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Momentum Builds for Discharge Petition on Epstein Files Release; Fans, Celebs Mourn Malcolm-Jamal Warner. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired July 22, 2025 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
M.J. LEE, CNN ANCHOR: -- the dolls, dubbed "Lafufus." In an effort to crack down on fakes, Pop Mart is now working to copyright the name "Labubu." And since June, Chinese authorities have seized tens of thousands of counterfeit Labubus. But fakes can still be found throughout China and online.
[06:00:18]
Thank you so much for joining us here on EARLY START. I'm M.J. Lee in Washington, and CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.
ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: A Jeffrey Epstein accuser speaks out as lawmakers continue their push for the release of the files. So, what's standing in their way?
CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARIA FARMER, JEFFREY EPSTEIN ACCUSER: I was vulnerable, sweaty, just a nobody in an office with these two men.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: That encounter, she says, still haunts her.
As we dive deeper into hurricane season, a resignation at FEMA. Why a key agency leader is suddenly out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, "LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT": Would an untalented man be able to compose the following satirical witticism? Go (EXPLETIVE DELETED) yourself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: Stephen Colbert's message to the Trump administration: simple, direct. How his late-night competition is also weighing in.
And from eggs to beef, Americans are now experiencing sticker shock in the meat department.
Plus --
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MALCOLM-JAMAL WARNER, ACTOR: As far as I'm concerned, it is cool with me. You see Buddhist and the boys (ph), not to know what they were doing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: He stole the hearts of America as Theo Huxtable. Today, the world is mourning the sudden loss of Malcolm-Jamal Warner.
Good morning. It is 6 a.m. here on the East Coast. Sun just coming up there in New York City. Nice to have you with us, everybody. It is Tuesday, July 22.
I'm Erica Hill, in today for Audie Cornish. Thanks for joining us on CNN THIS MORNING.
Well, President Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is once again being called into question amid new accounts from an Epstein accuser, recalling a meeting with Mr. Trump in Epstein's office.
In speaking with Erin Burnett, Maria Farmer did not accuse the president of wrongdoing in that interaction in the '90s. But she said something just felt off about the encounter.
The White House calls her story false, claiming Trump never visited Epstein's office.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FARMER: I was vulnerable, sweaty just a nobody in an office with these two men that felt very predatory and uncomfortable.
He's lying. I don't appreciate it. He was absolutely at the offices, and it was 9 p.m. at night. I thought it was inappropriate. But also, they were best friends at the time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: Farmer's story comes as more Republicans call for the release of the Epstein files, and there is growing momentum for a discharge petition led by Republican Thomas Massie to force a floor vote on releasing more files from the investigation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): We'll get phase two of the Epstein files, because we'll get, I believe, every Democrat and at least a dozen Republicans who want transparency and justice.
REP. DON BACON (R-NE): I doubt there's something there, but I'd rather just put it out there, put sunlight on it.
REP. RALPH NORMAN (R-SC): You know, with the Massie discharge petition, it's got some teeth to it, and it will pass. REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): I can tell you, for the past,
gosh, more than a week, the highest volume of calls into my office have been about Epstein. People want the information.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: They may want that information. But speaker of the House Mike Johnson is blocking any vote on anything related to Epstein until September.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): Discharge petitions are never a good idea in the House. It is a party of the -- It is a -- a tool of the minority party, not majority.
The majority party has stated its position -- and it is mine, and it is the president's -- that we want maximum disclosure. So, the rest of it is a political game that Democrats are playing. And I hope Republicans don't going to.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: Joining me now in the group chat: Jerusalem Demsas, contributing writer at "The Atlantic"; Chuck Rocha, senior adviser to the Bernie Sanders presidential campaigns; and Mike Dubke, former Trump White House communications director. Nice to be with all of you this morning here in Washington.
So, just last week, we had the speaker who said -- and I'm quoting him here -- "We should put everything out there and let the people decide."
Now he's saying, another quote, "We need the administration to have the space to do what it is doing."
Mike, that "what it is doing" appears to be trying to distract. Is that actually working?
MIKE DUBKE, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR UNDER TRUMP: Oh, I don't think they're trying to distract. Well, look, I think every time something like this comes up for the White House, people point to, Oh, he tweeted about the Redskins this weekend, or he tweeted about this this weekend.
President Trump does that every weekend. So, this whole distraction thing, I'm not buying into.
