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Alyse Adamson is Interviewed about Come Indictment; Barton Gellman is Interviewed about Dick Cheney; Dhruv Patel is Interviewed about Summers Stepping Down at Harvard; First Lady Warns of A.I. in Warfare. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired November 20, 2025 - 06:30   ET

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

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[06:30:43]

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish. I want to thank you for joining me on CNN THIS MORNING.

It's half past the hour. And here's what's happening right now.

President Trump signs a bill directing the Justice Department to release all the Epstein files. That's about 50,000 documents. The Justice Department now has 30 days to follow through. The president calling the move a push for transparency, while also taking jabs at Democrats for their past connections to Epstein.

And Pentagon officials are expected to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later today in Kyiv. Sources tell CNN the White House has been working behind the scenes to reach a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. This meeting comes hours after Russia launched a barrage of drones and missiles at Ukraine.

And the FBI has added former Canadian Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding to its ten most wanted list. Among the federal charges he's facing, murder, witness tampering, money laundering and drug trafficking.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Make no mistake, Ryan Wedding is extremely dangerous. He's extremely violent, and he's extremely wealthy. Ryan Wedding has orchestrated murders against his rivals, against cooperating witnesses, against anybody that crosses his path.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: He is believed now to be in Mexico. The Justice Department is offering a $15 million reward for information leading to his arrest.

And the case against former FBI Director James Comey could be in legal jeopardy. U.S. District Attorney Lindsey Halligan says she never actually presented the Justice Department's final indictment against Comey to the full grand jury. The indictment was only presented to two jurors, including the grand jury foreperson. It's a mistake that could end up getting the case thrown out entirely. The Justice Department is defending Halligan in a new filing issued yesterday. The department says she did not mislead the grand jury and that what she did was normal.

Joining the group chat, former Federal Prosecutor Alyse Adamson, because you can tell us if it's normal and I'm not a lawyer but kind of scenario here.

So, first, help us understand technically what this judge asked. Like, how did this come up?

ALYSE ADAMSON, HOST, "AT-LYSE YOU HEARD IT HERE!" PODCAST: Right. So, they weren't even litigating this issue, Audie. They were actually litigating whether or not this is a selective or vindictive prosecution. But there was always this question about this missing time. The grand jury had voted initially on three charges. They rejected one charge, and they approved two others. But the transcripts were odd because there was no indication that Lindsey Halligan ever went back to the grand jury to formalize those two approved charges.

CORNISH: To say, hey, this is what you're saying this person did. We want to go forward with this trial. I am coming to you to show you the final charges.

ADAMSON: Correct, the final charges. It was basically a revised document.

CORNISH: Yes.

ADAMSON: So, there was a document with three charges. And then what was presented to the judge for the foreperson to sign in court only had two charges. So, what came out yesterday, Audie, is that Lindsey Halligan went back to her office and actually altered the document. She took out that third charge and then presented a new document to the court.

And the question as to whether it's normal. It is not normal. Any experienced prosecutor knows that the document that is prepared and presented to the grand jury needs to be the same document that is then signed and filed, and that didn't happen

CORNISH: And just to walk people through this scenario. She's handpicked by the White House essentially. Her resume, as far as we know, is that she was, of course, on Trump's personal legal team, which we're seeing many Trump lawyers throughout the administration. Prior to that, she had been in a civil litigation law firm. What about this resume to you would raise a question?

ADAMSON: I mean, all of it, Audie. I mean she is an attorney. To be fair, she was a partner in an insurance law firm, but she has no prosecutorial experience. And you need to have that experience, especially when you're presenting in the grand jury.

What never happens is on your fourth day of work as a prosecutor, you go in to present a case to the grand jury. Even prosecutors with years of experience are supervised through that process because it is so complicated.

[06:35:01]

It's a secret proceeding that is governed by a lot of process and procedures, and we see what happens. Ms. Halligan made a lot of what we can call rookie mistakes. Some are harmless. Some, potentially, could be fatally flawed to the case.

CORNISH: Yes. Now the person who's probably happy about this, I'm going to say this in Jim Comey voice, like, oh lordy, he's probably very excited because he has been saying the whole time that because the president had this Truth Social post saying, indict this person, indict that person, this has been vindictive from the start. Can you talk about how the legal team could take advantage of this error or what it says about their strength in the case?

ADAMSON: Well, let me just describe it like this, Audie, this is like a choose your own adventure of procedural errors in this case. This is one avenue for the defense to potentially get the indictment tossed out.

