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The Situation Room

Interview With Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA); Trump Lashes Out at MAGA Over Epstein Files; Russia Launches Drone Attacks on Ukraine; Trump Meets With Crown Prince of Bahrain. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired July 16, 2025 - 11:00   ET

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

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Happening now: a high-value visit. President Trump welcomes the crown prince of Bahrain to the White House. The Persian Gulf nation hosts a key U.S. military base in the Middle East, and now the White House wants to expand the relationship further.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: And welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer with Pamela Brown, and you're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BLITZER: Happening now, over at the White House, President Trump is about to welcome the crown prince of the kingdom of Bahrain. The prince also serves as the prime minister. The official visit is focused on making the partnership between the two countries even stronger.

Bahrain is home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, which operates in one of the world's most critical and volatile regions, namely, the Persian Gulf in the Middle East.

BROWN: Let's go to CNN's senior White House correspondent Kristen Holmes.

Kristen, are there any specific goals of this meeting?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pamela, this comes as President Trump has really tried to beef up these relationships with these Gulf countries, both diplomatically and financially.

And we heard from Bahrain state media last night announcing that private companies in both of the countries had come to a series of agreements worth $17 billion. You see there the financial. But in terms of diplomatically, earlier today, Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted the foreign minister of that country.

And they signed an agreement that they called a memorandum of understanding nuclear cooperation, again, on the diplomatic side of all of that. Now, this meeting is just one of two big meetings President Trump has on a schedule today. He's also having dinner with the prime minister of Qatar. Qatar has become one of the United States' greatest allies right now as it seeks multiple different fronts of diplomacy in that region.

Right now, as we speak, we know that the Israeli officials are expected to be meeting with officials from Hamas in Qatar, negotiations that have been mediated in part by Qatari officials, to try and reach a cease-fire deal in Gaza. We also know that the Qataris have been instrumental in helping the United States in its negotiations with Iran on the nuclear deal there.

Remember, one of the things that we reported at the time when we saw that retaliation from Iran for those U.S. strikes on those nuclear facilities was the way that Qatar had essentially helped Iran defuse the situation by launching an attack that didn't end up harming any actual U.S. -- or have any actual U.S. casualties.

So these are two big meetings for President Trump, again, as he's really trying to work around that region because two of his biggest policy goals have been getting, one, an Iran nuclear deal and, two, the cease-fire in Gaza.

BROWN: And we know, as we anticipate this meeting, something that is weighing on the president today is the Jeffrey Epstein case. He had some really strong words in a TRUTH Social post, even calling some of his allies who are saying they want more transparency weaklings, Kristen.

HOLMES: Yes.

I mean, this has been -- I want to pull up the post because I don't want to misquote it in any way. This has been really the bane of President Trump's existence. And you're seeing him kind of unravel and angrily and frustratedly online as he attacks people who keep asking questions about the Epstein -- so-called Epstein files.

And he has called them fake. He said that his supporters were weaklings. He has said that anyone who's interested in this, he said this last night, was sick or deranged, one of those words that he uses often, and saying they are his former supporters at this point.

I mean, to be clear here, the people who are calling for this are some of his biggest allies. And that also includes people who now serve in his administration. Now, of course, you haven't been hearing loudly from FBI Director Kash Patel or the deputy director, Dan Bongino, on this. But those were two of the people who had been calling for this release.

So President Trump has kind of ramped up this fight against his own base. And there have been questions, of course, in the past as to whether or not this is something that could harm President Trump politically, because as we look at the big picture of President Trump, we have seen one theme over and over again, which is that essentially President Trump tends to be like Teflon when it comes to these issues. We say, oh, could this harm him? And then it ends up brushing off. But

this is the biggest divide we have seen between where President Trump's finger is on the pulse of his base or not. And so he generally has a better understanding of where his base is.

And I can't tell you, every hour I'm getting more calls from these high-profile MAGA loyalists who are out there just enraged or frustrated or confused as to how exactly it got to this point, after this was something that they really based a lot of their conspiracy theories and a lot of what they believed was going to be part of President Trump's agenda moving forward when they were campaigning for him.

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All right, Kristen Holmes at the White House for us, busy day for you. Thanks so much -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Very busy day, about to get even busier.

