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What We Know with Max Foster

Midnight Deadline For Justice Department To Release Epstein Files; Reddit Tip Helped Authorities To Brown University Shooting Suspect; U.S. To Pause Diversity Visa Program In Wake Of Shootings; Putin Fields Questions During Annual News Conference; TikTok Spins Off U.S. Assets To Avoid A Ban. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired December 19, 2025 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:30]

MAX FOSTER, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST: Deadline day for the Epstein files, and already, controversy.

This is WHAT WE KNOW.

The U.S. Department of Justice admits it will fail to meet a midnight deadline nine hours from now to release all of the Epstein files. We'll get

some documents, but not everything.

A month ago, President Donald Trump signed the law that started a 30-day clock for the DOJ to release all of the files in a searchable downloadable

format, with few exceptions.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche says they will release several hundred thousand documents today, but he says it will take weeks to complete

redactions so they can't release the rest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TODD BLANCHE, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: So, I expect that we're going to release more documents over the next couple of weeks. So today, several

hundred thousand, and then over the next couple of weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: The Senate's top Democrat and the bill's House Republican co- sponsor are blasting the delay, saying failure to release all of the documents is simply breaking the law. The files are videos, photographs,

audio recordings and written records from the DOJ investigations into Epstein. They include details from FBI interviews as well as financial bank

and travel logs, information that might cause reputational harm to an individual cannot be redacted, but personal details about survivors will be

redacted, as well as information that could jeopardize ongoing investigations.

Let's bring in CNN's crime and justice correspondent, Katelyn Polantz, with the very latest here.

I was talking to Larry Sabato earlier, Katelyn, and he was saying, you know, the problem with this pressure on time is that they could over

redact. So, you may end up with just pages of black.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly right, Max. We've heard that even from sources familiar with the work that's being

done inside the Justice Department since Thanksgiving, essentially, the national security section of the Justice Department, they have taken on

this task of redacting and processing the hundreds of thousands of pages of records related to Jeffrey Epstein. Just remember how far back this goes.

Epstein was first the subject of a complaint of the parents of a 14-year- old girl who was being abused back in 2005.

So, there were many iterations of Justice Department and FBI work bringing in information. There were several different moments in court, both in

lawsuits as well as in grand jury activity. And then the trial and the indictment of his coconspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell. All of that is this

compendium that the Justice Department is working on. We also know that you're right.

There will not be the full transparency around the documents today for two different reasons.

One, there's so many documents. The Justice Department isn't done going through them all and preparing them for the release. The deputy attorney

general, Todd Blanche, said earlier today that several hundred thousand documents will be released today. The deadline set by Congress for full

transparency of the Epstein files. But there will be several hundred thousand more records released over the next few weeks.

There also will be those redactions you mentioned blacked out spaces that will protect, hopefully, all of the information about victims, sensitive

things, sensitive images, as well as personal identifiable information like Social Security numbers. That's the sort of thing that is very well within

the law to keep out from the public transparency or the public's view. But there's going to be people watching, and it's very likely there could be

mistakes made by these lawyers who have been working around the clock, dropping essentially everything to redact these files.

They've been working basically since Thanksgiving to try to meet this deadline. And there could be things that come out that should not be out

there. There could be inconsistencies among the redactions throughout the pages.

And then on top of that, there could be things that get out that shouldn't get out, including something like Social Security numbers or credit card

numbers, the sort of thing that in a past project like this, the redaction and release of the JFK assassination files in March, that there were

several mistakes made in what was ultimately released, the type of information that should have been, Max.

FOSTER: Can I just ask you, Katelyn? I mean, we've got -- we've got these hundreds of thousands of documents landing, then presumably you have a big

team going through all of that, as do other media organizations and academics.

[15:05:05]

At what point do we actually start seeing the pertinent pieces of information come out here?

POLANTZ: Well, Max, it's going to be a tall task to go through this. Quite frankly, there are a lot of people here at CNN who are ready to work on

this and who are very familiar with all of the different iterations of files that have already been out in the public sphere related to Jeffrey

Epstein, especially those court files. Previous justice department reports on how prosecutions or cases against him were handled.

