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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Sources Say, A.G. Bondi Told Trump His Name was in Epstein Files; Judge Sentences Idaho Students' Killer to Life Without Parole; French President Sues Candace Owens Over Claims His Wife was Born Male. Tariff Disruption Ripples Through Event Industry Businesses; Doctor Pleads Guilty In Case Tied To Matthew Perry's Death. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired July 23, 2025 - 18:00   ET

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

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper.

A packed hour, a slew of new details in the Jeffrey Epstein case, just as a judge declines to release some grand jury documents from the criminal investigation. CNN has confirmed that the U.S. attorney general, Pam Bondi, told President Trump back in May that his name was one of many in the Epstein files. We're breaking down all the developments.

Plus, the man who murdered four Idaho college students was officially sentenced to life in prison today. But his motive may never be known as he refused to speak during their hearing. We did hear from the victims' families and friends, their emotional comments and moments.

Also, the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, and his wife, Brigitte, are suing right wing podcaster and conspiracy theorist Candace Owens. The lawsuit of accuses Owens of a relentless and unjustified smear campaign against the couple. The lawyer for the president and First Lady of France is going to join us live ahead.

We are following huge developments in three major stories. First, remember that Signal app scandal back in March, the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, shared detailed military plans in a group chat that included a journalist accidentally? Well, sources tell CNN that the Pentagon inspector general has evidence that Hegseth's message were taken from a document that was marked classified, despite what Hegseth has said.

Second, a federal judge today denied the Justice Department's request to unseal grand jury documents from the criminal probe into alleged sex trafficker and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

And, third, sources tell CNN that U.S. Attorney General Bondi told President Trump that his name was in the Epstein files.

Let's bring in CNN's Jeff Zeleny at the White House. Jeff?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Jake. We are learning this evening that the president was briefed, as you said, by his Attorney General Pam Bondi back in May that his name was mentioned in the Epstein files. That is what we do know. What we do not know is the context in which his name appeared.

Of course, it has long been established that the president was a longtime friend of Jeffrey Epstein back in the 1990s in New York. They were featured at many parties together. Jeffrey Epstein attended a one of Donald Trump's weddings, at least, and on from there. But what this does is return the questions, the unanswered questions back to the White House.

The White House, of course, has been working overtime trying to change the subject with the deflection, with the distraction. But what this shows is that Pam Bondi, the attorney general, told the president that, look, your name is mentioned in here. Of course, several other names, many, many, many other names are mentioned in these volumes of files, but it does not answer the questions that distill remain about this entire matter.

Now, White House officials are telling us, look, this is not surprising. The president knew his name would be in there, but they are saying that he did nothing wrong. Of course, the president severed his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein over a real estate fight in Florida in the mid-2000s here.

But what this does, again, return the conversation back to the president's name being in the files. Of course, the files have not been released. There's been an uproar over that. And many people are wondering if it is because of the Trump mentions in here. Again, we don't know the context of how many times his name appears but we do know the president was briefed on this by his attorney general.

TAPPER: Yes. We should reiterate this doesn't mean he did anything wrong. There's a lot of hearsay in investigative documents, by definition, but it's sure interesting.

Jeff Zeleny at the White House, thanks so much.

I want to bring in Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland. So, Congressman, just a short while ago, a house oversight committee voted to subpoena the Justice Department to release files related to Epstein and the House Oversight chair, James Comer, he's still going to need to sign off on it. Sign off on this subpoena before it's issued. Do you support it?

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Well, of course, Congresswoman Summer Lee took the advantage of a hearing taking place to advance what the whole country's talking about, which is just getting Donald Trump and Pam Bondi to release the file. But she said we should use the subpoena power of Congress to do it. There was a bipartisan vote. The chair of the committee, Higgins, was outvoted by a coalition of all the Democrats and some of the Republicans, including Nancy Mace, even Scott Perry. And they voted to do it. So, I hope Chairman Comer will show the backbone to go ahead and render that subpoena and we'll see if we can do it.

The whole country knows that after the president has made such a big deal out of this for months and months and months, he's got to release the files that he seems to know the contents of based on conversation with the Department of Justice and the FBI.

TAPPER: So do you support Comer issuing a subpoena for convicted Epstein Associate Ghislaine Maxwell for a deposition on August 11th?

[18:05:01]

And is she credible? I mean, she's been charged with perjury.

