Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Epstein Mentioned Trump Multiple Times in Private Emails; Newly-Finished Bridge Collapses in China; U.S. Mints Last-ever Penny After More Than 230 Years of Production; Convenience Store Group Seeks Federal Law as Penny Phases Out; Trial Begins for Ex-aide to NY Govs, Accused of Being Chinese Agent. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired November 12, 2025 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": And the trial begins for the former aide to Governors Kathy Hochul and Andrew Cuomo, who's been accused of acting as an unregistered Chinese agent.

And ByHeart recalls its baby formula after an outbreak of botulism sent more than a dozen babies to the hospital. We're following these major developing stories and many more, right here on "CNN News Central."

Breaking News, the White House just out with a new blistering response for Democrats after they released emails written by Jeffrey Epstein that referenced President Trump. Here's press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: It is not a coincidence that the Democrats leaked these emails to the fake news this morning ahead of Republicans reopening the government.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why are White House officials then meeting with Representative Boebert in an effort to try and get her to not sign this petition calling for the release of the files?

LEAVITT: Doesn't it show transparency that members of the Trump administration are willing to brief members of Congress whenever they please? Doesn't that show our level of transparency?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": In one email from 2011, Epstein writes, "The dog that hasn't barked is Trump. Redacted, victim spent hours at my house with him." House oversight. Republicans earlier questioned why Democrats redacted the name, saying "It's because this victim, Virginia Giuffre, publicly said that she never witnessed wrongdoing by President Trump."

We have CNN's Kaitlan Collins who is live at the White House. Kaitlan, we heard Leavitt addressed this meeting at the White House that's expected to happen today. It does include Congresswoman Lauren Boebert. What have you learned about it?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Brianna, two things stood out to me from that briefing. Obviously, Karoline Leavitt was saying that they believe these emails prove that President Trump did nothing wrong. Obviously, he isn't accused of any wrongdoing. We made that clear in our reporting. This email, they just shed new light on Jeffrey Epstein mentioning Donald Trump multiple times in private correspondence over the span of about 15 years time.

They did not deny that Donald Trump spent time with Virginia Giuffre at Jeffrey Epstein's house. That is obviously what Jeffrey Epstein was insinuating in that email to Ghislaine Maxwell from April 2011. But obviously, they were critical -- highly critical of Democrats on the House Oversight Committee for releasing these emails that they got as a result of that bipartisan subpoena. But it was a pretty short briefing, Brianna.

Obviously, it was about 1:25 or so when the press secretary came out with the FBI Director, Kash Patel, who gave an opening statement that was unrelated. It had to do with fentanyl and China. He left without taking questions, and then Karoline Leavitt delivered her own opening statement before taking questions. So relatively few questions in that briefing there. But obviously, several of them were about these new emails from Jeffrey Epstein to Ghislaine Maxwell and to the author Michael Wolff.

And the other thing that stood out is that meeting that we exclusively reported on here at CNN where the White House was hosting Lauren Boebert, a Republican Congresswoman of Colorado, who has said yes, she agrees that the White House and the administration should have to release all of their files related to Jeffrey Epstein that are inside the Justice Department. They described it kind of as a routine briefing as you heard her saying there about transparency, that when members of Congress want to be briefed that they should be briefed.

Let me tell you, Brianna, it is incredibly unusual for the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General and the FBI Director to brief a single member of Congress. They weren't briefing her because she was the chair of a committee on a, on a pressing matter. If she wanted to talk about the Epstein files and that is what they talked about. It is unusual to have that high level of Justice Department power sitting down here at the White House with a Republican Congresswoman.

But what also stood out from that is Karoline Leavitt is confirming our reporting that yes, that meeting did take place. And of course, a question is the White House's effort to try to get some of these Republican members to take their name off of that petition and whether or not it will be successful. That still remains to be seen. But, to describe that as a routine briefing, it is certainly not, Brianna.

KEILAR: Yeah. And is -- you are certainly aware because you've reported so many times on meetings. It's not unusual for when the president wants something from someone to have them to the White House for a meeting. So, it's really interesting to see. That's something that -- COLLINS: Yeah.

KEILAR: -- certainly raises questions. Kaitlan, thank you so much. Really, really appreciate it. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Let's get some perspective now from Dave Aronberg, a former State Attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida. Dave has known Attorney General, Pam Bondi for many years. He worked as her Drug Czar in the Florida Attorney General's office. Dave, thank you so much for being with us. Generally, I wonder what you make of the correspondence that we're seeing between Epstein and his associates.

DAVE ARONBERG, FORMER STATE ATTORNEY, PALM BEACH COUNTY, FLORIDA: Boris, good to be with you. I think it's bad for three people in particular. First, Donald Trump, because this is a story that won't end. It's not going to end until the files are released. It's a drip, drip, drip.

[14:05:00]

And there's no indication that President Trump did anything illegal. But his association with Epstein is what it is, and he needs to get in front of this story instead of letting this define him because he's sitting back and there's just a constant drip of information that makes him look bad and makes his supporters wonder what's going on. And that demand for the release of the files ain't stopping anytime soon. It's just going to increase the clamor for those files to be released.

