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Inside Politics

Trump Changes Course, Backs House Vote To Release Epstein Files; House Expected To Vote On Releasing Epstein Files Tomorrow; Trump Coins New Nickname For MTG: " Marjorie Traitor Brown"; White Nationalist Nick Fuentes Throws MAGA Movement Into Turmoil; Charlotte Is Latest Target Of Mass CBP & ICE Arrests; Schumer's Future In Question As Dems Question His Leadership. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired November 17, 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]

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: And I see dollar bill signs flashing before my eyes, right? So, that's a concern. So, we don't want more rain. We've already set daily records, Santa Barbara by the way. The wettest November on record for them. That's something.

So here comes the next batch of precipitation, moving across Central California, entering into the equation for the Los Angeles area right in time for rush hour this evening, so plan accordingly. This will bring one to three inches of rain, especially in those favored areas along the transverse range. Heads up. Some of these burn scars here could cause more landslides and mudslides, concerns going forward. Pamela?

WOLF BLITZER, CNN CO-ANCHOR, THE SITUATION ROOM: All right, Derek Van Dam, reporting for us. Derek, thanks very much. And to our viewers, thanks very much for joining us this morning.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR, THE SITUATION ROOM: Inside Politics with our friend and colleague Dana Bash starts now.

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: It's a tectonic presidential shift on a scandal that just won't quit. Will the much discussed Epstein files now finally drop. I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

Former House Speaker John Boehner liked to say, a leader without followers is just a guy taking a walk. And President Trump decided last night he didn't want to be a guy just taking a walk. So, after months of digging in, aggressively lobbying rank and file Republicans, President Trump bowed to the inevitable and flipped posting quote.

House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files because we have nothing to hide. I don't care. Now the vote is expected to take place in the House tomorrow. The Epstein files have certainly fractured the MAGA movement and turned President Trump against one of his most loyal supporters, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. I spoke to her exclusively on State of the Union.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BASH: What do you think happened? What do you think is the reason for this?

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): Unfortunately, it has all come down to the Epstein files, and that is shocking. And you know, I stand with these women.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: I'm joined by a terrific group of reporters here on this fine Monday. Manu Raju, it is going to be in your lap in the House of Representatives.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. As things often happen in the Capitol.

BASH: It is funny. How that works. First of all, based on what you've heard from your sources on the Hill. What is your sense of how and why this presidential flip happened?

RAJU: It seems to be that he saw the writing on the wall, and this has just been a remarkable 180. I mean, this is probably, I can't think of another time in which Congress has bucked the president Republicans and forced the president along to do what they want.

Despite this month long pressure campaign, despite Trump trying to kill this bill, prevent this effort from coming to the floor, the speaker of the House taking all sorts of actions, trying to deny this vote from even happening. And then they were forced. Their hands were forced because they used this maneuver to force a vote on the House floor.

And then, look, I was hearing mid to late last week, we were expecting scores of House Republicans to vote for this. I had talked to a wide cross sections of House Republicans, conservatives, moderates, people from swing districts, they all were saying they were going to vote yes, which -- and I talked to some leadership sources are saying it is very possible they could get a veto proof majority in the House.

So, Trump saw what was happening here. He could not stop this train and decided to jump on this bandwagon rather than trying to step in front of it, because he could have endured a really humiliating outcome. So why not say I was for it and then see what happens there? But then the big question is, what happens to the Senate? Would it pass the Senate.

And John Thune, the majority leader, has not said how he would pursue this. He's weighing his options, we are told right now. And then, if it does pass, will Trump actually release the files? Those are all huge questions. But at this moment, a remarkable one.

BASH: Well, he's going to have to sign it.

RAJU: He'll have to sign it or, yes, I guess, veto--

BASH: Or if it's a veto, yeah-- RAJU: --but if he signs it into law, then the Justice Department -- he could say the Justice Department is up to the Justice Department to release it. So those questions will play out.

JACKIE KUCINICH, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE BOSTON GLOBE: Couldn't he just release it now? I mean, with all of this--

BASH: OK, so I asked this question, and full disclosure, we're trying to report this out. I was told by a Republican source involved in this that because Kash Patel and Pam Bondi, I think, as well, testified that they have already publicly released everything that they are able to release, that it has to happen through Congress. Again, we're going to see because that's the question that we've all been asked.

KUCINICH: They've all followed the rules so much--

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: Well, that's exactly.

