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Bill Clinton to Give Deposition; Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) is Interviewed about the Clinton Deposition; Trump to Visit Texas; Border Protection Drone Shot Down; Colin Gray to Testify; Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) is Interviewed about the Clinton Deposition. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired February 27, 2026 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (through translator): And what did you see here that year?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): This was when all the migrants passed by. This When the migrant caravans passed by. The whole place was full of just migrants.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Around 500 people you see a day crossing.

JIMENEZ: They say they started to notice a difference in the months after President Trump was inaugurated, not just because people were afraid of being turned away at the U.S. border, they were also afraid of what could happen if they did cross over.

JIMENEZ (through translator): What do you hear about what's going on in the United States?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): The truth is, a lot of people complain they're scared of going out on the streets there, where ICE might grab them.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: I am very much looking forward to this hour. Omar, thank you.

JIMENEZ: Good to see you.

HILL: And you can catch the "Immigration Crackdown: A Year of Enforcement" this Sunday on "The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper." It airs at 8:00 p.m. Eastern and the next day on the CNN app.

The next hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We are standing by for legal and political history. For the first time a former president will be deposed by Congress, really against his will. Bill Clinton to answer questions about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Breaking overnight, what some are calling friendly fire. The U.S. military shoots down a U.S. drone. What is going on here and who is not talking?

And then get around the city by air in a new high-tech thingy. This is a new launch from Uber.

Sara and Kate are out today. I'm John Berman, with Erica Hill. And this is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

All right, we are standing by for history. History because no former president has ever been forced to testify before Congress, really against his will. And that ends now. Bill Clinton will answer questions about Jeffrey Epstein before the House Oversight Committee. The former president, according to CNN, to a CNN analysis, flew on Epstein's private plane at least 16 times. His wife, Hillary Clinton, testified in Chappaqua yesterday that she did not know Epstein, never knowingly met him. She says she had no knowledge of his crimes at the time and expects her husband will say the same today. The Clintons have not been accused of any criminal wrongdoing.

So, now that they are appearing, it does maybe set a precedent and raises questions about whether President Trump either now or when he's a former president and maybe now First Lady Melania Trump could be called to testify about their relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

I spoke a little while ago with Congresswoman Nancy Mace, a Republican on that committee. She said, no, but listen to her answer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY MACE (R-SC): Every single person I've talked to have exonerated the Trumps. The same cannot be said. And if we believe that victims should be believed, like Virginia Giuffre Roberts, who can't say anything today because she's dead, she has named certain individuals and exonerated President Trump, for example. And, you know, I think we just need to follow the facts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: We should note, exoneration is a legal term here. Neither the Clintons nor the Trumps have been charged with anything. But exoneration isn't exactly what's happened either.

Let's get right to CNN's Annie Grayer, who is in Chappaqua where today's deposition will happen.

What's expected up there today, Annie?

ANNIE GRAYER, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, John, we are expecting it to be a long day here in Chappaqua where former President Bill Clinton is going to be questioned behind closed doors by both Democrat and Republican lawmakers. This deposition is going to be videotaped, and there will be a transcript, but it will take some time for us to see all of that. Now, unlike his wife, Hillary Clinton, who testified yesterday that

she never met Jeffrey Epstein, former President Bill Clinton has a long-documented history with Epstein. Clinton flew on Epstein's plane at least 16 times. Epstein visited Clinton while he was president in the White House. And Clinton is featured all throughout the Epstein files, including photos of Clinton in a jacuzzi with women whose faces are redacted.

Now, Hillary Clinton defended her husband yesterday and said that her husband had no knowledge of any crimes that Epstein committed. Bill Clinton has never been accused of any wrongdoing and is said to have cut ties long before Epstein's crimes came out.

Take a listen to how Hillary Clinton defended her husband yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: I think it is fair to say that the vast majority of people who had contact with him before his criminal pleas in '08 were like most people, they did not know what he was doing. And I think that that is exactly what my husband will testify to tomorrow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:05:00]

GRAYER: Now, John, this is not how the Clinton's wanted this to go down. They fought for months to prevent these depositions from happening and only caved when both Democrats and Republicans were going to hold them in criminal contempt of Congress. And I should note, there is bipartisan interest in hearing from Bill Clinton today, but it does set a new precedent here, as you mentioned, John. This is the first time that a former president is going to be deposed by a congressional committee. And Democrats say that this opens the door for them to invite President Donald Trump in for questioning. We're expecting at least five categories to be covered in Bill Clinton's deposition today. It's going to be a long day. And we'll keep you posted, John.