RASKIN: She's a convicted felon who was helping to run that massive sex abuse ring and operation and she's likely to lie. But -- and, you know, that's no reason not to bring her in. If people want to hear her testimony, we can make that assessment of the credibility ourselves, just like with every other document of the more than 100,000 documents that Trump and Bondi had more than a thousand FBI agents reviewing through the night on a 24-hour shift in order to find mentions of Donald Trump, which they were supposed to bring back to the White House, and they did, apparently, telling them that he was in there and now suddenly he doesn't want the files released. All the more reason they must be released and the public has the right to know.

TAPPER: So, Epstein's House was first raided in Palm Beach in 2005, and one of the questions I've heard from Republicans is, where have Democrats been on this? That certainly now this is an opportunity to bring attention to something that Donald Trump doesn't want attention to. But if Democrats really cared about this, and I'm, I want to except some Democrats, like Debbie Wasserman Schultz from Florida, who's been active in some of these issues, but why now? Like, why not -- I mean, these victims have needed justice for 20 years.

RASKIN: Yes, that's the easiest question. In the world, Democrats have been demanding, like Debbie Wasserman Schultz, justice for these human trafficking, sex abuse victims all along, both in Florida and all over the country. We were the ones who were backing the real prosecution of Epstein. It was Donald Trump's later named Secretary of Labor Acosta, the Republican U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Florida, who threw away a 60-count federal indictment trading in for one state charge of solicitation and the sweetest of sweetheart contracts given to Epstein, covering up a bunch of his associates and letting him stay free during the days for 18 months and just spending the night in jail after they knew that he was raping girls and running that sex abuse operation.

It was under President Biden that Maxwell was prosecuted and sentenced to 20 years in jail. So, Donald Trump now has been campaigning on releasing the Epstein files. Then we say, fine, let's make it bipartisan. We can all care to stop human trafficking in America. Let's just do it and stop playing these partisan games. That's about the dumbest question I've heard during, you know, this entire episode. The Democrats have been pressing for release of all of this information, and we are the ones who are, by the way, fighting Donald Trump, who's been dismantling anti-human trafficking programs throughout the government, including Department of State, Department of Justice, Department of Labor, all throughout the country and all around the world. So, I hope we can turn our attention to that once we get through the Epstein thing.

TAPPER: All right. Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin and Maryland, thank you so much, sir. Good to see you.

RASKIN: You bet.

TAPPER: My political panel's here to discuss. We have with us Democratic Strategist Ameshia Cross, Marc Short, who is former Chief of staff to the then Vice President Mike Pence, and CNN's Chief Legal Affairs Correspondent Paula Reid.

So, Paula, let me start with you. The federal judge today denied the Justice Department's request that these pertinent grand jury transcripts be released, the ones that went into the Epstein case and the Ghislaine Maxwell case, although I guess there are still some that could be opened in New York. That judge was in Florida.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly right. The Justice Department has requested evidence be unsealed for multiple grand juries. Today, this decision is related to the 2005- 2007 grand juries. They were paneled down in West Palm Beach, Florida. And there, the judge said, look, the Justice Department is arguing that this should be unsealed because of, quote, extensive public interest and transparency to the American public. She said that does not qualify as an exception to the default, which is that this is confidential material. So, you're not going to get the material down there unless the Justice Department appeals.

But there is a glimmer of hope. This has only been a long shot. But there's a glimmer of hope they might get something in New York. What we know out there is that the judge has given the Justice Department another week to come up with some more robust legal arguments for why this should be released. They've also given though Maxwell and any potential victims another week or so to weigh in here about what they think.

This is a long shot. The default is to keep this confidential. Maxwell is expected to oppose this. Now, interestingly, her lawyers had asked to be able to review this material up in New York. That was denied today as well.

TAPPER: Oh, interesting. Marc Short. I'm quite certain that Mike Pence's name is not in the Epstein files. But I will say just because one's name is in any of these documents, thousands of pages, a lot of it's hearsay, a lot of it's investigative, who knows whose names are in there. Just because somebody's name is in it doesn't mean they did anything illegal or even anything wrong. Still, it is odd that Trump's name is in there, and he was told that in May, and we're only finding this out now in July.

[18:10:03]

MARC SHORT, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF TO V.P. MIKE PENCE: Well, I think that was probably the least surprising news of the day, Jake, when you learn that the president who had campaigned and the vice president had said so much that they would release this, that the attorney general had, then when they backed off it, I think most people assume that the president's name was included in there. And she said, you don't know what the context is, but I don't think they're going to get this behind them until they actually released the files.

