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Air Travel Delays; Ghislaine Maxwell Receiving Special Treatment in Prison; Shutdown Ends. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired November 13, 2025 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: At some point, the pendulum's got a swing back right. But I don't know if that's possible without action. And I think it was a fascinating discussion.

I think it's something that a lot of people recognize. I mean, even from 10 years ago, when I started covering politics, I have seen it personally change so much. And I can't also say it's just because of Trump.

I mean, Biden came in promising to bring the world together. Look at where we are now. It's -- I think political violence is even worse now. Obviously, President Trump's back in office. But I agree. I don't know what the solution is. but it's definitely a problem.

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: All right, well, we will continue trying to be part of the solution as much as we can.

Thanks for joining INSIDE POLITICS.

"CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: America's longest government shutdown is over, but might not feel that way. What the reopening means for thousands of federal workers, millions of SNAP recipients and air travelers.

Plus: special privileges. CNN's exclusive reporting on Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's longtime associate and convicted sex trafficker, and her kind of special life behind bars.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: And a critical test for the criminal charges against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. They're pushing to get the president's handpicked prosecutor thrown off their cases.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KEILAR: The shutdown ends. The impact is certainly not over, though, millions of Americans still uncertain about food benefits, back pay, flight disruptions, and health care costs.

And while we're still coping with the impacts of this battle, there's a threat that it could happen all over again in January.

We have CNN's Rene Marsh joining us on this.

All right, Rene, let's first start with food. You have 42 million Americans who rely on programs like SNAP. When will that get back to normal?

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

And this was a flash point during the shutdown people, rationing food or not having enough to eat. When people will receive their full benefits really depends on what state that they live in, but, generally speaking, anywhere between three days and a week.

Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins was on CNN this morning and here's what she had to say on that point.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROOKE ROLLINS, U.S. SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE: Hopefully, by the end of this week, most will receive it, at the very latest on Monday. But, keep in mind, the SNAP program is funded by the federal government, but it is the 50 states and 50 different infrastructures that move that money out, which is what made it so complicated, the patchwork.

But it's moving. It's coming. And for those who really depend on it, good news is on the way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARSH: And the good news with SNAP is that this funding package does fund this specific program for a full year. So, although we could be seeing a replay of what we just saw on January 30, that specific program is safe and its funding for a full year is secure.

KEILAR: And what about back pay for workers who missed paychecks?

MARSH: Yes, we're talking about 1.4 million federal workers who are furloughed or working without pay. They have missed two full paychecks during this shutdown.

Again, a variability here. When they start to receive their back pay will really depend on which agency that they work for. The different agencies have different pay schedules. We know that, in the past, labor unions say that it usually takes about three business days to get funding or this back pay out the door.

There is some concern, though. Many of these H.R. departments at many of these agencies, they have seen furloughs or people leave the job as a part of the administration's more general downsizing of the work force. But, generally speaking, we're thinking that people may start seeing that back pay come as soon as tomorrow or early next week, but several business days.

KEILAR: And health care costs, health insurance costs, I should say? MARSH: Yes, so we're talking about the funding deal that also

guarantees that there will be an early December Senate vote on these ACA, Obamacare subsidies and extending these subsidies.

As you know, Democrats made health care and the increase in premiums a big focus of their fight during the shutdown. But this vote to extend these subsidies is unlikely to go anywhere. So, what we are expecting is that these 24 million people who are or -- are on Obamacare they will see their health insurance premiums increase some 112 percent in 2026.

But, again, the new deadline that we have here as a result of this funding deal is that we're expecting an early December vote on this specific issue, Brianna.

KEILAR: Like you said, it's not really expected to go anywhere so that's really important to note.

[13:05:03]

Rene, thank you so much for taking us through all of that. Really important -- Jessica.

DEAN: All right, today, also the high-stakes hearing concerning Lindsey Halligan. She's the interim U.S. attorney handpicked by President Trump to prosecute the cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Attorneys for both Halligan -- both say Halligan is not lawfully serving in her post and that the charges against their clients should be dropped. The hearing, of course, a crucial test for the criminal cases against two of the people President Trump has demanded DOJ target.

The judge says she will be making her decision in this case before Thanksgiving.

Let's break down today's developments, though, with senior legal analyst Elie Honig. He's a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and a former federal prosecutor.

Elie, it is always good to have you here on days like this when we need to kind of sort through what exactly things mean.

