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Erin Burnett Outfront

Trump About To Address Nation As GOP Cracks Grow; Leaked Epstein Memo; Hours Before The Reiners' Murders. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired December 17, 2025 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:00:26]

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next:

Another blow to Trump's grip on the GOP. Tonight, Republicans fighting back on a key vote. It comes as Trump is about to address the nation. Has the GOP dam broken, as Marjorie Taylor Greene predicted?

Plus, a memo leaked on the Epstein files, complete with Republican talking points that could be used to counter any mentions of Trump in the files.

And new details about the hours leading up to the murders of Rob and Michele Reiner. Their son today making his first court appearance.

Let's go OUTFRONT.

(MUSIC)

BURNETT: And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett.

OUTFRONT tonight, the breaking news -- new cracks in Trump's support as the president prepares to address the nation hours after four Republicans sided with Democrats on a new Obamacare vote. As Trump is facing new warning signs on the economy, and there could be more problems on the horizon.

Here is the dire warning from Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): I think the dam is breaking. He's got real problems with Republicans within the House and the Senate that will be breaking with him on more things to come.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: And a new poll out tonight shows Trump's approval on the economy at a two term low. His net approval rating on the economy now is just one point ahead of Biden's low. And that's bad. I mean, Biden ignored voters' concerns about the economy to his own peril, something Trump actually see to be doing right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: The polling data has been wrong all along.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think polls are fake. We have the greatest economy we've ever had.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: Well, the polling wasn't wrong when it came to Biden, and he learned that the hard way. We all know how that story ended, and it isn't the only warning sign for Trump tonight. Four House Republicans bucked their party today and sided with Democrats. It's a big deal. It was on a very, very big thing of import, forcing a vote on a bill to extend the expiring Obamacare subsidies.

And that's significant on so many levels, but also just the deep irony of it happening on the same day that Trump unveiled new plaques, they actually had plaques made, you know, bronze and all the, you know, machines required to print this stuff. Along his presidential walk of fame, as he calls it, including a note about President Obama that says, "As president, he passed the highly ineffective, affordable, unaffordable care act." That's why I'm telling you, they actually paid to have these things made.

Now, of course, today's vote Republicans turned against Trump on that. And by the way, just to be clear, that's the gentlest thing that Trump posted about Obama on his plaque. The plaques, most of them are written in the style of Trump's social media posts. They're insults. They're baseless claims. They're random capitalizations.

Can they actually paid to have these things? They put them on the wall at the White House. We're going to have more on that coming up. But I want to begin with Kristen Holmes at the White House.

You know, Kristen, it does seem in so many ways that this whatever they're calling it, address to the nation, kind of came out of nowhere. Wasn't really expected. We're heading right into the holiday season. I mean, what is the latest you're learning on how this came about and what we can expect from Trump?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Well, we're told by White House officials that this is end of year remarks that it's going to be essentially a highlight reel of what President Trump believes that he accomplished his first year in office. But as you noted, this comes at a time where the White House and President Trump himself are keenly aware that Americans are very unhappy with the economy. And most of them blame President Trump.

So we've been told in part, that some of this speech is going to highlight the economy that President Trump is going to say that he inherited and what he says he's done to try and turn it around. Now, it's not that surprising that he's going to blame President Joe Biden. He's done that publicly as well. But if he stays on script, it is likely we'll hear what he believes that they have done to try and rectify the situation.

Now, on top of that, we are also told that he's going to look ahead to the next year, talk about some of what the administration plans on doing.

This is not necessarily all going to be economic based, but I'm telling you, when I'm talking to these everyday Americans, that's what they want to hear about. And President Trump is, as you noted, facing the same dilemma that President Biden faced when he was in office. President Trump had the advantage of not being the one who was being blamed for the economy, the one who was running for office, who said, I can fix this now that he's in office and people are still feeling pain when they open up their wallet, it's a lot harder to cast blame on someone else.

BURNETT: Sure is.

All right. Kristen, thank you very much.

John Avlon and Gretchen Carlson are here, along with Mark Guiducci, global editorial director of "Vanity Fair", which of course just published the bombshell interview with Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles, where she offered up an incredibly blunt, shall we say, to be kind assessment of Trump and his inner circle undermining Trump, his policies and his team. And we're going to get to all of that in just a moment.

But, John, you know, it's interesting when Kristen is saying he wants to talk about his first year accomplishments. That is actually a thing that's done at what's called the State of the Union --

JOHN AVLON, PODCAST HOST: Yeah.

BURNETT: -- at the end of January or February, right?. Like doing this all of a sudden and it feels quite, you know, quickly pulled together doesn't -- it's not the way it's normally done.

AVLON: It's not. But it's more than that. It's a sign of weakness, not a sign of strength. He's playing defense. He knows he's taking on water.

