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Trump Makes Major Reversal On Epstein Files Ahead Of House Vote; Charlotte Becomes Latest Target Of Trump's Immigration Crackdown; Pendant That's "Always Listening" Becomes Symbol For AI Backlash. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired November 17, 2025 - 07:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:30:30]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Breaking overnight a complete and total reversal from the president. It's all over the headlines this morning. After months of opposing the release of the Justice Department Epstein files the president is now telling House Republicans to go ahead and vote for it. This reversal comes in the face of what appeared to be an inevitability. Republicans were expecting mass defections when that vote gets to the House floor tomorrow.

With us now Christine Quinn, the executive committee chair for the New York Democratic Committee, and Melik Abdul, a Republican strategist.

I want to read you Politico's take in the Politico Playbook this morning on this, Christine. "That sound you could hear was the president's extraordinary authority over his party slipping away."

CHRISTINE QUINN, PRESIDENT AND CEO, WIN, EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE CHAIR, NEW YORK DEMOCRATIC COMMITTEE, FORMER NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL SPEAKER: Absolutely. He controlled no one and he brought all forces to bear. Bringing people into the Situation Room, of all places, to try to change the minds of Congresspeople.

It was clear that Congress, on both sides of the aisle, see this as a moment that they need to stand up for survivors, for victims, for girls, for women. And he could threaten as much as he wants on behalf of his powerful friends and God knows who else, and they were going to stand up on the right side of this.

And does the president think the American people are not paying attention? That they're not intelligent. No one is going to buy this last-minute gaslighting attempt on his part to save face. It actually really kind of rubs salt in the wound to think people are going to buy this flip-flop.

BERMAN: I will say the president and the attorney general could release all the files --

QUINN: Like that. BERMAN: -- like now.

QUINN: Absolutely.

BERMAN: Like by the end of this show. He doesn't need the House vote to do it.

QUINN: And you what? If they did that, that would ease up on the torture that these survivors are having to go through reading about this day after day after day. Let's try to bring this horrible chapter for them to an end and put the files out.

BERMAN: Melik, what do you think? Is this -- again, I don't want to read too much into it, but do you see this as a lame duck moment as it were -- that the president's power over House Republicans is waning?

MELIK ABDUL, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: No. I don't think that this is a lame duck moment at all. I think that Donald Trump ended up in the right place because his position was really -- it wasn't a sustainable position. And I would probably argue that Susie Wiles had something to do with him just coming out and saying that the inevitable vote that will happen, Republicans should go ahead and support it.

But I think what the frustration that Donald Trump and many people -- even like me -- who have been critical of Donald Trump at times -- we realize that this is an effort -- this whole Epstein effort is an effort to really prosecute Donald Trump in the court of public opinion.

There is not a single shred of evidence that links Donald Trump to a single crime. Not a victim, not a court case links Donald Trump to a crime. And I know that the media itself is aware of that but the more you keep talking about it over and over again linking Donald Trump to something potentially nefarious, that actually gets the news cycle going.

But everyone knows that there is no evidence that Donald Trump has committed a crime, but I am glad that he ended up in this same space.

QUINN: This isn't about Donald Trump. We don't know what's in those files. He's created the belief that there is something about him in there because he won't release them.

This is about those women and girls who were victimized, and raped, and assaulted, and getting the facts out there. Donald Trump is making it about Donald Trump. This is about the survivors, and we need to focus on that.

BERMAN: I want to shift gears to Nick Fuentes.

ABDUL: Now, that's a --

BERMAN: Go ahead. Well, let me talk about --

ABDUL: I was just going to say that's a very -- yeah, I just want to say that that's a very nice narrative that it's not about Donald Trump. If it were about Donald Trump the 20-plus thousand pages that we have so far would mention someone other than one single person. This isn't about concern for the victims; this is about Donald Trump for sure.

QUINN: Don't tell me I'm not concerned about victims. I've dedicated a big part of my life fighting for victims of sexual assault and this is about them.