Now, whether what we're talking about here, the changing of the indictment is a clerical error or a fatal flaw, that's yet to be seen. This is unprecedented. But there's all these other things that happen that could ultimately get the indictment tossed out. There is, of course, like, the top thing, which is, is this vindictive and selective? That's a very high bar to meet. But here we have a Truth Social post from the president essentially directing this prosecution mere days before the statute of limitation runs.

CORNISH: Yes, never mind her getting the job. I feel like that was another thing Comey tried to challenge.

ADAMSON: That's correct. And that is still being actively litigated because the interim appointment for the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia had already run. There's only 120 days that an interim can serve. And Eric Siebert had already served that 120 days. After that time, the procedure state that the courts then put another attorney in until a nominated --

CORNISH: Let me translate. So, what you're saying is, a White House -- like Trump appoints his personal attorney. People say, wait a second, can you do that? We're going to the courts. That same attorney goes to the court for the case, for the people he wants them to go after, makes a big error. And so it's like legal error on legal error.

ADAMSON: It's legal error and legal error. I just want to clarify, though, what happens is, when the DOJ, the attorney general, appoints an interim attorney, they can only serve in that post for 120 days.

CORNISH: Got it.

ADAMSON: Somebody had already served for 120 days. So, it's incumbent upon the courts, the district courts of that jurisdiction, to then install somebody until Congress ultimately approves a replacement. That didn't happen here. Instead, the DOJ put Lindsey Halligan in, Donald Trump's personal

attorney. So, it's possible that she has been serving illegally this entire time.

CORNISH: I have to add one more voice to this. The former Trump White House lawyer, Ty Cobb, he of the famous mustache. He spoke about these missteps by Halligan. And here's what he had to say to Erin Burnett.

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TY COBB, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE LAWYER: The multiple constitutional violations that have, you know, came up are clearly intentional and clearly require sanctions of the most severe order.

Bondi, of course, affirmed the alleged legitimacy of Halligan's grand jury presentation, not once, but twice in these proceedings. And that, again, is -- could not have been done honestly. So, I do believe that each should be disbarred.

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CORNISH: He's saying Bondi, he thinks, should be disbarred. Halligan should be disbarred. I also find it weird I can do this entire story with just Trump attorneys, basically, Trump personal attorneys. But disbarred, is that language fair?

ADAMSON: I think that's very strong language. I think there, as we said, there's a whole host of issues. Some are more egregious than others. I don't think it would be surprising in the future to see someone like Lindsey Halligan face an ethics inquiry. But I think some of these issues are very new and unprecedented. And so, we need to see just how egregious they are.

And just another point, some of these things we don't know, especially with respect to the grand jury, because it's a secret proceeding. So, it's premature to talk about just how egregious some of this behavior is without all the information.

CORNISH: All right. Well, I know that this is going to drag on for a bit because of all the questions here. Alyse, thank you so much for answering them. Appreciate your time.

Now, I want to turn to something else, because today in Washington, D.C., the funeral of former Vice President Dick Cheney is happening, and two people will not be there, Donald Trump and the current vice president, J.D. Vance. They were not invited.

Cheney is a man whose legacy is as powerful as it is controversial. His influence stretched from the Situation Room, to the battlefield, to the boardroom. His decisions still spark debate.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Cheney, are you ready to take the oath?

DICK CHENEY, FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: I am. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: And Cheney will receive full military honors. His legacy includes his role as vice president under George W. Bush, his handling of the Iraq War, and earlier service as chief of staff to President Ford and defense secretary under George H.W. Bush.

Joining me now is Barton Gellman, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. He's also the author of "Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency,"

[06:40:07]

And he's just written a new piece for "The Atlantic" on what he learned from covering Cheney.

Bart, good morning. Thank you for being here.

BARTON GELLMAN, AUTHOR, "ANGLER: THE CHENEY VICE PRESIDENCY": Good morning, Audie.

CORNISH: I want to talk very briefly, first about your relationship with him over the course of writing the book. On this day of his funeral, what are you thinking about him as a person?

GELLMAN: You know, I -- as a person, I found him admirable in his personal qualities. His governmental acts were very mixed. There was, you know, there was the, frankly, the strategic disaster of the Iraq War and there were all the excesses of the war on terror that Cheney, more than anyone, oversaw after 9/11. And you have to combine that with a history of honorable public service as White House chief of staff, as defense secretary, where I first got to know him, and above all he was, in his own words, a consequential vice president.

CORNISH: Yes.