But it is hard to parse the difference between what is surprising. If you see it for the first time and what's actually new. Remember, Ghislaine

Maxwell, she went to trial and was convicted. At that trial, victims testified. There were images in the evidence. There was a lot of other

evidence, including the black business book of Jeff Epstein, the -- not a client list, but the closest thing that anyone has had to some sort of list

of the type of people he was in contact with, just as a high profile and well-connected figure.

These are the sorts of things that it's very rare for someone to have been able to see it all up to this point, because that trial, there were no

cameras there. It was something you would have had to witness sitting inside the courtroom or spending a lot of time going through court records

to look previously. So, this is going to be a lot of information. It's very possible. Much of it is very redundant to what we've seen before.

But, you know, look closely and see what is here. There could very well be new information that comes out, too. Maybe not today, but at some point in

time.

FOSTER: Okay, busy weekend for the crime and justice correspondent Katelyn Polantz. Thank you very much indeed.

Now, Portuguese police are assisting U.S. officials to learn more about the suspect in the Brown University and MIT shootings. Police say Claudio Neves

Valente was a 48-year-old Portuguese national and a former student at Brown University. The Providence police chief also tells CNN that he was very

strategic in his plans.

On Thursday night, officials announced they had found Neves Valente. He was dead in a storage unit in New Hampshire after apparently taking his own

life. An affidavit says a university custodian had spotted someone resembling the suspect. In addition, a post on the social media platform

Reddit was also vital to investigators. That tip helped authorities narrow in on the suspect. That's according to Rhode Island's attorney general, who

explained the impact that tipster had on the case.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER NERONHA, RHODE ISLAND ATTORNEY GENERAL: He deserves a lot of credit, you know, recognizing there's a gunman on the loose that the government

knows he had this interaction with him and he didn't. Once he knew that we were looking for his help -- I mean, he came forward within an hour. And

that person deserves a tremendous amount of credit. I don't know whether he's going to get the reward or not, but if I had a vote, he would.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Danny Freeman joins us now from Rhode Island. I mean, there was criticism, wasn't there, of the early investigation, but the latter part of

the investigation seems quite incredible in the forensic detail that went into.

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's absolutely right, Max. And I'll just say I've covered a lot of manhunts. Now where, frankly, murderers are

on the loose. And this really followed a similar pattern of, frankly, there was a period of quiet. And then all of a sudden, all at once, not only did

they have their suspect for the Brown University mass shooting, but then also this suspect for that shooting of an MIT professor.

So, after six days, this frantic manhunt across New England, here on the East Coast of the United States, finally over. But let's talk a little bit

about that incredible search and some of the details that you just mentioned. So, first of all, this spanned three states, hundreds and

hundreds of tips and of course, multiple agencies. But there were two major breakthroughs, really, that police described over the past several days

that helped them crack this case to find 48-year-old Claudio Neves Valente.

First, there was that Reddit post that you mentioned, and basically it was a post on reddit and the providence Reddit group, and someone wrote in

saying that, quote, I'm being dead serious. The police need to look at a gray Nissan with Florida plates, possibly a rental.

Well, that Reddit post turned out to be prescient because indeed, a rental car was discovered in connection with Neves Valente, and also that rental

car was also seen in the vicinity of the Boston area. Murder of that MIT professor. So that was part of the reason how authorities were able to make

that connection there.

And then there was this second major breakthrough, and that came in the form of a person that police were looking for because they believe that

this person had come into close proximity to their suspect and may have even had a conversation with that suspect. Well, that person came into

police voluntarily and was able to give key details when it comes to the suspect's voice appearance, more information about that car, and even

discussed the confrontation that the person had with the suspect on the day of the shooting.

[15:10:12]

All of that led to what you heard the attorney general of Rhode Island saying, which was basically without that man, this break may not have

happened. Take a listen to his remarks yesterday evening.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NERONHA: He blew this case right open. That person led us to the car, which led us to the name, which led us to the photographs of that individual

renting the car, which matched the clothing of our shooter here in Providence, that matched the satchel that we see here in Providence

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FREEMAN: And then, of course, that car and the identification led to that storage facility up in New Hampshire. Authorities found that rental car had

been abandoned and then ultimately found their suspect deceased with a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside of a storage unit there. The suspect

had actually been renting storage units in that particular facility in New Hampshire, but the last and perhaps most troubling thing is we still don't

know a tremendous amount about this suspect here, Max.

