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Trump: Epstein "Stole" Young Women Who Worked At Mar-a-Lago Spa; Trump On Epstein: "He Took People That Worked For Me"; Senate Dems Invoke 1920s-Era Law To Try To Access Epstein Files; U.S. Economy Rebounds Sharply In The Second Quarter; The Trump Allies Behind The Escalating Power Play Against Jerome Powell; Trump Targets GOP Senate Judiciary Chair In Truth Posts. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired July 30, 2025 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR, INSIDE POLITICS: Today in Inside Politics, leaving no stone unturned. Senate Democrats have a new strategy to keep the Jeffrey Epstein scandal front and center. But will a century- old law actually force the Justice Department to release the files, still looming over the White House?

Plus, district dual. We're getting the first look at the Texas GOP's push to redraw the congressional map in their favor just like President Trump wants. How will this change the mid-term math.

And the age-old question, Democrats cannot dodge. I'll speak with a 26-year-old hoping to unseat a 78-year-old Capitol Hill veteran, about the push to infuse fresh energy into their struggling party.

I'm Manu Raju in for Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

We start on Capitol Hill, where Senate Democrats are about to unveil their latest push to release the so-called Epstein files. For weeks, the White House have been trying to contain the fallout from this ever-evolving scandal, but President Trump is complicating those efforts. Yesterday, he raised new questions about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and their following out, saying the late sex trafficker, quote, stole women from Mar-a-Lago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Epstein has a certain reputation, obviously, just curious, were some of the workers that were taken from you were some of them young women?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Were some of them?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Were some of them young women?

TRUMP: Well, I don't want to say, but everyone knows the people that were taken. And it was the concept of taking people that work for me is bad. But that story's been pretty well out there and the answer is yes, they were. Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were young women? What did they do? Like, what were their jobs?

TRUMP: In the spa?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the spa?

TRUMP: Yeah, people that work in the spa. I have a great spa, one of the best spas in the world at Mar-a-Lago, and people were taken out of the spa, hired by him. In other words, gone. And other people would come and complain, this guy is taking people from the spa. I didn't know that.

And then when I heard about it, I told him, I said, listen, we don't want you taking our people. Whether it was spa or not spa. I don't want to take in people. And he was fine, and then not too long after that, he did it again. And I said, out of here.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, did one of those stolen, you know, persons, did that include Virginia Giuffre?

TRUMP: I don't know. I think she worked at the spa. I think so. I think that was one of the people. Yeah. He stole her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: CNN's Lauren Fox is live for us on Capitol Hill. So, Lauren, Democrats really did not make much of a fuss at all about this when Joe Biden was president and when they were in the majority in Congress. But now things have changed because they're seeing these Republican divisions and they're trying to exploit them.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, exactly Manu. I mean, Democrats want to keep this front and center, and with the House of Representatives now on their five-week recess, Senate Democrats are trying a new tactic. They are using, like you noted, this centuries old law that allows at least five Democrats on this Homeland Security Committee in the Senate to request information from the administration.

And their belief is that, in this case, they think that they have the grounds that the Justice Department will have to turn that information over. Now, all the Democrats on the committee signed on to this, as well as Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, but Republicans are warning that not so fast.

You know, I talked to Rand Paul, who is the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. He said that they are still looking into it. Our colleague, Morgan Rimmer, just caught up with John Thune, the majority leader, who said that he is also taking a close look at what the law really does, and whether or not this is something that they may have to deal with in court.

And again, there is a long history of Congress, asking the administration for information for that to take place over a protracted legal battle. We expect that this is not going to be any different. And when I asked a Democrat who had signed on to this letter, Senator Gallego, what he thought ultimately would happen. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FOX: How confident are you that this system will work?

SEN. RUBEN GALLEGO (D-AZ): Look, your general administration that has absolutely been total hypocrites on this issue. We're going to have to keep pushing and get this information. You know, again, this is a person that ran on exposing Epstein, and now he's trying to cover up for Epstein. So, the answer is, I have no idea.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOX: And Manu, just to highlight the fact that Democrats want to keep this in the news. Chuck Schumer is going to hold a press conference on this very issue in just a couple of minutes. Obviously, the key tactic here from Democrats is they want this to keep being front and center, despite the fact they're all heading home for that August recess shortly.

RAJU: Yeah. We'll see when that actually happens. That's also another big question on Capitol Hill. CNN's Lauren Fox live for us there in the basement of the Russell Building. And I'm joined by a terrific group of reporters here at the table, CNN's Priscilla Alvarez, Hans Nichols of Axios, Tamara Keith of NPR, and CNN's Isaac Dovere. Nice to see you all.