The problem for the White House right now is the fact that 83 percent of Republicans want these files released. Ninety percent of independents and Democrats want these. They are running into a juggernaut of curiosity.
[06:05:04]
And this discharge position [SIC], whether or not the speaker likes it or not, is going to go forward. I'm -- I'm of the opinion let's move quickly on this, because if we wait -- if the House goes out of session and we wait until September, this is just going to linger.
You do not see numbers in the '80s and '90s and have issues go away.
CHUCK ROCHA, SENIOR ADVISOR TO BERNIE SANDERS PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS: Well, also with the Democrats, let's talk about them. What we're not saying here is that Democrats are saying, almost all of them, Let's see it. Let's put this up.
And ten Republicans have joined them and say, Let's do this. While Republicans have said, No, let's not look at this. Let's give space, or whatever they're saying. That's something politically that they can go home. We're all going home in August. They're going to go back to their districts.
And they can say, look, we're trying to see this. As Democrats, we're trying to force the House to put all the records out there. Whether they are or not, they're trying to say it with a bill. And the Republicans are saying no.
HILL: Well, so to the point that both of you are making, right, they're going to hear from the constituents doing this recess. It's going to continue to drag out. Right? If the conversation isn't changed.
And because we are seeing more and more Republican support on Capitol Hill, it's interesting to me, as we watch the speaker falling in line with what the president clearly wants, we are not seeing it from some of his traditionally more vocal supporters, as you're seeing more and more people shift to this call.
JERUSALEM DEMSAS, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, "THE ATLANTIC": Yes, exactly. I mean, it's an 80/90 issue, as Mike said. But more importantly, I mean, this is a comment that was made by a MAGA supporter: that Trump's population, the MAGA population, has been trained to be invested in the Jeffrey Epstein story.
I mean, Trump himself has brought this up independently, questioning Bill Clinton's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein before he was even running for president.
So, there's a level in which, you know, you've inculcated this in your own political base, and now you're losing control of the narrative.
I think that's part of why -- I mean, I don't think it's a distraction. But I think it's part of why they were really eager to have the fight with "The Wall Street Journal," because returning this to a battle of the mainstream media versus the Trump administration is more firm footing than losing the trust of his base over these kind of conspiracy issues.
HILL: How much of it, too, is -- if the narrative were to change, right, the narrative coming out of the administration, I want to say, Mike, it does not strike me that the president, nor the people around him are really all that concerned about what people think, if they change the narrative. Right?
The president's going to do what the president wants to do. And yet, in this moment, the fact that they are so dug in, does it surprise you?
DUBKE: It only surprises me that this has gone on as long as it has. The -- one of the president's strengths is understanding when to pivot, when to answer, when to speak out, and when to basically give to -- to his base what they're demanding.
And we're now week two, week three. I can't remember how long this has been going on.
HILL: A long time.
DUBKE: Well, the whole incident has been going on for a long time, but since we had the -- the -- Pam Bondi saying, I've got these files on my desk, to a release that was subpar. This has been going on for -- for a while now.
So, the White House is going to get its feet under them. I would just like them to do it sooner rather than later.
ROCHA: Every day they're talking about this, it's bad for this White House and Republicans.
DUBKE: Yes.
ROCHA: Because they could be talking about we've got the border secure, or we're creating this, or this is what the Big, Beautiful Bill is going to do for you.
But they have to talk about Epstein. That's a win for the Democrats.
HILL: Here's the other thing I will say really quickly I'd love you to weigh in on. That's not happening in Congress right now, is there's a little bit of a funding issue, right, which is kind of an important job that Congress has. That's not being addressed.
DEMSAS: I mean, it's -- it's really remarkable. I mean, Mike Johnson says this. He's, you know, the majority party. This is the majority party. They have control of both houses of Congress.
There's massive concerns about funding the government. And they've just passed this big bill, which again, it's quite rare to pass legislation that's polling this poorly already.
And you'd think they want to turn the conversation towards funding the government, getting things actually ready. But instead, they're allowing the story to, again, as Mike said, linger in the public domain and not move on onto firmer footing, which I find, you know --
DUBKE: The worst part for Democrats, they still haven't found a message. They're just trolling off of Donald Trump's mishandling of a message. But the Democrats still don't know what they want to talk about. So, they may go into recess with this. But that's not a good place for
them to be either.
