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Trump Slams New Trove Of Epstein Emails As A "Hoax" By Democrats; Mother Of Missing Child Melodee Buzzard Released From Custody; Trump Signals Openness To Work With Dems On Health Care. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired November 13, 2025 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR, FORMER ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY, SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK: Now this email I think is the most important one. Let's start with the simplest part. "Name of victim --

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Right.

HONIG: -- spent hours at my house with him" -- with Trump. OK, that is contradictory to much of what we've heard from, for example, Ghislaine Maxwell, who denied Donald Trump was ever at the house -- for hours, by the way, at the house.

So what is Donald Trump doing at the house? Was he, in fact, there? What is he doing there for hours? What is he doing with the victim for hours? I think those are really important questions.

The second part of this email is the whole "dog that hasn't barked" part of it. Now that actually goes back to a Sherlock Holmes story about a robbery where a guard dog doesn't bark, and the inference is well, the dog must have known the robbers.

And this sounds like they're speculating about is Donald Trump speaking to the police? Is he providing information because his name hasn't been mentioned nor has he said anything publicly?

So it's important to think about the timing Sara, as you said. This is 2011. This is after Jeffrey Epstein has pled guilty in Florida to a sweetheart deal. Before Donald Trump's running for president, of course --

SIDNER: Right.

HONIG: -- but he's in the public eye.

So I think this raises important questions about the relationship between Trump and Epstein and what Trump knew back then.

SIDNER: Is there any sense here -- I mean, this is happening at a time when, like, you mentioned all those things -- that there is -- why would they lie, I guess, when you're -- when you're looking -- HONIG: Yeah.

SIDNER: -- at this.

HONIG: Yeah. On the one hand you have two convicted criminals --

SIDNER: Yeah.

HONIG: -- communicating here in Epstein and Maxwell -- two people with no credibility. On the other and they're communicating with each other, back in 2011, what they believe is private through email. And so it does have the hallmark credibility.

I'll just say this. If this was a trial of some other co-conspirator this type of email would be admissible in court because the theory is when you have two co-conspirators communicating like this, they wouldn't have a reason to lie to each other.

SIDNER: The president is facing no legal ramifications from any of this, but the president is responding to all this. He's called it a hoax. He went on Truth Social and went after Republicans. He called a meeting of some of his cabinet members.

I mean, what do his actions and words tell you? They don't seem to match.

HONIG: Well, you know, some of the things in these emails actually corroborate and support things that Donald Trump has said in his own defense over the years. But yes, the whole -- there's nothing to see here approach is very much inconsistent with the idea of now let's have a Situation Room meeting with White House officials -- the AG, the deputy AG, and the FBI director.

So the messaging here is quite contradictory and the whole we're calm about this is belied I think by the actual actions we've been seeing.

SIDNER: Elie Honig, it is always a pleasure to have you here in person. Good to see you.

HONIG: Good to see you.

SIDNER: John Berman.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. With us now Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha and Republican strategist Joseph Pinion.

Chuck, I want to start with you. Why is the White House -- why is Donald Trump working so hard to keep all of this a secret, apparently? Why the Situation Room meeting? What do you think?

CHUCK ROCHA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST, PRESIDENT, SOLIDARITY STRATEGIES (via Webex by Cisco): Well, it sounds like maybe somebody's got something to hide. I mean, if you ain't got anything to hide and if you did nothing wrong then you just put it out there and you get it behind you. It's campaign politics 101. When you do something, get in front of it, get it over with, and then people will forget about it. But this thing has drug on so much so that the United States Speaker

of the House shut down the House of Representatives for 55 days because he didn't want a discharge position to get things out. It seems like lots of people have something to hide. I'm not saying here that anybody's guilty of anything, but I am saying it sure looks like somebody is guilty of something because they're sure trying to hide a lot.

BERMAN: What does the Situation Room meeting look to you -- look like to you, Joe?

JOSEPH PINION, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Look, I think two things can be true at the same time. I think that the reality is that the case of Jeffrey Epstein is an American horror show and the reason that we are still talking about it is because of the slow drip, including the strategic leak of emails by Democrats to obstruct the fact that we just went through a shutdown of their own making.

So yes, I do believe that we need to have a conscientious conversation about releasing any and all documentation about Jeffrey Epstein. I feel like I'm trapped in some type of, you know, Bill Clinton-inspired -- it depends on the definition of the word "is" is. I think the American people are tried of that type of assessment. I think we need all the facts so the chips fall where they may.