That 36 percent number on the economy is a killer, because that was his strongest attribute. That's always been his strongest argument. But it's on top of polls that show -- I mean, he's at 25 percent among independent voters right now. You know, that's the key barometer in any election being at 25 percent with independents, 36 percent on the economy. He is hemorrhaging.

So, this is some kind of prevent defense. But he's not going to convince anybody because he's got no credibility to convince people who are skeptical, particularly when he's shown consistent sort of contempt for the issue of affordability, which is how he got elected in the first place.

BURNETT: Right. And, Gretchen, to give a speech to tell people how to feel when they already know how they feel. How does that -- how do you accomplish something with that?

GRETCHEN CARLSON, FORMER FOX NEWS HOST: Well, first of all, Trump hates to lose. So, to John's point, you know, he's going to try and come out and get a victory out of this somehow, some way. But the only way he's going to be able to accomplish that is what we talked about last week before he did his speech in Pennsylvania, which was he needs to be honest with the American public because they are feeling this emotionally.

He should take a page out of the script of J.D. Vance's speech today, where he did not call affordability a hoax. He said it was affordability crisis. So, he acknowledged that.

And as I said last week, he should say, yes, I inherited terrible inflation. But here are the things that I'm doing to try to turn that around. But I'm not there yet. And I understand your pain and I'm working on that to make it better.

That's not what he said in the past, and I doubt we're going to hear that tonight.

BURNETT: No, what he said actually when it came up was A-plus-plus- plus-plus.

CARLSON: Exactly, five of them.

BURNETT: Or there were five. I -- J.D. Vance took one away the other day somehow thinking that was funny.

Mark, I want to talk about the "Vanity Fair" story in which Chris Whipple did 11 interviews with Susie Wiles. She doesn't really do interviews, right? So, she didn't just stumble stupidly into 11 interviews, right? There's no more experienced operator than Susie Wiles. She knew what she was doing.

And then she said all these things about Pam Bondi whiffing and J.D. Vance being a conspiracy theorist who turned for political reasons. And, it just thing after thing stood out. Right wing zealot about Russ Vought and then you know, they then all after she said that, I guess they didn't know that at the time. They're standing there getting their pictures taken for "Vanity Fair".

Now, you were there when that happened. You know, did you, did you foresee what is the kind of splash that this made coming at that time?

MARK GUIDUCCI, GLOBAL EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, VANITY FAIR: I don't think you can ever predict when lightning strikes. But, you know, "Vanity Fair" has a long history of going to the White House. Tina Brown writes in her diaries about the moment when she got the Reagan stomp cover and holding her breath because it was going to -- it was happening.

And then subsequently, we visited almost every administration since, Annie Leibovitz did an incredible portfolio of the first Bush administration, Bush two. And that I was thinking about when I got this job six months ago.

And so when Chris Whipple came around in August, a couple of months after I got the job and said he'd been talking to Susie and that she was excited to do a story, we said yes. She was excited that it was "Vanity Fair". We went down, did our shoot, and we got a scoop.

BURNETT: I mean, to say the least, you did. So now, they're saying significant. She's saying specifically significant context was disregarded. I assume after reading it that this was done to paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the president and our team, is that why is that why you guys did it? To paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative?

GUIDUCCI: No, we did it because it's an amazing story. It's the biggest story in the world. And she was giving us access. Up there in terms of the context, it's a 9,500-word story that we published in two parts, and it also has an editors letter that I wrote, kind of a diary of the day at the White House. There's plenty of context.

And I think if you just cherry pick the, you know, the aggregated quotes, I can see why someone would think that. But if you read it, there's plenty of context. It's day by day. It shows what's happening in the White House and in the world exactly. When they're speaking. And I actually think personally, that she comes off looking very reasonable, actually, compared to, the chaos that is happening.

BURNETT: And so it raises the question of who she -- I mean, she no doubt knew that, but reasonable to who? Not to them. Okay. I'm not -- I'm not, but yes, reasonable to readers of "Vanity Fair" for sure. For sure.

Okay. So -- and it's interesting when you're there doing this photo shoot, I want to ask you about that in a moment, because what they were like this plaque wall goes up the presidential wall of fame.

[19:10:03]

So, John, this is what's happening today, right? We have what I believe is going to be a moment in this presidency that is unforgettable, which is the president's tweet about Rob Reiner happened this week.

And then you have this, this going up. And they've ordered these plaques, and the plaques are written the way he does his social media posts. So, the capitalizations and the punctuations and the and the things. But then he says things as, that that are and I read some of the Obama ones, but for example, about Biden, he says that Biden took office as a result of the most corrupt election ever that's written on the walls of the White House. Now, obviously, Biden won the electoral college. Biden won the popular vote over Trump.

