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Trump Files Lawsuit Against Wall Street Journal Over Epstein Report; World War II Veteran Turned TikTok Star Jake Larson Dies At 102; Astronomer CEO Resigns After Coldplay Concert Video; DNC Plans To Conduct 2024 Autopsy; Ukraine Calls For Peace Talks With Russia Next Week; Trump To Sign $9B Cut To Public Broadcasting, International Aid; Americans React To Epstein Files Fallout. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired July 19, 2025 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:00:37]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jessica Dean in New York.

And tonight, a new escalation in the story President Donald Trump can't seem to shake. The ongoing saga over the so-called Epstein files. Earlier this week, the "Wall Street Journal" published a story on a collection of letters reportedly gifted to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday. One of the letters, the newspaper says, included a drawing of a naked woman's shape with Trump's name on it and an imagined conversation how Trump and Epstein share a secret.

The president denies he wrote the note. Now he's suing the paper's publisher, Dow Jones, the company's owner, Rupert Murdoch, and two reporters for libel. Some MAGA supporters are now rallying around the president, despite weeks of criticism over the Justice Department's handling of the Epstein case.

CNN's senior reporter Betsy Klein picks it up from there.

Betsy, the Justice Department now asking a judge to release years old grand jury testimony related to Epstein to the public. What are they hoping to accomplish here and how long might this take to play out?

BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's President Trump and his team's hope that this will go away. But the reason they haven't been able to change the narrative as quickly as they would have liked is because President Trump and some of his top lieutenants, including Vice President JD Vance, Attorney General Pamela Bondi, FBI director Kash Patel and others were among those who have spent significant time propagating conspiracy theories about Jeffrey Epstein, demanding transparency, saying that there is a there- there.

And it was just about two weeks ago that the Department of Justice and the FBI released a memo that concluded that Epstein's death was a suicide, and there was never a so-called client list. The president's MAGA supporters now in revolt, demanding transparency, information and documents that they had been promised by some of these top officials for years now, essentially pitting the president against the movement that he created.

The president, of course, thought that this was sorted, but not interesting, as he encouraged his supporters to move on. But the pressure was really intensifying. The president announced that he would ask his attorney general, Pam Bondi, to unseal all pertinent testimony related to Jeffrey Epstein.

Now, the government filed that request in a federal court on Friday, but it could take a little bit of time for the judge to rule one way or the other. And if that is released, it really would mark a small fraction of the overall body of evidence against Jeffrey Epstein. President Trump, it really shouldn't be a surprise that his supporters continue to clamor for more information. The president appearing to acknowledge that in a post to social media.

He said, quote, "I've asked the Justice Department to release all grand jury testimony with respect to Jeffrey Epstein, subject only to court approval. With that being said, and even if the court gave its full and unwavering approval, nothing will be good enough for the troublemakers and radical left lunatics making the request. It will always be more, more, more."

Now the pressure continued to mount this week when the "Wall Street Journal" published that story that revealed what appeared to be a letter signed by President Trump to Jeffrey Epstein, including a drawing of a naked woman on the occasion of Epstein's birthday back in 2003. The president now making good on his threat to sue the "Wall Street Journal."

DEAN: All right, Betsy Klein, at the White House. Stay with us, Betsy.

In the meantime, I do want to bring in former Trump attorney Jim Trusty.

Jim, thank you so much for your time tonight. We really appreciate you being here.

JAMES TRUSTY, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: Sure.

DEAN: I first just want to start with your initial thoughts on President Trump's new legal fight against "The Journal." Kind of what you think the strategy is here. And also, you've been with the president during legal battles. Kind of take us inside his mind as he thinks about these sorts of things.

TRUSTY: Yes. Well, look, I mean, I think that the lawsuit against "The Journal" is an interesting one. Defamation is obviously always difficult for public figures, and he's about as public a figure as you can get. This actual malice standard that we have is not even just malice in terms of "The Journal" maybe not liking him. It's really like a malice towards the truth and the fairness of what they're publishing.

