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Chinese Crew Back Home After Suspected Debris Strike Delays Return; Trump Briefed On Options For Military Operations In Venezuela; Trump Seeks DOJ Probe Into Epstein's Ties To High-profile Figures; House Expected To Vote Next Week On Releasing Epstein Files; 21 Protesters Arrested Outside Ice Facility Near Chicago; Judge Orders Release Of Hundreds Of Illinois Immigration Crackdown; Trump Administration Lowering Mega Tariffs On Switzerland; New Wave Of Deadly Attacks In Ukraine; Russian Officials Say Assassination Plot By Ukraine Foiled; Ukraine Faces Dark, Cold Winter As Russia Targets Energy Sector. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired November 14, 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]

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, they had to take the ship from the other astronauts who had come there and come back on that. So now, there are astronauts on the space station who don't have a way to come back, but they will work that out over time. Important to bear in mind, you think how is it possible that something like this could happen from something hitting the ship out there. In 2016, the Space Station was hit by what they think was a chip of paint, and it did a lot of damage because these things are traveling 17,000 to 18,000 miles an hour.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Chip of paint, so tiny.

FOREMAN: Yeah.

DEAN: All right. Tom Foreman, good to see you. Thanks so much.

FOREMAN: Good to see you.

DEAN: A new hour of "CNN News Central" starts right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": President Trump goes on offense. He's calling Republicans who support the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files weak, and he's ordering high-profile investigations into other people's alleged ties to Epstein. Plus, a peaceful protest outside a controversial ICE facility in Chicago turns chaotic. Several people arrested after reportedly pushing past barriers in front of the building.

And sources say President Trump was briefed this week on options for military operations inside Venezuela, as President Nicolas Maduro speaks to CNN and sends a message to the American people. We're following these major developing stories in many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central." DEAN: Today, President Trump is pushing a new strategy as the fallout grows over next week's House vote to release the Epstein files. The president saying lawmakers who support the effort are, in his words, weak, soft, and foolish. And this was directed at members of his own party. House GOP leaders already bracing for a number of Republicans to defy the president next week.

All of this, as President Trump says, he will now be asking Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Epstein's ties to prominent Democrats and others. Let's go now to CNN's Kristen Holmes, who is live at the White House. And Kristen, I know you have some brand new reporting that you've gathered on all of this. What are you learning this afternoon?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Jessica. Well, clearly President Trump is shifting strategy here. Now, we are told that this comes after he had heard from at least one ally on Capitol Hill, that he was getting bad advice when it came to responding to the Epstein case, particularly denying or delaying.

Now, I will tell you that for months, several of his allies, even the most outspoken conservative podcasters and hosts have been telling the White House, have been telling President Trump, that they believe the president should shift strategy, stop being on the defensive because what we've really seen for the last several months is a White House that has been playing defense.

Now, when I talk to White House officials as well as some of these allies, they say that this is because President Trump himself was the one dictating how the response went. He did not want people getting out there ahead of stories, only reacting and calling it a hoax. But now, we are seeing a complete shift in strategy because President Trump is going on the offensive. Now, he is asking the Department of Justice, he's asking Pam Bondi to look into these high profile Democrats and see what their ties to Epstein were.

And I will tell you, I had two conversations yesterday with, again, high-profile conservative commentators, who were telling me that they thought President Trump needed to make this about the Democrats. Here of course, we see President Trump trying to do that, but this really does shift the strategy in the sense that President Trump is now ensuring that this story that he has been trying to get away from for several months is going to stay in the spotlight. At least though in this case, his advisers and the president himself, I'm told, believe that they can control, or at least try to control the narrative around it.

DEAN: And Kristen, look, recent polling shows a majority of Republicans want to see the Epstein files. Has the White House discussed this possibility that if this makes this to the president's desk, what he might do?

DEAN: They are certainly having those conversations. They're not sharing what the end game is going to be because you have to remember a couple of things. There are steps before this actually lands on the president's desk, and they're still trying to figure out what they're going to do in the interim before this would land on his desk, meaning President Trump, his advisers do believe this is going to pass in the House.

Well then, it goes to the Senate. What are they going to do then? Are they going to try to whip votes, trying to get people to vote against it? Or are they going to sit back and let this happen? I was told by officials that President Trump and his team are aware that this is inevitable. The vote happening is inevitable, and there is a belief that it will go all the way up to his desk. But before that happens, it has to go through the Senate. And whether or not he signs it, well, we've seen where he stands on it. So that might be a clear indication.

However, there's going to likely be a lot of pushback if this gets all the way to his desk and then he vetoes it. Yeah.

DEAN: All right. it would be really interesting to see if Congress does push back on the president. They have not really done that so far. Kristen Holmes, thank you so much. Brianna?

KEILAR: Protesters at a controversial ICE Detention Center near Chicago clashing with law enforcement officers today, with several protesters being handcuffed and detained after pushing past barriers. The largely peaceful protest happened as a federal judge ordered the release of hundreds of migrants arrested as part of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown in the Chicago area.

