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President Trump Gives Speech in North Carolina Touting His Administration's Economic Achievements; Conservative Infighting on Display at Turning Point USA Event in Phoenix, Arizona; Some in Congress Considering Impeaching U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi after Partial and Heavily Redacted Release of Epstein Files; National Transportation Safety Board Investigating Private Jet Crash that Killed Retired NASCAR Driver Greg Biffle and His Family; Some Information on Suspect in Brown University Shooting and Murder of MIT Professor Released; U.S. Military Strikes ISIS Targets in Syria in Retaliation of Killing of Two U.S. Service Members There; Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) Interviewed on Partial Release of Epstein Files and His New Book on First Eight African American South Carolina Congressmen. Aired 2-3p ET.

Aired December 20, 2025 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:00:33]

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump in North Carolina giving his take on the economy and highlighting efforts to lower prescription drug prices. But his speech quickly veered into personal tangents, including a story about first lady Melania Trump's underwear drawer.

Plus, heavily redacted. Thousands of files have been released in the Jeffrey Epstein case, but Democrats and some Republicans say key details are still blacked out, heightening questions about transparency. What CNN has learned from the newly unsealed documents.

And what a holiday gift this would be. The Powerball jackpot soaring to an estimated $1.5 billion, and the drawing is just hours away.

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining me. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

President Trump is touting the state of the economy after hitting the road last night to try to ease Americans growing anxiety about inflation and a weak job market. But the president did not always stick to the script during his 90-minute rally style speech in North Carolina. Instead of just focusing on the economy and reassuring people that he has a plan to bring down prices ahead of next year's midterm elections, the president oftentimes went on tangents, veered off his affordability message.

CNN's Kevin Liptak is joining us now from near Trump's Florida home, where he is spending the holidays. So, Kevin, walk us through what the president had to say last night and how it's being received.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, Fredricka, this is really the president's closing message for 2025 in a lot of ways. We're not going to see him deliver another speech before the end of the year as he spends Christmas down here in Florida. So this was really kind of his final chance to hammer home some of the issues that are sure to dominate the midterm election season next year. Questions about the economy and affordability, which is that word that President Trump has been recoiling at, but which his advisers are acutely aware will be a dominant topic for voters next year.

So you heard him kind of tick through some of his economic accomplishments so far, essentially road testing what his message will be. You heard him talk at length about this announcement he made from the White House about lowering drug prices. You saw the signs there that read "Lower prices, higher paychecks." Listen to more of how the president characterized it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENT: Let the money not go to the insurance companies. The problem is the Democrats will shut down the government because they are totally beholden.

It's so simple. The money should go to the people. The people should then take all of this money and buy the best health care there is.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: I took office last January. I inherited a mess, and very simply I am fixing it. Joe Biden gave us the worst inflation in the history of our country.

One year ago, our country was dead. Now we are the hottest country anywhere in the world because we finally have a president who puts America first.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIPTAK: So you hear the president there, his argument very much rests on the Biden administration's handling of the economy and claims that he inherited a disaster.

Now, we should note, inflation when the president took office was around three percent. It is slightly lower than that right now. It is cooled somewhat. But the president certainly when he is delivering this speech, was not just talking about the economy. And you can make sure that any time the president is in front of a rally crowd, he goes on tangents, he meanders, he digresses. And that was very much evident last night as well. He kind of ticked through a greatest hits list of his grievances, including that 2022 raid by the FBI on Mar-a-Lago as they were looking for classified documents. He sort of bemoaned the fact that they rifled through Melania Trump's underwear drawer. He also talked about Hillary Clinton, his rival from almost a decade ago, saying that he was -- wanted to refer to her as the "b-word," but that Melania Trump talked him out of it. Now, there are plenty of Trump advisers who would rather he focus on

the here and now, even better, perhaps the what's to come. But it's evident the president is also talking plenty about that greatest hits list of his rally speeches, Fredricka.