BERMAN: Great to have you there standing by for us, Annie. Do keep us posted as the news comes in. Thank you very much.

Erica.

HILL: Joining me now, Congressman Stephen Lynch, a Democrat from Massachusetts, and a senior member on the Oversight Committee. He's not attending the depositions, but you are being briefed, sir, I know as to what's happening.

It's good to have you with us.

I'm just curious your thoughts so far on day one, the deposition of Hillary Clinton. Do you believe that you're getting out of that what you had hoped for? REP. STEPHEN LYNCH (D-MA): I think so. What we're -- why we were

interested in interviewing President Clinton is that he was, on several occasions, in a position to observe, both Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein and others, at a time when this was -- this stuff was going on. It was before -- it was before Epstein was charged and other people knew, but he was in that circle of people that had an opportunity to observe what was going on.

HILL: Right. So, those would be the questions for former President Clinton for today. And I know you were speaking with my colleague Brianna Keilar yesterday talking about some inconsistencies that you see. Can you talk to me more specifically about what you're hoping the former president will clear up today in terms of what, not only where he was, but what he did and did not witness.

LYNCH: Yes. So, apparently, you know, there are different statements by different people. So, there's no inconsistency in his statements, but other people are saying that they thought he had visited the island. I'm not sure about that. So, we're going to have to talk to him and also other people who have different recollections.

HILL: Part of what we heard from former Secretary Clinton in terms of the questioning, right, she was very clear. She didn't have knowledge. She didn't know him. There have been questions raised now about, does this also open the current first lady to questions about what she may or may not have seen, what she may know about Jeffrey Epstein. Do you believe that Melania Trump is someone that Oversight should speak to?

LYNCH: I haven't seen a lot. And so, we're going through the three million documents that we have right now. I haven't seen a lot on Melania, but I have seen a ton of evidence that President Trump was involved here. You know, the -- there is a -- there is a pattern of young women going from Mar-a-Lago to Epstein's estate. So, there was sort of a trafficking pattern between Trump's Mar-a-Lago and Epstein's mansion. So, that is deeply troublesome.

And there are also some statements -- there are thousands and thousands of documents that mention President Trump, former -- before he was president, obviously, but also there's the fact that Department of Justice has held back and I think illegally excluded the documents referring to President Trump from congressional investigation. That is obstruction of justice, in my mind. And so, I'm hoping that the courts will agree to -- with us on that point and we will have an independent investigation of Trump and not something that is led by Pam Bondi, who has zero credibility on this issue. She's the one that said, I got the files on my desk, and then all of a sudden said there were no files, and then said, oh, yes, we do have files. So, you know, she's just got zero credibility on this.

HILL: So --

LYNCH: And now we have DOJ actually withholding documents that refer to Trump. So, that has -- that has exploded any type of trust that we might have in the Department of Justice.

HILL: And there are going (ph) to be questions, of course, about those documents. You talk -- you talk about what you see as some back and forth between Mar-a-Lago and Epstein. It's important to note, the president has not been implicated in wrongdoing, has denied knowledge of wrongdoing.

But then, to your point, are there other people who you have on your list at this point who you would like to speak with, who were at Mar- a-Lago in those moments?

LYNCH: Yes, Howard Lutnick I think would be somebody we would want to -- want to talk to. There are also just regular people, you know, the managers at Mar-a-Lago the -- Epstein had an extensive videotape -- it was clandestine, a videotape system in his mansions, both in Florida and New York.

[09:10:18]

Who ran those? There are -- there are tapes that are available that might indicate people coming in and coming out. That type of thing.

So, yes, we think there's more evidence out there. And we're interested in talking to some of the day to day people, you know, the people who managed at Mar-a-Lago and managed at Epstein's estate.

HILL: Congressman Stephen Lynch, thank you for joining us this morning.

John.