Number two, it makes Ghislaine Maxwell look like the liar she is. And I don't think she's going to get that pardon or commutation of her sentence anytime soon because she said that she doesn't remember seeing President Trump ever visiting Jeffrey Epstein at the house. Well, the emails show that she does recall that. In that email, she reminds Jeffrey Epstein. She remembers that when Trump would visit Epstein at the house.

And then third Michael Wolff, who's a journalist, but it looks like he's giving free legal/PR advice to a pedophile. He needs to come clean as to what this is all about.

SANCHEZ: There's one email in particular that we don't have context for in which Epstein mentions Trump. He refers to him as the dog that hasn't barked and notably, Republicans on the House Oversight Committee identify the person who's redacted in this note as Virginia Giuffre, who has never accused Trump of wrongdoing. But they -- these emails show that Epstein says, Trump spent hours with her at my house. I wonder just what you make of that and the argument from Republicans that that redaction in itself is meant to imply something that Giuffre never accused Trump of.

ARONBERG: Yeah, it's correct. I do think the Republicans have a point here that the name Virginia Giuffre was redacted, but Virginia Giuffre in her book and in public statements has never accused Trump of anything improper, said that he didn't do anything improper. The question is whether or not they spent time at Epstein's home. That's still an open question. And also, Virginia Giuffre has had some issues in the past of credibility, which is why she wasn't called as a witness in Ghislaine Maxwell's trial.

But the fact that Epstein says that Trump spent hours with Giuffre at the house tells me that there's still more that we don't know. And it is consistent with Trump saying that a reason why he broke off the friendship with Epstein is because Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were poaching employees from Mar-a-Lago and Virginia Giuffre was one of them.

SANCHEZ: I wonder what you think that members of the administration, including Attorney General Bondi, are presenting right now to Congresswoman Boebert, given that this discharge petition, at least as of the latest math that we've seen, appears to be on its way to passing the House. It's unlikely to get anywhere in the Senate, very unlikely President Trump is going to sign it after being so vocal in his opposition of it. But it does put members of Congress on the record. So, I wonder what you think she might be being presented with that us, as members of the public, may not be seeing.

ARONBERG: I'm not sure. I think it perhaps is just some information on what's in the files that have been kept from the public. Perhaps giving her an insider's view because she is a swing vote there, and they don't want this stuff to be released, which is a shame because when you have Kash Patel and Dan Bongino who were campaigning for it to be released for many months saying that there's an Epstein List and we need transparency. And then when they get to be in charge of the FBI, they're saying nothing to see here.

So, you have the base clamoring for the release and Boebert is known as a MAGA stalwart and perhaps they think that she was about to join Marjorie Taylor Greene to release the files. So they're trying to placate her perhaps by showing, hey, there's nothing to see here. No need to release it. But Boris, I don't know if the Senate is going to resist the release of the file after all this stuff is coming out. I mean, there's going to be more and more pressure every day to release these files because this issue is never going to go away until they are given to the public.

Answer: Yeah. We'll see how the Senate ultimately handles it. That is if it winds up passing the House, we'll see how Representative Boebert reacts after this briefing. Dave Aronberg, thanks so much for the time.

ARONBERG: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Still to come, much more on this huge tranche of Epstein documents released by the House Oversight Committee. We're going to talk to a democratic lawmaker who is on that panel. Plus, more infant formula recalled as an outbreak of botulism grows. And later, see the moment a newly completed bridge in China falls to pieces. That and much more coming your way next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:14:32] KEILAR: Moments ago, the penny officially ran out of luck. The U.S. just minted the final pennies at its production facility in Philadelphia and we've learned that the last coins that got pressed are not going into circulation but will actually be auctioned off. Stopping production ends a years -long debate over why the U.S. kept making pennies when it cost nearly $0.04 to produce each $0.01 coin. President Trump cited that cost when he ordered the end of the penny back in February. The U.S. has been making them for more than 230 years.

[14:15:00]

And we should note that you can still use pennies to buy things. They will remain legal tender. But think about it, you may never see a penny marked 2026 or later. Let's talk about all of this with Justin Wolfers. He's a Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Michigan. All right, this is a really interesting, Justin, because you have been through this already. You were in Australia when it phased out penny production. So what's going to happen to us? Tell us.

JUSTIN WOLFERS, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS & PUBLIC POLICY, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN: Everything's going to be all right, I promise. Look, Brianna, can I just start by saying, this is the first time I've been asked to do microeconomics. Boom, get it?

(LAUGH)

WOLFERS: It's just a penny. So we went through this three years ago in Australia. We just stopped using these useless bits of metal that didn't buy us anything. The Australian dollar is actually worth less than the American dollar. So, it's actually kind of surprising it has taken the Americans another 33 years to catch up. But you're just going to discover your wallet is a little lighter and the checkout queue is a little shorter and everything is a little simpler.

KEILAR: OK. And so what do businesses do? I mean, I'm thinking of all those Walmart signs. Something 99. Is everything going to be 95?

