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Trump Sues "The Wall Street Journal" for $20 Billion over Epstein Story; Gaza Ceasefire Talks Hit a New Snag; Bolsonaro Fitted with Ankle Monitor, Police Raid Home; U.K. to Lower Voting Age to 16; Japan Divided ahead of Sunday's Nation Upper House Vote. Aired 4-4:30a ET
Aired July 19, 2025 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Welcome to all of you watching us around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is CNN NEWSROOM.
U.S. President Donald Trump follows through on his threat to sue "The Wall Street Journal" as the Epstein files saga deepens. We'll have the latest.
And the Trump administration takes action in response to the coup trial of Brazil's former president. We'll have details on that case.
And the British government says the landmark effort would future proof its democracy. We'll look at the ramifications of plans to lower the voting age to 16.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from Atlanta, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Kim Brunhuber.
BRUNHUBER: President Donald Trump has filed a $20 billion libel lawsuit against the publisher of "The Wall Street Journal" and several others. The reason: a story about alleged letters given to late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein years ago, including a note reportedly bearing the president's name.
Trump denies he wrote the note. Kristen Holmes has more.
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KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: President Trump promptly filing that lawsuit Friday against "The Wall Street Journal" and News Corp., following that article the day before about a letter given to Jeffrey Epstein, alleged letter, that president Trump denies from him for Epstein's birthday.
And this is something obviously, he said he was going to do. But the timeliness of it, the fact that it happened so quickly, just goes to show you how angry president Trump was about them publishing this story.
But overall, the sentiment inside of the White House has shifted when it comes to this story. They really spent the last two weeks on the defensive. Everything was a pushback to not only journalists and Democrats but also to their own loyalist base, who have been so angry about the way that this Epstein case has been handled.
Now what we're seeing is a slow drip, drip, drip of Trump, kind of trying to appease his base. He obviously asked the attorney general to unseal the grand jury testimony. But there are still a lot of questions, even from some of his biggest supporters, as to what exactly this means.
They still believe there's going to be redactions. And generally speaking, his base believes there is still far more files or information about the investigation that needs to be released.
As of now, we saw president Trump. We tried to ask him questions all day long about this. He ignored any questions about Epstein, clearly not wanting to talk about it. But he did feel free posting about it.
One of the things that he did say put us on Truth Social, "If there was a smoking gun on Epstein, why didn't the Democrats, who controlled the files for four years and had Garland and Comey in charge, use it?
"Because they had nothing."
Clearly this is now a new talking point here. But I will tell you one thing. After that article came out on Thursday, we have seen a coalescing circling of the wagons around president Trump in a way that we hadn't seen before. But whether or not that lasts, that is the question -- Kristen Holmes, CNN, the White House.
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BRUNHUBER: As Kristen just mentioned, the Trump administration has requested the release of some grand jury testimony from the case against Epstein. Earlier, former Defense Department special counsel Ryan Goodman spoke with CNN's Brianna Keilar about the possible impact of the release. Here he is.
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RYAN GOODMAN, FORMER SPECIAL COUNSEL AT DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE: So, it's first an uphill battle to get a judge to release grand jury materials, especially because this doesn't really fit any of the statutory or regulatory reasons that a court would do that.
The court would have to find that it has inherent powers, very unusual. And then at the end of the day, I don't think it's the material that the public really wants. The public wants to know what other individuals were involved in sexual abuse of minors.
It's probably not in these grand jury materials. The grand jury indictments, in fact, are very limited to Maxwell and Epstein's abuse of minors and do not mention other individuals. So there's every likelihood with those indictments they weren't even presented with that. I think the real material that the public wants is in the DOJ's offices. It's not what was presented to the grand jury.
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BRUNHUBER: President Trump says more hostages will be released from Gaza soon, despite new setbacks at the ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas. He's made optimistic predictions before, only to see the negotiations drag out. This is what he said at a White House dinner with Republican lawmakers Friday night.
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TRUMP: We got most of the hostages back.
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We're going to have another 10 coming very shortly and we hope to have that finished pretty quickly.
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BRUNHUBER: And the president spoke after Israel and Hamas accused each other of dragging their feet at the talks in Qatar.
Hamas says it may not accept any future truce unless Israel agrees to work on a permanent ceasefire at the ongoing talks. An Israeli source says his country is flexible at the negotiations but it's questionable how serious Hamas is.
Now we want to show you a video that illustrates the terror of the war in Gaza.
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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): You see there, the footage shows two children and a woman running for their lives after an Israeli strike at a refugee camp in central Gaza on Thursday. Health officials say the area was hit twice, leaving five people dead and 20 others injured.