I do think that Congressman Raskin protest a little bit too much. I mean, it was only a couple years ago the Democrats had control of the House, the Senate, and the Department of Justice. And so if they wanted to release these files, they certainly had the ability to do that themselves.

TAPPER: I don't disagree. Ameshia, House Oversight Committee voted to subpoena the Justice Department to release files related to Epstein that Comer still has to sign off on it. What do you make of it all?

AMESHIA CROSS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, at this point I think that the White House is trying to basically move the ball. He doesn't want to release the Epstein files. He knows that his name is in it. He also just wants this story to go away. And in large part, it may not be because of an actual crime being committed as much as it is guilt by association. He wants to be talking about anything except this.

And I think that at this point Republicans within the House, as well as Republicans in the Senate, they need to call on him to release these. But all of them need to align on this, one, because it's not going to go away. The story is not going to go away. A lot of his acolytes were the people who pushed the story to begin with, they are the ones who said drain the swamp. He is the one who is now expanding that swamp. And it looks worse and worse every day that he continues to delay.

TAPPER: Tell me what you think about this subpoena to release the files from the Justice Department that the Oversight Committee just issued.

REID: Look, all of this is theater, right? The choreography here has been so poor. The Justice Department could have easily kicked the can down the road on this another 18 months. How could they have done that? Well, they could have done what they did with a grand jury, made those requests, delay a couple months, then go do their Maxwell theater down at the prison in Florida, another couple months, then hand it to Ed Martin to sit with and fire off some letters, then give it to his attorney. They could have stretched this out. They have made a mess.

I don't think this is going to be what gets Pam Bondi to turnover at letters. We know the Justice Department of the Hill, they don't play nice. But the pressure is going to continue to be on the attorney general and President Trump to release something. Because people who really care about, they know the information in the grand jury is just a sliver of what exists, and the bulk of what exists remains under the authority of the attorney general to release.

TAPPER: Meanwhile on the subject of news that the Trump administration doesn't like, sources tell CNN that the Pentagon's inspector general has evidence that military plans shared by Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, on Signal, an unclassified forum, an app, they were taken from a CENTCOM document marked classified at the time, even though the Pentagon has said that that's not true. Do you think if the inspector general's report comes out and basically confirms what we're reporting in The Washington Post is first reported, do you think that will -- there will be any consequences for Hegseth or no, it doesn't matter?

SHORT: I think we're past that, honestly, Jake. I think that -- I think we're missing the point that mission was incredibly successful, the strikes on Iran, incredibly successful. Recruitment has been up. I think that they should have admitted a mistake on that from the very beginning. They should have just admitted a mistake and we say, we're not going to do this again. We recognize that Signal is not a secure communication vehicle and classified documents shouldn't be communicated that way.

There's also -- I mean, the White House Situation Room is there to help you have these sorts of conversations in a very classified manner. So, it was a big mistake, but they should have just accepted the mistake and said, we're not going to do it again.

TAPPER: The thing is, I don't disagree with what you're saying, forest for the trees, but not only did they say there was nothing classified, he said it under oath before Congress.

REID: Yes. Hillary Clinton would also like a word. I mean, the past decade has been defined. The one thing that unites all the parties is sort of an inability to protect your classified information and then watching those stories be weaponized.

And, again, the statement under oath also could become a problem. But the idea that they're going to just sort of brush off sharing classified information on Signal, well, I believe it was just yesterday Trump was talking about Hillary Clinton's potential misuse of a private server and potential mishandling of classified information.

CROSS: I was going to say, Marc knows this probably better than anybody from serving in the administration, this is a continuation of them not admitting to any level of wrongdoing. And for, you know, this party, the Republican Party, to have called out Hillary Clinton, I think rightfully so, to a certain extent, on, you know, using a server that was not protected, you have to have that same level of upset around Pete Hegseth, who many of us knew was lying when he said that it wasn't protected information to begin with.

Now, what is the next move going to be? Is he going to say that this -- that he has the authority to declassify, which is what we heard from Donald Trump when he got raided a Mar-a-Lago with documents that he shouldn't have had? Is this going to be more of the same?

And I think that with this administration we can also probably guess that he has used this method more than a few times when it comes to classified information over signal because we know he had more than one chat.

TAPPER: All right, thanks to one and all. I appreciate it. Coming up next, hear the emotional statements in court today in Idaho from the family and friends of the Idaho murder victims, as the killer is officially sentenced to life in prison.