But I will say this, Jessica. I mean, I was around President Trump for, you know, better part of a year or so, had a lot of communications with them, also had a lot of reasons to be looking through his papers, his documents, and the description of this kind of salacious birthday card really doesn't ring true at all.

[19:05:01]

I mean, it's -- it's typewritten. Everyone knows this is a black Sharpie guy. He doesn't sit there and type out messages. It's a third person conversation, almost like you're reading a screenplay. And there's a sketch, right? All of that stuff does not sound like the President Trump, whose writings I saw both kind of professional and personal writings. So the issue is not just, you know, whether or not President Trump says this, and the "Wall Street Journal" says that, it's going to be what kind of notice "The Journal" get and apparently Karoline Leavitt and the president each weighed in with Murdoch or with "The Journal" to say this is bogus.

And then what "The Journal's" justification is. You know, can they say, we ran this down? We second sourced it? We had some other corroboration of its reliability? I think that's going to make it, you know, that's the make or break point for the defamation here. If they literally knew they were on notice that it's bogus and didn't do anything else but say we want to put it out there because it's a good story, then they're going to have some problem.

But it's going to take a while to shake down. And I think, you know, all parties should just recognize it's not going to get solved overnight. There's going to be motions and hearings long before you get to the substance of any sort of deposition.

As to the president's mindset, Jessica, I mean, look, you know, it's kind of interesting, when President Trump took over the first term, I think people really weren't sure that he was exactly a cultural conservative, that he was going to take on some of the battles that conservatives had complained about going back to Reagan. And the reality is, he's willing to take on the media. Obviously, he calls out the media all the time during presentations and speeches, but he literally is willing to sue them and subject both himself and Rupert Murdoch to depositions.

And in some ways, that's a message that a lot of his followers probably like. Again, look at CBS. I mean, he actually had a pretty darn successful case there in terms of the interview of the then vice president. So it's a long time before we really know how much legs the case has. But I think a lot of people welcome the fight.

DEAN: I do want to ask you a couple things in what you just said. First of all, it is going to take some time to do all of this. But this does open the president up to discovery, to a deposition and the "Wall Street Journal" as well and all of those parties named. But that could bring new information forward, different information. Information people don't necessarily want out there is going to be public.

TRUSTY: Yes. I mean, look, anytime you're talking about, you know, the chief executive of the United States, as a lawyer, your first instinct is, you know, we better be really kind of hesitant to go on offense and subject ourselves to depositions. I say that kind of across the board for high level executives of any sort. But the reality is this is a guy who's got thick skin. He's been through this process.

You could argue he gets the equivalent of deposed almost every time he makes a public appearance. He gets a lot of hard questions. And of course, he did go through questions in the context of the New York litigation. And he was kind of his normal self. He was pretty feisty and combative, you know, taking on the lawyers for E. Jean Carroll. So I don't think that for President Trump, unlike a lot of people, he's all that fearful of going through a deposition, even though it's a -- it's a serious drain of time when that day comes.

DEAN: Yes. And the president did threaten to take legal action against the "Wall Street Journal" before the story published. Look, it's unlikely from a risk assessment -- you know, perspective, let's say that the paper would have published a story like this without some sort of evidence, without some sort of protection for the paper, the business, et cetera.

Does that make you think "The Journal" was prepared in some way for a lawsuit to come their way if they did publish this?

TRUSTY: I mean, ultimately I think both of us would be really speculating to reach that conclusion. I mean, I know we all think, hey, it's a very august publication. It's been around a long time and knows the rules of journalism. And so you would hope in the abstract that they did some homework to say we're comfortable with the validation of this thing. But I don't know. I mean, nobody has even seen the letter, right?

I mean, they kind of described this thing and say, trust us, it's out there. So I think there's a lot to be learned from the discovery process in this case. And I think just from my own experience, very non-forensic, non-conclusive, it really rings like a strange document and not something that I'd see him creating. But, you know, we'll all find out together in months to come.