But I think that again, if you read those emails some people will look at it as consistent with what President Trump has said from day one. And those who have a jaundiced view about President Trump and the Republican caucus, and this administration will do exactly what my colleague is doing right now, saying I'm not saying that there is a crime here but clearly it smells like there is a crime here.

Either way I think is bad for the American people. We need to release all the information and let the chips fall where they may.

BERMAN: Do you feel like you know what President Trump knew about the sexual abuse at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein?

[07:35:00]

PINION: Look, I don't know the depths of it. I can't speak to whatever is inside of his mind. It's quite clear he knew that something was amiss because there's no reason for him to ban Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell from the club.

So it is quite clear that everybody -- the American public, those in the upper echelons of society were guilty of turning a blind eye to the actions of Jeffrey Epstein. And we should all be wrestling with that and the ramifications of that turning of a blind eye.

But I think if you take the president at his word, he has said that when he became aware of those activities that he was able to dismiss the man from his presence and from his circles.

We need all of the information to come out to support that estimation because otherwise we're going to be here in this studio continuing to have this conversation week after week, year after year, and not talking about the pertinent information about getting the American public back on track.

BERMAN: I will say it's not like we've been talking about Epstein every day for the last --

PINION: Sure.

BERMAN: -- six weeks.

PINION: But we had a shutdown.

BERMAN: We haven't. We haven't, right?

PINION: Yeah, correct.

BERMAN: OK. We're talking about it because all this information just came out.

PINION: Absolutely.

BERMAN: The type of information that people said was going to be released as soon as Donald Trump came into office, right? So the reason people are talking about it is because we're seeing it for the first time.

And Chuck, let me ask you about something Joe said there. Joe said we've known along -- the world knew all along what Jeffrey Epstein was doing. Donald Trump knew all along.

What do you think the implications are of then-citizen Donald Trump if he knew more about what was going on with Jeffrey Epstein? What are the implications now in that?

ROCHA: I think that he's living with it right now. Is that he's used this issue -- the Republican Party and Donald Trump himself have used this issue for his election before. He told all of us.

Look, I've run lots of races against Donald Trump and I'm one of them Democratic consultants who will say that he's beaten me a lot. But I will promise you I've got scars to show that he talked a lot about Jeffrey Epstein in this file and on day one.

And then he created this fervor online. This is what people aren't talking about -- is there's a new media out there -- CNN online, podcasts, all this stuff where this is all they talk about all day long. And Donald Trump fed that animal. And then when he got into office it all went away like he never said it, but they never forgot about it. That's why he's probably having problems within his own party because this is a making of what he has done by fueling this fire.

Sure, he kicked him out of his club. Sure, he may not have done anything wrong. But he's fed this beast from day one and now he's having to live with that, and he can't hide from it. BERMAN: Joe, I want to ask you about some just terrific reporting our MJ Lee has done about what life is like in prison for Ghislaine Maxwell. She was moved to this very different prison after she talked to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

And MJ reports that Ghislaine Maxwell now gets unlimited toilet paper access, which is something apparently that is very important to inmates there. Private meals and mail delivery. Cellmates reassigned for privacy. Special visits in the chapel. And the warden helping send documents and emails.

Why on earth is Ghislaine Maxwell getting special treatment?

PINION: Well look, it sounds as if something consistent with somebody who might be cooperating. Certainly, this Epstein saga continues to drag on.

So look, I'm no expert on the treatment of individuals inside of federal prisons but I will just say this. I believe that the American people want to know what happened with Jeffrey Epstein. I think that even members of the Republican Party demand that we find out what happened there. It is not going to go away.

And I do think that if we're going to have this public reckoning it can't just be about what President Trump has said or where he's mentioning the emails. It should also be about those hundreds of thousands of children that have gone missing over the last few years that we believe may be being trafficked as we speak with the United States being somewhat complicit. So we need a wholesale departure from what has been and looking at how we can do a better job in protecting the most vulnerable members of our society.

BERMAN: And Chuck, just very quickly, last question for Democrats. You just won a lot of elections last week on the issue of affordability. Epstein is not affordability. I mean, where would you rather the emphasis be right now?

ROCHA: Most people in America are really angry that their insurance premiums are high, and their utility bills are high -- the utility bills are high. You can do walking and chewing of your gum at the very same time while motivating moderate and Republicans to stay home because they're mad at Donald Trump and the Republican Party and because of Epstein. That's how you win in 2026.