[18:15:06]

Plus, the ruling from a judge today in that case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the undocumented migrant from Maryland, the ruling that means he will stay behind bars, at least for now, those details ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Big news in our Law and Justice Lead today, Bryan Kohberger has now been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the horrific murders of four young University of Idaho students in their off-campus home in 2022. Kohberger declined his chance to speak before the packed courtroom today, but his victims, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, and Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin, they were all remembered through their families' gutting and emotional and candid victim impact statements.

CNN's Jean Casarez is in Boise, Idaho, for this unforgettable and emotional day.

[18:20:03]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALIVEA GONCALVES, KAYLEE GONCALVES' SISTER: The truth is your basic.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It was a morning filled with incredible emotion in an Idaho courtroom as heartbroken family members delivered victim impact statements. In the sentencing hearing of Bryan Kohberger.

DYLAN MORTENSEN, SURVIVING ROOMMATE: I should have been having the college experience in starting to establish my future. Instead, I was forced to learn how to survive the unimaginable.

CASAREZ: Kohberger, the man responsible for brutally stabbing four University of Idaho students to death in their sleep back in 2022.

MORTENSEN: I had to sleep in my mom's bed because I was too terrified to close my eyes.

CASAREZ: The surviving roommate sharing the trauma they say they have endured since that tragic night.

EMILY ALANDT, READING SURVIVING ROOMMATE BETHANY FUNKE'S STATEMENT: I slept in my parents' room for almost a year. I made them double lock every door, set an alarm. And still check everywhere in the room just in case someone was hiding.

MORTENSEN: He had shattered me in places I didn't know he could break.

CASAREZ: And family member after family member expressing their pain.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will grow old without our only child, our bright, beautiful friend and daughter.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The emotional toll you've inflicted on me is immeasurable. I live with a constant ache with birthdays that are now memorials, with holidays that fell hollow, with empty chairs that scream louder than words ever could.

CASAREZ: And their anger victim, Kaylee Goncalves' father moving the lectern to direct his comments directly to his daughter's killer, dramatically shifting the tone in the courtroom.

STEVEN GONCALVES, KAYLEE GONCALVES' FATHER: The world's watching because of the kids, not because of you. Nobody cares about you. You're not worth the time, the effort to be remembered. Anytime you will be nothing but two initials forgotten to the wind. No visitors, nothing more than initials on an otherwise unmarked tombstone.

CASAREZ: Perhaps the most striking statement coming from Kaylee Goncalves' sister.

A. GONCALVES: Your textbook case of insecurity disguised as control.

Let me be very clear. Don't ever try to convince yourself you mattered just because someone finally said your name out loud.

CASAREZ: The convicted killer appeared emotionless while in court and declined to address the court when given the chance.

JUDGE STEVEN HIPPLER, IDAHO FOURTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT: The time has now come to end Mr. Kohberger's 15 minutes of fame. It's time that he be consigned to the enmity and isolation of perpetual incarceration.

CASAREZ: The judge not sparing his own harsh words for the killer.

HIPPLER: I'm unable to come up with anything redeeming about Mr. Kohlberg because his grotesque acts of evil have buried and hidden anything that might have been good or intrinsically human about him.

CASAREZ: Sentencing him to life in prison without the possibility of parole for all four counts of murder plus fines, and ten years for the burglary charge.

HIPPLER: I will not attempt to speak about him further other than to simply sentence him so that he's forever removed from civilized society.

CASAREZ: And as he heads to prison, he does so with the parting words of the families he tried to silence.

A. GONCALVES: I see through you. You want the truth? Here's the one you'll hate the most. If you hadn't attacked them in their sleep in the middle of the night like a pedophile, Kaylee would've kicked your fucking ass.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CASAREZ (on camera): And we just learned some brand new information, documents that we have never seen. They have not been made public, have just been made public. Xana Kernodle, one of the victims, she was on the floor in her bedroom, we knew that, but there was blood all over her and there was blood over objects in the room, all over the room. They believe there was a terrible struggle. And her boyfriend, Ethan, was in the bed.

Kaylee Goncalves and Maddie Mogen were in bed with a pink blanket over them. And Kaylee's face was unrecognizable. Her facial structure had been severely damaged. Jake?

TAPPER: Just horrible, just absolutely horrible.

Jean Casarez in Boise, Idaho, thank you so much.

More on our Law and Justice Lead now, Kilmar Abrego Garcia could stay in jail for at least another 30 days, but after that, he could become a free man while he awaits trial on human smuggling charges. That's because a federal judge in Tennessee today said federal prosecutors had not shown through clear and convincing evidence that Abrego Garcia would pose any sort of danger if he were out.