[14:05:00]

One of those released Thursday from ICE detention is daycare teacher, Diana Galeano. Last week, she was arrested by ICE agents inside a Chicago daycare center and forced out of the building with her arms behind her back. That arrest sparked outrage in the community, including from parents and city leaders. I'm joined now by Maria Guzman, who is a parent of a child at that daycare center. Maria, have you gotten a chance to talk to Diana since she was released?

MARIA GUZMAN, PARENT AT CHICAGO DAYCARE WHERE TEACHER WAS ARRESTED BY ICE AGENTS: Hi, Brianna. Thank you for having me. I have heard from folks who have been in contact with Diana. She is overjoyed to be back home, but this has naturally caused a lot of trauma. There's a lot of fear still. And so, this has just had a great impact, negative impact on our community as a school, but also as parents and in general, here in Chicago.

KEILAR: What is the daycare community doing to support her?

GUZMAN: Well, we have been supporting her from the moment this happened. We've been supporting the school in general. I think our voices are being heard. We're meeting with electeds. We are trying to ensure that not only does this not happen again in our community, but across the city and really across the country. Hundreds of these incidents are happening and a lot of times the voices of those communities where it is happening are not being heard. And so, we're trying to do what we can to support her specifically, but also just in general, put a voice and a story behind what's happening and how horrifying this is. KEILAR: I know you have one child at the daycare center, another one who graduated from the daycare center. Can you tell me about the conversations that you've had with your kids? What have they said to you? What are you saying to them?

GUZMAN: So, I have struggled. We have struggled, my husband and I, a little bit about this. Our children are of Latin American descent. We both come from immigrant families, immigrant parents, and we've been afforded some wonderful opportunities, but we've also had to face the real world and how -- sometimes, how cruel the society can sometimes be to immigrants. And so, we are sort of trying to let them be children, continue being children.

I do know that other families have taken a different route where they've had conversations and it's created a lot of confusion for these kids, who typically see law enforcement as people who protect them, right? And for there to be an incident now where law enforcement came into their school, they're questioning that. They're wondering, am I going to be taken for speaking Spanish? Is my teacher going to be taken? And so, this has just created such fear and terror in our community as a school again, but just in general, that it's really horrific what has happened. And this isn't an incident, but it's one of many. And this wasn't point in time, this is something that will potentially continue.

KEILAR: So, I know you're talking to other parents, so their kids are worried this is going to happen again?

GUZMAN: Yes. They're having nightmares. Their pretend play is them being an ICE agent and their parents being arrested. it's just horrific and something that children should not be worried about or playing around with like that the idea of law enforcement being a threat to their family and their safety is just unreal.

KEILAR: Maria Guzman, thank you so much for being with us on this story. We really appreciate it.

GUZMAN: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

KEILAR: Still to come. Rising tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela as President Trump is now looking at potential options for military operations. And then later, new airstrikes inside of Ukraine, Russia attacking targets in Kyiv. The locals say are home to no one except civilians. We'll have that a much more coming up on "CNN News Central."

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[14:13:55]

DEAN: New today as Americans continue to struggle with high prices, some due to President Trump's tariffs on certain imported goods. The Trump administration says it's close to striking a new trade deal. Here is U.S. Trade Representative, Jamieson Greer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JAMIESON GREER, U.S. TRADE REPRESENTATIVE: We've essentially reached a deal with Switzerland. So we'll post details of that today on the White House website, where they're going to send a lot of their manufacturing here to the United States., pharmaceuticals, gold smelting, railway equipment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Now, according to the Swiss government, the U.S. will drop the tariff rate on Swiss imports from 39 to 15 percent. Meanwhile, domestically, markets are mixed after yesterday's worst trading day in over a month. Rick Newman joins us now. He's a Business Columnist and Author of "The Rick Report" on Substack. Thanks so much for being here with us. I do think people are looking at the markets and wondering what's going on. They really do seem to be a bit on edge. How are you reading things?

RICK NEWMAN, BUSINESS COLUMNIST AND AUTHOR OF "THE RICK REPORT": Yeah, we've had some wobbles lately. I mean, we've got all this A.I. growth that's coming in, and then there are questions, is this a bubble?

[14:15:00]

And every now and then, there's a pullback. But for anybody who hears markets are down in a given day or a given week, I implore you, zoom out and look at the longer term. And if you do that, you're going to -- you're going to feel reassured. So I just ran the numbers about an hour ago. Yeah, we've seen the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ flat-line lately, but for the year, the S&P 500 is up 15 percent. And the NASDAQ, which has all those tech stocks, Nvidia and all the rest, it's up 19 percent this year.

So, this has been a really good year for stocks and a couple down days in the last couple of weeks doesn't change that.

DEAN: And there's a lot of talk about a role that A.I. is playing in the market right now. How would you explain that to people?