Obama. He starts with Barack Hussein. Obama was the first black president, a community organizer, one term senator from Illinois, one of the most divisive presidents. Obviously, polls show him to be, by the way, much more popular than Trump right now, polls 59 percent to 48. Trump's plaque says that his inauguration.

President Trump announced the beginning of the golden age of America, and he delivered. But this is what they're doing right now. Somebody spent an extraordinary amount of time putting this together. They paid for this. CARLSON: And getting all the quotes from Trump himself.

BURNETT: Right.

AVLON: Actually, we paid for it.

BURNETT: Karoline Leavitt said that they -- that he wrote, I mean, he was involved. Yeah.

AVLON: Yeah. So first of all, they didn't pay for it. We paid for it, the taxpayers. This is -- this is pathetic propaganda. It shows the president, once again, is more interested in being kind of king of the trolls than anything resembling a real patriot. You study American history, you have big fights, but presidents usually come together. Whether it's Bush 41 and Clinton. You know, Carter, you know, Ford, Adams and Jefferson to do this in this kind of way, on the verge of America's 250 just shows a contempt for American patriotism, for our best traditions.

And you're right to call out the fact, he says Obama is the most divisive president we've ever had. Well, he's the most popular living president, far more popular than Donald Trump. And it just says about degradation of our democracy and we shouldn't normalize it, treat it as the freak show it is. But don't mistake this. This is -- this is hurting our country and our ability to unite as a nation, particularly on the eve of our 250.

BURNETT: And, Gretchen, the -- Karoline Leavitt, as we referenced, she gave a statement to CNN. Okay, she writes, "The plaques are eloquently written descriptions of each president and the legacy they left behind. As a student of history, many were written directly by the president himself."

Look, now, you might think that this is some sort of like a standup act. Let's just be honest, that's a ridiculous thing to say. But that's said in seriousness.

CARLSON: There is no decorum in this White House. I mean, I think we hear it from the speaker of the House daily, where he actually says, now, I'm not going to quote or comment on anything that the president says. Right?

And it's similar to this. Imagine if all of the time that was spent coming up with these quotes was spent on actually working on the economy for the people who are suffering right now. And I think more and more, that's going to come into play as the regular American folk look at this and say, what is going on here? I mean, not just the time wasted, but also, there's absolutely no lessons learned here that we would want to teach our children --

AVLON: That's right.

CARLSON : -- at all.

BURNETT: No. CARLSON: And we spend our lifetime as parents all trying to raise our

children to have respect for one another and don't remember what our mother said to us and our fathers. Don't say something nice or whatever the phrase is. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all, right? That's totally --

BURNETT: That's amazing because it has been true for a long time that everybody has said this about Trump, that they've accepted that he is those things. But he is, whatever it might be, the economy or the border or whatever. What you're seeing in the Republican Party now is that they're not willing to do the butt anymore. That's why I bring up the Rob Reiner moment.

AVLON: Right. And I do think that's a big moment, right? Because the lack of decency and the fact that Rob Reiner's movies have touched so many people across the political spectrum and often remind us of the better angels of our nature, I think the indelible image of the year for me is the destruction of the East Wing. That was just this visceral gut punch tearing down something built by Teddy Roosevelt. And so, this is insult to injury. It's sort of, you know, the Baghdad Bob school of, you know, the press secretary where, you know, saying this is a, you know, eloquently written and brilliant, but there's a larger degradation going down.

And unfortunately, I think culturally, he's a mirror to our culture. And Trump's superpower is shamelessness. And that's the opposite of virtue and character, which is what traditionally presidents.

CARLSON: But he could change this. That's the thing. Like --

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: He's his own worst enemy. But if he actually, you know, some of his policies, the American public agrees with, it's the execution that is horribly done.

BURNETT: So, Mark, when you were at the White House for a number of hours, right. So, we talk about the post there from Karoline Leavitt the statement, you met her, you met Stephen Miller, you met all of the ones who are posted, you know, pictured in the "Vanity Fair" article. What was your impression?

GUIDUCCI: You know, we actually asked to photograph the photograph the presidential walk of fame and the Rose Garden and the East Wing such that it is. And we're told that, no, because those were very special spaces to the president. They're his spaces.

[19:15:01]

BURNETT: The presidential -- what we're talking about here with these clerks.

GUIDUCCI: Well, it was before that, but, you know, such that it was in an evolution. And, and I wanted to remind the assistant that it wasn't her fault, but that they're actually not his spaces. They're ours. But I have to say, actually, they were incredibly professional. The

whole day was done with utmost graciousness and good faith that this was a this was a profile opportunity for them to be honest. And I think, Susie perhaps did that.

BURNETT: She did that. But, I mean, in terms of their -- I mean, and obviously you control what picture you're going to publish.

GUIDUCCI: Sure.

BURNETT: So, I mean, and I don't say that they would, you know, be rude to you, right? But I mean, they knew that you had a lot of control.