GELLMAN: Meaning he had a big impact on events.

CORNISH: You wrote that Dick Cheney was certain he knew better than the citizens he served about what was good for them. What do you mean by that?

GELLMAN: Well, I think that is something that could be said of a substantial number of people in high office. But Cheney had it in spades. I mean he believed he understood that the world was a darker and more dangerous place than other people either knew or were willing to face squarely. He believed that if you really looked straight in the eye of how dangerous the world was, then you would realize we needed to take some very strong, stiff and even dark measures to protect ourselves. And he thought, above all, whether you like what he did or not, that he was doing it for you.

He was absolutely following his own beliefs about what was necessary in the national interest and in the interests of its citizens. And yet he wrought things that there's probably a pretty strong consensus now were not good for the country. And, you know, $1 trillion Iraq War with thousands of Americans lost, you know, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis lost, and so on.

CORNISH: Yes. Barton Gellman, we're going to be watching this funeral today. I want to thank you for speaking with us this morning.

GELLMAN: Thank you.

CORNISH: And if you're watching now and you want to catch up on this conversation or any other part of the show, please know that we're a podcast. Scan the QR code right now. Here's where you find it. CNN THIS MORNING is available anywhere you get your podcasts.

And next on CNN THIS MORNING --

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SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): Larry. Summers has shown terrible judgment. I mean, like historically bad judgment.

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CORNISH: Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers is stepping away from his job at Harvard while the school investigates his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

And first and second ladies, Melania Trump and Usha Vance, making a surprise trip to North Carolina.

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CORNISH: All right, so far, the full Epstein files haven't been released yet, but the fallout is already hitting hard. Former President Larry Summers is -- former Harvard President Larry Summers is stepping away from his instructor role immediately. Harvard has launched an investigation into his ties with Epstein after emails surfaced showing his communications with the convicted sex offender, including messages where Epstein called himself Summers' wingman and gave him romantic advice. Summers ended his public appearances after the emails came out and discussed the situation with his students this week.

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LARRY SUMMERS, FORMER PRESIDENT, HARVARD: Some of you will have seen my statement of regret expressing my shame with respect to what I did in communications with Mr. Epstein and that I've said that I'm going to step back from public activities for a time, but I think it's very important to fulfill my teaching obligations. And so, with your permission, I'm going to -- we're going to go forward and talk about the material in the class.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Joining me now, Dhruv Patel, senior reporter at "The Harvard Crimson." He's been covering this story from the start. Dhruv, first, I just want to hear from you what undergraduates are

saying. What are you hearing on campus?

DHRUV PATEL, SENIOR REPORTER AND INCOMING MANAGING EDITOR, "THE CRIMSON": The students that "The Crimson" has been talking to about what's happened over the last week, those students are telling us that they feel confused, that they feel worried, and that they're at unease over the documents, right? Many of the students that "The Crimson" spoke to were indicating that the extent of the conversations between Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers were so egregious that many of them were calling for Larry Summers to resign. To resign not only from teaching, but to resign from Harvard at large. That is a drastic measure that has not been taken yet.

[06:50:02]

But many undergraduates have come to us and said that we're uncertain of what this means to have a teacher who has had these kinds of correspondences with Jeffrey Epstein. And so many students have been confused, but there has also been a degree of unease over the situation.

CORNISH: Now, the irony here is that Harvard did have a relationship with Epstein way back when, when he used to donate a lot of money to the school. I know there were detailed kind of investigations and reports, because they did stop taking that funding after he was convicted as a sex offender.

What is interesting to you about the timeline of Summers' relationship with Epstein that's been revealed here?

PATEL: A hundred percent. I think what's interesting to note here is that, yes, Jeffrey Epstein had indeed donated millions of dollars to Harvard in 2000. But after Drew Faust took office in 2008, Harvard instituted a policy of sorts that said that, hey, no more Jeffrey Epstein gifts will be accepted.

What's interesting about the Summers correspondence is, is that those begin around 2013 and stretch all the way until 2019. Matter of fact, "The Crimson" first reported on Sunday that the last time that Summers and Epstein talked was on July 5, 2019, and that is exactly one day before Epstein was arrested on new federal sex trafficking charges.

And so what's notable here is twofold. First is how frequently these two men were talking over that nearly a decade long span. A lot of those correspondences had not been made public before. But second, just a degree to which the two are corresponding about women, about politics, about Harvard related initiatives, the two appear to have an unusually personal relationship. And both of those things were not clear until the files released by Congress last week.

