to talk about those Trump accounts. He's going to talk about gas prices. He's going to talk about which grocery prices that we've seen go down versus going up. But it's going to be a tough sell. I want to show you this poll. This is a recent Fox News Poll asking how people feel about the economy. National economic conditions, OK, that's the title of this poll. Not so good or poor, 76 percent of Americans think the economy or the economic conditions are not so good or poor, with only 25 percent saying they are excellent or even good.
Donald Trump is coming up against exactly what President Joe Biden came up against back in 2024 when he was originally running against President Trump, which was this idea that they continued, they being the Biden administration, talking about what they were doing for the economy. But when you talk to voters, they weren't feeling any of it. And that's the difference between running for office and actually being in office. Once you're actually in office, you are the one who is going to get blamed. When you talk to Americans today, really throughout the country, they feel like they are pinching pennies.
And it's very hard to sell that they are not when people are actually shopping using their wallets versus hearing President Trump speak. But there is a belief among White House officials, that they can bring people over to understanding where the administration is coming from if President Trump himself is the messenger. One thing to keep in mind here, President Trump has been incredibly frustrated with many people in his administration, with people that he's seeing on air, lawmakers, Republicans because he says they're not really touting what he has been doing with the economy. So now, he's taking this opportunity to get out there and sell it himself.
SANCHEZ: Kristen Holmes live for us at the White House. Brianna, we'll see how this works out, if it is in fact just messaging or if it's just a fact of life that Americans feel this way.
KEILAR: Yeah, he certainly does have some messaging to do. And let's talk about it with CNN's Political Director and Washington Bureau Chief, David Chalian. The White House actually says that the president's going to be making a series of these trips ahead of the midterms. Why is this particular location so significant?
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR AND WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: Well, it is a major battleground area in American politics. Pennsylvania overall, as you know, one of the major battleground states. Let's look at Monroe County, where he's going today. I just want to show you where -- Donald Trump won Monroe County by less than one percentage point against Kamala Harris. I want to take you back in time, just to show you the nature of how battlegroundy it is. Hillary Clinton won it by less than one percentage point in 2016. Joe Biden, of course, you may recall, Brianna, he's from nearby Scranton. You may have heard that once or twice. He won it by six points.
But Donald Trump finally flipped the county, again, by less than one percentage point. And the other thing I would notice here is on the congressional map, the congressional district that he is in today, in that area, it's the eighth Congressional District. Look how close that was in 2024.
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Rob Bresnahan ousted a Democratic incumbent, Matt Cartwright to flip that seat. So this is one of the districts that Democrats are targeting in 2026 to win control of the House majority. So Donald Trump has chosen to launch this economic agenda sort of as we turn the calendar to 2026 and start talking about this affordability issue. We'll see, we'll see how he does it. But he chose to do so or his team chose for him to do so in a critical battleground area.
KEILAR: And the president, we heard him, he gives himself quite the grade, the A+++++ on the economy. Polls are very clear, Americans do not agree with him on that.
CHALIAN: Not only are polls clear, Brianna, that Americans are feeling the pinch of high prices and that they don't believe that Donald Trump's overall handling of the economy is in positive territory. He is underwater there. In a lot of polls, he's more underwater on the economy, his handling of it, than he is in the overall job approval. And I would note this, in a lot of polls, what we're seeing is American voters believe Donald Trump's policies have made the economy worse, not better. And that's when you heard him in the cabinet room yesterday where he started saying, Democrats created the affordability problem and we are the ones fixing it.
You can see some of that information filtering. What I'm curious to listen to, is he in total denial about the reality people are feeling, or does he start having that -- like J.D. Vance and you and I discussed this last week, has started doing publicly like I hear and feel your pain. There's more work to do, but we've got the right program. I'm very curious to see what the tone is tonight.
KEILAR: Yeah, so am I. David, thank you so much for taking us through that. Still ahead, Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth is set to brief the Gang of Eight. Deadly boat strikes in the Caribbean under mounting scrutiny as President Trump says, Venezuelan leader Maduro's days in power are numbered. Plus, a judge just granted the Justice Department access to a trove of unsealed documents on Ghislaine Maxwell's criminal prosecution. We'll have that and much more coming up on "CNN News Central." (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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SANCHEZ: So, we're standing by for President Trump's top officials to give a classified briefing on Capitol Hill. Sources say that Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth; Secretary of State, Marco Rubio; and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Caine will brief lawmakers known as the Gang of Eight today. They include the Republican and Democratic leaders of both chambers as well as top members of the Intel Committees. For days, demands have been growing for the Trump administration to release video of the double-tap strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean that apparently killed survivors.