GUIDUCCI: Yeah. We actually you know, we chose this photographer who was a has been the conflict journalist, has documented politics for decades. And this is his style.

He has a book called "Stump" where it is. It is reflective of the style that, the close up pictures that you're talking about. They're like X-rays of a person.

And we found that to be a really interesting way to approach how to photograph people that you see every -- these are some of the most photographed people in the world.

BURNETT: Yes.

GUIDUCCI: Right? And how to see them in a new way. And so, Christopher came from Paris, where he lives. But we sent his portfolio ahead of time to show them what that was going to look like. And --

BURNETT: Right. That's fascinating.

GUIDUCCI: And they welcomed him in.

BURNETT: Well, I think --

GUIDUCCI: To their credit.

BURNETT: And you did really accomplish something with that because we do see them every day. Maybe not Susie as much, obviously, but they are compelling. There's a sort of riveting nature when even when you look at it online.

All right. Thank you all very much I appreciate it.

And next, breaking news, Ghislaine Maxwell has done it formally, asking a judge to be released as the deadline for the release of the Epstein files, we're now hours away. We're supposed to have it by Friday.

Congressman Robert Garcia, ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, is OUTFRONT.

And Nick Reiner facing a judge for the first time, appearing in a protective vest, anti-suicide vest charged with the horrific murder of his parents. We're going to talk to someone who had a very memorable dinner with the Reiners, including Nick, and he'll tell you why that dinner haunts him now.

And the man on Russia's wanted list, investigative journalist Christo Grozev, on this incredible story about how he found a cat to discover its owner was a Russian spy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:21:55]

BURNETT: Breaking news, Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell asking a judge to free her from prison. The new filing coming as we are down to the wire. Just two days left, 48 hours for the DOJ to release the Epstein files. Maxwell claiming new evidence, including documents from the Epstein estate, showed she did not receive a fair trial. She is a convicted child sex trafficker. She is serving a 20-year sentence. She was, though, of course, moved suddenly and without explanation to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas, where offenders of her type do not go. And that happened after two meetings with Trump's DOJ, immediately after that.

OUTFRONT now, Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia, the ranking member of the Oversight Committee.

And, Congressman, this filing by Ghislaine Maxwell to be freed from prison, coming out now, perhaps not a surprise. You know, she's made it extremely clear in what she said that she wants a pardon as well. But this could impact what we get from the DOJ by Friday. I mean, that's why the timing of this is so significant. There is an exemption for any information that could jeopardize active investigations or prosecutions, of which you could try to categorize this as something like that. I mean, do you think that's what this is about, that this is a method for the DOJ to withhold documents?

REP. ROBERT GARCIA (D-CA): Well, two things are important here. Number one is Ghislaine Maxwell has no standing to dismiss any of her case or sentence. Let's be very clear. She had -- she's a monstrous person who did horrific things, should never have been moved, and she should serve her sentence. That's clear. And nothing that's released had been released by the estate clears her in any way.

The second piece that's important is let's remember that while the law that was passed by Congress does contain language which is typical in these types of laws, that allows for active investigations to limit some type of disclosure, the subpoena that the oversight committee put in place now, four months ago, does not contain that language. And the subpoena asked for the exact same documents. So, the DOJ can choose to try to stop the release tomorrow, perhaps of some documents. I hope they don't do that, but they actually can't ignore the subpoena that actually is the is a companion document with the law. So bottom line, the DOJ has to release all of the Epstein files tomorrow.

BURNETT: All right. So big question about this then is going to be what -- you know. So, first of all, there's whether they do or don't. But then if they do if they do release, they could release or they could release hundreds of thousands of pages that are all blacked out. And we are told that some of the survivors' lawyers have not heard from the DOJ about any redactions. So, what does that mean to you?

GARCIA: Look, the truth is, is that we don't know what the DOJ is going to do tomorrow. We know is what they've done in the past. In the past, they have tried to cover up. They've tried to deflect the limited amounts of documents that they've actually sent under the subpoena we had was essentially about 98 percent of them were already public documents. Nothing really new.

[19:25:00]

And so, now, the DOJ has a chance to do the right thing, but they haven't done that in the past. In fact, the president, as we know, has in fact tried to block initially the release of all these documents pretty aggressively.

And so, the DOJ can release maybe limited documents, they can release all of them, which is the right thing. They can overly redact. They can also put survivors in harm's way. So, they need to be very careful about what they do tomorrow. But they've given us zero indication what that will actually look like.

BURNETT: Well, the only thing that we know at this time is we've obtained a leaked Republican memo that has the talking points on the Epstein files that I guess they're supposed to do when they're talking about it, when whatever this is comes out, and it makes it clear that Republicans are supposed to deflect attention away from any mentions of Trump and instead focus on your handling of the Epstein probe.