CORNISH: Is there any conversation from the women on campus? And I ask this because Summers had been embroiled in a controversy over comments he made about the intelligence of women. He's literally in some of these emails joking about that with Epstein while talking about the relationship he wanted to pursue with a mentee, with a young woman student. It feels like there's some complexities here. And I don't know, with the new crop of students, right, if they know that history. Is anyone talking about it?

PATEL: Many faculty are indeed talking about what happened in the 2000, when Larry Summers made those controversial remarks. And it was indeed the faculty that pushed him out from his role as president of Harvard. And so, for many female faculty, many of them are harkening this moment back to what they saw in the 2000s, when Larry Summers indeed made those comments.

At a student level, many students, unfortunately, perhaps aren't aware of the full history of the bitter divide between faculty and Summers. But many women and many students at large again are at unease to the point where the Economics Department chair, just yesterday, sent a message out to students saying that, hey, I understand your anxiety, I understand your confusion, I understand your fear. And here's what we're going to do to be able to mitigate those concerns.

And so, indeed, many students, and perhaps women in particular, are indeed fearful in this moment. And many of them are looking to faculty members at Harvard and to administrators to take actions against the situation that's unfolded over the last few days.

CORNISH: Dhruv, before I let you go, are they going to start a fresh investigation of an investigation? Like, what happens next at Harvard?

PATEL: That's a good point. You know, I think what's really most likely to happen here is that the Harvard probe that was announced two days ago will take its course, right? Harvard will conduct an investigation into the specific information that was included in the files. And I'll be clear here, yes, perhaps the target or the main focus here will indeed be Summers, but it also extends to any other Harvard affiliates mentioned in those files. And that includes Summers' wife, for instance.

And so, really, what we should be looking to now is for Harvard to finish that investigation, for them to evaluate whether there's additional measures that they may levy upon Summers. Does that include not letting him teach again in the future? Does that include, you know, conversations of his rank as university professor, which is the highest faculty distinction? There are indeed other measures that Harvard could levy here, but, of course, it just relies on what exactly does the investigation find?

CORNISH: OK, Dhruv Patel, senior reporter at "The Harvard Crimson," thank you.

PATEL: Thank you.

CORNISH: OK, one more thing.

A rare official trip for First Lady Melania Trump. She was at North Carolina's Camp Lejeune for a pre-Thanksgiving visit with the second lady. It was the first time the duo traveled together without their partners. They met with Marines and their families. During the visit, the first lady delivered remarks, offering a warning about the impacts of A.I. on the battlefield.

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MELANIA TRUMP, FIRST LADY: Technology is changing the art of war. Predictably, A.I. will alter war more profoundly than any technology since nuclear weapons.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Group chat is back.

Betsy, I wanted to talk to you because we rarely see Melania these days, and certainly not talking about issues of, I would say, frankly, policy when you talk about A.I. on the battlefield in a way.

[06:55:06]

Can you help us understand the context of this speech?

BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR WHTIE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, I think in the 2025 iteration of the first lady's Be Best platform, she has extended A.I. and the well-being and safety of children as a major topic there. But I think what's really notable here is that we have seen the first lady steadily ramp up her appearances in recent weeks. She had a really quiet start to her second term, splitting her time between Palm Beach and New York. And now we are seeing her really step up her activity.

I think -- I have been asking her office why that is. They will not say. But I think it's no coincidence that she has that Amazon documentary about her life, her return to the White House coming out in just a couple of weeks.

CORNISH: Oh, OK, that's helpful.

For you, Mike, because you were there for the first time around. Do you see a difference in sort of her participation in this White House and its messaging?

MIKE DUBKE, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Not necessarily. I think it is interesting that she's coming out more. When I was at the White House at the beginning of the term, she was in New York for that period of time because her son was still going -- he was still in school. This -- it is -- it is always amazing to me that we've got a fairly -- just this accomplished first lady that doesn't get a lot of coverage when we have had other first ladies get a lot more coverage. So, I think every time she comes out it's -- we have this conversation. Is she stepping out? And I just think it's amazing that she's been so behind the scenes for the first term and the second term as much as she has, from a media perspective.

CORNISH: Yes.

KLEIN: Her preference is to not be involved. And she has permission from this White House to do that this time around.

DUBKE: Yes. MEGHAN HAYS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I mean, I wouldn't want to be involved. It's disastrous. They're -- I mean, everything he does is disastrous. Why would you want to be attached to that?

CORNISH: The Democratic take. Yes, that's -- Meghan, jump in here.

