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FBI Discussed Contacting '10 Co-Conspirators' after Epstein's Arrest; Looking Back at 2025's Top Political Stories; War and Peace Dominated Foreign Policy Stories of 2025. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired December 24, 2025 - 06:00   ET

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: During the season, we're really -- it's about --

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RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN ANCHOR: Astronauts aboard the International Space Station, wishing everyone on Earth a merry Christmas and a happy holiday season. They are in the middle of a long-duration stay to test new technologies for future human and robotic exploration missions in space.

And that will do it for us here at EARLY START. I'm Rahel Solomon, live in New York. If you celebrate Christmas, have a very merry Christmas. I will see you on Friday, but for now, CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and merry Christmas Eve to those who celebrate. I want to thank you for waking up with me.

I'm Audie Cornish, and this morning we are standing by for more of those Epstein files to drop. CNN has learned exclusively that the Justice Department, a day before Christmas, is scrambling to find prosecutors to volunteer over the next several days to help redact and review the files.

Also, this morning, new questions about who the Justice Department is trying to protect. Among the redactions in the latest release, the names of what federal agents call Epstein's coconspirators.

According to one email with the subject "coconspirators," the person, whose signature line includes "FBI New York," writes this: "When you get a chance, can you give me an update on the status of the ten coconspirators?"

The response hours later, nearly each name blacked out.

Joining me now is CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson. Good morning, Joey. Thanks for being with us.

I want to start with those FBI emails. What is it about the coconspirators that's been a question mark all this time; why people are so interested in this list?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, I think it's important. Good to be with you, Audie. It's important because coconspirators would indicate that there are people who are enabling or people who could otherwise have criminal responsibility.

If you look at the whole basis for the Epstein File Transparency Act, it's to be transparent. It's to give an indication of who was involved, if anyone; who knew what, when, how, why? As we look at some pictures there.

And when you talk about co-conspirators in a federal prosecution, those are other people who have criminal responsibility. So, who are those people? Why weren't they charged? Will they be charged moving forward?

What did the investigation reveal as to their activities? Were they enablers? Were they recruiters? Who specifically were these individuals?

So, I think there's a lot of questions that are fair to ask about them. And of course, we know, Audie, that to date, only one coconspirator -- that is Ghislaine Maxwell -- has been charged and convicted and is serving a 20-year sentence.

And so, it's not a surprise that there's a lot of firepower and information that people want to know with regard to that memorandum and email concerning coconspirators in the Jeffrey Epstein enterprise.

CORNISH: I want to ask you about something that was really going around social media last night: an allegedly handwritten letter that was released by the DOJ. Because the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, actually commented about it.

It was a letter that said, "J. Epstein." It was addressed to the convicted sex offender Larry Nassar. And Todd Blanche said this, that it's, quote, "clearly fake," adding, "We produce documents, and sometimes this can result in releasing fake or false documents, because they're simply in our possession, because the law requires this."

Can you talk about the context for having something that might be fake? And talk about how the administration, honestly, kind of tried to get ahead of this, right? As these files were coming out.

JACKSON: So, there's a couple of things that are important here.

I think the first thing is, is we have to understand that this, the release of documents, should not be about carrying the president's water, casting aspersions on various documents, cherry-picking, sending out one trove that has Bill Clinton, and then you remove a picture of the current president. Shouldn't be about that, right?

The act, again, is about transparency and getting out information. That's the first thing. The second thing is, is that in releasing information, yes, there

could, in fact, be information in here which is not actually true. Right? That's -- that's the reality. Their job -- that is the government -- is to release any and all documentation. Some of that document may very well be false, but it may not be.

And I don't know that it's up to, at this point, you know, the deputy attorney general or anyone else, quite frankly, right now, to make an initial assessments; or to get ahead of it politically; or even to cast aspersions on things.

It's not about releasing information and minimizing that which you don't like or that which implicates your boss, or that which could potentially, you know, involve other people.

