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Inside Politics

GOP Infighting On Display At Turning Point USA Conference; Vance: MAGA Movement Rejects "Self-Defeating Purity Tests"; Growing Outrage Over Release Of Heavily Redacted Epstein Files; Top Trump Aides Share Bill Clinton Photo In Epstein Files; CBS News Abruptly Shelves "60 Minutes" Story On Deportations. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired December 22, 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]

VIACHESLAV ZAPOROZHETS, FOUNDER, TYTANOVI REHABILITATION CENTER: The most important thing is that the dog has accepted the prosthetics. He doesn't chew them. He licks them, treating them as his own paws. If they felt artificial to him, he would have chewed them off. He's a dog, after all.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Lovers playful energy brings joy to the patients. He says his attitude inspires him to work harder to recover, just like lover did. Ryan Young, CNN, Atlanta.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR, THE SITUATION ROOM: As a black lab owner myself, I love that. Ryan Young, thank you so much. And thank you all for joining us this morning. Inside Politics with our friend and colleague, Manu Raju, starts right now. Have a great rest of the day.

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR, INSIDE POLITICS: The fault lines and President Trump's base signal a complicated path to the air, to the America First movement.

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

Thousands of MAGA faithful turned out over the weekend for turning point USA's annual AmericaFest Summit. And it may indeed have been a turning point for the MAGA movement, because while they are united in their loyalty to President Trump, different factions of the coalition were fighting for influence, amid a brewing fight on the right over how to handle antisemites and conspiracy theorists who consider themselves part of the movement.

Vice President Vance tried to bridge those divides in his speech without explicitly condemning anyone on the right.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT: President Trump did not build the greatest coalition in politics by running his supporters through endless self- defeating purity tests. I didn't bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to de platform. I know some of you are discouraged by the infighting over any number of issues. Don't be discouraged. Wouldn't you rather lead a movement of free thinkers who sometimes disagree than a bunch of drones who take their orders from George Soros.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: While Vance did not take a side, two other loud voices in the conservative movement did.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEN SHAPIRO, HOST, "THE BEN SHAPIRO SHOW": The conservative movement is also in danger from charlatans who claim to speak in the name of principle, but actually traffic in conspiracy and dishonesty.

VIVEK RAMASWAMY, (R) OHIO GOV. CANDIDATE: If you believe that Hitler was pretty cool. You have no place in the future of the conservative movement. If you call Usha Vance, the second lady of the United States of America, a jeet, you have no place in the future of the conservative movement. And if you can't say those things without stuttering, then you have no place as a leader.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: I'm joined now by a terrific group of reporters. Good to see you all on this Monday afternoon, it is Monday, right? It is Monday. Yes, it is. OK. Just confirming that. Jeff, you've been covering this -- conference has been playing out, really, this fascinating debate that's been going on publicly.

What do you make of the way that J.D. Vance, as he came in here, in this speech to this audience, didn't go -- didn't say what Vivek Ramaswamy said. Didn't say what others on the right have said, like Ben Shapiro, very much made it clear that he was not going to condemn any of these factions within his party. What does it say about the way he's positioning himself as he heads into a potential 2028 run.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: He's treading very carefully, intentionally, really struck there listening to Vivek Ramaswamy defending Usha Vance, much more than Vice President Vance did in his own speech. Now, Vice President Vance has defended his wife and spoken out in some smaller forms and some interviews, but not on stage there--

RAJU: Yes, the podcast we did that in a different setting.

ZELENY: Exactly. On Friday, in a podcast that, you know, did not have that attention. But look, I mean, what we're seeing here is the Vice President Vance making a concerted decision to try and appeal to everyone, appeal to the entire gamut of the Trump movement, if you will, but not really taking a stand. And I think this conference ended in such a way, it was supposed to be J.D. Vance's sort of moment.

Erika Kirk announced her endorsement for him in 2028, never mind, he's not even said he's running. Of course, he's likely to do so. But I'm not sure how strong he ended up being at the end by trying to throw out a George Soros line, et cetera. He didn't really take a stand. And I think that it showed the fissures inside the Republican Party. The Democrats have some of their own, but now we're talking about Republicans. They are significant from foreign policy to antisemitism, obviously. So, it will be interesting to see this post Trump era, maybe the only one who can sort of lift up J.D. Vance's -- his Trump himself and we'll see if he does it.

RAJU: What do you think of that? He's saying, there's a big tent party. There's not room for any purity tests, unlike trying to distinguish himself very much from some of those other voices we heard.

JASMINE WRIGHT, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, NOTUS: Yeah. I think if you went to that speech looking for a leader to say, this is right and this is wrong. You're going to leave that speech very disappointed because that's exactly what he did not say. I actually don't think that it's in conflict with what we've seen from J.D. Vance over the course of the 11 months, given multiple opportunities from the racist Republican group chat where he said that those young men -- were young men, instead of some of those being 40 years old.