We know he was a Portuguese national. We know that he went to Brown. But two decades ago and he didn't even graduate -- we also know that he at one

point overlapped at undergraduate university in Portugal with the MIT professor who was slain. But again, still, at this point, no clear motive

as to what may have made this man carry out these two attacks.

The one thing I will say, though, Max, is that the mayor of Providence here in Rhode Island, he told CNN earlier on Friday that they're not going to

stop trying to figure out what the reasoning behind this attack may have been, because he felt that is necessary for closure, not just for this

Brown Ivy League campus community, but also for the providence community where this attack took place.

FOSTER: Okay, Danny Freeman, thank you so much. Look at the flowers behind you.

Now, in the wake of these horrific shootings, U.S. immigration officials now plan to pause the diversity lottery immigrant visa program. The

homeland security secretary says the deceased suspect entered the U.S. through that program in 2017. Claudio Neves Valente was a 48-year-old

Portuguese national, as I was saying, and prior to the killings, investigators say he didn't appear to have any criminal history.

Priscilla Alvarez joins us now from Washington.

What do you make of this, Priscilla?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I'm learning more details about what exactly this pause means. A homeland security official tells me that

the department is going to, for now, pause the issuance of green cards for people who came to the United States under the diversity visa program.

Now, what is this program? Well, it was designed many decades ago and is congressionally mandated to essentially provide a pathway to the United

States for those nationalities that do not often migrate to the United States. Originally. In fact, it was intended for Irish immigrants. It has

evolved over time.

And the U.S. admits up to 55,000 immigrants each year under this program, the majority of whom are from Africa. And then, as well as Asia and Europe.

So, this is a blow to the program, because when people arrive to the United States under the diversity visa program, they are issued that green card by

the Department of Homeland Security. Without that issuance, it causes a disruption for those who are here under this lottery, a lottery that

suggests is random but also has security and vetting requirements that are built into it before someone arrives to the United States.

Now, we do not know all of the information regarding this Portuguese national, besides the fact that he entered via this visa program in 2017.

But it is marking another moment by this administration where they are using these domestic incidents to serve as a pretext for tightening the

immigration system. We saw this, for example, a few weeks ago with the Afghan national who allegedly shot those two members of the National Guard.

Well, after that, they halted immigrant applications for 19 countries and have since expanded the travel ban list far beyond Afghanistan and then in

this case, to an individual that came in in 2017 on the diversity visa program is now impacting the program as a whole, as they have decided to

put a pause.

Now, a pause suggest just that, that it's a pause. We do not have clarity on when this pause would lift, and we are still trying to get clarity from

the State Department in terms of whether they're going to accept applications while there is a pause in the program. So, it has been a bit

of a confusing day ever since that late night tweet from the Department of Homeland Security secretary saying this pause was going to happen, but at

the very least, we now know that the Department of Homeland Security is going to pause those issuances of the green cards to those who came under

this program.

So, again, yet another disruption for those individuals who came to the United States legally. Max.

FOSTER: Priscilla, appreciate it.

[15:15:00]

Thank you.

U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff is in Miami, where he has a series of high stakes meetings today. He's set to meet with the top Qatari, Egyptian and

Turkish officials to discuss the next phase of the peace plan for Gaza. He'll also meet with Russian officials to talk through the latest iteration

of the proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine.

Those meetings come as Russian President Vladimir Putin has told his people that he won't be making any more compromises on Ukraine, he told audiences

at his annual address that, in his view, Russia has already made enough concessions and that now it is Ukraine's turn.

Now, CNN's Fred Pleitgen has more for us from Moscow.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Vladimir Putin's big year end press conference lasted well over four hours, and he addressed

questions from people around Russia on various topics, but also international questions as well. Of course, many of them pertaining to the

conflict in Ukraine. The Russian leader saying that Russia remains committed to diplomacy and wants a peaceful solution to the conflict in

Ukraine.

At the same time, the Russian leader also very bullish, saying that if there is no peaceful solution that Russia is willing to continue what it

calls its special military operation for an extended period of time.