BERMAN: All right, Chuck, Joe. Thank you both very much -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right.

New details this morning. A judge orders the mother of missing 9-year- old Melodee Buzzard to be released from custody as the search for her daughter continues. Ashlee Buzzard pleaded not guilty to a felony charge of false imprisonment for a November 6 incident involving a man who says he was held against his will by her. Buzzard's defense argued that Ashlee's not a flight risk.

Now this is after her daughter Melodee vanished during a multi-day road trip with her mom where the two were dressed in wigs at times. Melodee was last seen on the Colorado-Utah state line on October 9. The next day Ashlee returned to California without her daughter.

[07:40:10]

CNN's Jean Casarez is joining me now.

So she has been released from custody. What did you learn about this case?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is fascinating. I want to tell you everything that happened yesterday.

First of all, this is the first time we have seen her. She was in court -- the first time we've seen here. Daughter is missing for over a month now. She's not cooperating.

But the defense attorney -- and this is about the false imprisonment, right, because we spoke to the alleged victim -- CNN did. He said that he came to her house and it was last week, and he wanted to try to help her to find her daughter. He was in the house. They were talking. She suddenly gets very upset.

He's alleging she takes out a box cutter. She locks four locks on the door and wouldn't let him leave. That's why this felony charge of false imprisonment came about.

Now, the defense attorney yesterday arguing that she should be released on her own recognizance. And he's saying first of all, the pretrial services has given her a risk assessment of zero and that she has no criminal history. She lives locally. She has a home. That there is non-violence in this offense right here. No violence at all. And she's not a risk to flee.

The prosecutor cam on and said she most definitely is a risk to flee this jurisdiction because -- and it is public information -- maybe not associated with this case directly but she went on a road trip changing license plates as she went. Put wigs on throughout the course of the trip. She also is in -- not helping authorities in the disappearance of her daughter.

Probation, she said -- maybe there's a risk assessment of zero, but probation has come in and they've overridden that, and they say she should not be released here.

The judge -- he had no problem. He didn't even assess it really. But he immediately said that she would be released and that she would have GPS, but she should stay away from the victim's home. Stay away from the victim.

And then the prosecutor came in again saying, "Your honor, can she be searched because she took out a box cutter?" No -- he would not allow that.

And the defense really fought for that, saying she -- her Fourth Amendment right of search and seizure should not be violated here, and the judge refused. He said she just possessed the box cutter.

And so we gained a little window there into this offense and also --

SIDNER: Yeah.

CASAREZ: -- on the record now not cooperating with law enforcement to help find her little girl.

SIDNER: Yeah, and Melodee is still somewhere out there missing. She's just nine years old. There's a lot of questions left unanswered here and I know you'll be following this.

Thank you so much --

CASAREZ: Thank you.

SIDNER: -- Jean. It's great -- John.

BERMAN: All right. New this morning President Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent are promising some big moves on agriculture tariffs to lower prices, which is interesting because they usually suggest that tariffs don't raise prices. We're really talking about coffee here, which I care about a lot.

Matt Egan is here. What's going on?

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well John, look, last week's election was a wakeup call on this affordability crisis and now Trump officials are signaling that they're going to take some action, including by lowering tariffs. Yes, the very same tariffs that they, themselves, raised on imports like coffee.

Take a listen to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT BESSENT, U.S. TREASURY SECRETARY: And you're going to a substantial announcement over the next couple of days in terms of things we don't grow here in the United States. You know, coffee being one of them, bananas, other fruits. Things like that. So that will bring the prices down very quickly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: What?

EGAN: Yeah. Well, this does represent a retreat of sorts on the trade war and also kind of an admission here that the president's favorite weapon, sky-high tariffs, are contributing to high prices. And it raises questions here about why did they tariff things like bananas and coffee that aren't grown here in the U.S. in the first place?

I mean, this would be like a football coach who decides to tie his quarterback's hand behind his back and then when the tie -- the game starts -- the team starts losing --

BERMAN: You're talking about the Jets.

EGAN: Yeah. The Jets have won two in a row, but that's right.

But this would be like a coach who thinks it's a good idea to tie the quarterback's arm behind his back and then when they start losing says well, let's untie the arm. It's like yeah, but why did you do that in the first place?