James' attorney arguing Halligan is unlawfully serving in her post. They're trying to make the case, in his words, she's pretending. Help us understand their argument here.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Jess, that's a colorful way of arguing that Lindsey Halligan was not properly appointed as U.S. attorney.

So, ordinarily, we get our U.S. attorneys through a presidential nomination and then Senate confirmation. If that has not happened, however, federal law says the attorney general can then install a temporary U.S. attorney for 120 days. Once that 120 days is over, then it's up to the federal judges in that

district. Now, that all happened here in Virginia. A man named Erik Siebert was put in place, did his 120 days, and then the judges said, you can stay as the temporary U.S. attorney.

However, he then resigned under pressure arising from these cases actually and was replaced by Lindsey Halligan. So the argument that James and Comey are making now is, the attorney general and the president cannot just keep appointing one person after another after another to 120 days, then another 120 days, then another 120 days.

Therefore, they argue, Lindsey Halligan is not appropriately serving as U.S. attorney. Therefore, they argue the indictment should be thrown out.

DEAN: Yes, and in the meantime, a DOJ attorney says that that argument is essentially, in their words, elevating a paperwork error. What do you think about that?

HONIG: Yes, it's a little bit of a glib argument made there by the Justice Department. But their point is, it doesn't really matter.

The law, first of all, they argue, does allow more than one of these 120-day appointments. They also argue it doesn't matter because it's all coming from the attorney general anyway. The A.G. is the one who exercises prosecutorial power. It doesn't really matter who signs the indictment.

And the last point they make is, the prosecutor's signature on an indictment is not an actual part of the substantive indictment. The indictment itself is what the grand jurors find the signature of the prosecutor is simply a formality and authentication.

And so even if she was improperly appointed, they argue, the indictment should still survive.

DEAN: Is it rare, should people make anything of the fact that this indictment was only signed by one prosecutor?

HONIG: It is rare to see only the U.S. attorney sign an indictment. Often, the U.S. attorney's signature will appear on the indictment. But then the line-level prosecutors, the regular prosecutors, like I once was, will sign it too.

The problem here was, nobody at the point this case was indicted, nobody in that office was willing to go into the grand jury with Lindsey Halligan. And that creates a vulnerability, because now, if the judge finds that Lindsey Halligan was improperly appointed, there's not that backstop of saying, well, fine, even if you take her name off the indictment, there was still two other prosecutors on it.

DEAN: And remind people, Elie, because we are -- we even see pictures of them side by side right now. These are separate cases with James Comey and Letitia James, but they are linked in this way. How will they continue to be linked going forward, depending on what the judge decides?

HONIG: There's going to be a lot of commonality here. So, yes, both Letitia James and Jim Comey, they're indicted in separate cases. They both happen to be in the same federal district and they're both making the same argument about Lindsey Halligan's appointment.

But also, Jess, watch in the coming days. They have both made -- Letitia James and Jim Comey have both made arguments that they are being vindictively or selectively prosecuted. Now, those cases will be argued separately to their separate judges. But, to a large extent, these two defendants stand on similar legal footing.

DEAN: All right, Elie Honig, always good to see you. Thanks for that. We appreciate it.

HONIG: Thanks, Jess. All right.

DEAN: And still to come here: meals delivered to her cell, private use of the chaplain's office for visitors, and unlimited toilet paper. CNN is going to take you inside what life is like behind bars for Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

Plus, with the shutdown now over, a lot of eyes turn to the sky, as workers and travelers anxiously wait for air travel to return to normal. Will the chaotic last few weeks of the airports be cleared up before we get to that Thanksgiving holiday rush?

We have got those stories and much more still to come today on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:14:17]

DEAN: With lawmakers planning to vote on the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files next week, CNN has new exclusive reporting on his longtime associate, convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, and her life in prison.

Sources telling CNN she now gets special privileges behind bars, including meals delivered to her cell, private use of the chaplain's office for visitors, and even unlimited toilet paper.

CNN's M.J. Lee has been looking into this.

M.J., this is all really fascinating. The Justice Department still hasn't really said why she was moved to this lower-security prison, and now you're learning all about the special treatment she's receiving.

M.J. LEE, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL ENTERPRISE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and let's start with that prison that she is in and that she was transferred to back in August. This is a minimum-security prison in Bryan, Texas.

