Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Epstein's Prison Guard Deposed Amid Questions About His Suicide; White House Says China Agreed to Buy $17 Billion in U.S. Farm Goods Annually; Aaron Rai is First Englishman to Win PGA Championship in 100 Plus Years; Bus-Sized Asteroid to Zoom Past Earth Around 6 p.m. ET. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired May 18, 2026 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This former teacher who, again, this incident according to prosecutors, she was strangled by this boy months and months before this shooting. This boy had a history of just horrible behavior. Between that testimony of Susan White and the testimony of Abby Zwerner, this is going to be a very dramatic trial, going to be unfolding throughout the course of the week.

KEILAR: Yes, and we've seen Abby Zwerner testify. It was incredibly moving in the civil case, so this is certainly one to watch. Brian, thank you so much for that.

Still to come, some new details in the Jeffrey Epstein death investigation. House investigators interview one of the last people to see the late pedophile alive.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Today, the House Oversight Committee is deposing one of the last people who saw Jeffrey Epstein alive. His prison guard, Tova Noel, as questions persist about his suicide.

Noel arrived at the Capitol this morning for her closed-door deposition. She was one of two officers on duty on August 10, 2019, when the convicted sex offender was found dead in his New York City jail cell. Noel and the other officer were fired and charged with conspiracy, plus falsifying records for failing to check on Epstein.

But the Justice Department dropped the charges under an agreement that included her cooperation.

[14:35:09]

One Oversight Committee member says he believes that Epstein took his own life but added that Noel's information opened up new questions about his death.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. SUHAS SUBRAMANYAM (D-VA), OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: I fully believe he committed suicide, but how he was able to commit suicide, there are open questions about that. Why was he given special treatment, like extra linens that he used to hang himself? Why was he given that CPAP machine, which he could have also used to hang himself?

Why was he given extra medications, which perhaps he could have used to kill himself? He had a lot of different ways he could have killed himself, so why was he given all those ways when he just tried to commit suicide a month earlier?

SANCHEZ: With us now is Mike Rothschild. He's a conspiracy theory journalist and researcher who wrote the book "The Storm Is Upon Us, How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult, and Conspiracy Theory of Everything." Mike, thanks for being with us.

So you just heard there from Democratic Congressman Suha Subramaniam. We also just heard from Democratic Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury, who came out of the deposition and said the guard in her deposition said that she doesn't think Epstein died by suicide. What's your reaction to these statements in light of the fact that a medical examiner ruled that it was suicide, and we've seen at least no evidence to show otherwise?

MIKE ROTHSCHILD, CONSPIRACY THEORY JOURNALIST AND RESEARCHER: Well, I think in terms of the guard's statement, here you have someone whose job primarily was to make sure that Epstein did not do anything to himself, and Epstein apparently did something to himself. So you understand why someone who had a lot to lose would leave a closed-door hearing and say that she believed Epstein did not take his own life, and somebody who had access to other information and maybe is a little more impartial would say that the evidence points to him taking his own life. And I think this is where conspiracy theories arise from.

You have two different stories. Everyone has their own opinion about this major event that in the end was not supposed to happen. He wasn't supposed to have been able to die in prison.

No matter what happened, this should not have happened. So here you have people filling the gaps with speculation, with stories, and with conspiracy theories.

SANCHEZ: What do you see as the best possible information that can be gleamed from this security guard? Because it sounds like what has come about is a lot of speculation and a lot of questions that don't necessarily tie to what we've actually learned about what took place in that jail.

ROTHSCHILD: Well, it seems to me like the security guard would have a reason for telling this particular story. She'd already been charged with falsifying records. Obviously, those charges were dropped for her cooperation in this hearing, but you have somebody who's basically trying to cover themselves and trying to absolve themselves of them failing to do their own job.

You can understand why she would tell that story. To me, the evidence has always pointed to Epstein having many reasons to take his own life. It's just the question is, how was he able to do that?

I think we're finding a series of institutional failures of which this guard was part of that.

SANCHEZ: It's interesting to watch the trajectory of the Epstein story, but more so the conspiracy be used politically and the way that it's evolved over time, because back in the 2024 campaign, it seemed to really mobilize Republican voters. Now, most Republicans, including members of Congress who are facing primary challenges, have seen this story sort of turn against them. And mostly Democrats are sort of pushing these stories forward now.

Do you see one side of the aisle contributing more to the conversations, ultimately fueling conspiracy theories? Does it matter?

ROTHSCHILD: I think right now we're seeing Democrats really grabbing hold of the mantle of pursuing truth and justice in the Epstein investigation. Of course, that's very different from the Trump campaign, where he ran explicitly on exposing these misdeeds and releasing all of these files. He had that infamous meeting of conservative influencers with their Epstein files binders, and here we are a year later, and Trump says, oh, that was all a hoax, that's all made up, the Democrats did that.