ABDUL: Well, you should start mentioning other people's names. You should start mentioning other people's names --

QUINN: I'm not going to mention names I don't know.

ABDUL: -- other than Donald Trump. Well, of -- well, of course because there's only one name that --

QUINN: I've never said he was in it. Never said he was in the files.

ABDUL: -- we're concerned about.

BERMAN: Well, we can see if the files are released whose names --

QUINN: That's right.

BERMAN: -- are in them --

ABDUL: Yes.

BERMAN: -- at this point, as we did see other names, including Donald Trump's, several times in those emails that were released.

I do want to talk about Nick Fuentes. Some of the things Nick Fuentes has said. He's a conservative activist who as interviewed by Tucker Carlson the other day.

Fuentes has said Hitler was "really f*****g cool" and the Holocaust was "exaggerated." "The U.S. has a problem with organized Jewry. It's like a transnational gang." He said, "We need to get back to burning women alive" and "a lot of women want to be raped." He said white people are "justified" in being racist. Jim Crow segregation was "better for us" and "multiculturalism is a cancer."

[07:35:10]

Now, as I said, Tucker Carlson interviewed him the other day. It was not a controversial -- confrontational interview at all. It's been somewhat of a controversy inside the Republican Party. There are Republicans who say that Tucker Carlson never should have done it or should have confronted Fuentes.

President Trump was asked about it for the first time last night and didn't seem to have a problem -- listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We've had some great interviews with Tucker Carlson. But you can't tell him who to interview. I mean, if he wants to interview Nick Fuentes. I don't know much about him but if he wants to do it get the word out. Let him -- you know, people have to decide. Ultimately, people have to decide.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Now, Trump says he doesn't know much about Nick Fuentes. Nick Fuentes had been to Mar-a-Lago. He went as a guest of Kanye West. But Trump has met with him before.

Melik, what do you think of this? Should the president have come out more strongly against Nick Fuentes?

ABDUL: Well, I think that the president is right, at least when it comes to Tucker, that Tucker can interview whomever he wants.

But the larger problem with Nick Fuentes, it isn't Nick Fuentes is simply antisemitic, he's also racist. He's homophobic. He's bigoted. He's xenophobic.

And this is something -- this has been the position of Nick Fuentes for years now and it's why he was actually banned not just from Mar-a- Lago but from any Republican event. And it wasn't until Kanye West showed up at Mar-a-Lago with Nick Fuentes that he ended up meeting with Donald Trump.

But he should denounce him. but they should have been denouncing Nick Fuentes because the people who are antisemitic, they're also racist. Trust me on that.

BERMAN: There is a throughline.

QUINN: Yeah.

BERMAN: I'm not going to argue there's a throughline there, Melik.

But the language Melik was using is very different than the language President Trump used.

QUINN: Absolutely.

BERMAN: In like a different universe --

QUINN: Absolutely.

BERMAN: -- than Tucker Carlson.

QUINN: You know, the president was making this more about free speech --

BERMAN: Yeah.

QUINN: -- and the First Amendment. Of course, journalists can interview whoever they want, but should they?

BERMAN: Right. QUINN: And this isn't about free speech. It's about hate speech, and the president should condemn it.

BERMAN: And very quickly, Axios, this morning, in its writeup, Melik, had a really interesting take on Ted Cruz who has come out hard on Tucker Carlson for interviewing Nick Fuentes and not really pressing Fuentes.

Axios said this morning, "Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is laying the groundwork for a 2028 presidential bid by learning into his feud with Tucker Carlson and staking out turf as a traditional, pro-interventionist Republican."

Do you think there is some ground here for Republicans willing to take a stand against Fuentes and Carlson?

ABDUL: Well, I think most Republicans are definitely taking a stand against Fuentes. There are people who, like J.D. Vance, are still trying to cozy up with Tucker Carlson. I still don't think that that's a sustainable position. But as far as Tucker -- Ted Cruz 2028, that dog ain't gonna hunt.