BERMAN: All right, this morning, Texas is the center of the political universe. Elections there next Tuesday. And President Trump is headed there today. There is a lot at stake in both parties. On the Republican side, there's some serious infighting.

Let's get right to CNN's Kristen Holmes at the White House.

And the president flying right into the middle of it today, Kristen.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's true. And he is expected not to try and tip the scales in any way. So, right now we are seeing essentially a MAGA civil war play out in Texas, a reliably red state. There are three contenders in the Republican Senate primary. We're talking about the incumbent, John Cornyn, who up until very recently was considered the shoo in for this primary. Then you have the attorney general, Ken Paxton, who has a very long history, including with a lot of scandal. He is being supported by Steve Bannon, by some of the far right MAGA influencers. And then you have the representative, Wesley Hunt. These are all allies of President Trump. And I do want to note, Cornyn is actually being advised by Chris Lacivita, who ran President Trump's campaign. You're seeing the two of them, Steve Bannon and Chris Lacivita, totally duke it out.

The reason why this is so critical is because there are a lot of concerns in the state, a reliably red state, that if the wrong person wins the primary, the wrong person in Republican's eyes, they might actually lose the seat to Democrats. So, you're hearing a lot of chatter about what this is going to look like.

At this point, political activists are saying they think it's going to go to a runoff no matter what. The general thinking is going -- that it's going to be between Paxton and Cornyn. All three of these men are going to be at the event with Trump, and he's not going to endorse any of them.

But, of course, all of this is so critical for a number of reasons. We've got those midterms in November. That's going to be huge. And it's coming at a time where President Trump is continuing to ramp up his fight against elections. He is pushing the SAVE Act. And new reporting in "The Washington Post" shows that there is a draft executive order being floated around by Trump associates, that means people outside of the White House but they are activists that support Donald Trump, that essentially gives him a way to nationalize elections or at least be in control of voting, the White House themselves. There's no indication that they're actually considering this, but it is out there right now.

John.

BERMAN: Watching the president with three Republican candidates and no endorsement, that's going to be a little awkward later today.

Kristen Holmes, at the White House, thank you very much.

Erica.

HILL: Up next here, the U.S. military shooting down a U.S. drone along the southern border. So, what sparked this potentially dangerous confusion? Aren't they talking?

And the breaking news. An accused school shooter's father taking the stand moments ago for the first time in his own defense.

Plus, China's kung fu fighting robots, they're back, now ready to greet world leaders.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:18:03]

BERMAN: New this morning, a U.S. government drone was shot down by the U.S. military. U.S. on U.S. armed action. This all happened over Texas, right along the border. Three agencies are involved here. We're talking about the U.S. military, the Pentagon, we're talking about Customs and Border Protection, which was apparently operating the drone that was shot down by the military. And now the FAA is involved because then they shut down the airspace in the area as well. So, there's a lot going on here and a lot of confusion, clearly.

Let's get right to CNN's Pete Muntean for the latest on all this.

So, explain this if you can, Pete.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, I just got a very rare joint statement from the agencies involved in this which signals the Trump administration and the White House playing a bit of cleanup now since this sounds a lot like the El Paso incident of two weeks ago. You'll remember when sources told me that an anti-drone laser was used without regard for commercial flights. That incident led the FAA to trigger a chaotic emergency airspace shutdown and really highlighted the lack of basic communication between these government agencies.

This new case is described by three Democrats in Congress as essentially a friendly fire incident involving a government drone. A congressional aide tells me that these members, including the top Democrats overseeing the committees of Homeland Security and Transportation were told about this incident just yesterday through official channels.

In a statement, they say the military shot down a Customs and Border Protection drone using what the House Democrats call a high-risk counter unmanned aircraft system. What's interesting is that the FAA shut down the airspace over the border town of Fort Hancock, Texas. Like the El Paso restriction, this prohibits all aircraft, which is pretty unusual. But this is much smaller than the El Paso restriction that was around 20 miles in diameter. This only about nine miles wide.

[09:20:00]

Right now, still not clear when the incident occurred that these House Democrats described.