And now they suddenly all realize in the right-wing influencer sphere, oh, it's all made up, there's nothing there, because Trump told them. Meanwhile, the Democrats, I think, are scoring some real points off of trying to get down to the bottom of what happened, how it happened, and who is to blame for this failure. So I think the Democrats really are seizing the mantle of trying to get some measure of truth and justice for Epstein's victims and for the public at large.

SANCHEZ: But generally, do you think it's helpful for them to put forward this testimony from this guard talking about the idea that Epstein perhaps didn't commit suicide? Does that actually help survivors?

ROTHSCHILD: I think what helps survivors is having this case continue to be in the public eye and acknowledging that there were failures that day and things that went wrong that shouldn't have happened. What the particular security guard says, I don't know if that's quite as important, because I don't know if we'll ever even get those transcripts released to us. This was a closed-door hearing.

[14:40:00]

I think what it looks like is Democrats are on the forefront of trying to get some measure of truth here, and the Republicans are saying, there's nothing to see here, go look over at that thing. I think it looks good for the Democrats, I think it looks terrible for a lot of Republicans.

SANCHEZ: Mike Rothschild, we'll have to leave the conversation there. We do appreciate your time.

ROTHSCHILD: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Still to come, the White House says China just agreed to buy billions of dollars worth of U.S. farm goods each year. What this could mean for American farmers struggling in the wake of tariffs.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: We're learning more about President Trump's recent summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and today the White House is saying trade deals worth billions of dollars for American farmers were made in that trip but China so far has not directly confirmed any agreement.

CNN's David Goldman is with us now. David take us into the truth here. Are there agreements? What's going on?

DAVID GOLDMAN, CNN BUSINESS SENIOR REPORTER: Well they can't even agree on what they agree on. So here's what the U.S. says. Is that China has agreed, according to the United States, to $17 billion in agricultural purchases and that's on top of the 25 million metric tons of soy that they supposedly agreed to last year but never made good on.

So if China actually does this it will bring them up to $27 billion a year in U.S. agricultural purchases which would certainly be good news for farmers who have been missing those Chinese purchases because last year China bought only $8 billion in agriculture from the United States. It was just $3 billion in soy and so the thing that we need in this country is for China to reignite those purchases. Farmers have really gotten a raw deal.

The question is, is China actually going to make good on its promises because China didn't say any of this. They said that well there are going to be agricultural agreements but it didn't make any specifics. Similarly China said that there would be a reduction in tariffs which was missing from the U.S. report. Actually President Trump said they didn't even mention tariffs. So again, they cannot agree on what they agree on.

The encouraging thing is that China says well we will start to allow more rare earth minerals flowing to the United States and it said that it would in addition to some agricultural purchases it would also allow the sale of some technology into China. So the big question now is who has agreed to what, when, and how as much as this meeting was important and as much as these are encouraging words it's not necessarily the case that they'll actually make good on these promises.

KEILAR: OK. Well --

GOLDMAN: Got it?

KEILAR: No, I don't David. There's not a whole lot of clarity there but I'm sure that we'll get there eventually. David Goldman --

GOLDMAN: Totally, no doubt.

KEILAR: No doubt. Thank you -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: What is clear, the PGA championship now belongs to Englishman Aaron Rai. He had multiple major winners chasing him down the stretch but the underdog was able to hold him off. He becomes the first English golfer to win the PGA championship in 107 years and CNN's Patrick Snell spoke with him moments after his victory.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PATRICK SNELL, CNN WORLD SPORT: Well many congratulations to Aaron Rai. You are a major golf champion. I wonder how that sounds to you and also the fact from Wolverhampton in England in the Midlands over there, could you ever have dreamt this day possible?

AARON RAI, 2026 PGA CHAMPIONSHIP WILLER: It's an amazing journey to get to this point. There's so much that goes into it and so much sacrifice from so many different people, from parents, from family, from coaches, from friends. So, yes, it's still hard for me to get my head around it because I also think what's required to perform in a tournament like this. It's very different than having a larger view of things and a larger perspective on the journey to this point and you have to stay extremely present and extremely focused on what's in front of you but to try and reflect on it, it's absolutely incredible.

Truly a dream come true.

SNELL: You are the first English golfer since 1919 to win this famous old tournament. That's 107 years ago. Put into context what it means to you, your family and you just mentioned your parents there, the sacrifices as well that they made along the way.

RAI: Yes, definitely. From a very working class family, my mum and dad worked a hell of a lot just to be able to get me into the game, to play for equipment. Had an amazing sponsor along the way as well, Shabbir Randhuri, who helped me with my education, helped me with paying for golf expenses.

So there's so many people, there's so much that goes into it. And yes, it's absolutely incredible. I actually didn't realize no Englishman had won it in the modern era since 1919.