He had been living in the U.S. illegally. He was deported to El Salvador despite a judge's previous order saying he could not be sent back to El Salvador after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered him back. The Trump administration returned him in June and filed those human smuggling charges.

France's President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, are suing right wing podcaster and conspiracy theorist Candace Owens for defamation.

[18:25:05]

The first couple's lawyer joins me in studio next to explain exactly what the Macrons are suing Candace Owens about.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Our World Lead now, French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, are suing right wing podcaster and conspiracy theorist Candace Owens. The defamation lawsuit filed today in Delaware claims that Owens has engaged in a, quote, relentless and unjustified smear campaign against the couple. The complaint goes on to allege that Owen spread outrageous conspiracy theories that France's first lady could be a man, that the Macrons are related in committing incest, and that the Macrons, the couple, is being controlled by the CIA. Obviously, those are deranged claims.

[18:30:00]

In response to the filing, Owens posted a screenshot of a news story about the lawsuit on her Instagram page and wrote, I will be coming for this wig today. Stay tuned. Owens has, of course, a history of all sorts of deranged conspiracy theories and vile anti-Semitic rhetoric. She was temporary suspended from YouTube for anti-LGBT comments.

Joining us now to discuss is Tom Clare, the lawyer for the Macrons, Emmanuel and Brigitte. And we should note that if people recognize you, they might remember you from the Dominion case, suing Fox News for defamation, which resulted in $787.5 million settlement from Fox, but who's counting?

So, the lawsuit claims that this has been a year-long campaign by Candace Owens. Why are the Macrons suing now? Like what changed? Why Sue now?

TOM CLARE, ATTORNEY REPRESENTING PRESIDENT MACRON AND MADAME MACRON: Well, this was really a last resort. We have attempted to engage with her for the last year, putting evidence in front of her, request after request after request, that she just simply do the right thing. This is not a legal thing. Do the right thing, tell the truth. Stop spreading these lies.

And each time we've done that, she mocked the Macrons. She mocked our efforts to set the record straight. She refused to, you know, retract what she had said. She started a merch campaign. She's selling T- shirts, mocking and celebrating her defamation of them. And enough is enough. It was time to hold her accountable for this campaign.

TAPPER: So your lawsuit alleges, quote, every time the Macrons leave their home, they do so knowing the countless people have heard and many believe these vile fabrications, it is invasive, dehumanizing and deeply unjust. Some people out there might think, really, the first couple of France can't leave their home in France without worrying that people believe the deranged nonsense from this American podcaster?

CLARE: Yes. What people don't really understand, and a lot of people can go on T.V. and talk about the president, talk about the first lady, you know, pundits can get on and talk about them. But what people forget is these are human beings. These are a married couple. They have a social life. They have a private life together. They have the same feelings and the same hurt from these sorts of def defamatory statements as anybody would. And it does have a material impact on them. It is -- you know, it's incredibly upsetting to have this said year-after-year.

And this sort of falsehood is a cancer, and it metastasizes into obviously the media, but it also metastasizes into other circles that they're running in. They get asked about it, of course. Even in the circles that they run in, they get asked about these campaigns and they shouldn't have to go through that.

TAPPER: It's pretty horrible. I mean, she also engages in Holocaust denial and all sorts of anti-Semitism. She just posted a video reacting to the lawsuit. She calls it a, quote, obvious and desperate public relations strategy. What's your response?

CLARE: Well, first of all, I'd like to thank her for that reaction to the lawsuit. She's only helping us with our claim for punitive damages by expressing no remorse and obviously doubling down on these falsehoods. But I don't think she's going to feel the same way about this being a public relations stunt after her deposition and after she has to sit for trial.

TAPPER: So, you're alleging that Candace Owens made these allegations despite knowing that they were false. I don't know that she knows they're false. I mean, she says a lot of crazy, just completely insane, hateful stuff about Jews, about the Holocaust, about like I don't know what she knows to be true or not. She says a lot of lies. How do you know that she's lying as opposed to a deeply disturbed individual?

CLARE: Well, it's one. It could be both, of course. It's one of the reasons why our complaint is 219 pages long. We wanted to lay out exactly that. We wanted to explain to the court, and we wanted to explain to the people that will see our lawsuit, how we can prove that she knows it's false.

We put -- we alleged that there's evidence that she knew it was false when she started this campaign over a year ago. She started relying on things she knew was discredited. But then over the past year when we have put this information directly in front of her, even if you want to give her a pass for the early crazy stuff that she said, after we put facts and information in front of her, black and white, multiple times --

TAPPER: Like what? Like the first lady's birth certificate? Like what kind of facts?