Also breaking overnight, Russia has now launched another massive bombardment of Ukraine. Officials there say Russia used 400 long-range drones. This is the Kremlin's latest escalation, and it comes as President Trump shifts his tone on the war and on Vladimir Putin.

On Monday, Trump said the U.S. will send Patriot air defense missile systems to Ukraine through NATO allies, and he threatened tariffs, major tariffs, if Russia does not work toward ending the war.

Let's go to CNN's chief international security correspondent, Nick Paton Walsh, who is monitoring all of these developments in London for us.

Nick, are these large-scale Russian attacks since Monday a possible response to President Trump's ultimatum to Russia?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Probably not. And it's hard often to see if there's sort of a tit for tat when Trump says something critical of Moscow whether we indeed see an uptick here in Russian aerial attacks, but a lot of these take a degree of planning, frankly.

They can't just respond to rhetoric from the White House. But it's not Kyiv that was a capital -- the focus last night, instead Kharkiv, 16 drones landing in 14 minutes there, two killed in the areas around Kharkiv, and, indeed, Zelenskyy's hometown, Kryvyi Rih, hit with what locals described there as the biggest attack since the war indeed began, nearly 400 drones fired across Ukraine by Russia.

Another example of why they urgently need more air defense, some missiles fired too, and it's those Patriots that are the only means to take down Russian ballistic missiles. A series of mixed messages, though, from President Trump himself. Yes, we are talking in terms of what he sees as a timetable delivery for Patriots of matter of days until they get into Ukrainian hands. He may be referring to the interceptor part of the actual missiles that intercept the missiles there, rather than a potentially new Patriot batteries that Ukraine also urgently, one German official suggesting that indeed maybe down to manufacturers and may indeed take months.

But he also made comments suggesting potentially that he hadn't ruled out the idea of longer-range offensive weapons, but also saying, well, no, that isn't something on the table right now and indeed encouraging Ukraine not to fire at Moscow.

The deadline of 50 days, well, we had originally felt potentially that Moscow would feel less of a sense of urgency around that. Their foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, suggesting that they'd seen 24 hours pass as a deadline, that's what President Trump hoped he could get a deal in, and then 100 days pass too. He said essentially we have seen all this before.

So I think Russia focusing indeed still on the aerial assaults and on indeed potentially what it might be to achieve across the front lines. Trump's envoy Keith Kellogg has been in Kyiv over the past days and indeed Zelenskyy remarked how there been a downtick in attacks on the capital there, even suggesting Kellogg should get Ukrainian passport and move there.

So I think a bid by Kyiv to suggest that Washington is now fully on its side, even if Trump is still putting back on the harder punches he could potentially land -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Nick Paton Walsh reporting for us, thank you very much -- Pamela.

BROWN: And, Wolf, we are also following breaking news out of Syria this morning, a series of Israeli airstrikes in the capital city of Damascus caught on live television.

Here's that moment. Strikes on the Ministry of Defense building shocked journalists who were reporting nearby. Israel is confirming the strikes, its defense minister saying -- quote -- "The painful blows have begun."

Let's go live now to CNN Jerusalem correspondent Jeremy Diamond.

Jeremy, what more are you learning about these strikes in Damascus?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, we have seen a series of very powerful Israeli strikes in the Syrian capital, including on the Defense Ministry, which is what that video you were just showing is from.

Several bombs seem to have been dropped on that Defense Ministry, another strike taking place near the Syrian presidential palace, as the Israeli government and the military say they plan to continue to intensify their attacks on Syrian forces. Now, why is Israel carrying out these strikes? The Israeli government has said that it has two key reasons. One of them is a purely selfish national security interest, where they say that they want to prevent some of these Syrian government forces, but also Syrian militant forces previously associated with jihadist elements from being on its border, enforcing a unilateral demilitarized zone that Israel has said it is enforcing in Southern Syria.

But then the second element of this has to do with what we have seen in the last few days, and that is attacks on the Syrian Druze community in Suwayda, clashes between some of these -- this Druze community and bedouin tribes in the area. The Syrian government has also gotten involved in some of these clashes. The Syrian government says it is getting involved to stop these clashes.