WOLFERS: What's going to happen is, we're going to round everything to the nearest nickel. Now, honestly, if we're serious about any of this, we'd get rid of the nickel too. We might even get rid of the dime. When the penny was first came into circulation, it was actually worth more than a quarter it is worth today. So we are carrying around a lot of small change for not much reason. Now, in fact, the rules of the game haven't been written because our currency is actually something that's up to Congress to decide.

So at this point, the president has just said stop printing the pennies. But the rules for how we get out of a world where we're still using pennies are yet to be written. And I hope at some point, Congress can address this vitally important issue.

KEILAR: You know Congress is highly functional, Justin, so I'm sure they'll get right on that. I do want to ask you though, because customers can lose out here, right? The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond says rounding to the nearest nickel will cost consumers $6 million a year. Explain that. Why do people lose money here?

WOLFERS: OK, so you go to the checkout and something costs $9.98. That's now going to cost you $10. So what they did is they looked through basically all the receipts. And it's not good by good by the way. You wait till everything's been added up. And at the very bottom, if you either have to add a couple of cents or you get a few cents off, if you're lucky as well. And actually there's a nice lesson there, Brianna, because you said it's going to cost Americans $6 million, which sounds like a lot. But actually, it's almost nothing. That's the important point. We measure economies in trillions of dollars. We sometimes have fights about billions of dollars, but when we have so many Americans, 340 million, $6 million is just a tiny, tiny fraction that we'll each be paying.

KEILAR: OK. So there is a little hiccup because as we were talking about just the functionality of Congress here, the National Convenience Store Association wants Congress to create a federal law that allows businesses to round to the nearest nickel. And that's partially because states, some of them, have these laws that demand exact change. So in that instance, in that interim, how do they manage that?

WOLFERS: Yeah, so my advice to any store out there is just do the simple thing by your customers, round down. And you might say, well, I resent that. Why do I have to go without a couple of pennies? And then I'm going to remind you it's just a couple of pennies. And the other side of it is, it actually is Congress' job to regulate on this. We are decades late on getting this done. The last time the U.S. phased out a coin, this is how dysfunctional our Congress is. We phased out the half-penny in 1857 and it's taken us over a century to getting around to, to phasing out its older brother that's worth far less than the half-penny was back in 1857.

KEILAR: Really putting it into perspective. And yet, so much else has changed since then. Justin Wolfers, thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate your microeconomics discussion.

WOLFERS: Boom.

(LAUGH)

KEILAR: Boom. All right. Still ahead, a former aide to two New York governors now on trial for selling influence to the Chinese government and acting as an unregistered agent. What we know about the charges against Linda Sun and her husband. Plus, top Trump justice officials meeting today about the effort to force the release of the Epstein files. And curiously, they've invited a single rank and file Republican lawmaker to join them. Someone who has an outsized influence on the Epstein files perhaps. Our CNN exclusive reporting right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:23:32]

SANCHEZ: We're watching opening statements today in the federal trial of Linda Sun, a former aide to both New York Governor, Kathy Hochul and former Governor, Andrew Cuomo. Sun is accused of acting as an undisclosed agent of the Chinese government and alongside her husband, operating a years-long scheme involving fraud, money laundering, a Ferrari, a Hawaiian hangout, and a dozen Nanjing-style salted ducks. CNN's Kara Scannell is in New York with the details. Kara, the ducks sound delicious.

[14:25:00]

How does it fit into the broader story?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN REPORTER: Well, those ducks are part of the benefits that Linda's Sun and her husband allegedly received as part of this years-long scheme. Now, prosecutors are accusing son of acting as an unregistered foreign agent for the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party. They say that she was advancing the agenda of the Chinese while she was working at New York State's highest offices for both Governor Andrew Cuomo and also for Governor Kathy Hochul.

What authorities say is that she was taking certain steps that the Chinese government wanted her to take, including blocking any meetings between state officials and Taiwanese officials, and also preventing any references to the Uyghurs, the Muslim minority group in China, from being included in any Lunar New Year messages that were issued by the government. So, that's all part of this alleged scheme that prosecutors have laid out.

They also have accused sun and her husband of committing fraud related to the COVID-19 pandemic, steering certain vendors that they had financial interest in to the New York State government. They were selected and paid money and that also enabled Sun and her husband to make millions of dollars. And through that, they say that she launder the money by buying a $4 million home in Long Island, a $2 million condo in Honolulu, Hawaii, and other -- and that Porsche, Ferrari that she also allegedly purchased.

Her lawyers say that what she was doing was in the U.S. interests, that the positions she was pushing were aligned with us interests and that she did not violate any laws. She and her husband have pleaded not guilty. Opening statements took place this morning. The government has called their first witness, someone from the U.S. State Department, and then this trial is expected to go several weeks. If they are convicted, they could face many, many years in prison. Boris?

SANCHEZ: A case we know you'll keep watching. Kara Scannell, thank you so much for the update.

Up next, the House releasing emails from Jeffrey Epstein showing that the convicted sex offender mentioned Donald Trump multiple times in correspondence before he became president. More on the scandal unfolding on Capitol Hill and in the White House, right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)