And look at coffee. Coffee is a great example here because even though the president has promised to lower grocery prices, we're looking at roasted coffee prices up by 19 percent year-over year. And instant coffee, 22 percent more expensive. That's the biggest annual increase since June of '95.

Now, some of this relates to poor harvests due to extreme weather, but then there's also the fact that there's tariffs on America's leading places where we get coffee from. Ten percent on Colombia, 20 percent on Vietnam. Fifty percent on Brazil, the leading source of coffee into the U.S.

[07:45:05]

And there's no guarantee, John, that if the president cuts tariffs that's suddenly going to make coffee cheap again, right, because if people continue to buy coffee -- if demand is held up a lot of companies are going to be reluctant to cut prices here.

And it's not just coffee. Bananas was another thing that the secretary mentioned. Banana prices up by seven percent year-over-year. That's the biggest increase in three years.

So look, bottom line, yeah -- rolling back some tariffs -- it could take some of the pressure off of some items, but this is broader than bananas and coffee. And I do think that this is going to raise some questions about the logic here in the first place behind going all out on tariffs at a time when prices were already pretty high.

BERMAN: Yeah. Look, it is an admission. It is an admission --

EGAN: Yes.

BERMAN: -- of sorts here. We'll see if there are any political ramifications there.

Matt Egan, thank you --

EGAN: Thank you, John.

BERMAN: -- very much for that.

So what happens when two 13-year-old girls get behind the wheel? The curb, the fence, the home air conditioning unit, and the side of the house might never be the same again.

And all the images and colors in the sky, allegedly. The truth behind the Northern Lights. (COMMERCIAL)

[07:51:00]

SIDNER: This morning an agonizing decision is facing millions of Americans buying healthcare on the Affordable Care Act Marketplace. Pay for potential lifesaving insurance or go without it or try to figure out some other way.

Nearly all 24 million people who have Marketplace insurance received a tax subsidy to help pay for it. Those subsidies were expanded but that is going away. According to KFF, allowing the enhanced subsidies to expire would cause premiums to skyrocket 114 percent for the average enrollee, making insurance simply unattainable for many Americans.

Yesterday, the president did say that he would extend the enhanced -- excuse me, would not say if he would extend the enhanced subsidies, but he did offer to work with Democrats on health care. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So I'm always willing to work with anyone, including the other party. We'll work on something having to do with health care. We can do a lot better. We can do great.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Joining me now are Chris and Donna Vetters. They are ACA enrollees.

To the both of you, first of all, just how much did your premium increase in the notice that you got for your insurance?

CHRIS VETTERS, MADE DECISION TO DROP HEALTH INSURANCE (via Webex by Cisco): It went from $400 that we're paying right now to $1,975 for the same policy.

SIDNER: So what are you going to do, Donna, now that you have seen --

DONNA VETTERS, MADE DECISION TO DROP HEALTH INSURANCE (via Webex by Cisco): Yeah, that's exactly what happened to us.

SIDNER: -- that insane increase? I mean, that is astronomical. What are you going to do now?

D. VETTERS: I mean, I've cut off prescriptions we don't need. I've tried to figure out how to move money around. There's absolutely no way. We just don't make enough.

My business is small, and it hasn't been contributing as much lately because doctors and so forth are impacted as well. I have a medical billing company so we're seeing decreases there.

It's just impossible. There is no way. We're going to have to give up our health care. C. VETTERS: Yeah. I have a federal pension and my Social Security check, and together the increase in the health premiums would be half of my income.

SIDNER: Wow. So you are both saying look, we can't afford it. We just have to give up health insurance.

What is your biggest fear in all of this? I know that -- you know, Chris, I think that you have atrial defibrillation and your wife has asthma. What -- I mean, what's the fear here?

C. VETTERS: Well, the fear is that we wouldn't be able to afford regular screenings and at our age that would be important. We might not be able to catch, say, you know, a cancerous growth and wouldn't even know about it until -- well, it would be too late to actually be --

D. VETTERS: Do anything about it.

C. VETTERS: -- to do anything about it. You know, get treatment for it. And then we couldn't afford the treatment anyways.

So it's literally rolling the dice on whether we live or die at this point.

SIDNER: The Speaker of the House --

D. VETTERS: That's 100 percent true.

C. VETTERS: And that's scary.

SIDNER: It's terrifying if you get hurt. You know, if there is a major medical issue.