I didn't realize that until yesterday it was mentioned in one of the interviews. But yes, that's incredible as well. A lot of amazing English players over that time and they've gone on to achieve so many things but it's absolutely incredible for me to be here and to have won this week.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Our thanks to Patrick Snell for that report.

Still to come, a newly discovered asteroid roughly the size of a blue whale is about to buzz past Earth, coming closer than some satellites. You can watch this cosmic close call, next.

[14:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: An asteroid about the size of a bus or two buses or a blue whale, truthfully, we don't know the exact size and our team really wanted you to have options for your imagination. It is set to fly by the Earth later today.

[14:55:00]

Astronomers have observed this object, which is called 2026 JH2 hurtling toward Earth and according to the European Space Agency the space rock will pass more than 56,000 miles away which I know you say that sounds really far away but actually in space terms it's pretty close. Astronomers in Arizona discovered this asteroid only eight days ago.

That freaks me out too. So let's talk to Adam Frank, professor of astrophysics at the University of Rochester and also the author of the "Everyman's Universe" newsletter. All right, let's talk about this very large space rock allegedly posing no danger Adam, so we're told.

How can we be so sure?

ADAM FRANK, PROFESSOR OF ASTROPHYSICS, UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER: Well, first of all, yes, everybody should relax. This happens actually all the time. These sized bodies are constantly whizzing past the Earth and this one is pretty close.

It's like within the moon, the distance from the Earth to the moon. But it is, there's a lot of stuff this size out there in the solar system and even if this one hit, it would probably break up in the atmosphere. It's the bigger ones, the city killers, the ones that are like maybe 500 feet across.

Those are the ones you really need to worry about. So I think everybody can relax and sort of enjoy the show, so to speak.

KEILAR: OK, so let's just say that this thing, 2026 JH2, it needs a better name, seriously. We need a marketing team for this thing.

FRANK: It does. Bob's asteroid.

KEILAR: Yes, something better, something better. All right, let's say it did hit Earth. How much damage are we talking about here?

And really at that point, would it even make a difference if it was one versus two school buses or one or two blue whales or whatnot?

FRANK: Yes, well, at this size, probably what would happen is as it screams into the atmosphere at Mach 50, it would heat up so much that it would explode in the atmosphere. And this actually happened a few years ago when one exploded over a city in Russia, and it did some damage. The shockwave blew out windows, it injured about 1,000 people, but it certainly didn't flatten the city.

If it were a little bit bigger, you know, if it was maybe a bunch of blue whales -- I don't know where they came up with that -- then you start coming into the area where it could really, even if it exploded in the air, it could flatten a metropolitan area. And then you get a little bit bigger than that once you get to like a football-sized field one, that can really do a lot of damage if it was going to hit. And that's why NASA, we've been doing all of this work to find all of these dangerous asteroids so that maybe if we saw it early enough, we could deflect it so that they wouldn't hit us.

KEILAR: And like you said, this thing is pretty far away, right, about the distance of the moon away. And we think of that as being pretty far, but I'm reminded just how big our solar system is, right, which is trillions and trillions of miles. So I guess in the scheme of things, relatively speaking, this is kind of close.

Why do scientists think of this as kind of close, just because of the scale of the solar system?

FRANK: Well, it is close. It is close. It's actually within the moon's orbit.

It's actually, I think, about a fifth. The distance from the Earth to the moon, this one's coming at a fifth of that. So it's coming by pretty close.

But the thing is, thanks to science, we can predict, we can measure and then calculate the orbit of these things down to really high precision. And of course, this is what's important about science, right? This is one of these cases where you don't want to get the answer wrong, right?

We're awash in science denial. People will say crazy things. Sometimes it really matters to get the answer right.

So that's why, even though this one is coming pretty close, we have a really high accuracy in our calculations that it's just going straight by. It's not going to hit us.

KEILAR: Yes, you want to make sure you carry the one. This is what I tell my kids. Carry the one, because then the asteroid could hit Earth, and you might have messed it up.

OK, so this is the thing I find alarming. I'm going to be honest, Adam. You say the scientists, they're keeping an eye on these big asteroids, especially the huge ones, the city killers.

They didn't know about this one until just several days ago, and I just find that so strange. What's happening here?

FRANK: Yes, well, you were right. The solar system is big. These things don't -- these size, they don't show up until they're pretty close, and they're reflecting enough light that we can actually pick them up.

When they're out at the distance of Mars, they're just too dark. You can't see them. So this one's pretty small. We don't worry about this, but the city killers, we've only found 40 percent of those.

So there really is a real urgency in mapping the solar system and being able to find these things so that if we did find one, we'd be able to go out and redirect it or hopefully change its course so it didn't hit us. Imagine if the dinosaurs had had this, right?

So we now we're on the edge of having the technology being a space- faring civilization where we can ensure that we never meet the dinosaurs' fate. So it's both kind of scary and also kind of awesome at the same time.

KEILAR: We're going to have to do better than 40 percent ...

END