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It's about letting people make decisions for themselves; do further investigations; have Congress look and grip into this.

And I think what this is doing, is it's undermining public confidence. And so, I don't know what the objective was.

CORNISH: Yes.

JACKSON: Perhaps it was a false document. Perhaps it wasn't. But I think it ultimately should be up to Congress to get these files; to look at them transparently; and to evaluate what is authentic and what isn't.

CORNISH: OK. Joey Jackson, thank you.

And right now, officials searching for several people missing after a deadly blast at a Pennsylvania nursing home. The explosion caused part of the building to collapse. Two people were killed, and it's unclear how many others are still trapped in the rubble.

Now, it happened just as crews were on -- were looking into a gas leak.

Also, soon, millions of Americans could see their wages garnished as the Trump administration ramps up efforts to collect student loan debt. The Education Department says some borrowers could begin to receive notices as early as January 7.

Loans are considered to be in default if they haven't been paid for more than 270 days. Officials estimate that could impact more than 5 million Americans -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. 2025 has been a wild year in politics. Rare unity on the Epstein files. The longest government shutdown in history. And some Democratic success in off-year elections in November.

With us now, Democratic strategist Meghan Hays and Republican strategist Melik Abdul. So, you know, we're approaching the end of the year, but I'm old

enough to remember the beginning of the year, Melik, when Donald Trump was sworn in for a second term. One year in, what direction is it heading?

MELIK ABDUL, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, first of all, thanks for having me. As you can see, I tried to wear my Christmas red here for the show.

And so, as far as what we're headed with Donald Trump, obviously, we started a pretty historic year with the reelection of President Donald Trump, who didn't serve subsequent terms.

But where we are now, it's a lot of unanswered questions. There were things that we were expecting to happen even around the economy with -- with regards to, like, tariffs and many other things, that have been happening since the beginning of the year. We seem to be at a different place now.

I don't know exactly what will happen next year, but the midterms are next year. And that's going to be the important thing that we're going to be looking at. So, a lot of the things that happened this year really will be a barometer to look forward to see what will happen next year.

And yes, there have been some sort of wins here and there for Donald Trump, but there also have been some losses. And I think all of those things will factor into the midterms next year, because the first year really is all about next year.

BERMAN: Well, let's break that down into two separate parts, because, Meghan, when he came into office, I think for the first several months, it was one thing after another that he was achieving, by his own standards, and things that his supporters wanted.

But then, that seemed after the passage of, you know, his -- his big, so-called, Beautiful Bill. Then it seemed to stop, and he seemed to have a series of setbacks here.

So first, let's talk about what I think they all consider the success, Meghan. How was he able to get so many things done in this second term, where maybe it was more of a struggle, you know, eight years ago?

MEGHAN HAYS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, I think his team is very different. I think that they understand what they were coming into, and they understand the lay of the land. And that's always -- you have the benefit of that knowledge, when you don't your first term.

But I will -- I will say, a lot of the things that he thought were a success early on were stopped in courts. So, they were a very short- term success. But a lot of the firings with DOGE have been overturned. And people are being back -- put back to work.

His immigration actions, he's upside-down in the polling on immigration. So, that -- he's gone too far with that. He's also had a lot of legal trouble with different actions he's taken

there, so -- and he hasn't done anything with the economy, which is what his voters really care about.

So, it will be interesting to see, moving into the new year, how that really impacts him.

BERMAN: Yes. What about that idea, Melik? You know, if this were military terms, it was almost as if you had an army that outstripped its supply lines. Right? Things that seemed like success, maybe set it up for failure. So, what about that?

ABDUL: Well, you know, and I'll take my partisan hat off here. I do think that Meghan actually raised some valid points, because going into this year, there were a lot of unknowns. There were a lot of unknowns around tariffs. There were a lot of unknowns around immigration.

If you look at the actual numbers, Donald Trump did the very -- the one thing that he said that he was going to do, which was shut the border down. And when you ask people about that, he still gets high ratings when it comes to shutting down the border.