[13:15:00] And there were a lot of questions when she got moved there, because, typically, when you are a convicted child sex offender, you are not supposed to be at a minimum-security prison. Now, we have spoken with sources who are familiar with her life inside the prison. And there are numerous examples of Maxwell being afforded basically treatment that other inmates typically are not.

So just a couple of examples, unlimited toilet paper that she has access to. She is largely being isolated from the other inmates. Some cellmates, for example, were moved out, at least at one point from her cell. She was allowed to have private visitations with guests that were visiting her, which is obviously not something that is afforded to most other inmates, and then inmates that were transferred out of the Bryan camp after they raised concerns about her.

And I just want to expand on two of those examples, to start, the toilet paper. So you might think that this maybe sounds trivial, but just to get into this, a typical inmate is given two rolls of toilet paper every week. And inside of prison, having access to those kinds of toiletries, it is extremely important.

It is a luxury. It is something that the inmates take really seriously, so not something to laugh at all. And then in terms of the inmates that were transferred out of Bryan because they had raised concerns about Maxwell, we spoke with sources who are familiar with one inmate who spoke with a reporter about Maxwell.

And this inmate, just keep in mind, their daughter had been a victim of sex trafficking. So, for so many reasons, Maxwell's arrival at this camp was really personal for her, really troubling for her. And she says, according to these sources, that she was basically summoned to the lieutenant's office and scolded by the officials and then told, you are being moved and eventually got moved to a higher-security prison.

And we're also learning that this happened to several other inmates that were at Bryan who raised concerns of some kind about Maxwell.

DEAN: That's fascinating.

And what is the Bureau of Prisons saying?

LEE: Yes, so this is what a spokesperson told us in response to our story.

They said: "BOP has a duty to ensure that no inmate is treated any different from the next and that no inmate is subject to acts of violence while in custody."

Essentially, they're trying to make the point that this isn't really special treatment, but it is necessary treatment for someone who is that high-profile, someone who has received death threats, someone who's a rival at this camp, who has brought so much attention.

And a couple of things that they sort of gave explanation for, an administration official that we spoke with, they said, the meals that were delivered to her cell, that is no longer happening. They said that it only happened for a period of a month. The town hall where a warden essentially warned the other inmates, do not talk about her, an official says that this was actually prompted by the fact that there had been threats that were being made against Maxwell.

And then finally, the inmate who spoke to a reporter about Maxwell, they basically saw her comments as posing a security threat to Maxwell. So, clearly, there's little tolerance right now inside the prison for anything that might rock the boat when it comes to Maxwell.

DEAN: Amazing reporting.

All right, M.J., thank you so much -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Let's talk more about everything that is happening with the Epstein case with Tara Palmeri, an independent investigative journalist who has reported extensively on Epstein. She hosts "The Tara Palmeri Show" podcast and writes The Red Letter on Substack.

Tara, thanks for being with us.

And you hear this reporting. She's getting this preferential treatment and preparing to ask for her sentence to be commuted, according to this whistle-blower. Do you see Trump ultimately commuting her sentence? How much of a possibility is that?

TARA PALMERI, POLITICAL JOURNALIST: I think, if he commutes her, then it obviously supports his comments that this is all a hoax.

If you say there was no crime that was committed, then that backs it up. He's spoken very positively about (AUDIO GAP) who is a convicted sex offender, saying at one point "I wish her well." He's talking about her, she's an old friend. And the truth is, they were old friends for a very long time.

They have a friendship that goes back to her 20s through her father, Robert Maxwell, who was a media baron and a friend of President Trump. In fact, they all went to a party together on his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine that was parked in the Hudson River when he owned "The New York Daily News."

I mean, they were contemporaries at the time. Donald Trump and her father, they went on to be friends for decades. As we can see even from the e-mails, he said, Ghislaine needs to stop whatever she's doing at Mar-a-Lago. And I think we can all put two and two together on that, based on the fact that she recruited Virginia Giuffre from there.

And so this is a friend. I mean, this isn't just some random sex offender asking for a commutation or a pardon. This is someone with deep history to President Trump. And the way that she was so willing to clear his name also suggests that she understands the importance of what she says and how that can work in her favor.

[13:20:05]

KEILAR: And yet the e-mails raised questions, right?

Because one of the e-mails released by House Democrats, we see Epstein telling Maxwell that a redacted victim, who Republicans say is Virginia Giuffre -- quote -- "spent hours at my house with President Trump."

