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Trump Welcomes Saudi Crown Prince To White House; Trump Says He's Planning To Sell F-35 Fighter Jets To Saudi Arabia; Saudi Arabia Expands Influence In Professional Sports World; Epstein Survivors Push Congress To Vote For Release The Files; GOP Lawmakers Shrug Off Trump Attacks On Greene; Soon: House To Vote On Bill To Release Epstein Files. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired November 18, 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: Welcome to Inside Politics. I'm Manu Raju in for Dana Bash. And we're following breaking news on multiple fronts. First on Capitol Hill, where the House is about to vote on releasing the Epstein files, which unanimously, it would be a stunning rebuke of President Trump at the White House spent months trying to stop the release.

And we're just moments away from President Trump meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office. He's the man who, according to U.S. intelligence, ordered the assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. The crown prince has repeatedly denied the claims.

And right before entering the Oval Office, President Trump showed off the newly minted presidential Walk of Fame to the Saudi leader. This was minutes after the White House pulled out the red carpet. Quite literally, the welcome ceremony just moments ago included military bands and an aircraft flyover. And tonight, President Trump will host a black tie dinner in honor of the crown prince.

I'm joined right now by a terrific group of reporters to break all this down, including Susan Glasser. You've been covering foreign policy for many years. I'm wondering, you know, this is -- Saudi Arabia was the first country that Trump visited in his first term and in his second term. What is it? There's obviously also a whole line list of human rights abuses that has made, especially with Mohammed bin Salman being the de facto leader that U.S. has raised major concerns with other countries have but this is such an important relationship for Trump. Why?

SUSAN GLASSER, STAFF WRITER, THE NEW YORKER: Yeah. I mean, Donald Trump has really pivoted American foreign policy in many ways. He announced this pivot, I would say, on that first trip to Saudi Arabia and to the Gulf in his second term, as well as in his first term. He said, we will not lecture you anymore, gone is the nagging about human race abuses. No one except for us on TV here is going to mention anymore the murdering by bone saw no less of, you know, a dissident and Washington Post columnist. Donald Trump looks for all the world like somebody using the White House as a prop in the ultimate business deal. And for Donald Trump, I think it's important to note that American foreign policy has also become commingled with his family's enrichment and his own personal enrichment. So, he's talking about business deals with the Saudi, diplomatic deals with the Saudi and granting this incredible recognition to someone who I think another president of any party would be very reluctant to greet at our White House in this way.

RAJU: This is our CNN story. You mentioned, the business deals about business empire, business ties in the middle east of the Trump family business. Trump's family business ties to Middle East have more than tripled since the president's first tournament offense, according to a CNN tally, including a slew of new projects announced since he reclaimed the White House as a piece back in May.

From some of our colleagues here at CNN. Kylie, you also cover foreign policy. You covered the state department. What are you expecting to come out of this meeting? Why is the president placing such an emphasis on Saudi Arabia?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, well, listen, you mentioned those business ties. I think it's worth noting that when President Trump visited Saudi Arabia earlier this year, he actually went on a tour of one of the real estate projects in the country where there are now reports that his own family is talking about putting a Trump property as part off.

So, those ties are very real when it comes to what members of his family are pursuing in terms of their economic interests. And then also, you know, what President Trump chooses to put an emphasis on while he's on these trips? I also think, you know, Susan was talking about the diplomatic ties, and also, you know, the growing political ties, really, between the two countries.

But it's also that Trump is boosting the military relationship with Saudi Arabia. And that's something that we'll be watching for today because Trump said that he's going to be allowing them to purchase F- 35 which is a major development. The Saudis have long wanted these F- 35. They're some of the most advanced U.S. military weaponry.

And there are reports and concerns in the U.S. intelligence community about the possibility of China, who has a defense relationship with Saudi Arabia, getting access to some of the U.S. -- some of the U.S. kind of development on that front, and that's why there's always been pause on this. But the Trump administration appears to be moving forth, and that is area for us to keep a really close eye on.

[12:05:00]

RAJU: And the Israelis have major concerns about the U.S. moving ahead with any sort of deal with the Saudis on F-35.

ELI STOKOLS, WHITE HOUSE & FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT, POLITICO: Absolutely. And I think that one of the interesting things about this visit, you know, the president, maybe his biggest diplomatic priority in the Middle East is the expansion of the Abraham Accords. He wants Saudi Arabia to sign on and join the Abraham Accords and normalize relations with Israel.