But as I've said here many times before, what it seems as if that people push back against is not Donald Trump's idea of really dealing with the immigration issue that has long preceded him. It is how he chooses to implement those policies.

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And now, we're seeing, not just with the immigration enforcement, but that kind of turned into the -- you know, the ICE agents going into cities all around the country. And you're having federal judges, not district court judges, because they're a little different, not district court judges, but federal judges shutting a lot of these things down.

So yes, I agree: a lot of the successes that we thought we had early on are now being dealt with in a real way. And I think that people are seeing but also responding to that.

BERMAN: Meghan, how is it that we got to November and these off-year elections where Democrats did very well? And the issue, I think, for Democrats at that time was so clear, an issue of affordability.

How was it that this was such a clear thing for them to grab onto? And why was it that Republicans weren't able to respond?

HAYS: Well, they weren't able to respond, because they aren't doing any actions to fight back against Donald Trump's policies.

He's enacting tariffs, which is drastically impacting the working- class people. People can't afford their groceries anymore. Nothing. There's not one single item that's come down that people have to pay for on a day-to-day basis. And so, I think Democrats caught onto that. And they also realized it

was -- we were -- we were on our back foot for the '24 election. And it was what really got us -- what really made an impact for the Republicans to win.

And so, you know, if you don't -- if you say -- if you're going to run on something, you need to do it. And they weren't doing it.

So, Democrats really grasped on. And they won a lot of places. And they won in places like Mississippi and Georgia, and places they haven't won before. And so, that's -- the momentum is definitely with the Democrats moving into 2026 and into the midterms.

BERMAN: Melik, I think if there were two lessons we learned from the Biden administration, No. 1, be careful about a president that ages before your eyes as everyone is looking on.

But No. 2 is don't tell the American people that the economy and the economic situation is good when they don't feel like it's good.

And that lesson seemed to be so crystal-clear with the results in 2024. And yet, President Trump still, almost every day, has a problem talking about affordability in a way that seems to be where the American people are. Why is that?

ABDUL: Yes, and this is one of those messaging issues for not just Trump, but the Trump administration. Because everything can't be good 100 percent of the time.

And I think those early wins kind of gave Donald Trump -- you know, he felt like he had the, you know, the wind at his back. And now, we're seeing the implications of that.

And even when it comes to the costs, the costs that we're paying in the stores, it is not dramatically more. Remember, at the beginning of the year, we were paying, I think, what, 6 or $7 for eggs? Now, in my local grocery, that's now probably down to about 3.99, but it's still up from what it was just a few months ago.

I think that Donald Trump -- I always make a distinction between Trump 1.0 and Trump 2.0. I think that 1.0, they had a better sense of not just what the administration was doing, but kind of a feel for the country.

And this time around, Donald Trump has surrounded himself with people who, for all intents and purposes, just seem to tell him exactly what he wants to hear.

And so, this notion that Donald Trump is able to go around and say, no, you know, the economy is not doing as bad as you think, it is -- it is a bit tone deaf. And that's why, you know, sometimes I'm scratching my head and saying, but this is exactly what we campaigned against Biden on. And now it seems that Trump is doing some of those same things.

BERMAN: We just saw this. That's why it's so remarkable to see, maybe, what could be some of the same mistakes happening again.

Let's talk about Jeffrey Epstein here and what ended up being bipartisan unity on dissatisfaction with how the administration was handling it.

Meghan, how is it that Republicans and Democrats came together? And what was, maybe, the misjudgment from the administration way back in July when they said, Nothing to see here?

HAYS: Well, you can't run on calling something that the deep state and that it's a -- you know, he needs to be prosecuted. We need to see the files. And then when you're in office, say, oh, nothing to see here. They're -- the files don't exist. There's nothing in them.

Because that just leads the American people to believe that you are also, then, lying.