One witness says this footage shows the second strike, which happened after an Israeli evacuation order. The targets included a U.N. school used as a shelter for displaced Palestinians. This satellite image from Thursday morning appears to show dozens of their tents, all within 100 meters of the strike zone.
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BRUNHUBER: Now two religious leaders paid a rare visit to Gaza on Friday after Israeli fire struck the territory's only Catholic Church. The Latin and Greek Orthodox patriarchs of Jerusalem went to the church, where three people were killed the day before. Several others were injured in that attack.
The visiting patriarchs said they want to remind the congregation they are not alone.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with Pope Leo XIV about the attack on Friday.
Mr. Netanyahu expressed his regret and repeated his claim that, quote, "stray ammunition" had hit the church.
A ceasefire between Syria and Israel appears to be holding hours after it was announced by the U.S. ambassador to Turkiye. The U.S. envoy says Turkiye, Jordan and other neighboring countries have embraced the deal.
The ceasefire comes after Israel launched airstrikes on Syria on Wednesday. Israel says they were aimed at protecting the Druze, a minority group.
Clashes erupted last weekend between Druze militia and Bedouin tribes, prompting Syria's government to deploy troops to quell the fighting. The U.N. is demanding accountability for human rights violations.
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RAVINA SHAMDASANI, U.N. HUMAN RIGHTS OFFICE SPOKESPERSON: Credible reports that our office has received indicate widespread violations and abuses, including summary executions and arbitrary killings, kidnappings, destruction of private property and looting of homes in the southern city of Suwayda.
Among the reported perpetrators were members of the security forces and individuals affiliated with the interim authorities, as well as other armed elements from the area, including the Druze and Bedouin.
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BRUNHUBER: The Syrian Network for Human Rights says more than 300 civilians were killed and more than 400 people were wounded in southern Syria since the clashes erupted last weekend. The monitoring group says the victims include children, women and medical personnel.
CNN can't independently verify the figures and has reached out to the Syrian government for comment.
The U.N. says nearly 80,000 people were displaced inside Syria between last Sunday and Thursday evening.
To South Korea now, where jailed ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol has been indicted on new charges tied to his short-lived declaration of martial law last year. Those new charges include obstruction of the exercise of others' rights by abuse of authority, ordering the deletion of records and blocking the execution of arrest warrants.
The impeached and deposed former leader is already on trial for charges of insurrection, which is punishable by death or life imprisonment. He has denied all wrongdoing. His lawyers didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the new charges.
The Brazilian supreme court on Friday ordered former president Jair Bolsonaro to wear an ankle monitor, along with other restrictions. He's on trial on charges of plotting a coup against Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. CNN's Stefano Pozzebon has more on Bolsonaro's trial.
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STEFANO POZZEBON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Early Friday, Brazil's federal police came knocking, raiding the home of former right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, fitting him with an ankle tag and barring him from speaking to foreign officials and using social media.
These measures ordered by Brazil's Supreme Court to prevent him from leaving the country as he faces trial for allegedly plotting a coup against his left-leaning successor. Bolsonaro lashed out against the ankle tag.
JAIR BOLSONARO, FORMER BRAZILIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Dammit. I'm a former president. I'm 70 years old. This is a supreme humiliation.
POZZEBON (voice-over): And immediately brought up his close ally, U.S. president Donald Trump.
BOLSONARO (through translator): If I had a passport, I would request an audience to visit Donald Trump.
POZZEBON (voice-over): Trump has a long shadow over this case as he threatens tariffs of up to 50 percent on Brazilian products in retaliation for Bolsonaro's prosecution.
BRIAN WINTER, VP OF POLICY, AMERICA'S SOCIETY AND COUNCIL OF THE AMERICAS: I think this is very personal for President Trump. I think that he believes that what is happening in Brazil right now is political persecution of former President Bolsonaro in a way that reminds Trump of what happened to him.
And the parallels between the 2020 election in the United States and the 2022 election in Brazil.
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POZZEBON (voice-over): Bolsonaro supporters stormed Brazil's capital on January 8, 2023, in striking similarity to what happened on January 6th, two years before. This week, Trump wrote a letter to support Bolsonaro.
But in the current Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Trump has found a formidable opponent. Lula claiming the country's prepared to retaliate with similar tariffs and calling out on Trump directly in an interview with CNN.
LUIZ INACIO LULA DA SILVA, BRAZILIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): We cannot have President Trump forgetting that he was elected to govern the U.S. He was elected not to be the emperor of the world.
POZZEBON (voice-over): Stefano Pozzebon, CNN, Bogota.
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BRUNHUBER: The U.S. is revoking the visa of Brazilian supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes due to his part in the trial of former president Bolsonaro. The State Department announced the restrictions on Friday, accusing the judge of carrying out a, quote, "political witch hunt."