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But the Israeli government and the military have said they believe the Syrian government is only making matters worse and further endangering this Druze community. Israel has said that it feels connected to this Druze community. There are many members of the Druze faith here in Israel as well. They serve at very high rates in the Israeli military.

And there are also Israeli Druze here, but also Syrian Druze in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, who have in recent months said that they want to go to Syria to actually help their Druze brethren there. And, in fact, today we saw extraordinary scenes in the Golan Heights as hundreds of Druze tried to cross into Syria from the Israeli- occupied Golan Heights in order to try and go and help the Syrian Druze community in Southern Syria.

We saw the Israeli military using tear gas to try and repel them, and the Israeli prime minister himself issuing a message to the Druze community here, saying that, listen, he understands where they're coming from, that the Israeli military is acting to defend the Druze in Syria, but urging them not to cross the border.

So this is a very volatile situation, as the Israeli military also says that it is in fact moving forces, Pam, from Gaza to Israel's border with Syria, sending reinforcements there presumably to secure that border, but also perhaps to prepare for any intensification of those clashes inside of Syria itself.

BROWN: All right, Jeremy Diamond, thanks for bringing us the latest -- Wolf.

BLITZER: And still ahead: President Trump now lashing out at his own supporters over the Epstein files scandal, calling them weaklings for not dropping the issue.

Plus:

BROWN: More on a key figure in the Epstein story, Ghislaine Maxwell, and her role in his crimes.

You're in THE SITUATION ROOM. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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BLITZER: As the controversy over the Trump administration's handling of the Epstein files continues to grow and grow, the president is now lashing out this morning at his supporters, big time.

He says the whole controversy is, and I'm quoting him now, "B.S." And this comes as the U.S. Justice Department is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to deny an appeal from Epstein's former girlfriend and co- conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. That would overturn her sex trafficking conviction.

CNN's Randi Kaye has more on the role the British socialite played in Epstein's crimes.

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AUDREY STRAUSS, FORMER ACTING U.S. ATTORNEY, SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK: Maxwell was among Epstein's closest associates and helped him exploit girls who were as young as 14 years old.

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ghislaine Maxwell, a friend and former lover of Jeffrey Epstein's, she dated the accused sex trafficker in the 1990s and the two remained close.

Federal investigators accused Maxwell of serving as Epstein's madam, recruiting young girls for Epstein to abuse and taking part in the abuse herself.

STRAUSS: She pretended to be a woman they could trust. All the while, she was setting them up to be sexually abused by Epstein and in some cases by Maxwell herself.

KAYE: Long before that, Maxwell had a privileged life in the English countryside, where she grew up. She's the daughter of Czech-born newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell, who died in 1991 after falling off his luxury yacht near the Canary Islands.

Multiple people say Maxwell introduced Epstein to affluent social circles. Maxwell's own exclusive circle included then-future President Donald Trump, seen together here in this photo from 2000, alongside him Melania, who he was dating at the time, and Jeffrey Epstein.

That's Maxwell in the background of this photograph of Prince Andrew with Virginia Roberts, who later became Virginia Giuffre. She had alleged she was trafficked by Epstein with the help of Maxwell and forced to have sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17. The prince emphatically denied all of it and settled Giuffre's lawsuit against him for an undisclosed amount. Giuffre died earlier this year by suicide.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Breaking news just in to CNN: Longtime Jeffrey Epstein confidant and friend Ghislaine Maxwell has been arrested. KAYE: In July of 2020, the year after Epstein took his life in jail,

Maxwell was arrested in New Hampshire. She was charged with six federal counts, including one count of sex trafficking children. She pleaded not guilty. Yet, at her 2021 trial, four women alleged that Epstein sexually abused them and that Maxwell not only helped facilitate, but also participated in some of the abuse between 1994 and 2004.

The women were under 18 at the time. Maxwell was found guilty of five of the six charges against her, including the most serious charge of sex trafficking a girl named Carolyn when she said she was just 14 years old. Carolyn had told the court she participated in sexualized massages with Epstein and recruited other young girls for him.

Carolyn recalled how Maxwell groped her naked body, telling her she "had a great body for Epstein and his friends." In court, the defense tried to portray Maxwell as a scapegoat.