So, it's kind of fascinating that this is the one issue that really has united both Democrats and Republicans, not only in Congress, but in -- in America and across the country. It's like 8 in 10 Americans or something believe that the Epstein files should be released.

So, you know, I think that a lot of it has to do with it's taking advantage of young women. There's sex trafficking. There's pedophilia. There's all these different aspects where people really feel passionate that someone should pay consequences for it.

And so, I just think that that was a miscalculation on Trump's part.

But I think the bigger miscalculation is when Trump kept saying it's a Democratic hoax. And over and over again saying that. Because when you're so defensive, it makes you look guilty.

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And also, you're just saying, we don't believe women, and we don't believe victims. And we've been through this movie before, and it doesn't end well for him.

BERMAN: Melik, how much of this do you think will stick? Like, it isn't clear yet how much more information we're going to find out and when exactly.

But even to the point where we are now, the way that they handled in July and August and September and beyond, how much of that will linger as a dark mark on the Trump administration?

ABDUL: So, I do agree that -- and that's, again, back to the messaging. They got the messaging all wrong. You can't deny, deny, deny.

And because Donald Trump surrounded himself with people like Dan Bongino, who built a cult following on the Epstein files, well, they're now a part of his administration. And so, you can't -- that same energy that people had as far, as releasing the information, even though Democrats didn't do anything on it when Biden was in office, the energy behind it is still there.

And I think -- do believe that, in that sense, it was a miscalculation.

But I don't think that it will be a factor going into next year and especially the midterms, because I am convinced that, if there were any evidence that Donald Trump was complicit in any sort of crime -- and not just a crime, even knowledge of a crime -- we would already know that by this point.

So, I think by this time next year, I think that we will, of course, we would have had the midterm elections. But I think that, by this time next year, it won't be an issue. The economy and what the administration's message is on the economy will be the issue next year, for sure.

BERMAN: All right. Meghan Hays, Melik Abdul, happy holidays to both of you. Thank you so much.

Ahead for us: from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, to strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, to a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, the major foreign policy headlines of 2025 and what we can expect in the new year.

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SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: From Russia's war in Ukraine to a critical ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, 2025 has been an incredibly important year for foreign policy.

With me now to discuss, CNN political and global affairs commentator Sabrina Singh and CNN military analyst and retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton. Thank you both for being here.

I do want to start with this kind of overarching question, and that is, how has America's place changed in the world when you consider some of the conflicts and the involvement in those conflicts that America has had? I will start with you, Sabrina.

SABRINA SINGH, CNN POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: I think you've seen an incredible shift in this administration from American foreign policy and from what, basically, American foreign policy was post-Cold War.

You're seeing this administration really emphasize the "America first" agenda, which in the administration's mind means more isolationist look at the world.

And so, you're -- you're seeing Donald Trump and this administration really pull away from traditional alliances for those -- traditional alliances in Europe and in other places around the world. And you're seeing them focus more on the Western hemisphere.

I mean, just the repositioning of nearly 15,000 troops off the coast of Venezuela is something so different and so unprecedented that we've seen.

And you're also seeing that change the dynamics of focus when it comes to the Indo-Pacific.

So, I think the questions remain are, you know, will this administration allow China to fill that power vacuum as the U.S. sort of retreats from the world stage? And that's a real big shift in U.S. foreign policy.

SIDNER: Colonel Leighton, how do you see it from your perspective?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, Sara, I think one of the key things is, as Sabrina was mentioning, there's a real change in how we're implementing U.S. foreign policy.

And I basically agree that this retrenchment into "America first" is keeping us, you know, not only focused on the Western Hemisphere, but then there are some exceptions to that. And I think it depends on how things unfold, what we'll see, you know, in the next -- next 12 months or so.

But the key thing is this: these retrenchments can have significant impacts not only on our ability to conduct foreign policy, but also our ability to conduct military operations.

