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FBI Discussed Contacting 10 Co-Conspirators After Epstein Arrest; Next Round of Torrential Rain Moves in to Southern California; Looking Back at 2025's Top Political Stories; Top Foreign Policy Stories of 2025. Aired 8:00-8:30a ET

Aired December 24, 2025 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and Merry Christmas Eve for those who celebrate, I'm Audie Cornish and this morning we're standing by for more of the Epstein files to potentially 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 DOJ is trying to protect among the redactions in the latest release, the names of what federal agents call Epstein's co-conspirators. According to one e-mail with the subject co-conspirators, a person in the FBI's New York field office writes, when you get a chance, can you give me an update on the status of the 10 co-conspirators? Now the response hours later, nearly each name blacked out.

We don't know why the DOJ decided that the identities of all but three of them should be protected.

Joining me now is CNN senior reporter Marshall Cohen. Marshall, what more are you learning?

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Hey Audie, good morning. The big takeaway here is that there's more to come. That's what we're hearing from the Justice Department.

You just mentioned the new reporting last night from our colleague Katelyn Polantz that Justice Department officials are trying to recruit their colleagues and their subordinates and some of their offices across the country to work through this holiday, work through the weekend to review, redact, and ultimately release more Epstein files. But there's already been a lot of revelations in what we've seen so far. The drops started on Friday night last week and another 30,000 documents came out yesterday and there was a lot of Donald Trump in there.

I want to highlight one of the most interesting things that we picked up on was that in addition to all that stuff about the co-conspirators and a possible subpoena to Mar-a-Lago, one of the prosecutors in 2020 who was working on building that case against Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein's associate, discovered that Donald Trump had been on Epstein's private jet. There were flight logs that they found and they had believed that Trump maybe had never been on the jet and Trump recently said he had never been on Epstein's jet. But this is an e- mail, you're seeing it on your screen from 2020.

Prosecutors found from the flight logs eight times that Donald Trump as a private citizen in the 1990s was on Jeffrey Epstein's private jet. Of course, Donald Trump has never been accused of any wrongdoing regarding Jeffrey Epstein by law enforcement.

CORNISH: In the meantime, Marshall, I want to ask about the Justice Department's statement about that letter that people are looking at that was allegedly sent from Jeffrey Epstein to sex offender Larry Nassar.

COHEN: This took up so much of the day yesterday, Audie, and it's really a cautionary tale of the risks of dropping a massive tranche of documents with zero context and zero explanation. It's a purported letter from Epstein to Nassar that's frankly disgusting and appears to make a reference to Donald Trump as well. But by the end of the day, after it caught wildfire on social media, the Justice Department knocked it down and said that it was a fake.

I'll read for you a quote from the Trump appointed deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, who said quote, "We produce documents and sometimes this can result in releasing fake or false documents because they simply are in our possession because the law requires this." Which is true. "Case in point: the so-called Epstein Nassar letter," he went on to say, "is clearly fake, wrong handwriting, wrong return address, and postmarked three days after Epstein died."

So this is what happens when you drop everything with no context. But I guess ultimately at the end of the day, the transparency is what Congress wanted -- Audie.

CORNISH: OK. That's Marshall Cohen. Marshall, thank you.

We're following breaking news this morning out of Southern California. Right now, about 120,000 homes and businesses are without power in the state due to a strong holiday storm. The next round of rain is moving in, triggering flash flood warnings and mudslide risks.

Overnight in Ventura County, heavy rain caused rocks to slide onto a highway, trucks clearing the debris. This morning, officials warn this could be one of the wettest Christmas Eve's on record. For the latest, we're going to talk to CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar.

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: That's right. Yes, we take a look at the radar. You can see behind me, we do have a new flash flood warning. That's the red box that you see highlighted right here. And that's anticipation of how much rain is expected to come, but also how much rain behind me.

We do have a new flash flood warning. That's the red box that you see highlighted right here. And that's anticipation of how much rain is expected to come, but also how much rain has already fallen.

They've already had a lot that has come down so far this morning, and we could see rainfall rates of as much as an inch per hour. And again, it's expected to rain for quite some time today. It's not just Southern California that's seeing the rain.

Even Central and Northern California have been getting some very heavy bands of rain, especially the last two to three hours. Now, the focus here going forward is going to be the potential for flooding. You can see for today, we have a high risk.

That is a level four out of four. That's the highest level you can possibly get. This does include some of the greater L.A. area.

Even tomorrow, while it does go down to a level three, it is still significant because of the fact that it's multiple days in a row for these areas. Here you can see as we go through the morning, you can still continue to see very heavy rain across Central and Southern California. You've also got the very heavy snow across portions of the Sierras.

But even into Thursday, Thursday night and into early Friday, again, you're still looking at waves of rain that are going to continue to come in across this state. That's why some of these forecast models are spitting out numbers of 10 to even 15 inches of rain total for some of these areas. Now, widespread totals more likely to be around that six to eight inch range.

However, again, the concern is going to be for a lot of these burn scar locations that deal with the flooding there, but also the very gusty winds that could trigger even more power outages.

CORNISH: OK, Allison, thanks so much for that update.

OK, we're going to have new details this morning in the Pennsylvania nursing home explosion. Officials confirmed 20 people are injured this morning and all of the missing have been accounted for.

Two people were killed. The police chief says one of the people killed was an employee. And the blast happened just as crews were on looking into a gas leak. It caused part of the building to collapse.

And new details this morning about the attempted getaway of three inmates recaptured after escaping from a Georgia jail Monday morning. Court records revealed the suspects used a fake name to order a Lyft ride after the escape and then hijacked the ride.

The driver says the escapees tied a rope around her neck and threatened to kill her. This is according to court documents. Police caught the suspects on Tuesday.

They say they used a license plate readers to locate the vehicle, which is headed to South Florida. As far as the jailbreak, authorities say the suspects, quote, compromised a part of the jail to escape, but did not give details -- 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 headed?

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 pretty a 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 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 of 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 it 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?

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MEGHAN HAYS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: 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 say a lot of the things that he thought were a success early on were stopped in court. So, they were a very short-term success, but a lot of the firings with DOGE have been overturned and people are being put back to work. His immigration actions, he's upside down 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, and he hasn't done anything with the economy, which is what his voters really care about. So, it'll 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 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. And now we're seeing not just with the immigration enforcement, but that kind of turned into 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.

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 on to that. And they also realized 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, number one, be careful about a president that ages before your eyes as everyone's looking on. But number two is don't tell the American people that the economy in 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 cost -- the cost that we're paying in the store, it is not dramatically more. Remember, at the beginning of the year, we were paying, I think, what, six, seven dollars for eggs. Now, in my local grocery, that's now probably down 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 a bit tone deaf.

[08:15:00]

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, 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, there are 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, eight and ten Americans or something believe that the Epstein file 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. 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 handle it in July, in August, in 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 get 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 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. [08:20:00]

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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 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 (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, Sara, I think one of the key things is, as Sabrina was mentioning, there is 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 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 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 are you seeing and what might keep you up at night when it comes to foreign policy issues for 2026?

[08:25:00]

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 really takes Ukraine and creates a Russian satellite state instead of a state that is aligned with the West? 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?

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, AI 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's 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 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 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.

LEIGHTON: You bet, Sara.

BERMAN: Ahead, issues surrounding affordability hitting millions of Americans and now so-called "momfluencers" are teaching people how to be frugal and eat on just one dollar a day.

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