CLARE: Yes. We have laid out extensive evidence in our complaint demonstrating that she was born a woman. She's always been a woman. And the allegations of CIA control conspiracy and the incest and all the other things are demonstrably false, putting aside the fact that they're all inherently implausible. What you said at the outset is obviously really important. In our system, if you're making an inherently implausible allegation, the standard is higher. You have to come forward with better evidence if you're going to say it, she has none of it. All she's done is mock them and ridiculed them and repeated it.

TAPPER: There are a bunch of these hate mongers out there that have been saying the same thing about Michelle Obama, the former first lady of the United States. Do you think she should sue?

CLARE: Well, I haven't looked at her claim, but I believe that everybody has a right to their reputation, and I think our Constitution makes that very clear. Defamation is not protected by the First Amendment.

[18:35:00]

And if it's impacting Michelle Obama or anybody else, they have a right to access our court system and have a trial. In our system, that's the way we determine truth or falsity. We do it in court. We do it with rules. We do it with legal standards, and it's a place where evidence matters. And that's why we've taken Candace to court where we can actually have a trial on the truth. TAPPER: You're asking for punitive damages. How much money do you want? And do you want her to apologize?

CLARE: Well, we'd love an apology, of course. A court can't order her to apologize, and based on her conduct, especially today, we don't expect her to do anything other than double down. We'll put forward our damage claim at trial. But if she continues to double down between now and the time of trial, it'll be a substantial award.

TAPPER: Well, can you give me an idea? Are we talking -- I mean, the last time you were involved in something, the settlement was $787.5 billion. That was Fox News for their many, many lies about Dominion software, Fox News. But are you looking for that kind of settlement? She doesn't have $787.5 million.

CLARE: Well, you look at what happened with Alex Jones and juries. Understand. Juries understand that there is an inherently large value to somebody's reputation. And if you're going to say these vile things, and if you're going to repeat them to a significant audience, as she has, she has over 5 million followers, and her lies have metastasized into actual publications. So, we see other publications that pick up on it, and they report on it. And when you ask them, when we reached out to them and say, what's your basis for this? They point back to her.

TAPPER: What are the other publications?

CLARE: They're detailed into complaint. We've seen Newsweek and New York Post, and others have pointed to her as the source of their reporting on this.

TAPPER: But they're asserting it as if it's true based on what Candace Owens is saying?

CLARE: They repeat what Candace has said, and they cite her as a source. And so they fall back on her, but she is at the epicenter of this campaign. That's why we picked her. That's why we're going for her, is because she is the one whose lies are metastasizing or spreading, and she under our system of defamation, is liable for all those republications.

TAPPER: Are you not worried at all that the fact is that this is a disturbed individual, Candace Owens, who loves attention, loves the fact that we're talking about her on CNN? She doesn't -- whatever happened to her as a child, like she doesn't care that the attention's negative, she just likes it?

CLARE: Yes.

TAPPER: And you're bringing her more?

CLARE: Yes. I mean, it obviously goes into the mix and we don't, we did not do this as our first choice. But Jake if that mindset allowed the Macrons to sit back, that's how disinformation takes root. That's how disinformation wins is. You've got to take that first step and you've got to take a principled step. And I applaud the Macrons for their courage in taking this on.

TAPPER: All right. Tom Clare, thanks so much for being here.

CNN has learned that the company trying to buy CBS News and its parent company, Paramount Global, is making a series of promises to help get that very lucrative merger approved.

Let's get right to CNN Chief Media Analyst Brian Stelter. Brian, Skydance Media is the name of the company. They're negotiating with Trump's FCC. What kind of pledges is Skydance making?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Yes. The new filings say that Skydance does not have any DEI programs in place currently, and it promises not to add any if this merger is approved. Plus, once in charge of Paramount, the new owners will hire an ombudsman at CBS, and that person will evaluate complaints of bias. The company's promising to carefully consider any such complaints.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee, who once showed his loyalty to Trump by wearing a gold lapel pen of Trump's head, he sent around today's Skydance letters to associates. That might be a signal that he's pleased by the comments and willing to move forward with an approval of this merger.

When I asked Carr if the filing changes anything or if he will comment on when he expects to complete this very lengthy merger review, he did not respond.