KUCINICH: --course of the administration that does make sense. But no -- but what? This really was a very uncomfortable situation, particularly for this president who has -- really had the -- particularly the House, but all of these Republicans under his beck and call. What he does. He says, jump. They say, how high? And at this point, he was really, really back into a corner.

I mean, they tried to get Lauren Boebert to take her name off of that discharge petition, which triggered this whole thing--

[12:05:00]

BASH: They brought her into the White House Situation Room.

KUCINICH: Yes, exactly. And tried to get her to do that, and she wouldn't. So, how this goes from here, you're absolutely right, Manu, it's still unknown. But I don't think the story goes away.

RAJU: Yeah.

KUCINICH: Is the issue. I don't think this is going to be -- even if it does go to the Senate, this isn't over, because there's still -- there's still so much out there that needs answers.

BASH: Listen to what the House speaker said yesterday before the president reversed course.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You guys turn that down?

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): He's frustrated that they're turning it into a political issue, and it's not surprising, because the Democrats have nothing else to talk about. What have they accomplished in 10 months? Epstein is their entire game plan. So, we're going to take that that weapon out of their hand this week. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So, Tyler, what he's saying is that this is all the Democrats game plan, and it's all about Epstein, and that the president has nothing to hide. And he -- that's what he said before and that's, I'm sure, what he's going to say still.

TYLER PAGER, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Yeah. I mean, that's what he's been saying. I mean, I think Manu is right, that the president doesn't like to lose. And so, he is going on the side, that's going to win, which is this vote is going to pass. But I also think the challenge for the president and speaker, and Republican leadership is this is what the base wants, and the base has been very fervent in calling for more transparency around the Epstein files.

And we're seeing, as you teased earlier, this remarkable split between Marjorie Taylor Greene and Donald Trump. She was one of his most loyal allies, fervent defenders in Congress, and now he's calling her names on Truth Social, attacking her. It is a remarkable schism within the -- with not even just the Republican Party, but within the MAGA movement that we have seen so united behind the president across all of the various challenges, scandals, controversies he's endured for almost a decade. We've never seen this break amongst his most loyal supporters.

BASH: Yeah. Well, because you brought that up, let's listen to a little bit of my conversation with Marjorie Taylor Greene about not just the Epstein files, but about the question of the MAGA movement and where it really is right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: It sounds like you're saying that he is not representing the MAGA movement that he started right now.

GREENE: I can say that promoting H-1B visas to replace American jobs, bringing in 600,000 Chinese students to replace American students, opportunities in American colleges and universities. Those are not America First positions. And continuing to really travel all over the world doesn't help Americans back at home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And Tyler just staying with you. You and another friend of the show, Zolan Kanno-Youngs have a story in The New York Times today saying, America First. Some Trump supporters worried that's no longer the case. Sorry, that was a couple of days ago. But you can still find it online. That's how the internet works.

PAGER: Yeah. I mean, that's exactly right. I think this is the broader discussion within the Republican Party now and the MAGA movement about the future of the party, and it's coming down because the president has been very focused on international affairs. He's made no secret of his desire to win the Nobel Peace Prize that has been driving a lot of his focus. He's traveled widely around the world. He's been to Israel, to Asia. He's just really invested in foreign policy in a way that his base is not -- it's not resonating with his base. And we've seen him try to shift the focus back to the economy, affordability. He's been talking about that particularly in light of these elections where Democrats won up and down the ballot across the country.

But I think this split is coming at a time when Republicans are increasingly nervous about how they're going to do in the midterms, and Trump himself is also very worried about losing control of the House, and Democrats launching all sorts of investigations.

BASH: Well on this whole question of the split, and even more broadly, and maybe more importantly, where is the Republican Party right now? One of the things that has been very illustrative of the cracks is the Nick Fuentes issue. And the fact that Tucker Carlson hosted Nick Fuentes, who is a white supremacist and racist and antisemite.

I mean, all of the IS and the isms, that's what this guy is. And if you just go online and look at some of the things he says, and you'll understand just what I'm talking about the president. I asked Marjorie Taylor Greene about him, and she just said, it's up to Tucker. And she didn't -- she distanced himself -- herself from his views. President Trump did not distance himself from Nick Fuentes' views. Listen to what he said.

[12:10:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We've had some great interviews with Tucker Carlson, but you can't tell him who to interview. I mean, if he wants to interview Nick Fuentes, I don't know much about him. But if he wants to do it, get the word out. Let him, you know, people have to decide. Ultimately, people have to decide.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Now, he did have dinner with Nick Fuentes and Kanye West at Mar- a-Lago, which he was reminded of. I want to show this. This is Nick Fuentes saw what the president said or didn't say. And he said this. Thank you, Mr. President.