Maxwell, who, by the way, recently told deputy A.G. Todd Blanche she never saw Trump do anything inappropriate, appears to contradict that sentiment in this e-mail, responding: "I had been thinking about that."

At the same time, Virginia Giuffre never wrote anything negative about Trump's behavior. So how are you making sense of that e-mail, Tara?

PALMERI: It's hard to make sense of.

I mean, I spent a lot of time with Virginia Giuffre. When I worked on the "Broken" Jeffrey Epstein podcast, we traveled around the country together. And I have said this. She said she was never trafficked to Jeffrey Epstein.

There were a lot of men, though, that she was trafficked to, and they did not make it into the pages of her book.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: You said she was never trafficked. You mean never trafficked to Donald Trump? Is that what you mean?

PALMERI: Sorry, Donald Trump.

KEILAR: Yes, I just want to make sure.

PALMERI: Yes. Yes, exactly. Apologies. Yes. Yes.

She said that she was never trafficked to Donald Trump. She said he was polite to her. At the same time, she showed me the list of men that she was trafficked to, and a lot of those men are not mentioned in her book. Some of their names are not mentioned.

I was told the publisher wasn't sure if they could handle defamation cases, ensuring those claims. This is kind of standard, unfortunately, especially in this time of warfare, especially legal warfare, that we're dealing with.

And she was dealing with defamation case against Alan Dershowitz. And I have to believe what she said at the time. I don't -- I wasn't there with her. And I can only imagine what it was like to be her age, a teenager, and being trafficked to so many men and what that must have done to her and her memory, her life, her development.

And I can only speak to what she told me. I don't know what it was like -- what it was like for her at that time in her life and even what she remembered. She worked with a therapist for a while on this because a lot of people who suffer from trauma, they disassociate. They don't remember everything clearly, especially when it's sexual trauma.

And a lot of the stuff that she wrote about in her book was really quite brutal.

KEILAR: Yes, her story is brutal. I think that's a very good word to describe it, Tara.

We are expecting to see survivors. This last press conference, I mean, it was something to behold. And we're expecting to see, it appears, another one at the Capitol next week. They're planning to ratchet up pressure on lawmakers to vote to release the files, as you have Speaker Johnson saying that they're going to hold this vote sooner than he needed to.

What are you learning about their plans to do that?

PALMERI: Well, even before these e-mails leaked, I was hearing from House Republicans that if the discharge petition was filed, it'd be really hard not to vote for this bill to release the Epstein files.

They didn't know how they could face their constituents. You already saw people like Congressman Greg Steube from Florida saying in October he would vote to release the files if the discharge petition reached the floor. Now you have Don Bacon, you have Tim Burchett, both Republicans, saying that.

The numbers are adding up, and I think the house of dominoes is about to fall. I don't know how Speaker Johnson can keep it together. Maybe he thinks, by moving up the vote, he can whip harder against it. But I just think that this is a really difficult vote to take, and I don't see how these members, as we get more information day by day, that they can vote against transparency.

KEILAR: Yes, there are few votes they can take where they won't side with Donald Trump over some issue, but I think you're right. I think this may be one of those, and we're going to see that play out.

Tara Palmeri, thank you so much for speaking with us. We really appreciate it.

PALMERI: Thanks, Brianna.

KEILAR: And coming up: hundreds of new delays and cancellations at airports across the country. We have some new information on when the travel mess might or might not end.

And one airport in Japan dealing with its own travel issues because -- but it's not because of a government shutdown. The -- you see him there, her there? Very strange story just ahead on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:29:04]

KEILAR: The government may be back open, but air travel certainly is not back to normal. FlightAware reports about 1,000 flights have been canceled today and

other 400 flights planned for tomorrow. And most of this is because of air traffic controller staffing issues and the FAA's mandate to reduce flights because of the effects of the shutdown.

So let's get to CNN's Pete Muntean, who's at Reagan National Airport, where I think you have probably brought your sleeping bag here the last few days, Pete. Thanksgiving just two weeks away. So when are airports going to finally get back to normal?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, the good news is, it seems like airport checkpoints are going to get back to normal pretty quickly.

And Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is at an event in Houston right now physically handing out $10,000 bonus checks to TSA Transportation Security officers for exemplary service during this government shutdown. Remember, they also went unpaid during the shutdown.

And there were some staffing problems we saw in Houston. That was pretty notable, the lines there at one point up to three hours long, also in Atlanta.