The Speaker of the House and the president as well not committing to taking up a vote on this issue before the subsidies expire.

What is your message to Congress and the president at this point in time as you two decide we can either have food on the table and pay our mortgage or our rent, or we can have health care?

C. VETTERS: Simply put, I want to ask Mike Johnson the reasons for not doing it and why would he want us to die?

[07:55:00]

D. VETTERS: Yeah, that's (INAUDIBLE).

C. VETTERS: That's really what it comes down to. It's like, you know, he's had three years as speaker to come up with something better and I hear yesterday him talking about --

D. VETTERS: Ideas of -- concepts of plans and ideas.

C. VETTERS: And, you know, three years' worth to come up with something. You know, I've been told that the sunsetting of this was because the Democrats put that in back after COVID when the enhanced subsidies were voted on and that nothing happened. They didn't do anything about it so it's expiring because of them. Except for the last three years Speaker Mike would not bring it even to a vote or have any conversation with the Democrats to be able to put something better in place.

And yeah, something better should be in place. But if nobody talks about it for three-four years this expires. It's basically telling us we're not important.

D. VETTERS: It's cruelty. I think that's the basis of this entire administration is how cruel can they get to help their oligarchs, tech bros, and all of that that he's more interested in serving than the American people.

I just didn't want them to cave. I feel like we caved and it was a bit of a betrayal. We kind of had a discussion about that the other night.

C. VETTERS: Yeah.

D. VETTERS: And I, of course, took the immediate -- you know, I've been betrayed. And then I was worried about how the blue wave rolled in and they were on a high, and now they've kind of taken it a little bit low. And I didn't want that to impact what could happen in the midterms or what should happen in the midterms and took a more Republican point of view.

C. VETTERS: Basically, I was thinking that we got nothing or we got nothing. So either way -- at least this way the government could reopen, and they could get back in session and maybe some discussion could happen, although judging by the last three years that probably won't happen. But I feel there's more hope that way than otherwise.

And if, you know, they do say they want to talk together maybe something can come of it.

D. VETTERS: I'm not holding my breath.

C. VETTERS: Yeah.

D. VETTERS: I'm not holding my breath.

C. VETTERS: Same here because January a month and a half away and if we don't hear anything we are pretty just basically OK, we're going to go it alone.

D. VETTERS: And we're going to cancel it.

C. VETTERS: Yeah.

SIDNER: Wow.

C. VETTERS: Because the best plans we've found are almost the same price.

D. VETTERS: Right. Right. SIDNER: I know this is so hard for the two of you having this sort of lingering in the back of your minds. We will see what Congress decides to do.

Donna and Chris Vetters, thank you so much for sharing your story with us this morning. I really do appreciate you taking the time -- John.

BERMAN: All right. Breaking overnight, the Rev. Jesse Jackson has been hospitalized. The 84-year-old civil rights leaders under observation for progressive supranuclear palsy. This is a rare neurological disorder that affects movement and balance. Jackson has been managing the condition for more than a decade after first being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

Police in New Jersey say two 13-year-old girls on a joy ride ended up in a crash. They drove up onto the curb, they crashed into an air conditioning unit, a fence, and ultimately into the back of a condo. They took off but police caught up with them. They determined the teens took the care from their parents. The girls were issued traffic violations. That air conditioning unit might never be the same.

All right. This morning a $10 million, 18-carat gold toilet is up for auction. The toilet is said to be fully functional, but visitors can only look at the work of art, not use it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's a lot of money for a toilet.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I first though immediately of the renovation that Trump just did in the bathroom at the White House. It just felt opulent, over the top.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a little bit of a bummer that it's not usable. But at the same time, it would leave marks -- and, like, it would depreciate if you were using it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: It would depreciate. You don't want the toilet to depreciate. There's nothing worse than a depreciating gold toilet.

Another one like this was stolen back in 2019. That one is still missing, Sara, and likely, it was melted down.

SIDNER: I don't think anyone wants to see their reflection in a toilet when they're going to use it. I'm just saying.

BERMAN: Don't look down? Is that what you're saying?

SIDNER: Don't look down.

BERMAN: All right.

SIDNER: OK, now that we're done being disgusting, we're going to see something beautiful. We are -- where you lucky enough to see the Northern Lights? John, not so lucky. Brilliant images of the Aurora Borealis captivated by people across the U.S. last night.

Let's go to CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar. Did you see them or are you just seeing them like we are?