BOBBI STERNHEIM, ATTORNEY FOR GHISLAINE MAXWELL: Clever and cunning to the end, Jeffrey Epstein left Glenn Maxwell holding the whole bag.

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KAYE: Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison but appealed her sex trafficking conviction.

(on camera): For now, Maxwell will continue serving time here in Florida. She's behind bars at FCI Tallahassee, a low security federal correctional institution with a detention center, her scheduled release date, July 17, 2037.

Randi Kaye, CNN, Palm Beach County, Florida.

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BLITZER: Thanks to Randi Kaye for that report -- Pamela.

BROWN: All right, now, Wolf, want to discuss this with Democratic Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal of Washington. She is a member of the House Judiciary Committee.

Congresswoman, thank you for coming on.

So, Republicans, including Senator Josh Hawley, have been calling for Ghislaine Maxwell to come before Congress and testify in public. Is this something you support?

REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): Absolutely, Pamela.

We think that the files should be released. We should have testimonies from Maxwell. This is something that Trump supporters for years called for. And now, all of a sudden, the Trump DOJ, Trump himself is refusing to provide the kind of transparency that he was calling for before he knew what was in the files.

And so that leads to the question of, what are they trying to hide? And I think there should be transparency, regardless of who is implicated. And I think the president's switch and bait on this, bait and switch on this has been very telling in terms of, why does he not want these files released? Why is it that the public cannot know about the thing that he called for himself, amongst many others?

BROWN: Well, some of your Republican colleagues, like Lauren Boebert, are calling for a special counsel to invest (sic) the handling of the Epstein files.

Do you think that that is needed?

JAYAPAL: Well, I think that the thing that Congress can do right away is, there is a discharge petition from Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna that calls for the release of the files.

That, I think, is probably the most important thing that we should do right now, and we should look at all the other ways that we can bring about some transparency on this. I'm not sure I trust a special counsel that's appointed by Pam Bondi, who seems to be involved in the cover-up. So I guess that's the question. How do we get these files released? How do we make sure that the American public sees what is in these files, including that client list that apparently was there and now is no longer there?

BROWN: Well, and DOJ says there isn't a client list, and I know that Pam Bondi said what she said. Our sources tell us that, when she was asked about the client list, she was talking about something that was already publicly available that was handed to influencers.

But I just want to follow up. If you see such a need to investigate this, why didn't you raise it during the Biden administration? We couldn't find that you made any public comments about Epstein in previous administrations.

JAYAPAL: Well, I would have been happy to raise it then as well. Frankly, we were focused on so many different pieces, but I have been one of the Democrats that has been consistent on what I call out Republican presidents for and Democratic presidents for, whether it is FISA reforms that we need.

Whatever it has been, I have been pretty consistent, war powers. I have criticized Joe Biden just as I'm criticizing Donald Trump. I think transparency is not something that should happen only when you have a Republican president. It is something that we need for both Democratic and Republican presidents.

BROWN: So then why didn't you call for more transparency earlier during the Biden administration? I'm just trying to better understand why you are so intent now on calling for this.

JAYAPAL: Well, I think I gave it the same focus that I'm giving it now. We haven't -- I think I have released one tweet on this and you wanted to talk about it, so I'm happy to talk about it here, but it certainly hasn't been the focus.

I'm just responding to what I think is a massive switch from the Trump administration around this issue. My focus has been on the big bad betrayal bill, and I will continue to focus on that. But, yes, I think that this information should have been released under the Biden administration. It should be released under the Trump administration.

BROWN: And I know you have -- your party -- you said you put out a tweet. There are other Democrats as well calling for this and Republicans, we should note, including the speaker of the House saying there should be more transparency.

But President Trump, for his part, is just focusing, in large part, not just on Democrats. He is focusing also on his allies, but he is saying that this is B.S. made up by Democrats. He's calling some of his supporters weaklings for buying into it, saying he no longer wants their support.

What do you make of that?

JAYAPAL: I think he's hiding something. And he's just pouring fuel on the fire.

Look, most of us didn't start calling for some of this until the president started denying that there was anything to release, until Pam Bondi denied that there was anything to release. And so it is the hypocrisy of this president as he says, oh, all of a sudden now there's nothing that we need to deal with, when he himself has called for this before.