But the lone Democrat on the FCC weighed in today, Anna Gomez is her name. She recently said that companies are coming to the FCC to, quote, negotiate their capitulation. As for these letters, she said today that the new Paramount owners are quoting the FCC -- are granting the FCC, quote, never before seen controls, over newsroom decisions and editorial content.

She's expressing concern about that kind of chilling effect in the air at CBS. But the bottom line, Jake, is we don't know if and when the Trump administration will bless this merger.

TAPPER: They're certainly getting a lot from Skydance, CBS and Paramount.

Brian Stelter, thanks so much.

Next to CNN exclusive, brand new comments from public officials in Kerr County, Texas, revealing some of them may have slept through the emergency notifications about the fatal flood. We're going to have a live report from the special legislative session in Texas.

Stay with us.

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[18:40:00]

TAPPER: We have major new developments for you on the local response to the deadly July 4th flooding in Kerr County, Texas.

Let's bring in Shimon Prokupecz who's in Austin, Texas, for us. Shimon, you just attended a Texas legislature meeting today. You caught up with some officials. What are they saying about the response that day?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Look Jake, the big thing here is the local response. How were the local leaders reacting to the worst moments of this storm as the buildup was occurring in the 1:00 A.M. hour, in the 2:00 A.M. hour, things were starting to happen. Where were the local leaders and what were they doing?

And one of the key questions that we've been trying to answer is, what was the emergency operations coordinator doing in those hours. And finally today, just a short time ago, Jake, I caught up with the sheriff of Kerr County, Larry Leitha, to ask him what was happening in those hours. Take a listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PROKUPECZ: The deputy sheriff, who's the emergency operations coordinator for Kerr County.

LARRY LEITHA, KERR COUNTY SHERIFF: Doug Thomas, yes.

PROKUPECZ: What was happening on that day? Was he working? Do you -- were you beginning --

LEITHA: Well, you got to remember this happened, what, started, you know, anywhere from 1:00, 2:00, 3:00 in the morning. I'm sure he was home asleep at that time.

PROKUPECZ: He was home asleep at that time?

LEITHA: Yes, I'm sure. I was too.

PROKUPECZ: You were too?

Are you at all concerned that he was home sleeping while all this was happening?

LEITHA: Just I was home sleeping also.

PROKUPECZ: But it's his job kind of to anticipate as the emergency coordinator and to get briefed.

LEITHA: Well, as you know, I'll say again, you know, all of us, whether it was him or me, you know, we, what, anticipated one to three inches of rain at the time? You know, that's the best answer I can give you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[18:45:02] TAPPER: And, Shimon, I know you also asked about the Texas Department of Emergency Management's Response. What did the sheriff have to say about that?

PROKUPECZ: Yeah, one of the things that I was trying to find out is what kind of briefings was he part of? Was he getting any kind of briefing? And he was not part of any of those briefings.

Important to note here, Jake, is that the Texas Department of Emergency Management was sounding the alarms. They were moving resources in. They were doing everything they could to notify folks that they were concerned over the weather.

But some of his answers on what exactly was going on behind the scenes in the days leading up to this storm, I actually kind of surprising. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PROKUPECZ: And the emergency operations center wasn't up and running.

LEITHA: No, we -- people don't realize, you know, we're a rural area. We don't have a 24-hour service. You know what I mean? Or anything open like that, you know? So when these incidents happen, that's when we start getting the phone calls like I did. And I came out and then we kind of set that up, and then we kind of build from there.

PROKUPECZ: Okay. And the -- did you get any briefings or anything from him about the weather or what Tatum was concerned about or --

LEITHA: No, I didn't.

PROKUPECZ: You didn't.

There were these emails that went out showing, oh, they wanted people to get on phone calls. I don't know if they look familiar at all. You never get those.

LEITHA: No, sir.

PROKUPECZ: And no one -- no one asked you on that day or the day before to get on any phone calls?

LEITHA: No.

PROKUPECZ: Tatum was moving resources in. Were you aware of those resources?

LEITHA: No, I was not.

PROKUPECZ: You were not aware for the county at all?

LEITHA: No. No, sir.

(END VIDEO CLIP) PROKUPECZ: And, Jake, he's the county sheriff of this county of Kerrville. He's in charge of that area around Kerrville and Ingram, where we saw the highest death toll. And the fact that he is not part of any briefings leading up to this, the fact that he is not aware of some of the resources that the Texas Department of Emergency Management is moving in.