ROCHA: We're going to surf that until we get to a point where we have some power. Then we'll tell you what we're following.
DUBKE: Yes.
HILL: All right. We'll leave this discussion for a moment. The group chat, though, of course, is sticking around. Much more to discuss over the course of this next hour, including remembering a sitcom star as we look back at the life and the legacy of Malcolm-Jamal Warner, the man, of course, we first met as Theo Huxtable.
Plus, the Trump administration releasing thousands of documents about the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. against the wishes of his family.
And Stephen Colbert's first show since getting the news he was canceled. His defiant message to the White House.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLBERT: I can finally speak unvarnished truth to power and say what I really think about Donald Trump, starting right now. I don't care for him.
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[06:14:25]
HILL: Fourteen minutes past the hour. Now, here's your morning roundup.
Bewilderment in court at the sentencing hearing for the ex-officer convicted for his role in the deadly Breonna Taylor raid.
Brett Hankison will serve 33 months behind bars. He was convicted last year for using excessive force during that botched raid.
The new prosecutor assigned to the case had argued that Hankison should get time served, which would have amounted to just one day in jail, a request the judge said was not appropriate.
Breonna Taylor's mother telling CNN she is still trying to come to terms with what happened in court.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TAMIKA PALMER, BREONNA TAYLOR'S MOTHER: He never -- there was no advocation for the family, for any of the victims. It was him, literally, there to make sure Brett got the least amount of time as possible.
From the prosecution stance, Breonna never stood a chance in that courtroom today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: Hankison is the first person sentenced to prison in the case. He fired his gun ten times during that raid but did not shoot Taylor.
A district attorney set to announce felony charges today in a Los Angeles nightclub crash. At least 30 people were injured after a man drove his car into a crowd after being kicked out of the club.
That's when bystanders pulled the driver out of his car, beating him before someone shot him. Police are still looking for the shooter.
At least 27 people are dead after a military jet crashed into a school in Bangladesh. Nearly all of the victims are children. Officials say the jet reported a technical malfunction moments after takeoff, and that the pilot made, quote, "every effort" to steer that jet away from a densely populated area before it crashed.
Still to come here on CNN THIS MORNING, a key FEMA leader is out. What he told colleagues was the tipping point.
Plus, we met him as Theodore Huxtable but loved him for far more. Today, the nation is mourning the loss of Malcolm-Jamal Warner.
And a good morning to our friends in St. Louis. Pink skies there under the Arch.
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[06:20:32]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WARNER: Now, some guys might find it hard living with four sisters, but I think it's made me more sensitive to the wants and needs of women.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: Tributes and, really, shock this morning at the sudden death of Malcolm-Jamal Warner, best known, of course, for his role as Theo Huxtable.
The beloved actor died in a drowning accident in Costa Rica, police telling CNN people on the beach tried to help the 54-year-old when he was apparently caught in a strong current.
He played Theo Huxtable on "The Cosby Show" for all eight seasons. Fans and former co-stars from across his career are heartbroken.
Tracee Ellis Ross, who starred alongside Warner in "Reed Between the Lines," writing, "First I met you as Theo with the rest of the world. Then you were my first TV husband. My heart is so, so sad. What an actor and friend you were."
Warner recently reflected on his decades-long career in a podcast with Melyssa Ford.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WARNER: Those former years were always about life beyond "Cosby," right? So, I feel like, OK, there's that legacy there. But then, because I've had this full life, you know, after that show, there's another lane of legacy that I get to leave. And I'm still working through that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: Joining me now to discuss, CNN entertainment reporter Lisa France.
Lisa, it' s always good to see you, my friend. This was a really tough one when it crossed yesterday, and I was so struck by the reaction that you're seeing across the board from names and people who are well known to us, who we may not know personally; but also just everyday Americans who were so touched by his character of Theo Huxtable, but also the character of the man, Malcolm-Jamal Warner.
LISA FRANCE, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely, Erica. I can't tell you the number of people who said to me, He was my first crush. He felt like he was my big brother. He felt like a cousin.
I just keep saying that when we lost Malcolm-Jamal Warner, we lost a family member. That's the way it feels, especially in the black community, because he meant so much to us.