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): There won't be any operations if you will be respecting us, treating us with respect,

observing our interests as well as we constantly tried observing your interests. If you won't be tricking us, defrauding us as you did with NATO

expansion to the east, you said that there won't be eastwards expansion of NATO, not for an inch. That is almost a direct quote.

PLEITGEN: The Russian leader also praised the Trump administration and said the diplomatic efforts that the Trump administration has undertaken to end

the conflict in Ukraine, but also to improve relations with Russia, have been immense. At the same time, he also said that right now it's still very

much up in the air, whether or not there are going to be improved relations between Russia and Western nations.

Of course, one of the things that the Russians have been doing is they've been ripping into European countries and to America's European allies and

saying that these countries are not interested in a peaceful solution to the Ukraine question.

Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Moscow.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Coming up, a long road to justice survivors of Jeffrey Epstein, prepare for the release of highly anticipated files. Hoping for justice.

I'll speak to a lawyer representing some of the survivors, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:20:35]

FOSTER: Some survivors of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein say the slow release of information has been distressing. Today is the deadline for

the Department of Justice to release its Epstein files, but Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have been slowly releasing images from the

Epstein estate for months now. They show the people in Epstein's orbit, including philosopher Noam Chomsky, philanthropist Bill Gates and former

Trump strategist Steve Bannon.

CNN has learned Epstein survivors expressed concern with the selective publication of the images in a private meeting with female Democratic

lawmakers. On Thursday's program, one therapist who's been working with various Epstein survivors told me the drip feed of new files and

information has been an ordeal for all the women involved.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDEE KOGAN, THERAPIST TO EPSTEIN SURVIVORS: You know, seeing all of these photos come out, it's quite triggering. There are so many photos of Jeffrey

Epstein being shown over and over and over again, and it's very hard. You know, everywhere they look, there are, you know, they see their abuser or

they see other wealthy men who are associating with Epstein, and they just feel as though they've been fighting and fighting and fighting for justice,

and they don't know who to trust. They don't know who's listening. They don't know who's believing them. And this has been a theme for the past two

decades.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: So what we don't know is will the release of these files help bring any sort of closure to the Epstein survivors?

Joining me now is the attorney, Gloria Allred. She has been representing several women involved in the case.

Thank you so much for joining us. You know, I know it's an incredibly busy day for you. I mean, when we talk about --

GLORIA ALLRED, LEADING WOMEN'S RIGHTS ATTORNEY: Thanks for inviting me, Max.

FOSTER: When we talk about closure, you have to have the files to do that. We're now learning today the, you know, the 11th hour that you're not going

to get all the documents.

ALLRED: Well, closure, first of all, I think is a therapeutic term. I'm a lawyer, so I'm interested in justice. And I do find that when we win

justice, which we often do for many survivors of rich, powerful, famous men, that it does also bring closure. It brings empowerment, which of

course is the most important thing.

Yes, you're correct. We're not going to get everything today because the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, formerly the criminal defense

attorney for the president, has indicated we will get hundreds of thousands of pages of the Epstein files from the Department of Justice, but it will

take several more weeks for the rest of the files to be released.

He cites at least three reasons, which are exceptions under the law. One is protecting victims' names and identity. The other is protecting the images

of child sexual activity, which Epstein recorded in many instances of underage girls. And the third is pending investigations. So, it's

important, of course, for victims' identity and names and images to be protected.

And, you know, we can't argue with the fact that sexual images should not be published to the public, nor, frankly, I -- nor should they be published

to the Congress. And I'm very concerned that they have been published to certain members of the public. I don't know the answer. I'd like to hear an

affirmative no from members of the Congress. And of course, if there are pending investigations, that's the protocol not to provide that

information.

But there is no trust or very little trust in the Department of Justice because of their failures in the Epstein case over a period of years. So

we'll have to see what is released, and well need a reliable narrator to describe what the story is, what the evidence is, and information is in

these Department of Justice files.

And I'm going to say that the press is probably going to be the most reliable narrator for as they dig through all these files to find out first

what is new, or is this just old files that are already public that are being published and to make sense of it.

FOSTER: Yeah, we've got a big team working on it. I mean, it's formidable considering the number of documents that are going to go their way.