They were close before the Gaza war. The Gaza war has very much derailed that. And with his visit, Trump is basically decoupling the broader strengthening of the relationship economically security with Saudi Arabia. He's taken that and separated it from the Abraham Accords. Maybe this is a down payment on that down the road.

But it's also a function of the fact that, I think as much as they talk about the Gaza deal getting to phase two, there is a sense that that's unlikely. It seems really difficult. There are a lot of impediments to that, and one of the impediments is Israel. And people are not sure if the Israelis are going to go forward and are really serious about going to phase two of that deal.

So, I think you're seeing this diplomacy with Saudi Arabia in part because of the broader situation. Trump does prioritize the region, and you know, he's not -- he's values agnostic in terms of the values, democratic values, that have always undergirded American foreign policy.

But he's not value agnostic totally. He cares. His values are just different. He values deals and money and commerce, and he likes being around the leaders in the Gulf, because that's what they prioritize too. As Susan pointed out, he made that very explicit on his first trip in May.

RAJU: I don't think we should -- I want to underscore just how much of a shift this was from Joe Biden. Remember back in 2022, when he met with the Saudi crown prince was a different circumstance at the time. This is, of course, not here in the United States. There's a fist bump that between Saudi -- between Biden and MBS. And that got actually a lot of -- he got a lot of criticism that Biden have called him a pariah at the time and had a much different view. And here's Trump literally rolling out the red carpet today and having this black-tie dinner tonight.

GLASSER: I mean, so much of it speaks to what President Trump is able to do in a way that other presidents just have not been. Obviously, that was a huge deal when Biden did it. It took over headlines. His own party criticized him. We are not hearing anywhere near that same sort of criticism from Republicans, even those who particularly don't like Saudi Arabia.

JASMINE WRIGHT, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, NOTUS: I mean, I think when I talk to the White House officials, they're describing this deal. They're obviously excited about the pomp and circumstance, something that we're seeing clearly on display just from that greeting. But they're also talking so much about the economic deals that they believe that are coming, basically saying that Saudi Arabia is coming to spread out money across the U.S. in terms of investments.

And they basically intertwined the foreign policy with domestic policy, basically saying that this is good for America because it's going to bring more money eventually into the pockets of Americans. And I think that the risk outside of, you know, obviously overlooking the moral and ethical objections of that country is that Americans perhaps are not buying it, right? They're not connecting that foreign policy investment with the domestic policy and what's happening in their own pockets.

And so, you know, the president is obviously excited about this trip. The White House is excited about this trip and rolling out the red carpet. But obviously, as concerns continue to mount over what he's doing on affordability versus foreign policy, you know, you can question whether or not this happening at the right time.

RAJU: And the Saudis have a vested interest in this, of course, as well. You've seen what's happened, how they've tried to, essentially, people criticize them as entertainment washing or sports washing, and just really trying to immerse themselves in western culture. Just say, among the things, of course, live golf.

They've poached top golf stars to play, compete against the PGA Tour, of course, a big row. Of course, with the PGA began hosting WWE events in 2014, they've been really aggressive and keep trying to go after top European soccer stars, including Cristiano Ronaldo, the Portuguese superstar, who is the biggest player in the Saudi soccer league, and he's expected to be the White House today. This is all -- there's clearly motivation here by MBS.

GLASSER: Yeah. Well, look, it's a sort of an infotainment version of American diplomacy. But I think you're right to point out that the soviets, I'm sorry, the Saudis, they want things that Trump can give them, and part of it is the acceptance of the west. MBS wants the stamp of approval for his efforts to integrate Saudi Arabia more closely with globalized society and modernize Saudi Arabia.

He wants American stamp of approval for that. He wants those F-35s. He wants access to American not just defense technology, but also data centers. He wants AI. He wants advanced chips. These are the currency of the future, not just oil. And so, the Saudis are coming here wanting.

[12:10:00]

My question goes to Eli's point, which is, what kind of a deal is Donald Trump actually prepared to negotiate because it looks from the outside, like he is willing to negotiate away something that we've made conditional before, which is to say, we're no longer asking on this trip for normalizing Saudi's relationship with Israel.

It looks like Trump is prepared to give security guarantees without that being a condition of it, and that's why, you know, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, in his first term, they chased Saudi Arabia to be part of the Abraham Accords, but they couldn't get the deal done. And it doesn't look like it's going to happen yet.