U.S. secretary of state Marco Rubio also says the Supreme Court justice is persecuting and censoring Bolsonaro. Rubio also revoked the visas of an unknown number of court officials with ties to Moraes, along with their family members.
Shocking video shows the immigrant father of three U.S. Marines as he is beaten and detained by federal agents. We just have to warn you, some of you might find the images disturbing.
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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Now it happened in Santa Ana, California, last month, while the man who is undocumented was working at his landscaping job. He was released on bond this week after some three weeks in custody. CNN's Veronica Miracle has the story and more of that disturbing video.
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VERONICA MIRACLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The father of three marines whose arrest shocked a Southern California community is now out of ICE custody. But his future in the United States remains uncertain.
Narciso Barranco spent nearly three weeks in a detention center after his violent arrest was caught on camera in Orange County, California.
The 48-year-old landscaper was working outside of an IHOP in Santa Ana on June 21st when Barranco son says masked agents tackled his father to the ground. Those agents caught on camera punching Barranco in the face and head.
The Department of Homeland Security defended the actions of the agents, pointing to video that they say shows Barranco resisting commands and trying to evade officers, saying he swung a weed whacker directly at an agent's face. Authorities say he assaulted the agents.
But his son says he was only charged with being here as an undocumented resident. Barranco's son says his father's shoulder was dislocated during the arrest.
Barranco is undocumented but has lived in the United States since the early '90s and has no criminal record. Arrests like this one, impacting people across the U.S.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Businesses, people full of joy are replaced with sadness, fear and terror.
MIRACLE: His family says he's applied for the parole in place program, which allows undocumented relatives of the military to stay in the United States -- Veronica Miracle, CNN, Los Angeles.
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BRUNHUBER: Coming up here on CNN NEWSROOM, 16-year olds could soon cast ballots in national elections in the U.K. We'll look at why the government proposed the change and the criticism it's drawing ahead.
Plus, an election for Japan's upper house tomorrow will decide whether the ruling party hangs onto its majority. We'll have more on the issues voters are weighing. That's coming up after the break.
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BRUNHUBER: The United Kingdom could soon become one of the first European countries to allow 16- and 17-year olds to vote in all national elections.
The proposal would bring the national voting age in line with Scotland, Wales and the Channel Islands, which allow 16-year olds to vote in certain elections; 18 is the current minimum voting age in the U.K. for parliamentary elections.
The government says the change is meant to future proof its democracy. But the proposal has drawn criticism from the Conservative Party, as well as think tanks, who say this is a ploy by the Labour Party to expand its supporter base.
If Parliament approves, the plan could be in place for the next general election.
All right. Joining us now is Jess Garland, director of Policy and Research at the Electoral Reform Society.
Thank you so much for being here with us. So take us through this decision. I know your group is behind this proposal.
Why are they doing it?
What's the goal and why now? JESS GARLAND, DIRECTOR OF POLICY AND RESEARCH, ELECTORAL REFORM SOCIETY: Well, this is a really, really historic move for the U.K. and many ways also a rationalization, as you say, 16 and 17 -year olds can vote in Scotland and in Wales already.
But why this is so important is it is really about the future of democracy, because what we know is, if you take that first important vote, if you go and vote the first time you're able to, then you're more likely to become a lifelong voter.
So giving 16- and 17 -year olds the vote means that we're giving them that opportunity when they're still in school. They're getting democratic and civic education. They're able to take their education and put it straight into practice. And they're also still often living at home, which means it's much easier to get them registered to vote.
So all in all, giving 16- and 17 -year olds the vote means that we're able to give them that opportunity when they're in a more supportive environment and that means they're more likely to continue participating.
And, of course, we desperately need that in the U.K., as we've just had a general election with the second lowest turnout in U.K. history. So this is really about trying to create a better democratic future, because, of course, today's 16-year olds are going to be tomorrow's 20-, 30-, 40-year olds. And we want people to continue to vote.
BRUNHUBER: Yes, not only are they more likely to vote later in life, I understand the research shows that, if young people are voting, their parents are also then more likely to vote as well.
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So those are the good implications. But the assumption here is that it might mean lots more votes for the left wing parties, since young people tend to vote in that direction.
Is it just that simple?
GARLAND: I don't think this is going to have a huge impact on actual election results. And when we look at the stats and 16- and 17-year olds make up less than 2 percent of the U.K. population, so they're not going to be making a numerical difference necessarily.
And, of course, 16- and 17-year olds are as diverse in their views as any other age group. So again, they're not all going to be voting the same way, either. And particularly actually at the moment in the U.K. were experiencing huge amount of party fragmentation and voter volatility.