RAJU: I mean, it's pretty remarkable. I mean, that -- for just Trump to say, I don't know who he is, is, come on. I mean, this is the leader of his party. There's someone who consumes so much media. This is something that has been dividing his base so intensely since Tucker Carlson had this interview. So, that is just doesn't seem any bit of reality. But also, I guess, not a total surprise.

But, you know, the president also talked about, oh, I had dinner with him and Kanye West. Kanye West is also spewed terrible antisemitic rhetoric, just like Nick Fuentes and Trump didn't seem to distance himself from that. KUCINICH: But I think this is indicative of him not want -- we wanting to stop the fractures within the MAGA movement that are -- that are becoming wider and wider by the day.

PAGER: Yeah. And if you remember during the campaign, after that dinner with Nick Fuentes in Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago, there was a large freak out within Trump's senior staff trying to put in new protocols. I wrote about this in my book. At the time, they were really concerned that people were getting to Trump, and they set up protocols to try to keep those sorts of people away from him.

And so, this -- Jackie, to your point, this is convulsing the MAGA movement, the conservative wing of the party. And it's a concern because for Trump and the Republicans, because they've been so united behind him every step of the way and we're seeing so many fractures.

BASH: Yeah. And exactly. And the question, the reason -- one of the reasons why it's so important right now is, where is this movement going to go and the fact that Tucker Carlson has ended up where he is right now. Having people like Nick Fuentes and others who are really openly vile in some cases, in other cases, just wholeheartedly America First, and only America First, that really poses the question of where it goes.

We're going to have to sneak in a quick break. Up next. Immigration enforcement or racial profiling. We're going to look at the partisan divide over really big crackdown that's happening in Charlotte. Plus, I'll speak with the legendary filmmaker Ken Burns about the message he's trying to send in his new documentary about the American Revolution.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: The Trump administration's immigration crackdown in blue cities is ramping up in Charlotte after dozens of detentions on Saturday. Video from across the Charlotte metro area shows ICE agents and customs and border patrol officers arresting people in parking lots and in stores. In some videos, they're using the same aggressive tactics that earned them judicial rebuke in Chicago.

North Carolina's Democratic governor described it this way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JOSH STEIN (D-NC): We've seen masked, heavily armed agents and paramilitary garb, driving unmarked cars, targeting American citizens based on their skin color, racially profiling and picking up random people in parking lots and off of our sidewalks. Going after landscapers, simply decorating a Christmas tree in someone's front yard and entering churches and stores to grab people. This is not making us safer. It's stoking fear and dividing our community.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And my smart reporters are back. Jackie? KUCINICH: You know, we've seen this across the country. Now, we've seen it in Boston, we've seen it in Chicago, and we're seeing it, and now, most recently in Charlotte. We've seen it here in Washington, D.C. And I think fear is the point, in some ways, because it is -- it is causing -- we know that there are fewer people coming to this country.

But the issue is, this is, I mean, not only are the tactics something that are ending up absolutely in every publication and every cable news station. I mean, the American public knows about this. They disapprove of it.

BASH: And they see it on their phone.

KUCINICH: They see it on their phones. And we're seeing -- we're seeing in public polling that they don't like it, but the administration isn't showing any sort of movement that they're going to change course here. In fact, they're only expanding it.

RAJU: And you're seeing this real shift on Hispanic voters too, which should be really concerning for Trump. I mean, you saw what happened in the elections just a couple of weeks ago in New Jersey districts, Hispanic areas of the state, which Kamala Harris did not do well in. Mikie Sherrill, the Democrat, did extremely well in.

And in no small part, because immigration is playing a large role. Yet not all Latino voters vote on immigration. A lot of them vote on -- it's a very diverse community. People vote on the economy, affordability and the like. But those hardline take tactics going much further than a lot of people expected is having some effect.

BASH: Well, here's an example of exactly what you're talking about. Our colleague Sara Sidner spoke this morning to the owner of Manolo's Bakery in Charlotte. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARA SIDNER, CNN CO-ANCHOR, CNN NEWS CENTRAL: Are you yourself doing something different because of these ICE raids, are you afraid?