DEAN: Yes. And just more broadly, the president has been trying to turn the page on this issue. He said, you know, I want to move on. He instructed Attorney General Bondi to move on as well before now going back and saying, OK, let's release some of these grand jury papers to the public. He -- this is -- this is the president. We can take a listen to this clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JD VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Seriously, we need to release the Epstein list.

KASH PATEL, FBI DIRECTOR: Put on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are.

DAN BONGINO, DEPUTY FBI DIRECTOR: The Jeffrey Epstein case, you do not know all the details of this thing. I promise I'm not letting it go ever.

JOHN ROBERTS, FOX NEWS HOST: The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients? Will that really happen? [19:10:06]

PAM BONDI, ATTORNEY GENERAL: It's sitting on my desk right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: I'm sorry, Jim, that's, as you well heard there, that's actually a lot of his supporters who were talking about this issue. But it almost prompts the question, again, just more broadly, aside from this lawsuit, from for his supporters that there were these promises made that aren't being delivered. Did he promise something he can't deliver to his supporters?

TRUSTY: Well, I'd say a couple of things. I mean, number one, I think, you know, the attorney general was put in a pretty difficult position because, you know, I step back and look at this from a broader lens. I was a prosecutor for 27 years, one place or another. I'm very used to investigations, both from the prosecution and defense side. And until recent years, we never had this kind of public access to the internal files of any sort of case, no matter how salacious, how exciting.

If a target of an investigation died, so did the back channel efforts to get the information out. And then we started having special counsel who issued reports. Again, that's an unusual creature for prosecutors to have reports that we can all read together. And frankly, there's moments like Jim Comey announcing, I'm investigating Hillary. I'm not. Yes, I am. I mean, these are all things that under prosecutorial ethics aren't supposed to happen for the protection of not just uncharged people, but for victims, for complainants, for processes.

So I kind of bristle at the whole thing. I understand that, you know, there's a lot of people clamoring for transparency, and we all want to know. I mean, there's all sorts of things that are not just salacious, but kind of worrisome about the Epstein case. But at the same time, my own view is we've kind of opened up a Genie's bottle where we're starting to, like, delve into things that can be extremely damaging to innocent people or to people that will never get vindicated by any sort of trial.

And that's not a great step for us as a society. So I understand everybody thinks we've got to know what happened with Epstein, with all the high profile figures, intelligence community issues. I get all that. And I think that Attorney General Bondi is doing the right thing, filing for the release of the grand jury materials in light of the storm. But I'll tell you this, I'm not convinced that a judge is just going to say carte blanche let's turn everything over.

I think at best, there's going to be some significant redactions for people who, again, don't have vindication on the horizon for a case that's as dead as Epstein. So --

DEAN: Yes, that's --

TRUSTY: You know, I understand the public pressure, but legally, I think the whole thing is troublesome that we're getting into these deep dives into files that really shouldn't see daylight. DEAN: Yes, yes. All right, Jim Trusty, thank you so much. We really

appreciate your time.

TRUSTY: Sure. Good to see you.

DEAN: All right. Good to see you as well.

This just in to CNN, a member of the greatest generation who became well known to the social media generation has died.

CNN's senior White House reporter, Betsy Klein, coming back with us now to talk more about Papa Jake -- Betsy.

KLEIN: That's right. Papa Jake Larson, he is the World War II veteran who propelled to TikTok fame in recent years as a septuagenarian has died, according to his granddaughter. He was 102 years old, and just last year I traveled with President Biden to Normandy to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion that turned the tide of World War II, where our own colleague Christiane Amanpour interviewed Papa Jake about his military service as well as his newfound TikTok stardom.

I want you to just listen to a little bit from that interview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: You were all kids.

JAKE LARSON, WORLD WAR II VETERAN: We were all kids. Yes.

AMANPOUR: And did you know then what you were fighting for?