CNN's Kylie Atwood and Natasha Bertrand are with us now. Natasha, first, what are you hearing about the briefing?
NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're just learning actually that the CIA Director, John Ratcliffe, he's also expected to join. We're not learning too much though, about the content of the briefings, but safe to say that a Gang of Eight briefing like this with all of these top officials does not happen every day. And we know that lawmakers of course have been asking the administration to brief them in more detail about operations around Latin America, about these boat strikes, about plans potentially for military action inside Venezuela.
And in fact, we are told that military activity around the Caribbean will be on the agenda today. Of course, lawmakers are also going to be asking questions about that boat strike, the one that killed survivors back on September 2nd. Many lawmakers have been pressing Secretary Hegseth to release video of that boat strike publicly. We see some Republicans coming out today and saying that they're a bit ambivalent about releasing it now because there are classification issues. But of course, there are a lot of questions about whether that's true because the video itself has already been posted on social media, albeit a clipped version. So I think there's going to be a lot of discussion on a range of topics today, but safe to say that operations around Latin America are going to be a top of the agenda.
SANCHEZ: Yeah. And Kylie, you're getting some new reporting on the administration planning for a potential post-Maduro Venezuela. What are you hearing?
KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, so the administration and these efforts are housed at the White House. They are drafting day-after plans for the event in which Nicholas Maduro, the current leader, is ousted as a result of U.S. action. And this is significant because publicly, U.S. officials have consistently been telling us that these drug boat strikes, this military buildup in the Caribbean are primarily focused on the singular goal of trying to drive down drug trafficking to the United States.
But if there's this planning underway, which we are now reporting there is, it does give a clear signal that Trump is considering further action that wouldn't just drive down that drug trafficking but would actually take out Maduro, would be regime change in Venezuela. He was asked about how far he would go to oust Maduro during a Politico interview yesterday. I want us to listen to that clip of it.
SANCHEZ: Yeah.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BURNS: So, how far would you go to take Maduro out of office?
TRUMP: I don't want to say that but --
BURNS: But you want to see him out?
TRUMP: His days are numbered.
BURNS: Can you rule out an American ground invasion?
TRUMP: I don't want to rule in or out. I don't talk about it
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ATWOOD: Now when you talk to experts, they are welcoming the fact that the White House is focused on this day-after planning. Because if they are really considering actions that would lead to the ouster of Nicholas Maduro, then they want to be sure that the administration has thought about what U.S. support would look like. Intelligence support, security support, economic support, we're not saying necessarily that U.S. troops would be on the ground, that's highly unlikely.
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But U.S. support would be needed in order to fill that power vacuum that would be left if Maduro is ousted. And Secretary of State, Marco Rubio did say last week that, listen, Maduro has made multiple commitments to leave his post. He's never lived up to those commitments that he's made. So the administration is very wary of any negotiated settlement with Maduro. But, Rubio went on to say that they will still consider that. It's not like Trump isn't going to try for a negotiated settlement. So, we're watching to see if there's any follow-up conversation between Trump and Maduro because we know there was a phone call between the two leaders that took place late last month.
SANCHEZ: Yeah, they spoke last month. No word if they've had any communication since then. Kylie Atwood and Natasha Bertrand, thank you both for the reporting.
Coming up, Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, back in court. How his defense team is working to get crucial evidence tossed out in this high-profile trial. Plus, a judge granting the Justice Department special access to unsealed records from Ghislaine Maxwell's criminal prosecution by the grand jury investigation is just a small piece of a bigger puzzle. Stay with us, we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [14:20:46]
SANCHEZ: New today, a federal judge has now granted the Justice Department's request to unseal records from the investigation and criminal prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein's former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell. Remember, Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence for recruiting young girls into sex trafficking. Today's ruling could mean the public release of the victim testimonies and other crucial evidence. CNN's Katelyn Polantz joins us now. Katelyn, what else can you tell us about the ruling?
KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well Boris, this only pertains to the criminal case against Ghislaine Maxwell, the co-conspirator of Epstein. But it is an important step forward as the Justice Department is trying to make these records public and transparent under law now. So in this case, the grand jury returns were the major thing that the judge had to decide. But, the judge has also looked at those grand jury transcripts and said there's actually not much here that would be new.
In this case against Ghislaine Maxwell, there were two grand juries that each met just for one day. There was one in 2020, one in 2021. And then when they met all they heard, summary testimony is the word that the judge used. So it would just be law enforcement officers taking the stand, presenting to the grand jury a summarization of the case they had. And what the grand jury was doing is they weren't investigating as grand juries typically do. They were just meeting in the southern district of New York, the Manhattan Federal Court, at these times just to get the indictments off of the ground of Ghislaine Maxwell.
The judge, his quote in the order today releasing these grand jury records to help the Justice Department in the Epstein transparency, he says "Contrary to DOJ's depiction, the grand jury materials would not reveal new information of any consequence." So keep that in mind there. There's also a lot we know already from Ghislaine Maxwell's case because not only was she indicted, not only did the grand jury sit twice to indict her, she went to trial. And at that trial, the judge makes note, this is what we already saw. Four victims testified, there were Epstein and Maxwell employees that testified, law enforcement was giving testimony, and then very crucially, it was at that time, the black address book being released -- I can't get it.
SANCHEZ: There you go.
POLANTZ: There we go.
SANCHEZ: Yeah.
POLANTZ: There's my arrow, the black address book. So if you are someone who has been waiting to see, is there some sort of client list or address book? We know there's no client list. There is a black address book. It's been out there already, as have been private plane flight logs of Epstein and other records.
SANCHEZ: So, what does this ruling do to the potential request from the Justice Department to be fulfilled regarding Epstein's grand jury testimony?
POLANTZ: Yeah, Boris, so this is like a small portion of the whole big pie. I want to draw a pie, right, where it's -- you have the whole group of Epstein files and that's largely going to be everything the FBI had.
SANCHEZ: Yeah.
POLANTZ: And then in court you have three different cases. The Epstein case in New York, the Epstein case in Florida, and then the Maxwell case. We're getting the Maxwell stuff. That's what was -- what the order was today. The Florida case against Epstein from 2005-2007, we actually don't know what's in there yet. And the judge has said, we can get those documents, that they will be released. We're also waiting to see what a judge will say about the grand jury records in the case against Epstein charged in 2019. And then he did not go to trial because he hung himself. But there is quite a lot here.
The other thing that is important to point out with this right now, is that the Justice Department is going to court and they're asking these judges unsealed grand jury transcripts. That might be largely what we've seen, but there's another thing they're asking for. They're trying to make sure they can release the evidence, what's called discovery in these cases, which would be the investigative record.
And the judge did set up a plan today, at least in the case of Maxwell, to release that evidence, the discovery from Ghislaine Maxwell's 2021 trial. So that's not just what was shown at trial or to the grand jury. It potentially could be much more, but there's a lot to come here and there's a lot to watch for.
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What is going to be new, we just don't know.
SANCHEZ: Yeah. Katelyn Polantz, thanks so much for keeping track of it. Appreciate it. So, Brianna?
KEILAR: It's been one year exactly since Luigi Mangione was arrested inside of a Pennsylvania McDonald's and taken into custody for the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO, Brian Thompson. He's set to go on trial next month, but he's been in court for a pretrial hearing where the defense is trying to toss out evidence that was recovered from Mangione's backpack during that arrest. These are some of the seized items that jurors have seen. They include snacks, an electric razor, hair picks, and various pieces of clothing.
Inside was also a handgun and a red notebook. Mangione's attorneys claim the items were confiscated during an illegal search and that officers at the McDonald's improperly read Mangione his Miranda Rights. One of the officers who helped search Mangione's bag told the jury today that during Mangione's arraignment, Mangione looked back at all the reporters as he was leaving court and said unprompted, all these people here for a mass murderer, wild.
Now, it's not clear to whom he was referring. But the officer also testified that later that same day, Mangione made this comment about being shackled around his ankles. "I'm going to have to get used to it."
And still to come, it may be one of the largest cases of alleged sexual misconduct in U.S. military history. We talked to a Congresswoman who joined dozens of other Democratic women and other lawmakers on Capitol Hill, demanding accountability from the Pentagon, next.
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