[12:05:00]

Hans, you're up there with me every single day. Look, Democrats see this as an opening clearly. Is there a risk of them going too far on this, given the fact that they have been pounding away at this? Chuck Schumer didn't say anything about this, really at all, much at all when Biden was president, but now they're talking about it every single day.

HANS NICHOLS, POLITICAL REPORTER, AXIOS: Yeah. The only danger that you hear from talking to sort of senior Democrats on this is the idea that when you're talking about Epstein, you're not talking about Medicare, you're not talking about healthcare, you're not talking about potential cuts to the ACA exchanges.

Now that said, they seem pretty happy talking about this. And I feel as though they're going to keep doing it, and they're getting some assists from conservatives, renegade Republican lawmakers, Thomas Massie in the House wants to talk about it every opportunity he has. This issue isn't going to go away unless there's a huge vibe shift in one of the parties.

RAJU: And just moments ago, we're getting the first response from the Justice Department on this demand by Chuck Schumer to try to invoke this law to call for the release of the Epstein files, because a certain number of members on a key oversight committee are asking for the Justice Department is not expected to come play -- which comply with Schumer's demand for those documents. And this is according to reporting from our colleague, Paula Reid, and she reports that this could trigger a legal battle.

TAMARA KEITH, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, NPR: Certainly, there could be many legal battles here. The challenge for the Trump administration is that they said they would release these files. People who work at the FBI and who run the Justice Department, when they were on the outside, said that these files were very important, and it was very important that they be released.

Now they don't agree with themselves, and this is a problem. This is -- leads to people like Joe Rogan, who has a very big audience, saying that they're trying to gaslight Trump's voters and that is a challenge. President Trump tried to escape from this while he was in Scotland, and ultimately didn't really make it better, because he kept saying different things that revealed one little detail, another little detail. And by the end on that flight home, he was talking about one of Epstein's victims as if she were property to be stolen.

RAJU: Yeah. I mean this, Virginia Giuffre, of course, she was -- she alleged that Maxwell approached her while she was at Mar-a-Lago. She says Maxwell and Epstein trafficked her and forced her to have sex with Epstein and his friends. She died of suicide in April. Trump was referring -- referred to her. He said, you know, I don't know. I think she worked at the spa. I think that was one of the people that he stole her. Trump said, I mean, but to Tamara's point, the more he talks about this, the bigger problem it can become.

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, because the explanations don't make sense. When you line them up next to each other, they don't agree with each other. And he seems to have said -- he said at one point, a little bit more than a week ago, that he broke off relationships with Epstein because he was a creep. But now it's because Epstein stole employees of his right, at no point.

And that also seems to be a bigger thing to Donald Trump's mind than the fact that there was sex trafficking going on or that women were being forced into this island. He said he didn't have the privilege of going to the Epstein Island --

RAJU: Not the best choice of --

DOVERE: Right. This is a lot of language that doesn't match up with how most people see what was going on there. It's a lot of differing explanations, and that to me, makes it not as much about what Democrats are saying or what Republicans are saying. It's true that the Justice Department is all over the place on this too, but Donald Trump does not have a consistent story about it.

RAJU: Yeah. And just the timeline of the falling out between Trump and Epstein. This is, you know, if we don't have all the details, but it is just based on the public record what happened by in -- back in 2000 which is Virginia Giuffre story that she was approached by Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago. A couple years later, Trump had called Epstein a terrific guy that was to New York Magazine. This was then the 2003 that report from The Wall Street Journal that Trump wrote a birthday letter for Epstein. Of course, Trump has denied that and is suing the Wall Street Journal over that report. And there was the falling out the post had reported that this is over a real estate fight. Now Trump says because he's told some employees, about that -- still some questions about that.

And then there was, they largely went their separate ways. But to Isaac's point, it's been this evolving story. I mean, the White House said last week that the president kicked him out of his club for being a creep. But that's not what Trump said.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's been an evolving story on multiple fronts because this all began because the president and his allies were hyper focusing on the Epstein files. Then they came out with the binders. And now we've sort of gotten to the part that everyone -- that has been documented, as you just laid out very well, which is that he has had a long relationship with Epstein.

[12:10:00]

And now, it is not just trying to defend the administration's not releasing of more violent files, but also now defending the relationship that he had with Epstein. So, he sort of moved into a new phase of this, and that is where, as Isaac mentioned, the stories don't line up every time he talks. But now The Wall Street Journal story, most recently about the alleged birthday letter, sort of made the story pivot into what is the relationship that these two had.

And is there a there, there that is being hidden. And that is the vulnerability here for the president, as the part of the MAGA base that wants to see these files released, starts to question who it is that he is defending and why files aren't being released to the public. And so, that is the -- that is the sort of the tricky part of this politically for the White House, as they continue to defend questions about that.