[15:25:00]

You know, you know, I'm aware that the survivors will want certain redactions in these documents, but they also don't want them over redacted,

do they? Do you expect the men to be redacted as well?

ALLRED: Well, that is a key issue. Because we've seen photos of rich, powerful, famous men associated with Jeffrey Epstein. It doesn't mean

they've committed any crime. It doesn't mean there's evidence of any wrongdoing. We don't know.

But these are people who some of them are celebrities from the entertainment world, some of them from the business world. And some of

them, you know, from other worlds. So, we'll have to find what the evidence is.

Are they also going to release anything that has to do with President Trump? Of course. His spokesperson says there's nothing, quote, awful in

the files about him. He has not committed any wrongdoing. I'm not saying he has.

I want to know what is it that's associated with him in the files? I want to know what's associated with the other men. If anything, perhaps it's

harmless. Let's find out.

Are those names going to be published? Are there going to be lawsuits by men whose name is published? So, we'll have to see. As this all plays out.

But there are -- I think the survivors are most interested in accountability from third men who are involved with Epstein. And, you know,

did they assist, did they enable, did they conspire to sex traffic underage girls and adult women? This is what we need to know.

And also, we need to know entities, you know, other banks that may have been involved in financing the trafficking of underage girls. So there's a

lot to learn from these files.

FOSTER: Can I ask you -- you know, you're the legal expert here. So, Donald Trump signs this bill into law, saying that these documents have to be

released today.

ALLRED: Uh-huh.

FOSTER: His own law will be broken if they're not, right? Whilst everyone understands the amount of pressure on the lawyers at the Department of

Justice.

ALLRED: There is pressure on them. And -- but they do -- there are exceptions to the law and those are some of the exceptions that he is

giving. So, we don't know. I mean, is Congress -- particularly the Democratic members of the Congress, are they going to put pressure on the

fact on the Department of Justice to release all the files? You're correct, Max, they were all to be released today with the -- with the exceptions we

discussed and perhaps some more, like national security, although what national security has to do with this? We'll have to find out.

So -- but he is saying that in a few weeks, there will be more. But that's a dribble, dribble, dribble. And that's upsetting to the survivors who

thought that everything would be released today. Why? Because that's the law with the exceptions we talked about.

So, it is going to be hard on quite a bit of quite a many of them. I do want to commend them for having many of them spoken out and lobbied to get

these files released. So, we'll find out what's in them, perhaps later rather than sooner.

But, you know, they should have been released in the past. President Trump did not need an act of Congress to order the release of files from the

Department of Justice, but since that was not going to happen, he wasn't going to order their release, he was resisting it, calling it a hoax.

But since that was the case, an act of Congress was necessary, and he did sign it into law, which is important.

FOSTER: I speak to Larry Sabato earlier, he's worked on other big cases where there's been this big release of documents about very high profile

cases. You know, we discussed how, you know, last week, the week before, they could have warned all of the survivors and your team that these

documents weren't going to be ready in time, because it was pretty obvious. It would have been obvious to them then.

He also expressed the concern that this pressure to release the documents, having worked on similar cases, it can mean that you overreact just to be

cautious. There could be pages and pages of black here. Would you have preferred they waited to make the redactions more accurate, or to get them

out now, with the possible over-redaction?

ALLRED: You know, we don't know what's happening down there. There are alleged to be over a thousand survivors of Jeffrey Epstein. I don't think

anybody knows the exact number, but it is going to cause them to have to make many redactions. I know that the department has been in touch with me

about making sure that they have the names of my clients who wish to be redacted, and that's important, and I appreciate that.

We don't want mistakes, you know, in past. We'll call them dumps of documents. In some cases, there have been mistakes and people's private

information has been revealed.

[15:30:05]

We especially don't want that to happen for these survivors, child survivors, adult survivors of child sexual abuse or adult survivors of

adult sexual abuse and or trafficking. So, caution is the watchword as far as I'm concerned, for the release of the files and the names in the files,

but there's going to have to be a point very soon when they put this out. And let's, you know, we'll have to hope that they do a good job in that.

But I'm sure if they release certain names, there are many attorneys like me are representing survivors who will be very, very upset because they

must be protected. That's what the law requires. And that's what we have every right to expect.