[12:05:00]

In other instances, he has basically declined to condemn various positions in which other members of their party have said, yes, that's not -- excuse me, yes, that's not appropriate. And so, I think that you're seeing him in real time trying to expand what Trump built. Obviously, we know that there has been some contraction due to, you know, these kind of lower poll numbers with Hispanic voters, folks feeling put off by the immigration policies, folks feeling put off by the economic policies. So, he's trying to just hold the coalition that they built in 2024, and also expand it, and that is by not condemning people in places that traditionally Republicans would condemn.

RAJU: Which is a little bit more from his speech on Sunday, talking about how he says, this is a Christian nation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VANCE: In the United States of America, you don't have to apologize for being white anymore. The only thing that is truly served as an anchor of the United States of America is that we have been and by the grace of God, we always will be a Christian nation. Christianity is America's creed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Very much leaning into that message.

AARON BLAKE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yeah. And if you look at this speech, you know, we talked about how he's kind of trying to be Switzerland when it comes to this internal dispute in the Republican Party, and kind of -- I would argue, trying to have it both ways. But there was a lot in this speech that was speaking directly to the more kind of right-wing portions of the party.

You know, he was talking about Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, talking about, you know, calling her basically a fake street girl. He talked about Minneapolis. He called it Mogadishu. They were kind of like these little dog whistles that were meant to speak to that kind of far-right portion of the party to keep them in line with him that I think didn't penetrate as much but are also significant from the speech.

He very much, and this comes through in the comments that Jasmine was talking about as well. He very much wants to keep that section of the party in line and behind him moving forward. He doesn't want to do anything to sacrifice that.

RAJU: And just the tight rope. We look at some of the headlines that came out of this speech. J.D. Vance walking a tight rope on the raging Israel debate within MAGA, MAGA infighting of Israel in 2028 heats up at the conference, and then the battles over free speech. You know, Jeff, can he continue to walk this tight rope?

ZELENY: I think that will be very difficult once he launches into a campaign of his own. He probably can as vice president, because the reality is President Trump overshadows everything. I mean, this is still very much his party, but--

RAJU: Is he running -- if he runs, is he running for a third Trump term here? Or is this a someway -- how does he distinguish himself, or does he decide to even distinguish?

ZELENY: I mean, that will be a choice he has to make. I mean, history is not filled with many examples of how a third term works. The idea of him, you know, trying to define his own path is probably something he'll have to do. But look, I mean, we don't know several things to answer that question. One, are Republicans going to lose control of the midterms next year. If they do -- the control of Congress, excuse me.

If they do, he will certainly have to chart his own courts here. But what I'm wondering, Vivek Ramaswamy, if he wins as governor of Ohio, does he emerge as a leader, as someone who challenges J.D. Vance? I mean, it's hard to see it, perhaps right now, but someone will challenge Vice President Vance. There's no way in my view that he will have a wide-open shot to this nomination. I mean, you see a recent polling that shows only 22 percent of people right now want J.D. Vance to be the nominee.

RAJU: Yeah. 64 percent say no one specific.

ZELENY: I don't think there's a huge knock-on Vance. I mean, that's sort of normal, but it just shows you that he may be the heir parent, but that doesn't guarantee his nomination.

RAJU: Yeah, no question about it. I want to hear -- listen to you -- listen to some more voices from this conference from over the weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TUCKER CARLSON, HOST, "THE TUCKER CARLSON SHOW": Not only am I not an antisemite and would say so if I was. To hurt white men, because they are white men. That is racism, that is precisely as bad as antisemitism, but it is much more widespread and has been so far much more damaging.

STEVE BANNON, HOST, "BANNON'S WAR ROOM": Ben Shapiro is like a cancer and that cancer spreads.

DONALD TRUMP JR., DONALD TRUMP'S SON: I keep hearing diversity is our strength, but I'm not so sure. The young white men who for a generation were left behind by DEI.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Don Jr. saying diversity. I keep hearing diversity is our strength, but I'm not so sure.

WRIGHT: Yeah. I mean, for a party that likes to talk about how DEI and talking about diversity is in our strength, they do talk a lot about race, but of course, it is about the white race. I think fundamentally, this is a portion of conversation that they felt was really helpful for them in 2024 when we're talking about that young male voter who feels like they have been left behind, like the conversation doesn't surround them, that they are, you know, sometimes lonely, as experts would say.

[12:10:00]

And so, they're going to continue this messaging because it is popular with the base. All of the things that are creating the fissures within the Republican Party when we're talking about foreign payments, Israel, antisemitism, going back to this anti-Dei, anti-woke is just a string of conversation that consistently, really combines that, you know, kind of, at this point, you know, diverging group of people.