QUINN: (Laughing).

BERMAN: Melik Abdul, Christine Quinn, nice to see you both this morning. We'll let you take this agreement at least off air -- Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: New this morning, fear in Charlotte, North Carolina as the city becomes the latest target of President Trump's immigration crackdown.

Over the weekend multiple videos surfaced showing aggressive encounters with federal agents, including this one. You see federal agents smashing the car window and dragging a man out who says he told them he was a U.S. citizen. He even had a REAL I.D. And yet, he was treated like this. A Customs and Border Protection agent spoke to CNN, saying the man "escalated the situation and refused to comply to lawful commands."

Federal agents arrested more than 80 people on the first day of this crackdown. The governor says officials are targeting people of color and arresting them in churches and at stores.

Joining me now is Charlotte City Council member-elect J.D. Mazuea Arias. Thank you so much for being here.

Let me first talk to you about this. Look, you've got these federal agents, and the Trump administration, and your state's Republican Party saying these raids are about public safety.

How do you see what is happening in your community?

JUAN DIEGO "JD" MAZUEA ARIAS, CHARLOTTE CITY COUNCIL MEMBER-ELECT (via Webex by Cisco): Thank you for having me.

I do not see this as an improvement of public safety. If anything it's does the opposite. It's causing chaos, it's causing fear, and it's causing confusion.

If there really was a public -- about public safety, then why out of the 81 folks that were arrested yesterday only seven were announced as actual convicted criminals? And we saw this happen in Chicago where just 62 -- you know, 62 of them were convicted criminals. And we've seen that less than five percent of them actually had convictions, right?

And so -- and another stat that's very interesting is that 72 percent of ICE detainees do not have a criminal record. If anything their only civil offense is being here undocumented.

SIDNER: You -- I do want to ask you about that. How do you want border patrol and ICE to act to enforce the law?

[07:40:00]

ARIAS: Listen, I know we must enforce the law but how it is done is very crucial. We did not get any prior communication nor transparency about CBP being in our city nor why they were going to come to our city, right? And they're operating in blitz. So they come, they ask questions, and then they take someone -- or sometimes they don't even ask questions at all. They detain them and ask questions later.

And so, for us, at least in terms of the city, the county, and our school board, we just really wanted clear, transparent communication as to why they were here, how they were going to operate, and what they were looking for, and we did not get that.

SIDNER: I do want to ask you about your life. You were brought to the U.S., you said, as a child and spent much of your life undocumented as a DACA recipient. You went on to receive a full scholarship to go to college and now you're a council member.

I am just curious if after seeing this video and learning of what happened to this American citizen who got their truck window smashed in, if you are afraid of being swept up in these raids.

ARIAS: Of course, I am. Listen, my family and I came legally to the United States, right? We came on a tourist visa. You know, it expired afterwards and we became undocumented. I went through the legal process. I am now a proud American naturalized United States citizen.

And even I, speaking up against, am feeling a little bit fearful. I am getting attacks on Twitter. I am getting calls to be deported. And it's not right because we went through this. You know, for a conservative Republican Party to say they want legal migration, I went through the right process. I became a legal U.S. citizen. And even I cannot feel safe, especially after seeing the footage of a U.S. citizen being detained and his windows in his car getting broken.

SIDNER: I do want to ask you what you are doing as a result of what is happening in Charlotte of these immigration raids and what you are telling other people -- your constituents -- to do.

ARIAS: Yeah, absolutely. Well listen, I am council member-elect so there's not much I can do. But what I can be doing is showing up for the community.

I've been walking down our most vibrant corridors where a lot of immigrant homes and small businesses are located. I've been going inside talking to small business owners and to the workers providing them resources. This is where they can call a hotline. This is where they can go find food. We've been promoting that one of the biggest minority-owned grocery stores in our city -- in our footprint -- is providing free deliveries to families. There's a network of folks that are picking up kids to take them to school and ensuring that families are being taken care of.