In fact, to accuse oversight Democrats of misrepresenting witness testimony, selectively leaking cherry-picked documents and manipulating emails and images to fabricate yet another politically motivated hoax. I mean, these are incredibly serious things, congressman, by the way. I mean, yes, they're talking points, but they're saying that you manipulated emails and images. I mean, these are -- these are very serious accusations.

GARCIA: Which, of course, we know none of that's true, right? I mean, anything that has been put out by the committee or by Democrats in the committee has been essentially the documents sent to us by the estate, which will continue to put out. I wish that the Republicans put as much energy into trying to conceal and hide and cover up that amount of energy that they put into that I wish they would put into actually demanding the president release all the files.

The reality is, the president could end this all tomorrow, tonight, by releasing every single file and everything that we have put out has been sent to us by the estate. Everything that we will continue to put out has been sent to us by other, whether it's the estate or the U.S. Virgin Islands. And so, they have tried everything they can to stop or slow this investigation down.

And it's unfortunate that now they are trying to deflect from the president, who his own chief of staff said, of course, in that interview that was published in vanity fair, that he's in the files.

And so, give me a break. Let's get to the truth. Let's release the files and do so immediately.

BURNETT: And I'll just be clear, just to make the point that that you were making, I mean, he could not just release them now. He could have released them on the first day he was president, right? None of this was necessary.

But when you talk about what you have, what you what you've got in your hand on, you've got 95,000 photos. And just to be clear as you just were, Congressman, those came from the Epstein estate, right? That's separate from what you're asking for from the DOJ.

But you've got 95,000 photos from the Epstein estate. You say that they're disturbing photos of women that you have not shared with the with the public.

Are you preparing to release more? And can you give us any context about those photos?

GARCIA: So, one is, yes, the answer to are we prepared to release more photos in the future? Absolutely. That's our intention. We're doing, of course, redactions.

We're going to be releasing more photos that are that protect, of course, the survivors first and foremost, as far as there certainly are photos that are disturbing and that are very sensitive in nature. And the committee, of course, is reviewing those and ensuring that, first and foremost, we protect the survivors and the women before somehow those are shared to the public, which obviously for us, it's about the survivors.

It's also important to note that of the 95,000 pictures, the committee is probably reviewed about half of them. And so maybe a little over half at this point.

And so, we have to ensure that we review all of these pictures. Our goal is to get as much out as possible, but we have to center the survivors and the victims of Jeffrey Epstein. And that's what the committee is committed to it certainly on the Democratic side.

BURNETT: Yes. Well, and also as just the another thing you're saying there, just the incredible amount of information here that you have to go through.

Congressman, thank you so much. I appreciate your time.

And next, Nick Reiner appeared in court, spoke for the first time, actually spoke for the first time since being charged with the gruesome murder of his parents.

And the gunman still on the loose, evading campus cameras at Brown. I mean, the shooting itself, not captured on camera. Who was this? I mean, it's absolutely incredible. You have someone who tried to kill 20 people on the run. This manhunt now entering its fifth day. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:33:24]

BURNETT: Tonight, Nick Reiner facing a judge for the first time since being charged with the gruesome murder of his parents, Rob and Michele Reiner, saying just three words, "Yes, your honor," when he was in court. That's it. The three words. Wearing a protective vest. That vest, suicide prevention vest, essentially.

It comes as new details emerge about Rob and Michele Reiner's final hours alive and how they were killed.

Nick Watt begins our coverage tonight OUTFRONT

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Around 8:20 p.m. Sunday, that's Nick Reiner wandering into and out of a gas station. This footage was just obtained by CNN. Moments after he leaves, surveillance cameras in the parking lot pick up police activity. And right there is where Reiner was arrested, as we see in these LAPD photographs, arrested on suspicion of murdering his parents. They were last seen together Saturday night at Conan O'Briens holiday party, where Rob and Nick Reiner reportedly argued.

CASEY JORDAN, CRIMINOLOGIST & BEHAVIORAL ANALYST: By all accounts, Rob and Michele asked Conan if they could bring their son Nick to this party. He was not originally on the invitation list, which shows that they were trying to work with him. They were being inclusive.

WATT (voice-over): Homicide detectives would like to speak to partygoers, according to a source.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your honor, if we could, I would like to ask for a continuance.

WATT (voice-over): This morning, Nick Reiner now charged with two counts of first degree murder, made his first appearance in court.

CNN's Stephanie Elam was in the room.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Nick Reiner appeared very calm in the court. He was seated behind glass, and he appeared to be wearing a long blue vest, and his hands were shackled.

[19:35:01]

The only thing that we heard Nick Reiner say was, "Yes, Your Honor".

WATT (voice-over): When asked by the judge if he was okay with his arraignment being pushed to January 7th. Here's his lawyer.