The less allies you have, the harder it is to conduct military operations. And with the new national security strategy that the administration has promulgated, it really creates a very different dynamic than what we've seen before. Basically, we're in essence, chastising allies and rewarding what used to be our adversaries.

SIDNER: Colonel Leighton, what do [SIC] you seeing and what might keep you up at night when it comes to foreign policy issues for 2026?

LEIGHTON: Yes, 2026 is going to be a very interesting year, because I think the alliance issue is really going to be critical.

So, my top 2026 area of worry is going to be what happens with the alliances that we've had for 80 years now. Alliances like NATO. Are we going to see something that -- that really takes Ukraine and creates a Russian satellite state instead of a state that is aligned with the West?

I -- and are we going to see a retrenchment from Europe that not only is promulgated in strategy, but is also evidenced by movement of troops away from Europe and less involvement in European affairs? And what would the impact of that be?

So, that would be one of the big things that I'm concerned about.

Another thing that I'm concerned about, of course, is what happens in the artificial intelligence race between China and the United States, with Nvidia chips being allowed to go into China now. Some of those chips have national security implications, and that could give China the upper hand in artificial intelligence. And that is going to be a very big issue that we're going to have to deal with. SIDNER: Sabrina, what's your take on sort of looking forward to 2026

and what you feel like it sort of gives your stomach a bit of a grumble?

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SINGH: Well, I completely agree with everything that Cedric Leighton said. I think, looking at 2026, the biggest area of concern, of course, is China.

China is the only country that can really undermine and upend the international rules-based order just by their economic and military might.

So, what is this administration going to do to keep a check on China? And what does this mean also economically with tariffs, A.I. technology being shared? That is something that I think keeps a lot of us up at night. So certainly, China.

And then also, with the Western Hemisphere and this idea of "America first." I think retreating from the world stage and abandoning our allies is actually not "America first."

And so, what is the mission and end goal in the Western Hemisphere when it comes to these boat strikes that we're seeing off the coast of Venezuela?

The impacts of having a carrier strike group in the Caribbean for that long. Extensions of other carriers around the world. That all has an impact on our military and our forces.

So, how long does this mission go on? And when is Congress going to get more involved and possibly pull the administration's focus back to the areas of the Indo-Pacific, where I think a lot of lawmakers are concerned that we're losing our eye off the ball there.

SIDNER: Look, we have seen quite a bit of controversy surrounding the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth. How do you think that rolls into 2026?

There was a time when people were wondering whether or not he'd stay or go, looking at what's happening with the double-tap strike that happened in Venezuela. But it appears that Republicans want to move on from that.

How do you see his leadership going forward in 2026, Colonel Leighton?

LEIGHTON: Well, I think he's got some challenges to deal with.

Secretary Hegseth is in a, you know, very unique position just by the fact of being secretary of defense. But he is really focused on some Western Hemisphere issues.

But, like I mentioned earlier, there are some exceptions to this. For example, it seems like Poland is going to be rewarded for the types of things that it is doing to protect itself, to you know, create it's -- a national defense strategy for itself that is actually pretty dynamic and pretty interesting. And it could very much impact on what the Russians decide to do next, should they decide to move forward from Ukraine.

So, that is something that I think is going to challenge Pete Hegseth when he's, you know, looking at things for 2026.

The other thing, I think, is also the standards that he is setting, either explicitly or implicitly, within the Department of Defense. You know, it's one thing to focus on things like haircuts and physical training, but it's quite another thing to really look at grand strategy and -- and policy issues.

And I think he's going to be challenged in that area, because he's not used to dealing with those things. And it's going to really require a great deal of focus on his part to steer the ship that is known as the Department of Defense into, you know, an area where it can be most effective and properly employ U.S. military forces when required.

SIDNER: There is a steep learning curve. Sabrina Singh, Colonel Cedric Leighton, I thank you both. Appreciate you.

Ahead for us, A.I. has taken over so much of the tech industry in 2025. So, what trends can we expect in the coming year? That is next.

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