But in Hollywood as a whole, let's talk about how difficult it can be to make a transition from being a child star to an adult actor. This is a man who continued to work, continued to show integrity, didn't get caught up in scandals, didn't even share the name of his wife and child, because he wanted to keep his private life private. And no one ever leaked that, you know?
And it very much reminds me of the loss of Chadwick Boseman, because there was so much shock when we found out, but also so -- such an outpouring of love and respect.
And you think about how people treated him, Erica, how they just absolutely respected him as an actor, but also as a man. This is a man who was a poet. He was a director. He was a musician. He won a Grammy. I mean, just an all-around renaissance man and a really, really good guy, Erica.
HILL: You talk about the way people treated him. That is also a mirror of the way he treated people, Lisa.
FRANCE: Absolutely. He just was lovely to people. I had a personal experience with him where I had interviewed him back in 2017. He talked to me about being a first-time father. His daughter was only four months old. How excited he was about that.
We also talked about some of the people we knew in common, because he lived in Atlanta. We talked about where to get the best chicken wings. I mean, it went well beyond our interview.
So, a year later, when I was supposed to visit him on the set of "The Resident" for a set visit, I caught the flu, and I also had tickets to go see Childish Gambino. And I immediately went to social media, and I was like, I can't believe I won't get to see Malcolm-Jamal Warner, and I won't get to see Childish Gambino.
And he came in my social media comments and said, you know, But can we get those Childish Gambino tickets from you, though? Like, you know, he was like, so funny.
And, you know, he slid in my DM's to say, you know, no, I hope that you're feeling well. But seriously, what about those concert tickets?
HILL: Yes.
FRANCE: So, you know, just a regular person. Like we oftentimes think about the celebrity, but he was a father and a son.
And, you know, Mr. Cosby, Bill Cosby really spoke to one of our affiliates about how gutted he was about losing Malcolm-Jamal Warner, but also thinking about his mom, because he was very much a family man. He had a small family, but they were very close.
So, just such an incredible loss, Erica. Just -- it can't be overstated --
HILL: Yes.
FRANCE: -- what a huge shock and loss this is.
HILL: Yes. I -- we were not discussing Childish Gambino tickets, but I have to say, like, the couple of times that I met him and when I interviewed, I was struck by what a kind, lovely, focused person he was.
FRANCE: Yes.
HILL: That when you had a conversation with him, he was really dialed in.
FRANCE: Yes
HILL: And so present.
FRANCE: Yes.
HILL: He also, Lisa -- I was struck by, you know, in the last several years or even really since you talk about how difficult that transition could be, right?
[06:25:06]
Going from being on this super successful show, where you start out as a teen, through that run of eight seasons, the way he continued to work.
But also, the way he evolved, as we all do. But sometimes, the world doesn't allow actors to do that. The way he evolved as a person and what was important to him, and the way he spoke about that and -- and made sure that there was attention, including with his new podcast.
FRANCE: Yes, his new podcast, "Not All Hood," to him, I think, was a way for him to continue the conversation about how the black community is not a monolith.
You know, he really was focused on uplifting people. I saw Yvette Nicole Brown share this lovely video where he basically was saying, you know, if you don't have anything to smile about, like, try to find something to smile about. Try to make someone else smile.
He was just so incredibly focused. And I love that you used the word "present," because it is very difficult in Hollywood to maintain the persona where, when you're with someone and talking to them, you are really in it. And he was really in it.
And we did. We saw him grow up. We saw him evolve as an artist. We saw him do shows like "Malcolm & Eddie," "The Resident," "911." You know, he just continued to work steadily, because it was so important to him.
But also, because, as we saw in the clip, he was very much aware of the legacy that he wanted to leave behind. And I hate that we're having this conversation, because he now does have a legacy, because he has left us.
HILL: You're right. It is a beautiful legacy and also an enormous -- an enormous loss, as you have laid out. Always good to see you, my friend.
FRANCE: Thanks.
HILL: I appreciate it.
FRANCE: Good to see you too, Erica.
HILL: Just ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING, "The Wall Street Journal" feeling President Trump's wrath. "The Journal's" reporting on the Trump/Epstein relationship now causing a new consequence.
Plus --
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HUNTER BIDEN, SON OF FORMER PRESIDENT BIDEN: (EXPLETIVE DELETED) him. And (EXPLETIVE DELETED) him. And everybody around him.
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HILL: How does Hunter Biden really feel about all those who called on his father to drop out of the race last summer?
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