ALAN JACKSON, NICK REINER'S ATTORNEY: This is a devastating tragedy that has befallen the Reiner family. We all recognize that. Our hearts go out to the entire Reiner family. There are very, very complex and serious issues that are associated with this case. They need to be thoroughly, but very carefully dealt with.

WATT (voice-over): "Words cannot even begin to describe the unimaginable pain we are experiencing every moment of the day," reads a statement today from Romy Reiner, who found her parents Sunday afternoon, and Jake, the eldest of the three siblings. We now ask for respect and privacy, for speculation to be tempered with compassion and humanity.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WATT: Now, the latest information we've got from the LAPD is that they say that Rob and Michele Reiner were found in this house behind me in the master bedroom area. Officers searched the rest of the house looking for any other suspects, any other victims. They did not find anybody.

Also, Erin, we heard from the medical examiner's office, cause of death for both, quote, "multiple sharp force injuries". They were stabbed to death -- Erin.

BURNETT: Thank you very much, Nick Watt. And just incredible. One of those details there, I don't know stands out to me. Found in the master bedroom, right? I don't know whether they were sleeping or not, but, you know, just a place of sleep, vulnerability.

All right. Steven Zeitchik is OUTFRONT now, senior editor for "The Hollywood Reporter", who covered Reiner for many years and writes about a dinner that you had with Rob and Nick Reiner, Michele and Romy were also there about the movie "Being Charlie", right, which was the partially autobiographical movie, right, about drug abuse, about some of the tensions, right, that that robin had done together.

I want to ask you a lot about this dinner, but I also want to ask you about some of the new things we're learning, Nick just talking about how they were found in the master bedroom area and "The Hollywood Reporter". You're learning a lot more about that party where they were hours before Conan O'Brien's party. Nick Reiner having several, it appears awkward conversations with others at the party, and that then there was this very public and loud argument between Rob and Nick, which created an awkward sense throughout the party.

And what are you learning more about that? And I guess also the context is how -- how big of a deal or how unusual would such an awkward argument between them have been?

STEVEN ZEITCHIK, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER SENIOR EDITOR: Yeah, I think that's really the interesting question here, Erin, right. Like in one way, this was a family that lived out loud and had a lot of disagreements. There were disagreements on the set of being Charlie. We all know about those.

And clearly, there was tension between Nick and Rob and Nick and his parents for some time, something does feel different about the party, though. The fact that so many people, celebrities now coming out and saying some anonymously and some more publicly that he was in the room. He was making people feel uncomfortable. So, something was off. Obviously, hindsight is 20/20, but I think

something was off even in the room.

BURNETT: Right. And again, we don't know what that was, whether that was a substance or right. It was just so much we don't know at this time. But you know, in that context, you have been reliving, I know every moment of that dinner, right? You're there with Rob and Nick and Romy and Michele, right? The four people who are in this horrific moment, right? Whether the murderer, those who were killed or the one who found them.

And what now, as you're reliving this is standing out to you?

ZEITCHIK: Yeah. Well, it's a couple of things. And you're absolutely right. It has been this kind of almost like this DVR replay again and again. And I think one thing that stood out, sort of on the positive side, is how much Rob really wanted this relationship to work and really wanted this movie, which was about kind of loosely based on their relationship and Nick's addiction struggles. He really wanted it to work.

I mean, he -- you know, developed this with Nick. Nick co-wrote it. He directed it. He kept talking about how much this is going to bring the family closer together, how much it did bring the family closer together.

At the same time, on the negative side, or at least on the more ambivalent side, Nick was really not comfortable. I mean, he was saying he was comfortable. Rob was saying, isn't it great? We're all a big family having dinner, premiering this movie at the Toronto Film Festival.

Nick didn't really want to be there. Nick wasn't so sure, at least as I saw it, that he wanted his story out there in this way, or wanted maybe his dad to be kind of pushing him to tell the story in this way. So that tension, obviously families have tension disagreements all the time. But it was evident in that moment about this issue.

BURNETT: Yes. And so, that's fascinating that you felt that reticence or I don't want to put words in your mouth, but tension from Nick. You know, you were -- Rob Reiner at the time said that movie improved his relationship with his son and vice versa. And I've been watching, actually, in the interviews, you know, when they've talked, who did most of the talking, and how that played.

Let me just play this one clip.

[19:40:02]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROB REINER, FILMMAKER AND ACTOR: It forced me to have to see more clearly and understand more deeply what nick had gone through. And I think it forced him to see things that I had experienced during this process. And it definitely brought us closer together. I mean, we you know, it was like over a period of a year. It was -- it was intense. It was difficult at times, but it was also the most satisfying creative experience I've ever had.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: All of that, no doubt true for him. Now, Romy found her parents. She was at that dinner that you were at. And you said during the dinner she called nick her best friend. Yeah. Wow. That's really incredible.