FOSTER: I just want to ask you about a broader theme here. Over time, obviously, your campaign has grown and grown and grown. Theres nothing

illegal that we've seen in any of these releases from the estate.

For example, there may not be in these documents that come out, but what we do see is that the narrative of the survivors seems to be constantly

justified or reinforced by a lot of what we see. And the men involved are found to be have less, you know, cohesive narratives. I mean, if I just

take Prince Andrew, for example, I know it's not just about Prince Andrew for you, but, you know, his story breaks down. But the survivor stories

hold up.

Has that been a -- you know, quite interesting to you that, you know, you've grown this support around narrative largely because you haven't had

that illegality given to you in terms of evidence?

ALLRED: Uh-huh. Well, I know a lot more than has been released, and I'm not going to say it because its attorney client communication, but I think it's

important to see what is released and what is the complete narrative. And all -- and I might add that even if they don't release everything and some

items that they should release, you know, they're not home free, so to speak, because, you know, it's really very bizarre that at some point they

had not subpoenaed the files of the Epstein estate to the Department of Justice.

In fact, the Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, formerly the criminal defense attorney for President Trump, indicated when he interviewed Ms.

Maxwell, that afterwards he said he had not had possession of some of the evidence or files from the Epstein estate. Why not? Why weren't those files

at that time at least subpoenaed by the Department of Justice? Have they subpoenaed them since? If not, why not? And if they have, do they have

everything?

If they don't release everything that the Department of Justice has, and if they don't have possession of the documents from the estate of Jeffrey

Epstein, then perhaps -- then we know that the committee in Congress does have those documents, and I guess there'll be a way to see if they are in

possession of the Department of Justice. And if they're not, why not? And if so, when will they have them, and why are they left out.

FOSTER: The questions you've been asking for years, Gloria Allred, I really appreciate you. I know you've got a huge number of days ahead of you.

ALLRED: Thank you.

FOSTER: Still to come, police have named the suspect in the Brown University shooting and have linked him to a separate attack on an MIT

professor. More details on the investigation after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:37:11]

FOSTER: Welcome back.

We are following developments from the Brown University shooting that unfolded last weekend. Police have now identified the suspect as 48-year-

old Claudio Neves Valente. He's a Portuguese national who was found by authorities on Thursday night. He had taken his own life in a storage unit

in New Hampshire. Valente has also been linked to the killing of an MIT professor, who was shot on Monday. Whilst investigation continues,

Portuguese officials are abiding -- are aiding rather, sorry, U.S. authorities to learn more about the suspect.

What we don't know is how did a Reddit post help solve the case, the Brown case?

Joining me now, CNN chief law enforcement analyst John Miller.

John, thank you so much for joining us. I mean, it was a slow start, this investigation, but this incredible forensic level of investigation later on

eventually got their killer.

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: That's right. And they were doing everything that you could do when you have

nothing, right? So, they were -- they were vacuuming up all the video they could from the streets of this shadowy figure, you know, dressed in a mask,

wearing a hat pulled down low in this dark clothing. They were crowdsourcing that to the public.

But this Reddit post you mentioned, this is an individual who posts on Reddit, that's you know, you've got to take a look at this guy. He's

connected to this silver car. I saw him, I followed him around and I looked in the car and so on.

So, they put out a picture of an individual and they say, you know, we also see that the suspect who you're looking at here seems to talk to somebody

in the street. And we want to know who that is, because they could be a good witness. Well, it turns out that that is the Reddit poster.

So, he approaches police and says, you're looking for me? I did that posting on Reddit, and I'm the guy that you put out this other photo of.

And they bring him in and interview him and he says, number one, the suspect were looking at here, Mr. Valente. He said, I first encounter him

in the bathroom at the building where the shooting is going to be on the day of the shooting, but around 1:45.

He doesn't look like he belongs there. I make eye contact with him. I follow him up the street. And then, you know, he makes some turns and it's

a cat and mouse between them. He said he seems to be connected to this car, but when he approaches the car and he sees me, he goes the other way. I

look in the car, I see satchels on the back, on the floor. And, you know, I finally confront him and, you know, he looks at me like he knows me. And he

said, I don't know you from anywhere.