And so, I think you're going to consistently see them harp on this because it is -- it works for them. It works for them and it's something that they want to talk about and it's something that brings their folks together.

RAJU: Yeah. It certainly energizes the base. How much will it do, so in the mid-terms is heading up into 2028. We shall see. All right, coming up. I'll talk to the Republican running to be New York's governor. He has President Trump's full-throated support. But is that a plus in the Empire state? First, the latest on the Epstein files. The rest of this tease is redacted.

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[12:15:00]

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RAJU: It's been more than two and a half days since the legally required deadline to release all the government's files on Jeffrey Epstein, but hundreds of thousands of them are still being reviewed by Justice Department officials. And now the co-authors of the new Epstein law are threatening to hold the attorney general accountable. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): The quickest way, and I think, most expeditious way, to get justice for these victims is to bring inherent contempt against Pam Bondi.

REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): We're building a bipartisan coalition, and it would fine Pam Bondi for everyday that she's not releasing these documents.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: All right. My panel is back. Let's break down how the White House has handled this for months. They obviously wanted to fight this, and they didn't want this to become law. Ultimately, this bill to compel the release by last Friday became law over the president's objection. One person in both chambers voted against this. It is law. They released it hours before the deadline, a big trove of documents. And then there are whole bunch that have not been released. Why not just rip the band aid off and put it all out there?

BLAKE: I mean, what they say is that it was just a very difficult thing to do, and there are lots of documents that they have to put out and review for read, actions and things like that. I think it's worth noting that this is not happening in a vacuum like it's not -- this is not the first thing that we've been like, how -- why are they handling it like this?

You know, we had the reversal on releasing these in the first place, which happened shortly after President Trump was told that his name appeared in these files. We have the Ghislaine Maxwell prison transfer. We have Trump, on multiple occasions saying basically that he didn't have much of a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Well, we know much different now, according to, you know, a bunch of reporting, including from the New York Times last week, a very thorough report on that.

So, there are just all kinds of things that are kind of giving people reasons to be suspicious about how the administration is handling these things. And I would imagine that, given the appetite that was built up over time for these documents, the fact that they didn't deliver on that by the deadline, and there's been all these redactions in these documents. I'm going to be really interested to see how this issue is now playing after that big event on--

RAJU: Yeah. It's such a good question. I mean, because we are expecting more documents to come out after the deadline, that's what Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general said that they're reviewing these documents, trying to redact sensitive material. But the question too is, what are behind some of those redactions? Because the skeptics and the critics say, these are overly redacted. Blanche was asked yesterday about whether Trump's name would be intentionally redacted from these releases.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is any information about President Trump redacted in any of the files that have or will be released?

TODD BLANCHE, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: No, not, unless it's supposed to be redacted under the law, which means victim information or any sort of privilege, like attorney client privilege. But I have no reason to believe that the lawyers that were working on this case were talking about President Trump, because he had nothing to do with the Epstein files.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Jasmine, you covered the White House. What are you hearing about this, the process and what Todd Blanche said there?

WRIGHT: Well, the White House is basically saying that this is now in the Department of Justice's court, right, that they are no longer involved in the Justice Department after President Trump signed the law. This is now under the Justice Department's purview to redact or not redact whatever you want.

Now, of course, there have been some folks on the right questioning whether or not the Department of Justice is redacting what's in these documents in good faith, not just about President Trump, but about other powerful members, because that's what it comes down to, right? It's the fact that there is this really conspiracy theory in a lot of people's minds. That people in power have basically been shielded from accountability through this whole Epstein saga.

And the question is whether or not the DOJ is going to continue those actions by redacting more than they should. And so, I think that that is kind of the question that the DOJ is going to have to answer President Trump. We're going to see him later on today. They'll be obviously some questions, but he hasn't really answered a single question about Epstein since Friday -- I mean, since before Friday.

But when he was asked about a Friday, he didn't answer about the drop -- about the drip, drop, or anything like that.

RAJU: He didn't said much on Truth Social.

WRIGHT: He didn't said much on Truth Social. And so, I could see a world in which he doesn't want to say anything else about it and tries to let this be a Pam Bondi, Todd Blanche thing.

RAJU: This is what Steve -- our colleague Stephen Collinson wrote about this. He said the only unequivocal takeaway in this new phase of the drama is that, yet again, the Trump administration's attempts to quell the storm have whipped up a new vortex of political energy that could harm the president.

[12:20:00]

Now we heard Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie said they're going to try to pursue contempt charges against the attorney general. That's going to require support of Republicans to do that, and I have really not even though this was supported widespread. Many Republicans want these files out there. I have not heard many Republicans voice their outrage the way Thomas Massie, he was the co-author of this law has.