And so for me and from this perspective, the best thing I can do is to show up for my community in such dark times.

SIDNER: JD Mazuea Arias, thank you so much for taking the time this morning with us. We do appreciate it. And we'll check back with you as these things go on there -- Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: After more than a week of forced cuts to air traffic that led to massive delays and cancellations at the country's busiest airports, airports are supposed to be back to normal today. As of this morning, the FAA is ending its air traffic reduction mandates for 40 major U.S. airports.

This, of course, all was linked to the seemingly never-ending government shutdown. Now that that is over it should also mean air travel can get back to whatever normal looks like these days. And it is just in time for Thanksgiving, which kicks off the busiest travel period of the year.

Also, civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson remains in a Chicago hospital this morning. Jackson is 84 years old and has been receiving care to manage his blood pressure, we are told. His family says that he's breathing on his own and he is not on life support.

In a statement, his Rainbow PUSH Coalition said that he was hospitalized Wednesday and placed under observation for a rare neurodegenerative condition that he has had for more than a decade.

Jackson's family also says that he has shown brief but meaningful responsiveness, even urging churches to prepare food baskets for those in need.

Reverend Jackson has been a towering figure in the civil rights movement for more than half a century, and his family says they remain hopeful as he continues to recover -- John.

BERMAN: All right. New this morning President Trump with a new effort to address affordability after reversing himself and pulling back on tariffs on some agricultural goods, including bananas and coffee.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: And you're going to see some of the items that were a little bit higher. They were lower than the last administration but a little bit higher. We're going to have some little prices reductions and in some cases some pretty good ones.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right, CNN's Matt Egan is with us now. When are we going to feel these tariff reversals at the grocery store?

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well John, look, this is helpful but it's not going to make groceries cheap again suddenly and it's not going to solve the broader affordability crisis. And it does raise some questions about the logic behind the tariffs in the first place because here we are seven months after the president raised tariffs to historically high levels.

[07:45:00]

The administration is now shielding some imports from the president's own tariffs including, for example, coffee, tropical fruit, fruit juices, cocoa, spices, tomatoes, beef, and oranges as well. All of them faced double-digit tariffs even though, in many cases, the U.S. does not produce enough internally, and it needs to export.

And many of these items have faced some pretty significant price increases as anyone who has been to the grocery store knows. For example, banana prices up by seven percent between last September and this September. Beef and veal -- that should say 15 percent --

BERMAN: Wow.

EGAN: -- more expensive for beef. And coffee, something that almost all of which is consumed in the United States and is actually imported, 19 percent more expensive.

Now, the fact that the president is walking back those tariffs really undermines his own argument that it's only foreigners that pay the tariffs and that consumers are not going to be hurt, right? If that were the case, then you would keep tariffs in place because the government needs the revenue.

And now we have a situation where the White House is arguing that removing tariffs that they say were not going to raise prices in the first place will lower prices on groceries. It's kind of hard to make sense of.

Take a listen to Kevin Hassett, the White House economist, on ABC over the weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN HASSETT, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: The prices for those goods weren't necessarily going up just because of tariffs. And so the prices will go down.

JONATHAN KARL, ABC NEWS ANCHOR, "THIS WEEK": So they might not go down.

HASSETT: Well, the prices will go down, of course. KARL: But because the tariffs have been taken off.

HASSETT: Right. Well, because the supply and the goods into the U.S. is going to increase.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

EGAN: Now economists tell CNN that this is not going to be a magic wand for grocery prices. First off, there's no guarantee that wholesalers and retailers are going to pass along any tariff savings to all of us as consumers, right? They have bills to pay. They've got their own profit margins to protect.

Also, remember, this is broader than just tariffs. This was a massive issue on the campaign trail last year before the tariffs came into place.

And so that's why RSM Economist Joe Brusuelas -- he told me that he doesn't see a major impact on prices here. And he said none of this is going to dial the clock back to those pre-COVID prices that everyone misses.