LARSON: Oh, definitely. That we knew, every one of us.

AMANPOUR: Tell us.

LARSON: Every one of us was prepared to give our life to kick Hitler's ass out of Europe.

AMANPOUR: And you did.

LARSON: And we did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KLEIN: It was so special. But we learned just three weeks ago that Christiane Amanpour won an Emmy for that interview. That was something that she shared the statue with Larson. He said it was phenomenal and proof that there is a god. And I caught up with his son, Carlin Larson, just a few moments ago. He said his father lived an epic, epic life.

That statue now prominently displayed at his home. It's going to be something that his grandchildren are going to have to work out a schedule to share -- Jessica. DEAN: Oh, that's really sweet. What a special, special man. And really

wonderful to get to remember him tonight.

Betsy Klein, at the White House, thanks so much for that.

Still ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS MARTIN, COLDPLAY FRONTMAN. Oh, look at these two. All right, come on. You're OK. Oh, what?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: The viral moment that has everyone talking. Why a shoutout from Coldplay's frontman Chris Martin turned into an HR nightmare for a tech company. We're going to have new details after the break.

[19:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEAN: The CEO of the tech company Astronomer has resigned after having been placed on leave following that moment at a Coldplay concert that put him in the spotlight. Andy Byron, as you've probably seen by now, caught with fellow executive Kristin Cabot, the company's top human resources officer, on the kiss cam screen at Gillette Stadium. Obviously, as soon as they realized they were on the screen, they pulled apart. It was awkward.

[19:20:02]

The viral moment has led to several parodies and some Major League Baseball teams like the Philadelphia Phillies are having a little fun with it.

CNN's Rafael Romo is joining us now.

Rafael, this is a story that is everywhere. That video is everywhere right now. What is the company saying?

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Jessica. Well, the tech company initially said on Friday that its CEO had been placed on leave after the video went viral on Saturday. Today, Astronomer issued an updated statement via LinkedIn saying that the New York based company CEO Andy Byron has tendered his resignation.

The statement says in part, "As stated previously, Astronomer is committed to the values and culture that have guided us since our founding. Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently that standard was not met. Andy Byron has tendered his resignation and the Board of Directors has accepted."

This is the moment when then Astronomer CEO Andy Byron was spotted on a jumbotron video embracing a company employee during a Coldplay concert on Wednesday evening. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTIN: Yes. Oh, look at these two. All right, come on. You're OK. Oh, what? Either they're having an affair or they're just very shy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMO: And Jessica, the other person in the kiss cam video is Kristin Cabot, the company's chief people officer or human resources executive. It all happened Wednesday at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, during a concert attended by around 60,000 people.

There has been, as you mentioned before, nonstop reaction to the incident, especially on social media. A Canadian tourist visiting New York told CNN she feels especially bad for people impacted.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNEY, CANADIAN TOURIST: I think it's very sad that it's exposed and that his family has to see it all over social media. I've been watching it. It's on like every feed of my Instagram, of my Facebook. It's crazy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMO: The data operations company, which was founded in 2018, acknowledged that awareness of our company, they said, may have changed overnight. But management said its mission would continue to be focused on addressing data and artificial intelligence problems. Jessica?

DEAN: All right, Rafael Romo, thank you so much.

New video tonight of a scary moment on a Delta flight this week. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, look at that. Whoa.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: An engine fire forcing that Boeing 767 to return to the Los Angeles airport shortly after takeoff Thursday. The FAA says that flight was headed to Atlanta, but the plane landed safely back at LAX. Thank goodness. No word yet on the cause of that fire.

Still ahead, a political autopsy. How the Democratic Party is hoping to find a winning strategy despite voters waning trust in the party. Ron Brownstein joins us next. Stay with us.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:27:11]

DEAN: Democrats are already looking ahead to the 2026 midterm elections and plotting how to retake the White House in 2028. "The New York Times" reports the Democratic National Committee is conducting an autopsy of the 2024 election. The headline describes what the DNC is doing is avoiding the likeliest cause of death.