But here is the new statement from Customs and Border Protection, the Department of Defense and the Federal Aviation Administration, in which they all together say this shootdown did not happen near people, did not happen near planes. The agency said, quote, "this reported engagement occurred when the Pentagon employed a counter-unmanned aircraft system authorities to mitigate a seemingly threatening unmanned aerial system operating within military airspace."

By the way, Congress has still not been briefed officially on the El Paso incident, the previous incident. There have been major calls to do so. Now a congressional aide tells me that it's time for the military to brief them on this new incident. Still more to learn here, John. A lot of information still to come out and a lot of questions about this.

BERMAN: Yes, about how they're communicating beforehand because, in theory, the U.S. government should not be shooting down U.S. government devices.

Pete Muntean, thank you very much for that.

Erica.

HILL: We do have breaking news to get to in the Colin Gray trial. He, of course, is the father who's on trial after a deadly mass shooting attack at a Georgia high school, which was allegedly carried out by his son. Colin Gray is testifying now on the stand here in his own defense. You see, these are live pictures from the courtroom there in Georgia.

CNN's Jean Casarez is continuing to follow the trial for us.

So, what have we heard so far from Colin Gray this morning, Jean?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, he just started. So, it's really the preliminary information of how he met his wife. His wife was actually an engineer at a construction firm. And he does construction. And that's how they met.

But in not every trial does the defendant take the stand. And in this case, which is a precedent-setting case for Georgia, because this is the father of a school shooter. He wasn't there. He didn't pull the trigger. His son did it. But he bought him the rifle. And prosecutors say that he knew there was a known risk his son could do this because he not only bought him a rifle for hunting for them to enjoy hunting together, but he did not lock it up at the house. And they say that because of the emotional issues, that he knew his son could do something like shoot up a school.

Well, yesterday, the final witness, we shall say, for the prosecution was video. And it went into that school. And it was the day of September 4, 2024, where the defendant, Colt Gray, who has pleaded not guilty so far, went to school with that rifle in his book bag. And that video, that is Colt Gray with the blonde hair. That's the book bag in his hand. And the rifle, obviously it's very long. So, he took poster board, actually poster board that the family had used to send his mother a Mother's Day card when she was in in hab rehabilitation, he used the remainder of that poster board to cover up that rifle and then he put a knit cap on the top of the nozzle so it wouldn't show. He got on the bus with it. He got into school with it. There he is. He's carrying it. Look, he has to use both hands. That's the rifle.

So, the teacher thought there was a gun. He thought, the teacher, she thought he had a gun. She calls the counselor. They don't know who he is because he hadn't really been to school that much. And so then they find there's a Colton Gray. He's Colt Gray. There was a Colton Gray at the school. Same class. They were both in the same bathroom. They go for the Colton Gray, get him out, and actually searched him a little bit, while Colt Gray was able to prepare for the mass shooting. And that's what he did.

But now the father is being charged with 29 counts, facing really life in prison if convicted on all of them because four people died, two students, two teachers, multiple students, severely injured but survived. And it's a -- it's a very important case in this country.

HILL: Yes, it absolutely is. And to your point, it is rare that we see the defendant take the stand there. So, we'll be, of course, following it very closely, along with you, Jean. Appreciate it.

And you can catch Jean's coverage on CNN All Access. She has gavel to gavel coverage of the Colin Gray trial. You can get there at cnn.com/watch to follow live.

A major deadline just hours away that could determine how the U.S. military uses A.I. as the company at the center of the standoff makes clear the lines it will not cross.

And it's giving "Back to the Future" vibes. The latest on Uber's new air taxis.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:29:09]

BERMAN: You're looking at live pictures from the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center in Westchester County, New York. That is where former President Bill Clinton will testify, not long from now, before the House Oversight Committee. This is historic in the sense that no former president has ever really been compelled to testify against his will before Congress for a deposition, but it's about to happen. Yesterday, the former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, testified right there in that same building.

With us now is Congressman Robert Garcia, a Democrat from California, the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, who has very much been a part of this.

Congressman, thank you so much for being with us.

As I said, in that building we have up on our screen, history is about to be made. What is it that you want to hear from the former president?

[09:30:03]

REP. ROBERT GARCIA (D-CA): Good morning.

Look, we've said always from day one that we want to talk to anyone, regardless of party, regardless of position.