So this is the suspect, you know, during around the time of these confrontations with this, this one witness after the shooting happens is

when he posts that Reddit. It's interesting, Max, because he didn't call police and say, I need to tell you all this, but police reached out and

said, we need to talk to this person. And then he told them the rest.

Here's the thing. Once they knew about that silver car, they were able to use their license plate reader system to bring up pictures of similar

vehicles, show it to this witness and say, is that the car? He said, that looks like it.

They traced that license plate to a rental agency where they said, well, here's the rental agreement. Now, they had a name. They had a date of

birth. They had a driver's license. They had pictures, and they had connections to that other homicide in Boston, where the same car turns up

but with different license plates.

That all happened overnight into yesterday. And then the manhunt was on for somebody finally, in the manhunt, they knew the man they were hunting.

FOSTER: So, this guy, the Reddit poster, was the flaw in the plan, right? Because Valente had covered his tracks meticulously, but obviously, he

couldn't predict some guy taking an interest about why he's being weird around a campus.

MILLER: Isn't that fascinating, Max? I mean, it's -- you've got -- you've got 100 investigators, extraordinarily talented people looking for that one

clue. And the one clue turns out to be a guy who was very pushy, very nosy, very in-your-face. And he is ultimately the straw that broke this case's

back.

FOSTER: Yeah. It's so interesting. John Miller, thank you for taking us through the case as it's been unfolding. And still more to come. I know,

thank you, John.

MILLER: Thanks.

FOSTER: It's the final moments of trade on Wall Street. Stocks are up. The Dow ended the week on a positive note, up half a percent.

This is our business breakout.

The European Union will loan Ukraine more than $120 billion to keep the country's economy and military afloat. Some E.U. leaders wanted to use

frozen Russian funds to help support Ukraine, but that proposal was shelved. Instead, leaders have voted to loan Ukraine the money, using money

from investors.

A Paris court ordered online retailer Shein to implement age verification measures for adult products sold on its French website. They also set a

fine of more than $11,000 for any violations. The tougher restrictions come after an uproar over child-like sex dolls that were sold on the

marketplace.

And TikTok is one step closer to remaining in the U.S. long term after its Chinese parent company agreed to spin off its U.S. assets. The U.S. passed

a law requiring the U.S. version of the app to separate from ByteDance or face a ban. The new entity will be owned by a group of mostly American

investors.

Clare Duffy joins me.

Some are slightly baffled about who controls what with this new business.

CLARE DUFFY, CNN TECH REPORTER: Not a straightforward sell off of TikTok's U.S. assets. What they're doing here is creating a new joint venture to

control the U.S. version of TikTok. This joint venture will be controlled 50 percent by a group of investors.

That includes the tech company Oracle, the private equity firm Silver Lake and the Emirati-backed investment firm MGX. They own 50 percent of this

joint venture, just over 30 percent will be held by existing ByteDance investors. We don't know exactly who is part of that group.

And then 19.9 percent of this new joint venture will continue to be owned by ByteDance. And what's interesting about this, according to this memo

that was sent around to employees by TikTok CEO Shou Chew yesterday, is that this new U.S. based entity is going to control U.S. data security that

will be overseen by oracle in the U.S. It will control the algorithm that U.S. users see and content moderation for U.S. users.

But the existing global version of TikTok that is owned by China based ByteDance, they'll continue to oversee advertising, marketing and e-

commerce on this new U.S. platform. So, these two entities, the U.S. version of TikTok and the global existing company will continue to be quite

interconnected here. And I think you could ask whether that really meets the spirit of this ban or sale law that Congress passed the bipartisan

majority over these national security concerns last year.

But President Trump has said in an executive order back in September that this deal constitutes a qualified divestiture under the law. So these

parties continue to move forward with the hopes of closing this deal by January 22nd of next year.

FOSTER: It's happening. Clare, thank you so much.

Now still to come, it seems to be official. President Trump's name is added to the Kennedy Center in the U.S. capital. Is the name change even legal,

though?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:47:44]

FOSTER: Washington, D.C. is the new home to the Trump Kennedy Performing Arts Center, at least according to the sign on the front of it. Anyway,

that sign was installed after the board of trustees at the national museum and cultural center voted in favor of the name change. However, there are

questions about whether the board has the authority to rename the arts institution.