NEWMAN: So, this is obviously a breakthrough technology akin to the onset of the internet and digital technology in the 1990s. And some people think it's going to be even more transformative than that. But we're not seeing all the transformation happening yet. What we're seeing is bets on the transformation. So, I mean, anybody who has used an A.I. search engine knows that it's interesting. Maybe it's a little better than a regular internet search. And you think to yourself, well, what's this going to change down the road?

Some people think it's going to change everything about how we communicate, how we work, how we use technology, how we use the tools that we do our work with. But those changes aren't here yet. So, all this investment that's going into data centers and chips and everything else is all premised on the idea that A.I. is going to be this huge breakthrough technology. But we just don't -- we just don't know what those breakthroughs are going to be yet.

So all this money's getting invested. Some of it is generating returns and profits, but some of it is not. And every now and then, investors say, whoa, has this gone too far? And then we've seen pullbacks. But, the bottom-line verdict so far has been, yeah, this is really going to be change for the future. And that's why every time stocks go down by a percentage point or two, you see people coming in doing the so- called buying the dip and saying, we think this is a bargain and we want to get in.

DEAN: We also know that because of the government shutdown, we did not get the economic data from the government that we're used to getting. And what don't we know? What do -- what are people waiting to know and how might that impact things?

NEWMAN: So what we've missed, the big ones are we missed one inflation report so far. That was the one for October. And we've missed two jobs reports, which were the ones for September and October. And we may never get that data. So when you -- a year from now, when you look back at the time series, there might be a gap in those couple of months. But, investors and the Federal Reserve, they still have a pretty good idea what's going on with jobs and with prices because there's a lot of other data in addition to what the government puts out.

So once we get back online, what we're probably going to see, according to all this other data, private data and other sources, definitely the job market is slowing. We had about 165,000 new jobs on average per month last year. That is probably much lower. It's probably around 30,000 to 40,000 new jobs. I've seen some forecast saying, we might have no job growth happening right now and we probably -- inflation is probably around three percent. Inflation got as low as 2.3 percent back in April and it's been going the wrong direction since then.

So that's why the Federal Reserve is getting a little concerned. They're saying maybe we're not going to cut interest rates again like we did the last two meetings. And that is one of the thing that's been contributing to this nervousness in financial markets. But we do still kind of have a Goldilocks economy. I mean, we do not have high unemployment yet, inflation is higher than we want it to be at 3 percent, but that's not ruinous. So things are not terrible.

DEAN: All right, Rick Newman, we'll leave it there. Things are not terrible, he says. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it.

Still to come, the end of the shutdown leaves a lot of questions on how Democrats handled it. With Republicans, ahead, what it could mean for political battles on Capitol Hill, plus a new round of deadly airstrikes inside Ukraine. We're going to bring you the response from President Zelenskyy on those attacks. We'll have those stories and much more, coming up right here on "CNN News Central."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:24:00]

DEAN: New today, Russia's security service says it foiled a Ukrainian plot to assassinate a high-ranking Kremlin official while he visited the graves of relatives at a cemetery outside Moscow. Ukraine denies the report, accusing Moscow of churning out fake news. Meanwhile, both countries launched major aerial attacks against each other overnight. CNN's Ben Wedeman has details on that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Flashes in the sky over Kyiv. It's another night of Russian bombardment. Ukrainian air defenses managed to intercept most of the drones and missiles, but not all. This strike hitting the heart of the Ukrainian capital. Ukrainian officials say the strikes killed at least six people, wounding dozens.

Peaceful residents live here says, Kyiv resident Anastasia Chevjenko (ph). There are no critical infrastructure facilities here.

[14:25:00]

These are residential neighborhoods. Ordinary people, peaceful residents are suffering.

Officials say Russia fired almost 450 drones and missiles overnight, plunging parts of Kyiv and other areas into darkness.

My front door was blown off, recalls Maria Kalchenko (ph). Flames were bursting out of there. I grabbed my dog and searched for the cats, but I couldn't find them. I've made my way out to the street through A hole.

The choice of targets is not accidental, says Kyiv Mayor, Vitali Klitschko.

MAYOR VITALI KLITSCHKO, KYIV, UKRAINE: Kyiv, it is symbol of Kyiv -- symbol of Ukraine. It is the heart of the country. And that's why from beginning of the war, always Kyiv was in still target of Russian army and especially before the winter.

WEDEMAN (voice-over): Since August after Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin met in Alaska, Russia has focused much of its fire on Ukraine's energy sector, depriving Ukrainians of heat and power as winter approaches. The fire, however, is going both ways. Ukraine launched hundreds of drones it targets in Russia. At a time when diplomatic efforts to end or even pause this war have come to naught, the people on both sides are facing the prospect of a cold, brutal, and bloody winter.

Ben Wedeman, CNN, Rome.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: Ben, thank you. And still to come, just days after the release of emails from Jeffrey Epstein that mentioned Donald Trump, the president is now pushing to DOJ to investigate Epstein's ties to several high-profile figures. More on that when we come back.

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