[14:05:02]

WHITFIELD: All right, Kevin Liptak, I will check back with you there in Florida. Thanks so much.

At an annual gathering of young conservatives in Phoenix taking place right now, for the first time it's happening since the September assassination of its founder, Charlie Kirk. Kirk started Turning Point USA back in 2012, and the conservative group is credited with helping to boost the youth vote for President Trump in 2024. And now, without Charlie Kirk, a simmering battle is underway over the MAGA movement's direction and the leadership of this group. CNN's Steve Contorno is in phoenix for us. Steve, bring us up to speed on what is happening at the event this weekend.

STEVE CONTORNO, CNN REPORTER: Fred, this was supposed to be an event to memorialize Charlie Kirk and to move his movements beyond the tragedy of this past year.

However, what we have seen on this stage behind me is a civil war of sorts between the MAGA faction of the GOP. Weve seen Ben Shapiro, the conservative influencer, call out people who have been peddling conspiracies about Kirk's death. We saw Steve Bannon call Shapiro a, quote, "cancer." There have been people who have been calling out the Nick Fuentes white nationalist wing of this movement, while others have been saying we shouldn't silence anybody. And there's also been a division over whether support for Israel is America first and whether opposition to Israel is in itself antisemitic.

Now, Erika Kirk, who is now leading this movement, addressed this with sort of a tongue in cheek comment yesterday. Take a listen to what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIKA KIRK, TURNING POINT USA CEO: Well, say what you want about Am Fest, but it's definitely not boring. It feels like a Thanksgiving dinner where your family's hashing out the family business.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CONTORNO: Yes. You know, this has been an interesting event because a year ago, Donald Trump addressed this group, and it was really a celebration of how much young people were important to his coalition and helped get him over the finish line in so many key swing states. And he promised them a golden era was going to be upon us.

Well, a year into his term, young people are very dissatisfied with how their future looks. Take a look at this recent Harvard poll of adults under the age of 30. Just 13 percent believe that the country is headed in the right direction. And among those who think the country is headed in the wrong direction, 27 percent are Republicans.

Now, at this event, this is obviously a very, very pro-Trump group, but still talking to people, you can see that they are starting to recognize that American life and their future of what their adulthood is going to look like is very different than previous generations. They don't expect to be able to buy a home maybe in the community that they grew up in. They have to have two working parents if they want to start a family. There have been people we spoke to who are concerned about artificial intelligence and what that will do to the job market for them. So, you know, this is a still very much a pro-Trump group, but it is very much the concerns that are permeating throughout this generation are present in this room as well. Fred?

WHITFIELD: Steve Contorno, thank you so much in Phoenix.

All right, still ahead, striking back. New video of the U.S. launching retaliatory strikes in Syria after an attack that killed American soldiers and a civilian interpreter.

Plus, difficult and aggressive, that's how the suspected gunman behind the Brown University shootings and the killing of an MIT professor is being described by people who knew him, as investigators try to zero in on a motive.

And emergency landing, new details about a text sent from someone on NASCAR driver Greg Biffle's plane just moments before that deadly crash.

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[14:13:53]

WHITFIELD: All right, new today, frustrations are mounting among lawmakers and victims of Jeffrey Epstein after the Department of Justice failed to release all of its files on the convicted pedophile. The DOJ was required under a bipartisan law to release everything by yesterday. The material that was released was heavily redacted, and in some cases, entire pages were blacked out. The DOJ says the delays and redactions were to protect the identities of Epstein's survivors. Here are some of the victims and how they're reacting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LISA PHILLIPS, JEFFREY EPSTEIN SURVIVOR: Victims want answers. We want, we want to know -- we want to connect the dots. We want our stories to make sense. We want to know a lot of different things. So I mean, of course they're just going to say that, that this buys time. But they're protecting themselves, not the victims.