RAJU: And you talk about the MAGA base, there certainly are not of Republicans who want, are pushing for this information. But there's also a lot of Republicans who are very much on the side of Trump and simply want this to go away. One of those is Senator Rand Paul, who sits as a chairman of the key Committee, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

That is the committee in which the Democrats on that panel today are trying to use this law to try to force release of the Epstein files. Now we're learning the Justice Department says they're not going to comply with that democratic demand. But this Republican Chairman, Senator Paul, said that he's not too interested in this issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Do you guys have any plans to, in your committee to look into the Epstein matter, is that something of interest to you or your constituents? SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): No.

RAJU: Why not?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: I know.

DOVERE: The real credit, there goes your cameraman, for finding you and zooming in and the audio was great. So, it is --

NICHOLS: I've been doing this -- I've been doing this for --

(CROSSTALK)

RAJU: It is also coming from the same state as Thomas Massie, who is leading the charge on the GOP side from Kentucky in the House to demand the release of these files.

NICHOLS: Yeah, and that's not going anywhere, right? I mean, the House was paralyzed on the rules committee. Now Massie has this discharge petition sooner or later House Republicans. And you saw Speaker Mike Johnson start giving argument on Meet the Press on Sunday, subtly hitting to the president, don't pardon Maxwell, don't even offer it.

But it's not -- you know, they don't have an answer yet to how to get out of this politically, other than, which I think maybe some of this table feel, speaking for myself, a little bit of fatigue, right? That's basically the argument. And, you know, the post had a good story earlier in the week that was looking at how the MAGA movement feels like they weathered the storm and they're in a much better position. That seems to check out.

But again, the proof we will be in the pudding on this. If House Republicans end up flipping the ones that have been on the release the file side and start saying, no, we don't need to see anything, then they will have weathered that. I don't think we're there yet.

RAJU: Yeah. I know, it doesn't see that. And we'll see where these investigations go on Capitol Hill as well. We know that the House that Ghislaine Maxwell is willing to be deposed to by the House Oversight Committee under conditions like immunity and getting questions ahead of time, which Republicans are not so keen to offer.

So that's a big question. What will happen there? What will happen these other probes that are going forward? What will happen if this goes to court? As Justice Department says no, they will not comply with Senate Democrats demand to release that information. All questions which keeps this story in the news despite the White House's push to focus elsewhere.

All right, coming up. The U.S. economy sees a better than expected rebound, but there's much more to the picture as the president's tier of deadline looms. The details, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [12:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAJU: A sharp rebound. The U.S. economy grew at a rate of 3 percent in the last quarter. GDP data released this morning, exceeding expectations. But of course, there is much more to the story. CNN's Phil Mattingly is here at the table to break this down. So, Phil, this is indeed a strong number. But a lot of ways the companies were just trying to get ahead of the president's tariff policy.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. I can't believe we're talking about anything, but Hans Nichols's beard, we should focus mostly on that. I just walked by, I'm rattled, right --

RAJU: At least four blocks.

MATTINGLY: At least four blocks. What does inflation have to do with that? Look, so you're exactly right. The numbers have been skewed in both the first quarter and the second quarter. For the same reasons that Trump officials were saying, hey, the first quarter negative or the drop in GDP is not reflective of reality because of how data is counted. This 3 percent number, which beats expectations, is likely not either.

And the reason why is, you can actually go into the data release from first quarter the second quarter, and you hold up the import and export data on both, maybe you have better things to do. This is what I was doing earlier. It's like a fascinating mirror image of first quarter exports fall off a cliff as people are rapidly trying to buy up ahead of the tariffs and set up their inventories.

Second quarter, it's the exact opposite, and the inventories are starting to shrink pretty dramatically. Maybe take the six-month median average of sorts, is 1.2 to 1.3 percent, which is sluggish. It's positive, but it's sluggish. The one thing I would say is we're still waiting to see what happens after the August 1 tariff deadline.

And again, the president reminded everybody this morning that one of the U.S. biggest trading partners and allies India is going to get hit with a 25 percent tariff. They've been negotiating for several months now. Trump is frustrated about their lack of willingness to open specific markets to U.S. producers. And he's also very frustrated about their continued purchasing of Russian energy.

So not only is it 25 percent because of the tariffs or because of the reciprocal tariffs, there's going to be an added penalty because of energy purchases. There's still some uncertainty that's obviously hanging around.

[12:20:00]

RAJU: Yeah. And that was interesting about the -- talking about the purchases from Russia. I mean because Trump is talking about 100 percent tariffs on those --

MATTINGLY: The secondary sanctions are real.

RAJU: And I will have a huge impact globally. So, Phil, you also have some very interesting reporting about this pressure campaign that Trump has leveled on Jay Powell, the Fed chairman. We've seen this for months and months and months. Trump attacking Powell because he's not lowering rates at this moment.