RAJU: Yeah. And we're maybe about two minutes away, we're told from this meeting between Donald Trump and Mohammed bin Salman at the White House, which will be the first time that he has appeared in the White House since the 2018 murder of the Jamal -- of Jamal Khashoggi, The Washington Post journalist who -- the intelligence community said that MBS was had ordered his murder.

Now, MBS has long denied that this will be an interesting moment, because Trump, in these Oval Office settings, takes a ton of questions, right? Will he do that with MBS? There's not exactly a free press in Saudi Arabia. It will be interesting to see if anyone asks him about that.

ATWOOD: And we'll have to watch and see if MBS, who is not used to getting those types of questions from the press, takes the questions and, you know, goes down the path that we've seen President Trump, which is, you know, I'll take anything that's out here for me. I do think today, obviously, with the Epstein vote on the Hill. We'll have to watch and see how much that dominates this conversation.

But classically, foreign policy experts would say that shoring up the relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia does have some benefits strategically for the United States, you know, in terms of Saudi's relationship with China, therefore, shoring up the U.S. Saudi relationship would be useful to try and edge out that influence that China has over Saudi Arabia.

But it's probably doubtful that there will be any discussion of human rights that is addressed between the two leaders today. And it's noteworthy that we continue to put a spotlight on the fact that there are a number of human rights abuses that continue in Saudi Arabia on a daily basis.

Just human rights groups this year said that last year there were more than 340 executions in the country, a lot of those at odds with international law. So, this is a space for us to continue focusing on even if President Trump is not going to put an emphasis on it when he meets with the crown prince.

RAJU: OK, I think we are still waiting to do it for this meeting between the president and Mohammed bin Salman. We're going to take a quick break. We're standing by for this meeting with Saudi crown price. As soon as it happens, we'll bring that to you live. Stand by for this quick break.

Plus, we're following breaking news on Capitol Hill, where we're just hours away from what's happening to be an overwhelming House vote to release the Epstein files. Maybe it could be unanimous.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): I woke up this morning and I turned to my weather app to check the temperature, and it was 32 degrees. And my first thought was, hell has frozen over.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: And survivors' messages to the lawmakers and President Trump. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAJU: You're looking at live pictures of the White House, where any moment now, President Trump will meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office, and of course, we'll bring that to you live.

We're also following a crucial vote in the House. Members expect a deluge, possibly even unanimous support for releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files in a vote this afternoon. Speaker Mike Johnson slammed it as a political show vote, but even he will support it begrudgingly. And make no mistake, it is a major blow to President Trump, who encouraged Republicans to vote yes, only after it became clear it would pass despite trying to kill the bill for months.

Now, survivors of Epstein's horrific crimes gathered at the Capitol this morning in an emotional show of support for the measure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WENDY AVIS, EPSTEIN SURVIVOR: I have a 14-year-old daughter, myself, the same age I was. And when I look at her, I see the little girl I used to be. The one that no one protected. My greatest fear in this entire world is history repeating itself.

HALEY ROBSON, EPSTEIN SURVIVOR: I am begging every member of Congress, every representative to step up and choose the chaos, choose the survivors, choose the children. You are our president. Please start acting like it. Show some class. Show some real leadership. Show that you actually care about the people other than yourself. I voted for you, but your behavior on this issue has been an national embarrassment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: And Mike Johnson, who had been battling this effort to force a vote on this issue for months. He had a press conference this morning and railed on this bill, but he indicated that he would vote yes. And this, of course, after President Trump himself had a major reversal. Listen?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): Having now forced the vote, none of us want to go on record and in any way be accused of not being for maximum transparency. So, the only intellectually consistent position to have right now, the only way to ensure that both those things are true at the same time is to allow for everyone to vote their conscience and to go on record to say, of course, of course, we're for maximum transparency.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Now the political hot potato will be out of Johnson's lap this afternoon. Big questions though, how will the Senate deal with this? Because if they change it, it'll have to go back to the house. It could take months in dealing with it. Johnson says he wants changes to the bill. They could quickly pass it, so it's out of their lap. But then Trump has to decide how to deal with this then, and whether they'll actually release the files. [12:20:00]

WRIGHT: Yeah. And some of those are the million-dollar questions, obviously, yesterday, President Trump, in that kind of final reversal there, said that he would sign the final version of the legislation if it were to come out of the Senate after it passed the House. But obviously, that was a huge reversal from where he was just on Friday, and days before then.