HAYS: But why would you want to be attached to that? And it's like just -- that Amazon thing is just adding to the grift and the corruption that everyone thinks that they're doing in all these other deals that they're doing, with the Saudis that we saw yesterday. So, it's incredible to me that they -- that -- that is a new stake here that they are -- she is coming out more because she has a documentary coming out. I mean the grist (ph) here, incredible.

CORNISH: I was also interested in seeing Usha Vance out because the world of TP USA and widow Erika Kirk is very much embroiled in some real kind of rumor mongering and, like, nastiness. And she has been kind of pulled into that, inadvertently. And I did wonder, it's like, now she's out doing her job, right, not being trapped in the vortex of what's going on there.

KLEIN: Right. I think it was an important show of force, potentially an olive branch, from the first lady. But what's interesting there is that you see these presidential spouses, vice presidential spouses put together in what sources have described to me as this unnatural natural relationship. These are people who don't have a lot in common except for they have been flung into the spotlight and given these enormous platforms. And what's interesting here is watching the dynamic between these two women who really don't know each other that well at all. They've had one dinner at the Naval Observatory recently. They haven't spent a lot of time together. And the fact that it was ten months now into this administration that they're having their first joint event without their husbands I think is very telling.

CORNISH: Oh, I hadn't thought of that.

OK, you guys, I want to ask you about what's in your group chat as we cruise towards the end of the week.

Mike, can I start with you?

DUBKE: You can start with me. I had this conversation this weekend. It basically came up. At what point do you cut your child or your children off from your cell phone plan?

CORNISH: Oh, from your cell phone plan.

DUBKE: From your cell phone plan.

CORNISH: OK, yes.

DUBKE: How old --

HAYS: (INAUDIBLE) like Netflix, all of that. I mean, everything.

DUBKE: All -- there's everything. It's everything. HAYS: OK.

DUBKE: This is like the proverbial camel nose under the tent, because then you've got -- you've got your --

HAYS: Yes.

DUBKE: Your Netflix account. You've got your Uber account. You've got everything else.

So, I've got a 27 and a 29-year-old and it financially is better for them to be on our family plan. But like as an adult, shouldn't they --

CORNISH: I mean, I'd be like, this is not your actually kitchen table. This is still like group chat.

DUBKE: No, no, I'm having this conversation with my 40 odd year old cousin who blushed and said she's still on her parent's cell phone plan. So at some point.

CORNISH: I have to tell you --

DUBKE: Are you still on your parent's cell phone --

CORNISH: I'm not a good person for this one because my parents are on my plan. I love you both.

Meghan.

HAYS: So, I -- in our group chat, is it too early to decorate for Christmas?

CORNISH: Yes.

HAYS: So, if you go downstairs in the lobby --

DUBKE: Tell them that in the lobby.

CORNISH: I'm sorry.

(CROSS TALK)

CORNISH: Thanks -- let's get through Thanksgiving.

HAYS: It's overwhelming. But then it's like, you know, there's not a lot of joy going on right now in this world, so I don't want to steal anyone's joy. I think it's too early because I like a live Christmas tree.

DUBKE: Yes.

HAYS: And you couldn't keep your Christmas tree alive this long. Or I cannot. So, I think it's to --

DUBKE: It's not a live tree downstairs, by the way.

HAYS: No, that's correct. But the downstairs is very on brand Christmas.

CORNISH: Yes, needless -- our lobby, by the way, we're ready.

KLEIN: It is.

CORNISH: We're ready for Christmas.

(CROSS TALK)

CORNISH: Go on.

KLEIN: We are talking about the president's latest efforts to impose his style and tastes on Washington.

CORNISH: Gold. Lots of gold.

KLEIN: He went on Laura Ingraham. Gold. But now he went on Laura Ingraham and he says he wants to paint the Eisenhower Executive Office Building white. Showed her the plans for that. And there's a preservationist group that has stepped in, filed a lawsuit, and they did receive a written declaration from the General Services Administration that they are not going to do anything until at least December 31st.

[07:00:07]

CORNISH: Oh, that's interesting, because he was able to tear down the whole East Wing. So, but the painting --

KLEIN: Now they are on --

CORNISH: Now everybody is on the -- on the ready.

KLEIN: That he knows --

HAYS: (INAUDIBLE) actually (INAUDIBLE) anyone to tear down the East Wing. So, there's also that.

CORNISH: OK. All right, well, you guys, thanks for that group chat. Betsy, thanks for bringing us something serious.

I'm Audie Cornish. The headlines are next.