The piece is the audit of what went wrong, won't focus on the roles of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and their respective campaigns, and how that played into the November loss. But it will instead look at how outside Democratic groups impacted the vote.

Joining us to talk about this now, CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein.

Ron, good to see you.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hey, Jessica.

DEAN: The writers of this piece described this review that's underway as something like eating at a steak house and then reviewing the salad. What is your reaction to this as Democrats try to look forward?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Read and Shane are very good reporters. And that was a terrific line.

DEAN: Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: You know, the lane of the national committee is tactics. It's blocking and tackling. It's organizing. But it's really hard to argue that this election was decided by tactics. You know, I think this election was decided much less by the way, that Harris and Biden campaigned than by the way they governed. You know it -- when they lost control of prices and they lost control of the border in '21 and '22, that is probably when this election was lost.

It was somewhat masked in in the midterm election because of abortion. But you got back in '24 to a pretty normal circumstance when 60 percent of the country is unhappy with the way things are going. The party out of power has a real advantage. And so I'm not really sure that the DNC can add much on that front. I mean, that's something it's going to have to be thought through and fought out by the presidential candidates, probably in '28.

So they're kind of like sticking to their knitting here by focusing on tactics, even though that's somewhat peripheral to the real story.

DEAN: Yes, it is interesting you mentioned the midterms, too, because I've thought about this as well. You know, those 2022 midterms, Democrats were in the White House and they had an unexpectedly very strong showing in those 2022 midterms. As you note, abortion on the ballot. You know, the first time since Dobbs that people were voting.

And yet I wonder what you think about the Democrats kind of glean the wrong lessons, do you think from those midterms? BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Absolutely, absolutely. It was, as I wrote, I think

it was a false positive. And in many ways, that was the original sin, more than, you know, Biden waiting so long to get out because it sent -- it sent the wrong signal. You know, you had 75 percent to 80 percent of the country saying they were dissatisfied with the economy. You had close to 60 percent of voters saying they were dissatisfied with Biden's performance.

And yet in unusually, a historically large percentage of those voters voted for Democrats anyway, largely because they view the Republicans alternatives as extreme and also because abortion was front and center for so many voters.

[19:30:03]

Fast forward to '24, and we were back in kind of a normal circumstance where a higher, you know, where people who are dissatisfied with the economy and dissatisfied with the incumbent's performance voted overwhelmingly for the party out of power.

Now, you know, the most unusual thing about '24 was how normal it was, in the sense that voters treated Trump for all of his unusual characteristics that we are watching now in office. They treated him as a normal challenger, but yes, I think '22 very clearly sent to Democrats the wrong signal that it was easier to survive the level of discontent that they faced in '24 than it actually proved to be.

DEAN: One other thing I thought was interesting about this "New York Times" piece and the quotes and reporting they had in it was just, again, as we were noting, it's focusing more on tactics less -- not at all apparently, on Harris and Biden and their roles, but this idea that they were saying in the piece that Democrats were saying, look, the days of spending millions and millions and millions of dollars on traditional television ads are over.

Like, that's it, this is done. And then kind of talking about how they had poured so much into that, that didn't seem to have really done anything for them. That is very telling, I think of the time we are in now.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes, that was really interesting and it was interesting, you know, again, thinking about it from a tactical sense, a narrow sense, the question of whether you reach people now by television or through social media and digital advertising and online organizing and in person organizing, that's one question.

The other thing, something that I don't know if we can prove yet, but I think that what's happening in the Trump era is that, you know, we are going from elections -- presidential elections where like 145 million people vote to somewhere like between 155 million and 160 million people vote. And that means I think there are more swing voters, genuine swing voters who are voting based on performance than we've been assuming for most of the 21st Century, going back to Karl Rove and George W. Bush and even Barack Obama in '08, the dominant view in both parties have been that there really aren't many swing voters. And I think that there were more people, that's why I said that this election was decided more by the way Biden governed than by the way Harris campaigned. I mean, there were voters who really are not highly invested in the ideological fight between the parties, but have a pretty good sense of how their own lives are going and are basically holding whoever's in power accountable for that.