I know I talked to sources who said that the president had multiple conversations about Epstein over this weekend, including talking to House Speaker Mike Johnson about Epstein. And in some of those conversations, people expressed concern about the optics of his public posture obviously being against the release of these files.

And so, you know, obviously we know that he reversed his position on Sunday night, even though the White House says that he did not reverse his position. He reversed his position on Sunday night, and now he's all for it. But there are larger questions, right? Because fundamentally he could just release them now. That is the bottom line.

And they say that, you know, maybe he can't, because of one reason or another, but fundamentally he can. And so, obviously they're going to see how this process goes out. I think people at the White House still aren't sure what John Thune is going to do. Maybe he's not exactly quite sure what he's going to do and how that plays out. But I think what the president is trying to do is more so now own what's happening versus looking like he is completely against it.

RAJU: Well, he had to capitulate to this big time. And Marjorie Taylor Greene said this morning that this is ripping MAGA apart. She said, this fight has ripped MAGA apart.

STOKOLS: They campaigned on doing this, and then he reversed himself. And a lot of people feel strongly about it, couldn't figure out why. If there's nothing to hide, why are you so opposed to this? This is really the first time that I can -- I mean, there are probably other examples. It's hard to remember what happened last week--

RAJU: In this last hour.

STOKOLS: It's the first big example that I can think of in this term, the president really getting boxed in by his own party.

RAJU: Maybe the first time in both terms.

STOKOLS: They did reverse themselves, and they reversed themselves because they knew they were going to lose this vote. And so, for this president, we've seen this many times. But when he realizes that something is going the other way, he switches, because he doesn't want to look like he's taking an L at the end of the day. He wants to look like, oh yeah, I told him to do this. This is fine. And so that's the posture. That's the reversal.

And you saw in the messaging Sunday night, sort of a folding in of some of the stuff post-election that the White House was trying to get to the president about, we need to talk about costs. So, the president was suddenly framing this as a distraction. Let's say, go ahead and vote for it, so we can get back to the economy, because I'm doing such a great job. They're trying to start to address those affordability issues. But there are some deep worries, the White House said, this story is going to continue to dog them.

RAJU: And the larger question is, what does this mean in breaking with Trump? And we've seen them break in with them on Epstein, but do they break with him on the rhetoric? Remember, in this feud with Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has pushed this issue. He called her a traitor. He called her a disgrace.

And she said that by calling her a traitor in particular, that has endangered her family and her fan herself, and she's urged the president to stop. So do Republicans agree with her, who says, Trump should stop this. Do they think he should stop calling her a traitor?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREENE: And he called me a traitor for standing with these women and refusing to take my name off the discharge petition. Let me tell you what a traitor is. A traitor is an American that serves foreign countries and themselves. A patriot is an American that serves the United States of America and Americans like the women standing behind me.

REP. CARLOS GIMENEZ (R-FL): He's just saying that, hey, that she, you know, that he doesn't have her support. I mean, he does -- she doesn't have his support.

RAJU: He is saying, he's stronger than that.

GIMENEZ: Yeah, I know that. But, I mean, I read it. I said, you know, basically, she's -- you know, she's not worthy of reelection and that's the way he puts it.

REP. TROY NEHLS (R-TX): Listen, MTG, is her own person. That's her own business.

RAJU: I don't know it's Trump calling her, that's Trump calling her.

NEHLS: He's calling her a traitor. I mean, I wouldn't get on the view. I mean, why are you on the view? Why are you on this, you know, just continuing to view--

RAJU: She said a personal safety. Should he stop? The president stop calling her a traitor?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now it's up to the president what he wants to do. That's his deal.

(END VIDEO CLIP) GLASSER: You know, no wonder, Manu, that Americans are cynical about politics, right? You know, it was a remarkable moment to hear the congresswoman on CNN say that she apologized for participating in this toxic political environment. But you know, we've been marinating in a stew here of name calling and Republican members of Congress who are afraid to even say basic things.

That, to me, is the difference, in fact, between Trump's first term and his second term. At least in the first term, there were the occasional bleach of concern from, you know, senators who were very concerned about this or that terrible rhetoric. Now they don't even say that. They say like, that's Donald Trump's deal.