Voters are changing their minds more than any other time in history. And, of course, we've now, from a two-party system, moved very firmly into a multi-party system, with the latest polls showing five parties around over 10 percent.
So the next general election is highly unpredictable. And, of course, young people will be taking part in that. But we can't say for sure who they're going to be voting for. And they certainly won't all be voting for the same party. BRUNHUBER: All right. So let's talk about those voters themselves. I
mean, 16-year olds are still developing intellectually. Of course, there are still concerns that, because they're online so much, that their votes might be more susceptible to manipulation via social media. Listen to this.
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MATTHEW CARONNA, STUDENT: I think it's definitely a problem. Like, I know lots of people who are really very impressionable. But I think it is a small minority of people that will actually get affected by far right or far left social media.
MATILDA BEHRENDT, STUDENT: I do think that's a risk because it seems to be so prevalent. And somehow on social media platforms or the right-leaning sources get pushed far more than the left-leaning ones.
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BRUNHUBER: So those are views of just two students there.
But what concerns do you have in terms of social media and also just whether they have the cognitive capacity to make informed voting decisions?
GARLAND: Well, on that latter point, we can see from the research, where vote 16 is already in place, that younger voters are making political decisions of an equal quality to older voters. They're able to pick out which party best matches their views as much as any other voter.
And we shouldn't, of course, assume that suddenly, magically, at 18, you develop those skills. So civic education is a really important part of that.
But, of course, we're all concerned about mis- and disinformation and the effect on elections. And that affects voters of all ages, not just younger people. And, of course, the digital natives are, we know, much better at spotting some of some of these techniques than older generations, because they've grown up with it.
But we certainly need to ensure, for all voters that are voting, our epistemic security is in place for democratic events. So that's something that's really a concern right across our elections.
And, of course, with this bill, there are measures to tighten up other regulations to protect our elections. And that's going to be hugely important for the future as well.
BRUNHUBER: Well, it'll be interesting to see. Other countries will be watching to see how this goes. Jess Garland in London, thank you so much for speaking with us. Really appreciate it.
GARLAND: Thank you.
BRUNHUBER: Well, the future of Japan's coalition government is on the line in tomorrow's upper house elections. Immigration has emerged as a key issue with a small right wing party leading the calls for change.
As CNN's Hanako Montgomery reports, the prime minister scrambled this week to launch a new task force aimed specifically at foreign nationals.
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HANAKO MONTGOMERY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Japan's ruling party faces trouble heading into Sunday's upper house elections. Polls show the Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner could lose their majority, something we haven't seen in years.
That could force the prime minister to resign and a new coalition government made up of smaller opposition parties to form. And political analysts say it really comes down to three things: a rising cost of living, a weak currency and trade tensions with the U.S.
The prime minister hasn't landed a trade deal, putting Japan's auto industry at risk. Inflation is also pushing up prices and the weekend is luring in record tourists while driving up everyday costs for locals. Now interestingly, immigration has suddenly become a hot button issue.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We will oppose the excessive acceptance of foreigners and foreign capital to protect Japan's culture, public safety and economy. We will establish a new comprehensive immigration policy agency.
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MONTGOMERY: A small right-wing party, the Sanseito, is looking to capitalize on widespread voter frustration, blaming immigrants for stealing jobs, draining taxes and driving up crime.
But the data tells a different story while Japan's foreign population has more than doubled in the past 20 years.
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It still only comprises about 3 percent of residents. And crime during that period has actually dropped.
And with a growing labor shortage, Japan has said it needs immigrants just to keep daily life running. Still, this fringe party is gaining traction, especially with men under 40, according to some local media polls. That's thanks in part to its massive YouTube following.
They've tried to attract attention by copying some of U.S. president Donald Trump's well-known political branding, promising a Japan first agenda. But even if they win big on Sunday, this is no MAGA movement just yet.
A strong performance for the party would only see them control a fraction of seats in Japan's parliament. But despite their small size, they've shifted the political
conversation enough that the ruling party just launched a task force targeting, quote, "crimes and disorderly conduct" by foreign nationals, vowing to pursue, quote, "zero illegal foreigners."
And whether it helps them at the polls or backfires will soon be clear -- Hanako Montgomery, CNN, Tokyo.
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BRUNHUBER: A married tech CEO caught on a giant screen snuggling with a female coworker has been placed on leave.
His company, Astronomer, made the announcement on Friday. This video shows CEO Andy Byron hugging the company's chief people officer, Kristin Cabot. It happened at a Coldplay concert while the band performed the JumboTron song.
Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin joked about how quickly the couple tried to hide. And, of course, the viral video went viral quickly. Astronomer says its board is launching an investigation.
All right. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Kim Brunhuber "CONNECTING AFRICA" is next. Then I'll be back at the top of the hour with more news.