ALICIA ARDEN, JEFFREY EPSTEIN SURVIVOR: I wanted all the files to come out like they said that they were going to. And the redaction is, is a little bit puzzling to me because my police report was heavily redacted also in 1997. And I thought, is that allowed? Is that legal for them to do that?

[14:15:02] JENA-LISA JONES, JEFFREY EPSTEIN SURVIVOR: So I feel like this was kind of another joke to string it along a little bit. I'm pretty disappointed.

Right now, I'm seeing the bare minimum, and even at the bare minimum, I think the American people should be looking at these and being like, why? Why is this going on?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: CNN's Camila DeChalus is joining us now from Washington. Camila, so take us through some of the things that we learned in this document release.

CAMILA DECHALUS, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, Fred, there's a lot of things that really stick out with the latest batch of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein that was just released by the Justice Department. Number one, these documents really give us a closer look at how extensive Epstein's social network really was among high profile figures in the political and entertainment industries. You've seen images and documents released involving him, including him with images of Michael Jackson, the former president Bill Clinton, Diana Ross, and even President Donald Trump himself.

Now, it's very important to note and make clear that there is no evidence that implicates that Jackson, Clinton, Ross, or even Trump engaged in any illegal activity connected to Epstein. But it's just pretty notable just to kind of really get a closer look into this. And even on the images of the president, there has been a little speculation that because there's a lack of references to the president in these latest batch of documents and images, there's this question of whether the Justice Department may be holding back information regarding the president and other people. And a top DOJ official really addressed this. Listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TODD BLANCHE, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: There's no effort to hold anything back because there's the name Donald j. Trump or anybody else's name, Bill Clintons name, Reid Hoffmann's name. There's no effort to hold back or not hold back because of that. And, and so -- but again, we're not were not redacting the names of famous men and women that are associated with Epstein.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DECHALUS: Now, Fred, one of the last really important things to kind of highlight of what was pretty notable about this recent release of documents and images is the fact that law enforcement was warned about Epstein very early on. In one of the documents, it was confirmed that one of Epstein's survivors filed a complaint as far back as the mid- 1990s, just essentially tying Epstein and kind of tying him to some of the charges that he was charged with. And her lawyer even confirmed the accuracy of it. So it really does paint a broader picture of just exactly what some of his crimes were and just some of the connections that he had into the entertainment and the political landscape. WHITFIELD: All right, Camila DeChalus, thank you so much.

All right, and new information this hour on the plane crash that killed retired NASCAR driver Greg Biffle, his family, and three others. A short time ago, federal investigators with the NTSB held a press conference in North Carolina, and they say they still cannot confirm who was piloting the small private jet at the time of the crash. But investigators did confirm the flight voice recorder, that it has been recovered.

CNN's Rafael Romo is joining me right now. You were monitoring that press conference as well. What have we learned?

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SENIOR LATIN AMERICAN AFFAIRS EDITOR: That's right. It's such a tragic accident. And yes, they gave us an update, and there are important details there that we need to mention. And according to the National Transportation Safety Board, the airplane was airborne for approximately 10 minutes after taking off before turning back and crashing on a different runway from the one used for departing.

Former NASCAR driver Greg Biffle, his wife Cristina, and two children, Ryder and Emma, were among those killed, according to a statement from family members. Three other passengers, according to the NTSB, in addition to Biffle and his family, were aboard the Cessna C-550 when it crashed in Statesville, North Carolina, on Thursday, shortly after 10:15 in the morning.

And their latest update this morning, NTSB member Michael Graham said the investigating team has done multiple things as they proceed with their investigation, including taking several witness statements, documenting the accident debris field, aircraft wreckage positions, component locations, and flight controls, recovering the cockpit voice recorder, which has been sent to NTSB headquarters in Washington, and examining both engines. There have also been reports regarding possible communication between a passenger on the airplane and someone on land, something Graham confirmed today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL GRAHAM, BOARD MEMBER, NTSB: This morning, I can confirm that the NTSB is aware of one brief text from a passenger on board the aircraft to a family member that read, and I quote, "Emergency landing." Again, that's "Emergency landing."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMO: Now, Graham did not specify who sent the message or the person it was sent to, and also said that they had been unable to determine who was piloting the aircraft.