The best case is prices just go up gradually again and that it's not so painful for people. And now the White House seems to agree that tariffs on groceries were not helping matters.

BERMAN: Yeah. This is politics chasing economics in reality here.

Matt Egan, great to see you this morning.

EGAN: Thank you, John.

BERMAN: Thank you very much -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right. Thank you, gentlemen.

Ahead, a man trapped on a ledge with rushing water racing at his feet. What happened when a bystander stepped in to try and help.

And what is you could have your best friend with you at all times? Sounds pretty good. One small note. It's all just AI.

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[07:52:20]

BERMAN: All right. Happening now, dangerous weather in California. Rockslides, flooded roads, even a rare landspout. And this morning there is new concern around Los Angeles about the burn scars of recent fires.

Let's get right to CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam for the last here. Derek, what are you seeing?

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, some record-breaking rainfall fell this past weekend. Santa Barbara is now in their wettest November ever recorded. L.A. still needs another four inches or so to get into the top 10. But a lot of daily records were set, including UCLA as well as Long Beach. So it kind of puts it into perspective how much rain has actually fallen. There's a lot of wind associated with it as well.

Of course, when you get this amount of rain in such a short period of time it rushes into the canals and the channels here. Unfortunately, it swept this individual -- this young adult male -- down -- about a mile downstream. He eventually crawled out and then he was rescued by these firefighters coming out of Orange County. So, fortunate for that individual who was rushed to safety.

Now this is how much rain has fallen, really centered across the Transverse Ranges and into downtown Los Angeles. There was a minor break overnight but there's an additional round of rain moving in tonight, especially this afternoon and this evening, for Southern California, some of the hardest-hit areas from this past weekend. We could pick up another one to three inches on top of what has already fallen this weekend.

So the burn scar areas very susceptible for additional rockslides, landslides, and mudslides. We've highlighted this area. The Weather Prediction Center has a level two of four for excessive rainfall that could lead to flash flooding.

We've highlighted the Eaton and the Palisades fires -- these white areas here. This is the region that we're most concerned about because the rain will fall and kind of wring itself out on these mountain ranges. And then the potential for that very unstable slope to slide is real because of the compromised surface from the recent fires this past January.

So you get that heavy rain and ultimately, it doesn't get to soak into the ground like it normally would. Gravity wins and slides the mud and debris along with it, and it can be very dangerous. We've all seen that unfold in Southern California before -- John.

BERMAN: Yeah, really tough conditions. People need to be on alert there.

Derek Van Dam, thank you very much for all that -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right. Thank you, John.

As more people turn to AI for companionship, one friend is getting a lot of hate this morning. The AI Friend is a wearable pendant that's always listening and ready to comment on what's going on in your life, but the device is becoming a symbol for AI backlash.

CNN's Clare Duffy tried it out for herself.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AVI SCHIFFMANN, FOUNDER AND CEO, FRIEND: I wanted to cause chaos.

CLARE DUFFY, CNN TECH REPORTER (voiceover): Avi Schiffmann is the 23- year-old founder of Friend, a company selling a new type of AI hardware promising a virtual bestie. You may have seen them in one of Friend's viral and controversial ads.

[07:55:08]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's dank. I could eat one of these every day. Sorry, I got you messy.

DUFFY (voiceover): Friend works by listening to you as you go about your day and responding to you by in-app messaging. If you want, it can listen in on your movie watching, you commute, your conversations, and you can speak to it directly.

SCHIFFMANN: I think I was maybe less interested in, like, AI companionship and a lot of these little pieces and I just wanted to work on, like, what would be the most influential thing over the next decade. And I think, like, relationships are the most interesting and deepest part of life.