MANUEL "MANOLO" BETANCUR, OWNER, MANOLO'S BAKERY: Yeah. I've been carrying my passport all this year. Nowhere in the constitution says, as an American citizen, I had to carry my passport to show that I'm an American citizen. But because my -- the color of my skin, my race, my accent, and I feel like they're profiling me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:20:00]

PAGER: Yeah. And we're seeing these stories around the country. And to Manu's point about the politics of this, Republicans just did this massive redistricting effort in Texas to try to pick up five more seats that are in heavily Latino communities. And there could -- there are some concerns within the Republican Party that that gambit may not pay off. And the other thing, my colleagues at the Times had this fascinating investigation that ran over this weekend. As they are diverting more resources to immigration enforcement, they looked at what DHS is not doing and where those resources are coming from, and from child sex trafficking investigations, investigating Iran, you know, selling oil on shady markets, coast guard activity.

All of these things are being left by the wayside in certain areas because so much surge of resources of money is going towards immigration enforcement. And to Jackie's point, it's not going to slow down.

BASH: No.

PAGER: Stephen Miller, you know, Kristi Noem, they are calling on ICE to be even more aggressive. They want to get more deportations. They want to see these numbers go even higher. So, they're only going to increase these tactics. There's no sign that they're backing down.

BASH: And I just want to be clear. The president ran on this. He said very clearly that he was going to deal with the border done at the beginning. But then he was -- and his top officials were going to deal with the interior of this country. And I just want to show our viewers a headline from the Chicago Tribune, and it says only 2.6 on a list of 614 under Operation Midway Blitz. This was what they did in 2.5 percent -- forgive me, in Chicago, only 2.5 percent had criminal histories.

Now, what the president had said is, we're going to get the criminals out of the country. And what the people who work for him have also -- have said is, we don't care if they have actually committed crimes here. They see the crime, which it technically is of being in the U.S. without being a citizen, illegally, not just without being a citizen presumably.

KUCINICH: When I think -- I think what we've heard from voters is they didn't -- they really did believe the president when he said that the criminals were the ones that were being targeted, not their next door neighbor who had been in the country for 20 years, et cetera, et cetera, but that -- but that's what's happening.

And I think you saw in some of these off-year elections, you saw the beginning of this repercussion. And I think there's a lot of reasons for Republicans to be concerned, as both of you have pointed out going into these midterms.

RAJU: Yeah. And remember what they said at the beginning of this administration, people were all asking them, the administration, who are they going to deport first? How are you going to carry out the largest deportation effort in American history? And they kept saying, the violent criminals will get out first. That's what we're going to do. But then we've seen this affect a lot of other people too.

BASH: Yeah. We're going to have to sneak in a quick break. Up next. Manu's new reporting on how Chuck Schumer's Senate career could be winding down. And what one top Democrat tells CNN about Schumer and what he may know or not know about his future. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: The shutdown is over, but Democrats are now asking an existential question. We have some new reporting from Manu Raju and Isaac Dovere that illustrates the vulnerability that 43 days, eight defecting senators cast on the Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer. With one House Democrat from Schumer's home state, going so far as to say, quote, it's his last term, and he may be the only one on earth unaware of it. Manu?

RAJU: Yeah. Isaac and I spoke to roughly two dozen Democrats from, you know, in Congress and in New York. And the overwhelming view among people we spoke with is that they believe his days are numbered. One way or the other. And likely in 2028, when he's up for reelection again. Remember that point, he'll be roughly 78 years old, I believe, when he's running. So that's one reason why there's a belief that he won't run.

But also, how vulnerable he has become. If he were to run in a primary, he could potentially be defeated. So that's why a lot of people believe he's an opt to retire. So that's one problem for him. The other is the dissension within the Senate Democratic Caucus. He, of course, is a Democratic leader. There's going to be a secret ballot election that will occur after the November elections.

Now the Senate Democratic Caucus at a much less likely place, where you'll see them try to remove someone as leader. That typically does not happen, but he is facing more grumbling about his leadership than he has in his nine years as leader. And that is what we have seen in other leaders pass at the end of their term, like whether it's Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer or Mitch McConnell -- Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi or Mitch McConnell.

BASH: Which is why he is singularly focused on winning the Senate back.

RAJU: Yeah.

BASH: And these are the moves just among the moves that he has made. He has recruited Janet Mills, the governor of Maine to run, Roy Cooper, the former governor of North Carolina to run, the former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown to run in Jackie's home state of Ohio. Trying to recruit the most likely people to flip seats or flip seats back.

Because, well, let's just say, he wins the Senate back, which is a long shot, but you never know, maybe he could go out a hero, or people tend to change their minds when their leader is successful.