ZELENY: It would be hard to imagine. I think enough Republicans coming together, absent the president getting behind this and there's no way he's going to do it. But I'm actually struck by not only has the president not said anything. I think Pam Bondi essentially hasn't been the face of this at all. I mean, Todd Blanche, the president's former personal attorney, has been sort of the face of all of this for the last several days here. So, I think that is interesting, but--

RAJU: Especially the way she handled it initially when she said, get the files--

(CROSSTALK)

ZELENY: And I think that still remains the best description. I can't think of a better word that really sums up how the White House, how the administration has handled this from the very beginning. This could have been dealt with months and months and months ago, but it is the one thing that President Trump, despite all of the other things he does, renaming the Kennedy Center or trying to variety of things. This is one thing that returns and returns and returns, and I don't think there are any signs that it's going away, just because they have not been fully forthcoming.

RAJU: Yeah, and no question about that. And meantime, while some of these documents have come out, that some of them have been about, have shown photos of Bill Clinton, and that's, of course, gotten a lot of attention from the White House in particular. Karoline Leavitt posted, oh my, in one of her posts. Steven Cheung is the White House comms director, slick willy, just chilling without a care on the world.

This is Bill Clinton, a photo there of him in a hot tub. There's some people's faces redacted, and we don't know who those people redacted. Clinton has never been accused by law enforcement of any wrongdoing related to Epstein, neither as Trump has not been accused of any wrongdoing either. Clinton, as team has said, repeatedly they cut ties with Epstein before his arrest on federal charges in 2019. But nevertheless, you're seeing the way they're dealing with it here. I want to try to point attention towards Bill Clinton, not about the guy in the Oval Office.

BLAKE: I mean, the balance of new disclosures that we got on Bill Clinton in this document drop versus President Trump himself was very remarkable. It was also remarkable the amount whenever we had top DOJ officials, top White House officials, tweeting about Bill Clinton shortly after the release of these documents.

RAJU: I mean, it doesn't look good for Bill Clinton either.

BLAKE: No, no question -- no question whatsoever. But I mean, this is -- this is the strategy that Trump went with a couple months ago when he said, oh, well, I want to start these new investigations of Bill Clinton, these other Democrats. The idea is to muddy the waters to point that these Democrats were also close to Jeffrey Epstein.

I think the question, really though, is -- and this is the question that's been put forward by Epstein survivors and their comments on this matter is, you know, did President Trump have any awareness of this, given that he was friends with this man in a key period in the 1990s, early 2000s. Did he have any awareness of what was going on? And that's the question that they wanted to be answered.

RAJU: And we'll see if that question is indeed answered. All right, coming up next. Turmoil at 60 Minutes. CBS bosses spike a story about some of President Trump's most controversial deportations. The reporter calls it corporate censorship.

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[12:25:00]

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RAJU: A top correspondent at 60 Minutes is accusing her new corporate boss says of trying to dismantle the program after a piece on Trump deportations was shelved hours before yesterday's broadcast. Sharyn Alfonsi interviewed men the Trump administration had said to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador.

In an email to her colleagues, Alfonsi wrote, our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision. It is a political one. The public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship.

CNN's Brian Stelter joins me now. So, Brian, you've got brand new reporting on what led up to this decision.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Yeah. You know, this is a virtually unheard of situation inside 60 Minutes. The most watched news magazine in America. This is a program where produce -- the stories are produced well in advance. They're announced on Friday. Usually, they're shown on Sunday. In fact, correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi had already flown home to Texas by the time Bari Weiss wrote on Saturday morning with her concerns about this piece.

Weiss was primarily concerned about the lack of Trump administration voices in the piece, but Alfonsi said she tried and she was not given any interviews. Here's what she said in her internal memo. Alfonsi wrote, quote, we requested responses to questions and or interviews with DHS, the White House and the State Department. Government silence is a statement, not a veto. If the administration's refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we've effectively handed them a kill switch for any reporting they find inconvenient.

Now Weiss responded this morning on CBS's morning editorial call -- the morning editorial meeting. And here's a part of what Weiss said to staffers. Quote, while the story that Alfonsi was working on presented powerful testimony of torture at CECOT, that prison in El Salvador. It did not advance the ball. The New York Times and other outlets had previously done similar work. She said, to run a story on this subject two months later, we need to do more, and this is 60 Minutes. We need to be able to get the principles on the record and on camera.

So, Weiss is arguing, work harder, get more of this reporting. But why then, was the story clear? Why was it vetted by lawyers and approved by fact checkers and ready for air? Why was it publicized on Friday only to be pulled back over the weekend? That's the mystery that heart of this story, and that's why staffers at CBS are worried about corporate meddling by CBS parent Paramount and by the prospect of political interference, like pressure from the Trump administration.

RAJU: Yeah. And that latter point here Brian, is that we just can't ignore the contest, because the owners