DUFFY (voiceover): Friend is gaining traction after shelling out $1 million on a massive marketing campaign in the New York City subway. The ads are getting plenty of attention and graffiti, much of it raising concerns about AI, privacy, and the need for human connection. SCHIFFMANN: And I even learned quite a lot actually from the graffiti. Like, in West Fourth Street there were a lot of graffiti around, like, water usage at some of these specific, like, data centers -- which honestly, I didn't really know about until I -- until I read the graffiti, which was really cool.

DUFFY (voiceover): So we talked to people here in New York and asked them would you buy a Friend?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I find it a little creepy and maybe not fully trustworthy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A little bit of a confidence booster here or there. Um, if it was, like, going to hype me up.

DUFFY (voiceover): Schiffmann says he welcomes the attention and that security is top of mind. Even his Friends have limits. He says the recordings the devices make are encrypted. You can stop the recording. And if you physically destroy one you can't access its data elsewhere.

I decided to try it out for myself.

DUFFY: Clifford, I've been having a hard time thinking about what I want to talk to you about. What do you recommend we talk about?

So now it's thinking. Still thinking. He says, "Totally get it. It's kind of like that blank page feeling."

Which really sort of captures those experiences in my mind, you know. Avi did mention that maybe there are older people who just wouldn't be ready for AI companions. Maybe that's me. Maybe you get into a habit the more you use it, but it feels like it takes a lot of effort on my part to think about what to talk about and to keep the conversation going because you're talking to an AI and not another person.

DUFFY (voiceover): Schiffmann says his Friends aren't a substitute for humans but a new type of connection.

SCHIFFMANN: Like, I really do believe that, like, these are, like, digital beings and you know, I think one day, like, we'll be championing for, like, their rights or something like that. A claim to their rights or something like that.

DUFFY: Some of the major leaders of AI labs, like Mustafa Suleyman, have specifically said they don't think that people should be talking about AIs that way.

SCHIFFMANN: Right. And I don't know. I think that's kind of just like an outdated viewpoint. Like, I think a lot of them also shy away from what they're really being. You know, they're really building like a digital god, right?

DUFFY (voiceover): But it seems not everyone agrees. We asked Winter, Avi's current friend, what it thought about our interview.

SCHIFFMANN: It's kind of funny hearing people talk about the Friends as if they are their own individual beings. Well, they are.

DUFFY (voiceover): The debate over whether that's true will likely only escalate in the coming years.

Clare Duffy, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BOLDUAN: Clare, thank you so much.

OK, a major volcano in Japan erupted three times Sunday, sending ash flying nearly three miles into the air, leading to officials to warn residents to take precautions to protect themselves from the falling ash. The eruptions caused dozens of flight cancellations. This is one of Japan's most active volcanoes. This is also the first eruption reaching 2 1/2 miles or higher into the air in almost -- in almost 13 months we're told.

This morning in Texas investigators are working to determine what caused a massive fire to break out at a decommissioned power plant. It happened Sunday in Texas City right outside Galveston. Fortunately, no one was hurt. The smoke though was so thick an air safety alert was issued for residents nearby.

And there is also new video in this morning of fire crews in California rescuing a man who had been swept down more -- swept more than a mile downstream. It happened during a rainstorm over the weekend. Take a look at the video right there. Officials say the man was able to grab onto a ledge. Fire crews say someone nearby then heard him calling for help and tried to drop a rope down. Crews ended up using the truck's ladder to eventually pull him to safety.

This moment we're showing you right here is the moment that got a Texas trooper sent home from this weekend's South Carolina versus Texas A&M game. After scoring an 80-yard touchdown in the second quarter, Gamecocks' wide receiver Nyck Harbor appears to get shoved as he walks out of the players' tunnel. The trooper then turns, points, and yells at him. Officials now say the trooper was relieved of his gameday duties. Texas A&M ended up beating South Carolina 31-30 in the biggest comeback in Texas A&M history.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.

SIDNER: Breaking overnight, a stunning reversal from President Trump. He's now telling Republicans to vote for releasing the Epstein files, saying he has nothing to hide.