What was their relationship like, as you could see it at that dinner table?

ZEITCHIK: Yeah. There was a real admiration. Obviously, she's a few years younger than him. The real admiration for him, but also a protectiveness, almost kind of a maternal instinct. Obviously, Michele was there very much a great mother, but I found that because of everything he'd been through, and maybe in some ways Nick was still, though he was 22 at the time, was still very much a child or a teenager.

Romy was very protective of him, at least as I saw it that night. And one thing that keeps flashing through my head now is I -- as we all watch the news and kind of try to process it, is what is she going through as a living victim here because she has someone she cares about and is protective over harming the two people she cares about most, and to be caught in the middle of that is just, I mean, there's a lot of layers of unfathomable here, but that one, to me stands out even more than the others.

BURNETT: Yeah, you're right. And I think beautifully put, a lot of layers of unfathomable for everyone. All right. Thank you so much for sharing all your reporting.

And next, we have a new development in the manhunt for the gunman who killed two people at brown university, tried to kill dozens still on the loose. And officials are right now revealing that someone may have crossed paths with the person that they're still calling a person of interest on the loose.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COL. OSCAR L. PEREZ, JR., CHIEF OF POLICE, PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND: This person was in the vicinity where the subject of interest was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: And on Russia's wanted list. Christo Grozev just getting back from Ukraine hours ago as a leader of Germany, floats troops and forced mobilizations in Germany to deal with Putin. What Christo learned on the ground.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:46:24]

BURNETT: Breaking news, police in Providence say eyewitness accounts of the gunman who killed two people at Brown University and shot almost two dozen more matched the description of this person of interest that police are seeking in connection to the shooting. The manhunt is now in its fifth day. This person shot 20 people on the run. As questions are growing about the limited number of security cameras around the building where the attack happened.

Brian Todd is OUTFRONT.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COL. OSCAR L. PEREZ, JR., CHIEF OF POLICE, PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND: We still don't know what the person is or who he is.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Still no break in the manhunt for the gunman behind the deadly Brown University shooting. Five days after the shooting, police asking for the public's help finding a person who may have crossed paths with the person they're looking for, saying they don't believe the second person is necessarily involved in any type of criminal contact.

PEREZ: We have video footage of the -- of that determines to us and detectives that can tell that this person was in the vicinity where the subject of interest was that we wanted that we actually have an interest on close, close enough that we feel that we need to speak with them.

TODD (voice-over): Police also releasing this map today, showing the person of interest movements before and after the shooting, and the area police are focused on searching. Officials have been pressed as to why Brown University didn't have surveillance video of the building where the shooting took place.

REPORTER: How does a multimillion-dollar school not have a bunch of cameras in the hallway?

TODD (voice-over): Providence Mayor Brett Smiley telling CNN --

MAYOR BRETT SMILEY, PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND: This building is on the lateral edge of the campus, and the person of interest walked out the door that as soon as he stepped onto the sidewalk, was no longer on campus.

TODD (voice-over): We spoke to some students about how they felt about the lack of cameras.

Joseph McGonagle Jr. is a friend of the deceased student, Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov. He says Mukhammed Aziz sent him these two photos from the same room where the shooting occurred. Less than an hour before the shooting. The caption reads, quote, got dragged to an econ review. He wasn't even supposed to be there. McGonagle says this is the only building without a security guard beyond the lobbies.

JOSEPH MCGONAGLE JR., BROWN UNIVERSITY STUDENT: Barus and Holley was one of the only buildings that didn't have something like that, where they didn't have, like, a security guard waiting there out, like checking you in at the lobby.

TODD (voice-over): He thinks there should be cameras.

MCGONAGLE: If I'm being honest, this is probably the worst building for this to happen in, specifically because of these -- these sorts of failures.

TODD (voice-over): Graduate student Ref Bari was just eight feet from the door where the gunman came in.

REF BARI, BROWN UNIVERSITY GRADUATE STUDENT: I mean, no question. Of course, there should be cameras in the physics side of the building. That's without a doubt, right? And, you know, cameras, security, lock doors, all of this is like on people's minds right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TODD (on camera): The chief of the Brown University police, Rodney Chapman, did confirm the account by student Joseph McGonagle, Jr., that there was no security guard inside this building at the time the shooting occurred. We reached out to school officials to respond to the assertion by McGonagle that the lack of a security guard and the lack of surveillance cameras in the old part of the building where the shooting occurred, constituted security failures. They haven't gotten back to us on that -- Erin.

BURNETT: Wow. All right. Thank you very much, Brian Todd.