For more on this, I want to bring in CNN's Kristen Holmes in Washington.

I mean, a bit embarrassing if they had to take it down now.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It certainly is, and it doesn't seem as though they would take it down. Essentially, what you're

seeing here is likely to be what we saw with the Department of War versus the Department of Defense. When they renamed the Department of Defense, the

Department of War, they did not do so by asking Congress. Instead, they basically just changed the signage. And it is still effectively the

Department of Defense.

But everything says the Department of War . Not clear if that's the same circumstance here, but it seems unlikely they're going to take down all

that signage that says President Trump and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

And part of the reason there are questions about the legalities of this are that when this was actually designated as a memorial to JFK, it was done so

by Congress. Congress basically passed that into law. So, whether or not the board of trustees can just turn around and change this name, that's

where the question is.

But I will also note, you know, we talk about this board of trustees. It should be mentioned that when President Trump took office, he gutted the

board of trustees at the Kennedy Center, replaced it with loyalists who then elected him to be chair of the board. So, this kind of movement here,

in terms of a name-change really isn't that surprising.

FOSTER: They're probably more focused, aren't they, on something they're not really addressing, which is the Epstein files, which are coming out

today. I mean, what are they saying about that though? Are they nervous?

HOLMES: They're bracing to see what's in these documents. Here's the thing. When you talk to these White House officials and they've been telling me

this for quite some time, they really don't believe. And many of them, they haven't seen these documents. But this is going off of what they've had in

conversations.

They believe that there's not going to be some kind of smoking gun in these documents that shows that President Trump did something illegal because in

their mind, in the way that they've argued it, if there was something in there, it would have already come out, particularly in a Democratic

administration, for example. But they are wary of the relationship President Trump had with Epstein. They know that it existed, and any kind

of documents or parts of these files that highlight the close relationship they had, the bond that the two men had are bound to take over media

coverage.

[15:50:11]

They're bound to eclipse anything else President Trump is doing. And this story has just become, max, the one that this White House cannot shake.

They have tried to move away from this for months, unsuccessfully. And again, now they're bracing themselves for an entire new news cycle about

Epstein.

FOSTER: Okay, Kristen, thank you so much. We should be getting them in the next few hours.

The U.S. Health Department is planning to overhaul the recommended vaccines for children. That's according to a person familiar with the plans. The

proposed new schedule would recommend fewer shots, bringing the U.S. closer in line with what's recommended in other developed countries. President

Donald Trump ordered the vaccine review, calling the current recommendations for children ridiculous.

Still to come, Donald Trump has proposed a new competition for American youth, and it's already being compared to another very famous and fictional

tournament.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: One young man and one young woman.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One courageous young man and woman.

TRUMP: From each state and territory.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For the honor of representing district 12.

TRUMP: The first ever Patriot Games.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The 74th annual hunger games.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: As you may have guessed, the Internet has been quick to point out the similarities between the Patriot Games and the "Hunger Games". The

latter series also features a girl and a boy competing from each district in the nation's capital. Although slightly more dystopian and violent, of

course, Mr. Trump's political rival, the California Governor Gavin Newsom, responded to the news with the famous catchphrase from the series may the

odds be ever in your favor.

Finally, tonight, taking public proposals to new heights, this is the moment a Russian journalist at Vladimir Putin's annual news conference took

to the microphone to ask his girlfriend Olga to marry him. The couple have apparently been together for eight years, but we're not sure whether Olga

actually said yes.

[15:55:01]

She was watching at home, but we do know that her husband, to be potentially went on to invite President Putin to the wedding.

President Putin didn't immediately accept the invite either, so the guy's sort of left flagging a bit there.

And boxing fans are getting excited about Anthony Joshua's return to the ring. The former world heavyweight champion will take on social media

influencer Jake Paul in Miami tonight. The 36-year-old Joshua hasn't fought professionally since 2024. The fight will consist of eight three-minute

rounds. Official figures haven't been released, but both men are expected to earn tens of millions of dollars from fighting. The main event will

stream on Netflix.

I'm Max Foster, that's WHAT WE KNOW.

Do stay with CNN.

END

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