And I think that is going to be a big factor, more in '28 than in '26 -- '26 the midterm, you go back to the smaller electorate and you and you should be able to move them with some of these ideological arguments that each side as marshals. But I think in 2028, we will be back in a situation similar to '24, where the approval rating of the presumably outgoing president is going to be right up there as the most important factor in the election.

DEAN: It's going to be really interesting. All right, Ron Brownstein, always good to see you. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks for having me.

DEAN: And coming up, they are known as Ukraine's lost children. The battle taking place behind the front lines to get back thousands of children abducted from their home country in the midst of this war with Russia.

Stay with us. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:37:40]

DEAN: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is tonight calling for peace talks with Russia next week, accusing Moscow of "avoiding decisions on prisoner exchanges and the return of children".

Zelenskyy has previously said Russia has abducted 20,000 Ukrainian children since the full scale invasion more than three years ago. And "Time" correspondent, Simon Shuster is with us now. His new piece looks at the fight to bring back thousands of children still being held in Russia. He's also the author of "The Showman," a biography on Zelenskyy.

Simon, thank you for being here. This is such an important story about these thousands of children who are still away from their homes and in Russia. What more do you know about what happened to these children?

SIMON SHUSTER, "TIME" MAGAZINE SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Yes, thank you. I mean, it's a gut wrenching story. These children were basically taken by Russian officials and Russian forces from areas of Ukraine that Russia has occupied. They were taken -- These are often the most vulnerable groups of children, children who are living in group homes, orphans, children with disabilities and they were taken into Russia and often put in Russian foster care.

The government in Russia and President Putin himself, they've treated the adoption and integration of these Ukrainian children who were taken from their home country as a kind of act of patriotism, right.

This is part and parcel of Russia's belief and the statements in Russian propaganda that Ukraine doesn't deserve to exist as a nation. And that is partly why it is treated as a form of genocide by many experts and indeed by the International Criminal Court, which, as you may remember, in 2023, actually indicted Vladimir Putin for war crimes related to the abduction of these children.

So, it's an ongoing story, and very few of these children have returned home. They are still in Russia.

DEAN: When you just say that very few of these children have been returned home, they're still in Russia. Why do you think there's not more international outrage over this?

SHUSTER: You know, there's so much to be outraged about in this war. I think what I tried to look at in this article is, how is this particular issue of the kidnapped children playing out within the range of issues that the negotiators are trying to work on, that President Trump is trying to push through as he tries to advance a peace process.

And what I saw was President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians consistently trying to push this question to the top of the agenda, demanding that the Russians give these children back. And on the Russian side, basically stonewalling, no urgency on the part of Putin and his government to return the children. And on the American side, which is trying to push forward some kind of peace process, a desire to push the process along and not allow the question of the children to be a kind of hindrance.

[19:40:39]

So, one U.S. diplomat actually told me that maybe the Ukrainians shouldn't make a peace deal conditional on the return of the children, because if you want to move fast toward peace, you can't set conditions. That is, of course, a very uncomfortable position for the Ukrainian side, which wants to make the return of these children an essential part of any peace deal.

DEAN: And so how is President Zelenskyy proposing to bring these children home? What would a plan look like?

SHUSTER: Yes, I talked to him about this most recently in March of this year. And he says that it's really a question of political will. So yes, the International Criminal Court and The Hague has already indicted Putin, like I said. But he -- that has not made him act or change his position.

So, Zelenskyy believes that it will take a lot more pressure, particularly from President Trump, Zelenskyy says, to basically tell Putin that you must send these children back or you will face even stricter sanctions, and you can forget about any kind of normalization of relations with the West, so to really apply that political pressure.