And next, Christo Grozev, the investigative journalist on Russia's wanted list, on his bombshell investigation. He unmasks a Russian spy by following her cat.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:54:02]

BURNETT: Tonight, Vladimir Putin saying in no uncertain terms that he is not interested in a peace agreement with Ukraine. Under Trump's current plan, and that Russia will take all the Ukrainian land it wants, if necessary, by force.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): If the opposing country and its foreign patrons refuse to engage in substantive discussions, Russia will achieve the liberation of its historical lands through military means.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: That combative message, coming just days after Trump said a peace deal is, quote, closer now than it's ever been.

OUTFRONT now, Christo Grozev, the investigative journalist on Russia's wanted list, left Ukraine just hours ago.

And, Christo, grateful to be with you tonight. I know, though, that as you see this, what Putin is saying, that you actually see this as about him fighting for his own survival.

[19:55:00]

What do you mean by that?

CHRISTO GROZEV, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: We've talked on your program, Erin, and I've expressed my strong opinion that I haven't changed that. Putin is between a rock and a hard place. He cannot continue funding the war forever because the economy, the Russian economy, is in shambles and everybody is telling him that.

But he cannot stop the war with anything that would be acceptable, barely acceptable to the rest of the world, even to the very friendly current American administration.

And the reason is that he's already set the expectations in Russia within the militarized, militarized elite, within the militarized military elite, that at least the newly acquired territories, newly illegally annexed territories that they call them part of the Russian territory by Constitution, have to become really Russian. They have to be recognized as such.

BURNETT: So, you know, in this context of what he's trying to do, right? Reassemble Russia, the way he defines it, historical Russia, it's not just Ukraine, right? That would be on that list. And NATO is very, very clear about that.

The German Chancellor Merz has been talking about forced mobilization, citing directly the threat from Putin. He just talked about it today, right? Forced mobilization in Germany. That is something that would give anybody pause just to think about the significance of it. How telling is that statement coming from the chancellor of Germany?

GROZEV: It's extremely telling. I've been attending annual meetings of think tanks in which German government officials and security officials have been expressing over decades. Their reluctance and explaining to the rest of the world who have been telling them, why don't you take a more, somewhat of a leading role in global peacekeeping operations? And they've been responding that, no, Germany cannot forget its past and it cannot militarize itself again, it cannot have a large army, and it cannot participate, especially in peacekeeping forces in territories that have previously been occupied by Nazi Germany.

What is telling is that all of this is now on the table. All of this is possible. Not only is Germany considering forced conscription, but Germany's considering placing boots on the ground in Ukraine as a peacekeeping force, and this is an extremely sensitive matter. They would have never considered that because of the memory of Nazi Germany being on that same land in an as an occupying force.

But again, this tells you how Germany has changed and how much it has decided that currently it must take the lead in the absence of other countries that used to take the lead, such as the United States.

BURNETT: Yeah. And the threat that that Europe sees from Putin beyond Ukraine. And I want to ask you in that context, Christo, because you've done such incredible reporting about Putin's current hybrid warfare across Europe right now, new details that you've just revealed about a bombshell investigation that you did, in which you unmasked a Russian spy who had been trying to get close with NATO officials in Italy. And I just want to play part of this. Take a listen

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GROZEV: For months, if not a year, I was trying to find out the real identity of this fake person, and the only thing that I could find that connected the fake Italy based Peruvian lady to the person who lived in Russia after she was repatriated from Italy was her cat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: So, you found a spy because of her cat? How did you do it

GROZEV: Well, this cat, her name is Luisa. She has been instrumental in many, many points of this investigation. Initially, thanks to the cat being mentioned on the Facebook account of this spy by a friend of hers. I discovered this friend whom I approached and she became a major source for the investigation and a good friend of mine over the years. But that cat also was, I was told by this friend of this Russian spy that that cat was the only, permanent affection that this woman had in her life. And therefore, she must have taken her with her back to Russia when she -- when she defected when she was essentially burnt and outed in Italy. And then the only thing we had to do is come up with a method to find that cat in Russia.

And we remember that all cats that cross borders, at least in Europe, must be microchipped with a particular chip number. We found the chip number that the cat had been implanted with in Italy, and thanks to the fact that in Russia everything is for sale and all the databases leak, sooner or later, we were able to find a leaked database of vet's clinics and found the cat in a vet, and we found the real name of the real person who owns the cat. And that's how we found who this spy really was.

BURNETT: It's truly incredible. I mean, your work is incredible on it. And also, I think perhaps what you said on the human level, right? The only permanent thing in her life was this cat, and that she loved her cat. It's just stunning on so many levels.

And, Christo, so grateful for you. Thanks so much.

GROZEV: We're going to publish a full investigation, with all the details, including what the spy is doing today in Russia in a couple of days. So, I invite everybody to who is interested in cats and investigations to follow my channel on YouTube and find out where that cat is now.

BURNETT: And I -- and I hope that they will do that. So, thanks so much, Christo.

And thanks so much to all of you, as always, for joining us.

"AC360" starts now.