You know, it's certainly something that is quite concerning. But again, in fairness to them, they keep saying, look, we didn't think that this was going to be as bad as it was, but they also were not on many of the calls. Now, this is the third or fourth official that I have spoken to in this area that has told me they were not aware about these briefings, they were not aware that these resources were being moved in.

One other important point I want to make, Jake, is that the head of the Texas Department of Emergency Management was here testifying for three hours, and he said that the emergency managers are the county judges and the mayors.

And it's very clear, by all accounts right now, that none of them took any kind of action. But here's the thing, what he's saying is that they have to do better. And what he's saying is that because there is no minimum qualifications in those positions, as county judges and mayors, to be the county emergency managers, he's saying, quote, we're better than that.

TAPPER: All right. Shimon Prokupecz in Austin, Texas, searching for answers. Thank you so much.

Our "Small Business" series takes us to Oregon next. And a company that helps ensure weddings and corporate events look as magnificent as possible. So how have tariffs affected their business? Are they being forced to raise prices on customers?

That's next.

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[18:52:10]

TAPPER: And we're back with our "Business Leaders" series where we hear from small business owners coast to coast about the impact of Trump's tariffs. Greenlight Creative is an event lighting business operating in Portland, Oregon, for the last 16 years. It's a small company. It services corporate events, weddings, fundraisers and more.

Owner Dwayne Thomas joins us now.

Dwayne, how have the tariffs impacted your business, if at all?

DWAYNE THOMAS, OWNER, GREENLIGHT CREATIVE: There are several ways they have most directly is that we're seeing a big change in the willingness of our corporate clientele things like sales. Meetings and product activations and that, first of all, they're having a sort of decision paralysis, at least, if not canceling outright. Some of these are -- we're going to call annual events, semi-annual events and in some cases for a lot of my colleagues, they're even seeing their monthly events go away.

It's not just me. It's really the events world writ large. That's the biggest problem. Also, the equipment that we use is all Chinese. It's all imported by American wholesalers. And we've seen one wholesaler that we use raise their prices now five times since the end of February.

TAPPER: Five times?

THOMAS: So, this is this is a big deal. Yeah. And well, they'll say, you know, that priceless, we sent you back -- back two weeks ago. Throw that out. This is the new one. And so, the unsureness of it all, I think, is the biggest hump for us. Not to mention that if we want to do capital improvement, it's just going to cost more.

TAPPER: And, Dwayne, the event industry contains a lot of moving parts, obviously. How does it impact the industry at large when one section of it has to raise prices?

THOMAS: Yeah, most of us do. I'll give you an example. Florists -- a lot of their stems are coming from Mexico and the Netherlands. So that's a big hit there.

Then you can talk about caterers who need to import. You can talk about rental -- event rental companies who may have to bring in a whole new series of a special chair for a large event or something, and all of a sudden, what they've quoted on it is one thing. And what is costing them is another.

So, all the budget line items for our end clients going up, they might just go, well, we're going to have to cut somewhere. Lighting tends to be one of the first things to go. We found out over the years, and we're finding that to be true already, is that were kind of on the short end of the bargaining stick.

TAPPER: Have you noticed this behavior change in not just your corporate clients, but other customers like regular folks just for weddings or whatever?

THOMAS: Weddings -- we, you know, these things book a year out. So, we're very fortunate that we're diversified a little bit. So, our summer looks okay. What we're seeing is a slowdown on inquiries for next year.

Already, I can tell you, though, that we really thought the fundraising world was going to get left untouched. And what we failed to understand when we first were going -- well, fundraisers will need to fundraise more than ever now. Well, we forgot a lot of what pays for the production of these big galas is corporate sponsorship.

[18:55:06]

And myself and our colleagues are all telling us the same thing. We're seeing these things drop off and thus either they're going virtual, which not helpful at all for most vendors, or they're really scaling down the scale of the event.

TAPPER: The business is Greenlight Creative, based in Portland, Oregon. So, if you're in that neck of the woods, check them out.

Dwayne Thomas, thanks so much for your time.

THOMAS: Thanks for your time as well. Appreciate it.

TAPPER: Coming up, an update in the case surrounding the tragic ketamine death of "Friends" star Matthew Perry.

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TAPPER: In our law and justice/pop culture lead, one of the doctors accused of providing ketamine to actor Matthew Perry before his death has pleaded guilty. The "Friends" star tragically died in 2023 due to acute effects of ketamine and a subsequent drowning, according to the Los Angeles County medical examiner's office. Dr. Salvador Plasencia faces a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison for the distribution of ketamine. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for December 3rd.

"ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts now. I'll see you tomorrow.