And this comes ahead of this key meeting this more -- this afternoon that the Fed is going to have about whether -- how to move ahead on interest rates. What are you learning about the key players behind this pressure campaign and who are they?

MATTINGLY: Yeah. The meeting this afternoon is only going to accelerate. I think, the disdain that the president has and likely what his advisors have been doing behind the scenes. And I think what was fascinating is as remarkable as the president's visit. And what mostly unprecedented to the Federal Reserve to visit that renovation project that's been at the center of his allies' attacks over the course of the last couple of weeks, was not just Trump, Powell, Senate banking committee Chairman, Tim Scott.

But the people that were in the backdrop because those are the key players here that I've been watching. Because those players, while you and I might know who Russ Vought, the director of the OMB, may be, or Mark Paoletta of the General Counsel of the OMB.

I was talking to some sources on Wall Street the other day. They're saying who are these guys? Do they matter? Do they have power? And the reality is, when you look behind him, people like James Blair, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff with a massive portfolio, the political director of the 2024 campaign, very under circle, very respected inside the White House. He's important. He matters. He has power.

Russ Vought is the probably most competent bureaucratic operator, maybe with Stephen Miller inside the administration, knows exactly how things work. How to pull levers of power and how to utilize them to accomplish the president's goals. Walking through who all of those players are, what their background is, and whether or not, they're going to create some opportunity for Trump to try and pursue further action in the future.

What his officials and the president said, he doesn't want to fire Jerome Powell. They don't necessarily think it's legal. They certainly don't want the market reaction that it would cause. But these are people who will create an opportunity and potentially options if he were to get frustrated enough, and he's likely not going to be happy when rates likely hold at the end of the meeting.

RAJU: Yeah. And it's so interesting because unlike the first term, where we saw some other people, maybe those guardrails that pushed back against --

MATTINGLY: Exactly.

RAJU: This time you have people very much rowing in the same direction.

MATTINGLY: They're there to execute and give him options, not stand in his way.

RAJU: Yeah. No question about our great reporting. Thank you, Phil Mattingly, for us here. And coming up for us. Why President Trump is now getting personal and going after the longest serving Republican senator. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAJU: President Trump set his Truth Social sites on a powerful member of his own party last night Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley. After taking credit for Grassley's reelection, he then dinged him for not changing a long-standing Senate custom, meant to preserve one of the last vestiges of bipartisanship for federal judiciary appointments to lower courts.

And this morning, the repost started saying, Grassley is a rhino. He always has been. We need to light up Grassley's office. Come on, Grassley. Those are just some of the posts from his supporters that Trump sent out to his millions of supporters on Truth Social. And this morning, Grassley made clear, he was not thrilled by the president's broadsides.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY (R-IA): Last night, I was surprised to see President Trump on Truth Social go after me and Senate Republicans over what we call the blue slip. I was offended by what the president said, and I'm disappointed that it would result in personal insults.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: My excellent reporters are back. I mean, this is something, I mean, Grassley has been a loyal soldier for Trump through and through, helping us through and through, a whole host of judicial nominees and all the rest, and he is not thrilled, by way Donald Trump is attacking.

NICHOLS: Yeah. I mean, look, clearly the president's frustrated the pace of his confirmation, especially with on the ambassador fronts. On judicial nominees, Trump was a little bit slower this term, when you compare -- when he actually sent those nominees forward to where he was eight years ago.

Clearly frustration, this is the part of the conversations that turns into our vacation planning, and that is that the Senate needs a solution to this. They need to appease Donald Trump or else August is be in risk, I won't say. But there's a danger of the Senate staying in a lot longer, because this is important to the president. And we know that when the president asked the Senate to do something, Senate tends to do it.

RAJU: Yeah. Just to understand -- underscore, just to explain what is going on here in terms of what Trump is demanding. He's actually wants him to push through, the Senate to push through lower court nominees, district court judgeships that are only backed by Republicans. There's a tradition which Democrats and Republicans sign off on those lower court nominees, and then they can move forward on those nominations.

But if one person from that home state decides not to sign off on that nomination. It does not go forward here, but Republicans don't want to give that up because if they do, then when they're in the minority, they will not have that kind of check, which is why they're resisting this.

KEITH: You know, this is a thing that has frustrated many presidents. This is not new to Trump. I think --

RAJU: What's new here is that he's attacking his own party, his own chairman, very personally.

KEITH: Of course. Yes. And I think part of this is that Trump has gotten everything he's wanted from Congress. They have folded, you know, people have said that they deeply objected to something, and then they voted for it because Trump told them to.

And so, this is a moment where he doesn't have that lever unless they change the rules. And so, he is doing what he does best, which is going out on social media, making a case. And then sometimes he just lets it drop.

RAJU: Yeah.