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So I think he's just pouring fuel on the fire of, what is it that he's hiding that he feels the need to now criticize his own base of people, by the way, Republicans, as you point out, including the House speaker, who say, yes, let's just release it? If there's nothing to hide, just release it. Don't make excuses by saying, why are people focusing on this?

They're focusing on it because your base made it an issue. You yourself called for it, and it now looks like you are hiding something. So if you have got nothing to hide, release the files.

BROWN: And he has said that he was briefed by Pam Bondi. He said it was short and that he's been given no indication that he was in there. But, of course, like I pointed out, both Republicans and Democrats are calling for more transparency, which is clearly irking the president.

I want to get your response to this conservative radio host we spoke to who mentioned your name. His name is Jason Rantz. And he is arguing Democrats are acting in bad faith. So I want to make sure you can respond. Here's what he said on the show.

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JASON RANTZ, CONSERVATIVE RADIO HOST: They're doing it because they think it's going to create more distrust within the movement. Ultimately, I think that actually hurts them, because I don't know how many MAGA base members are going to say, yes, I support what Pramila Jayapal and Eric Swalwell are saying. I'm on their side.

So, actually, I think they're hurting their own cause.

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BROWN: How do you respond to that?

JAYAPAL: Well, good. Then he shouldn't worry about it. I mean, look, we're all speaking to the bases we have. It's important for my base to hear me talk about transparency.

I think I have a lot of Republicans. They come to my town halls. They listen to what I say. They don't necessarily agree with everything I say, but they do agree on transparency. And they don't like a lot of the things that Donald Trump is doing, from kidnapping people on the streets and disappearing them, to refusing to provide transparency around this case.

So Jason and others should feel perfectly fine then with my calling for this, because they shouldn't have to worry about it if they think that nobody's listening.

BROWN: And I'm going to go to the Big Beautiful Bill in just a second. But do you think your base cares about the Jeffrey Epstein stuff? I mean, I know you say they want transparency, but do you get the sense they care about this issue?

JAYAPAL: I think what they care about is corruption. And there are so many different ways to look at the corruption of this White House. And they do care about authenticity and honesty.

And I think there were a lot of people that are good people who trusted that Trump said he was going to help decrease prices for working people, that he was going to make life better, that he was going to stop inflation on day one, that he was going to stop wars around the world and the United States' engagement.

And they're looking at this as another example of how Trump lied to them, how he said one thing, but he's now arguing for another thing. And, to me, that's -- the corruption and the hypocrisy are the things that are making people question this president, even if they voted for him.

And I have, as I said, people in my district, people across the country who may not agree with me on a bunch of other things, but they do agree that they are disappointed, angry even, with what is happening, including the fact that this big, bad betrayal bill stripped health care -- is going to strip health care from 17 million Americans or strip nutrition assistance, that life isn't getting better for themselves.

And so that's the context in which I think it matters. Certainly, transparency as an issue matters, but it's this broader issue of corruption and hypocrisy.

BROWN: Right. And I want to just follow up on the bill. And certainly the CBO, I

believe it said that around 12 million could lose Medicaid over several years. There's some new CNN polling that shows more than 60 percent of Americans oppose his Big Beautiful Bill of tax and spending cuts.

But when you delve into the numbers here, they actually approve by a 29-point margin of the tax cuts of the bill permanently extended, something many Democrats have been speaking out against. What do you think of that? Do you think Democrats need to rethink their messaging at all on this?

JAYAPAL: No, I think we have been -- I will speak for myself. I have been tying the fact that health care cuts -- and it's -- yes, it's 12 million on Medicaid, but don't forget there's an additional four to five million that will lose health care coverage and see their costs increase because of the Affordable Care Act restrictions that are here as well.

So that's where we get the 16 to 17 million. I think what is important is for people to understand two things, number one, that they are going to be paying more for health care. They're going to be poorer and sicker, right? And why is that? Because $5 trillion in the largest transfer of wealth from poor and working people is going to the wealthiest millionaires, billionaires and corporations.

So that connection is what I have been emphasizing over and over again. It is about making Americans poorer, but you have to ask, why? Why would they do this? Because their constituents are going to get poorer and sicker in their districts.