DEAN: And you mentioned the ICC indictments against Putin. How does Putin see that? How does Russia see that?

SHUSTER: One of Putin's longtime associates told me by phone from Moscow while I was reporting this story, Putin could spit on The Hague. He doesn't care about these indictments. He is too deep in. He's put all his chips on the table in this war and this associate of Putin has told me that, you know, no amount of pressure is going to make him back down. And this associate said, honestly, the issue of these children is not a high priority for Putin, and certainly Putin's actions bear that out.

There have been instances when he has been presented by his own officials with lists of these abducted children and you can see the reaction in the footage on state T.V., it is basically a shrug. He has no urgency in returning them.

DEAN: And Zelenskyy did raise the issue of Ukraine's missing children in that Oval Office meeting with Trump back in February. That meeting then kind of went off the rails, and we all remember that. But President Trump and Zelenskyy have come a long way since then, and things have evolved.

How do you think things stand today? Obviously, you've talked about just how getting these children back could slow down that process. But what do you make of these two men's relationship at this point?

SHUSTER: That's right. I did talk to President Zelenskyy also about that meeting, that argument that he had with Trump in the Oval Office and he told me that the story of the children, the issue of the children was one way that he was trying to appeal to Trump as a human being, to get his sympathy for the Ukrainian people to help win Trump back into Ukraine's corner.

Of course, that meeting blew up. What I've been hearing lately from Ukrainian officials and U.S. diplomats is -- there's a lot of improvement in that relationship. They now hear each other much better. Trump is really, you know, returning to a position of wanting to help Ukraine and understanding that Putin cannot be trusted in a negotiation.

And as part of that, the children are really returning from the edges of the diplomatic process toward the center. And the American officials also are being more receptive and attentive to it, and hearing the Ukrainians out when they say and demand the return of these kids.

DEAN: Thousands and thousands of kids are still being held.

Simon Shuster, thank you so much for your reporting on this really important stuff. We really appreciate it.

SHUSTER: Thank you. Thank you.

DEAN: Still to come, billions of dollars in government funding now on the chopping block. The latest bill is now headed to President Trumps desk for his signature, why, Democrats are crying foul.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:49:14]

DEAN: President Trump is expected to sign a bill soon that will slash more than $9 billion in funding from public broadcasting and international aid efforts. That measure getting final congressional approval with a House vote early Friday morning where only two Republicans broke with their party. This rescission request cancels $8 billion in international aid programs, most of it in countries where drought, disease, and starvation are rampant. And it slashes all $1.1 billion in federal funding for public television and radio stations across the country.

Julia Benbrook is joining us now.

Julia, what happens next? Are more cuts like this coming? Because just reminding people this was already approved money that the government is now clawing back.

JULIA BENBROOK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, President Donald Trump and some of his Republican allies have said that we could see more rescissions in the future. This package, it slashes $9 billion and it got the final stamp of approval that it needed from Congress. It's now ready for President Donald Trump's signature. This passed primarily along party lines in both chambers.

And what it does, it codifies some of the Department of Government Efficiency's, cuts into law with the stated goal of rooting out waste, fraud and abuse within the federal government.

[19:50:28]

Now, When we look at what specifically it targeted, it's roughly $8 billion from foreign aid programs, as well as $1.1 billion from the corporation for public broadcasting, which helps fund NPR and PBS, as well as their local affiliates across the country. This will have a very big impact on those stations in rural areas.

Now, Trump is touting this legislative move, and he says that this rescissions package will likely be the first of many.

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DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: This week, we passed the Rescissions Act of 2025, slashing nearly $10 billion of waste and I guess, I could say some fraud and some abuse, but at least we can say waste, almost $10 billion and we have numerous other rescissions coming up adding more -- many more $10 billion to it. So, were saving a lot of money.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BENBROOK: Democrats have been detailing their concerns when it comes to this bill. Some of the leadership on the House side, they released a statement calling this reckless and extreme and went on to say this: "This legislation undermines the public health and national security of the American people while launching an assault on public radio and television. At the same time that we are witnessing tremendous death and destruction wrought by extreme weather in the country, House Republicans are taking a chainsaw to the public airwaves that Americans rely on for information in an emergency."