[12:25:00]

So, is it a lasting rift inside MAGA? Is it a one off that tells us just how much a part of the MAGA base was committed to this idea that there really was some kind of a secret list of a cabal of, you know, Epstein pedophiles who were running America and the world, you know. So, we don't know the answer to that yet, but it's very insulting.

What strikes me to a part of Donald Trump's constituency, for him to have opposed this so virulently for months, literally leading the House to stop going to work for Speaker Johnson, to keep the House out of session from mid-September to mid-November in the effort to stop the vote that's happening today. That in and of itself, as you know, better than I, Manu, is an unprecedented thing and it was a scandal in its own right.

Let's just be blunt about that. So, now to insult those same voters and to say, oh, no, I was totally for this all along. I mean, I'd be fascinated to see whether that is actually a line that works on a lot of people or not.

RAJU: Yeah. Susan raises the point about what does this mean for the hold on the GOP? We've seen Trump as really, this is unflinching. They really hold on Republicans, who really have done anything that he has said, there are those signs of some cracks. There's not just on the Epstein deal, but there was, of course, the Indiana Republicans. Trump had pushed Indiana to change its maps to make it easier for Republicans to pick up some additional House seats in the state.

So far, he's been buffed by the state legislators. He's still putting pressure on them. There's the push by Trump to end the filibuster in the United States Senate. Republicans have said no to that as well. You know, there's questions. Is this -- it was Trump a lame duck. Is this signs that people are starting to recognize that Trump is a lame duck, or does he still have this stranglehold over this party?

ATWOOD: Right. And we're talking a lot about how Congress has forced the president's hand here. But I also think we should point to how, really, the grassroots Republican voters have pushed the hand of congress first, and then they were the ones that pushed Trump.

And so, is the party going to have to go through somewhat of a reckoning, you know, particularly coming up on the midterms next year, in terms of what do their voters actually want them to do? Is it necessarily anything Trump says goes. That's not what we're seeing at least play out in this situation.

And you have to wonder, even though President Trump says that, you know, he would now sign this and he would release all of these documents. Is he in a political situation where he actually does that, or are there more delay tactics that we see the White House try and pull out here? Because there are many things that they can still do to try and at least slow down this process, if not impede it in some significant ways.

RAJU: Will be so fascinating to see that as we head into the midterms, the question for the Republicans who are running is whether they embrace. How much they embrace Trump, especially in those swing districts, those purple states? His numbers have been decreasing. And is this a sign today, this rebellion on Epstein? Is it a sign that some may keep -- continue to try to distance themselves from him as we head into the midterms?

STOKOLS: It's possible. I think there's a lot of muscle memory built up. You saw it in those sound bites that you played asking about, is Marjorie Taylor Greene a traitor. And they saw, you know, they wouldn't go that far. They wouldn't say, like, I'm not going to criticize the president. So, there's still a lot of reluctance to really separate themselves from the president.

RAJU: Because he will bash them and throw them under the bus in about two seconds.

STOKOLS: And there's still the time for primary challenges. So, I think maybe as we get closer to the election, you may see some more distancing, depending on how things go. I also think that the Epstein issue is such a unique issue. You heard Speaker Johnson say, of course, we all want to be for transparency.

It's like after the election, a couple Tuesdays ago, it woke everybody up to the fact that they're all going to be on the ballot again very soon. And do they want to be attacked for having opposed the release of this information? They don't. And so, if you do see something close to a unanimous vote, that is why.

And so, this is an issue where the politics were just so overwhelming in one direction that even the president, as we talked about, had to reverse his position. I don't know that we can say from this that, oh, the president's lost his grip, and it's a full-fledged rebellion, because there's not, but it's a crack and there could be other issues where it makes sense for people to distance themselves.

RAJU: How worried is the White House about these cracks forming? Is it -- they worry that there's a larger trend? They could see more divisions, especially as members say, he's not going to be president for another few -- this is the last few years. Despite what they say about 2028, this is it, and he's a lame duck.

WRIGHT: Yeah. Well, I think the foremost concern from the White House is, where does this Epstein issue end, right? What does it end? I think that there's a feeling. And Donald Trump spoke to it yesterday that no amount of documents released, even if they did so, would be enough. But I think going beyond that, of course, they want to make sure that they're keeping a kind of a stranglehold on the Republican Party, as Trump has been able to do so in the past.

RAJU: Yeah. And I think we're waiting for the president meeting, and we are in it right now. President Trump meeting with Mohammed bin Salman. Let's listen.

[12:30:00]