Now, this is, of course, another legislative win for Trump. It comes just weeks after he was able to pass his massive domestic policy agenda bill, the so-called One Big, Beautiful Bill, but wanted to highlight this rescission's package. It was passed using an obscure Presidential budget law, avoiding the filibuster.

And Trump is the first President in decades to use this maneuver successfully. It has created some concerns from members on both sides of the aisle when it comes to the precedent. This is setting for congressional authority -- Jessica.

DEAN: All right, Julia Benbrook in Washington, thank you for that reporting.

And the main story that continues to dominate the news is the Epstein -- so-called Epstein files. It seems like many Americans are invested in this outcome. They're reading a lot of stories, watching a lot of stories about it.

Harry Enten joins us now to run the numbers -- Harry.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Jessica, last weekend, we spoke about it, interest in the Epstein files and the Epstein case is sky high and the American public does not trust what the government is telling them. What are we talking about here?

Is the government hiding Epstein's alleged client? Get this, 69 percent of Americans agree that the Federal government is, in fact, hiding Epstein's alleged client list versus just six percent who say that they are not. And get this, a majority of Republicans and Democrats do in fact agree on this issue that the government is hiding Epstein's alleged client list.

You can never get a majority of Republicans and Democrats to agree on anything, but they do agree on this particular issue, and perhaps not so surprisingly, you get a plurality of Democrats and Republicans agreeing that they are dissatisfied -- dissatisfied with the amount of information that the government has released so far.

What are we talking about this? Well, we're talking about, if we look at Republicans and Independents who lean Republican, 43 percent are dissatisfied with the amount of information released so far compared to -- get this, just four -- one, two, three, four percent of Republicans who are in fact satisfied with the amount of information released so far by the Federal government when it comes to the Epstein case.

And we look over here on this side of the screen among Democrats, get this 60 percent of Democrats and Independent leaning Democrats are dissatisfied with the amount of information released so far. And get this, just one, two, three percent of Democrats are satisfied so far with the amount of information released.

Now, you see this. You see that the plurality of Republicans are dissatisfied. So, how is it impacting President Trump's overall approval rating? Well, get this, because this one was a bit of a surprise to me, Jessica.

Look at this, Republicans who approve of the job that Donald Trump is doing. Get this, in our CNN/SSRS poll, it was 86 percent prior to this whole Epstein saga. Now, it's 88 percent. In fact, the percentage of Republicans who approve of the job that Donald Trump is doing has actually have anything climbed a little bit, according to our CNN polling. How about Quinnipiac, 87 percent before this whole Epstein saga started, approved of the job that Donald Trump was doing among Republicans. Now, its 90 percent.

So, we see agreement between the CNN polling and the Quinnipiac polling. Yes, Republicans are not thrilled with how the government is responding to the Epstein case, but so far they are, in fact, not taking it out on Donald Trump, at least when it comes to his overall approval rating.

Now, you might be asking yourself, why? Well, I think this nugget gives it all away. Republicans who said the nation's top issue was the Epstein case. Get this, zero-one, one respondent, not one percent, one respondent of Republicans said that the nation's top issue was in fact the Epstein case.

So, at this particular point, Jessica Dean, what we're dealing with as a public that is very much dissatisfied with how the government is responding so far to the Epstein case. A lot of folks both on the right and the left, do in fact, believe that the government is hiding Epstein's alleged client list. But yet, when it comes to his approval rating, Donald Trump's approval rating with the Republican base so far, they're sticking with him because at this point, even if they believe the government is potentially hiding something, they don't think it's all that important.

Back to you.

DEAN: Harry, thanks. And thank you for joining me this evening. I'm Jessica Dean. AC360 weekend, up next.

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