[14:20:00]

As for a possible cause, this is only the preliminary stages in the investigation, but NTSB board member Graham said the planes altitude on approach was not optimal for landing. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL GRAHAM, BOARD MEMBER, NTSB: Early indications from multiple sources indicate that the airplane was stable on approach, configured for landing with the landing lights on, but the aircraft was coming in low.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMO: The NTSB board member also said that information is consistent with the debris field, as well as points of impact for the crash on the airport runway. The preliminary report on the crash, the NTSB board member said, will be published within 30 days. But the final report may take anywhere from 12 to 18 months. So it's going to be a while before we get definitive answers as to what might have caused it.

WHITFIELD: So often after plane crash, just the answers do not come soon enough. It really is a very intricate investigation. All right. Thanks so much, Rafael Romo, appreciate it.

All right, one week after that horrific, deadly shooting at Brown University, the search for a suspect is now over after he was found dead. But a search for his motive intensifies. The Rhode Island attorney general says ballistic evidence connects the suspect, a former student and Portuguese national, to both that campus attack and the separate killing of a professor at MIT. The 48-year-old suspect was found dead in a storage facility in New Hampshire from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. CNN's Brian Todd has more details on the investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: With the manhunt finally over in the Brown University and MIT professor shootings, many questions still remain as to a clear motive in the killings. Providence chief of police Colonel Oscar Perez believes the killer was very strategic in his measures to dodge detection before the shootings.

COL. OSCAR L. PEREZ, JR, PROVIDENCE POLICE CHIEF: I mean, he was communicating with apps. He was utilizing certain ways to drive and picking certain neighborhoods to drive around. He wasn't picking main streets. I would assume that he was probably trying to avoid certain license plate readers.

TODD: The gunman, 48-year-old Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, was found dead late Thursday in a New Hampshire storage unit from a self- inflicted gunshot wound. He's originally from Portugal, and his last known address was in Miami.

PEREZ: We also learned that he had an address here in the city of Providence, which led us to believe that he was pretty familiar with the east side, with Brown University.

TODD: And they know that Neves Valente attended Brown roughly two decades ago as a PhD student studying physics, but he only stayed for about a year, enrolling in the fall of 2000 and leaving in the spring of 2001. At one point, he was even assigned an office in the same building where the shooting took place.

CHRISTINA PAXSON, PRESIDENT OF BROWN UNIVERSITY: I think it's safe to assume that this man, when he was a student, spent a great deal of time in that building for classes and other activities as a PhD student in physics.

TODD: A post pulled from an internet archive, first reported by "The New York Times" but which could not be independently verified, appears to show a post left by Neves Valente on a Brown physics message board after he left the school. Part of it was left in Portuguese and was translated to, quote, "The greatest liar is the one who is able to lie to themselves. These exist everywhere, but they sometimes proliferate in the most unexpected places."

Authorities also know Neves Valente attended the same university in Portugal as the MIT professor he killed. In an interview with "Publico," a newspaper in Portugal, former classmate Felipe Moura describes his impressions of Neves Valente as aggressive, quote, "He had a confrontational personality in class. In other words, the other good students would intervene, ask questions. But Claudio liked to say that he was the one who knew." And in a Facebook post in Portuguese, Moura wrote, "Claudio was obviously one of the best, but in class he had a great need to stand out and show that he was better than the rest."

As for the man who helped break the case wide open, a man known only as "John" in the affidavit, who posted on Reddit, writing in part, quote, "I'm being dead serious. The police need to look into a gray Nissan with Florida plates, possibly a rental. That was the car he was driving." That post, eventually leading investigators to his car.

PEREZ: It was a great, great thing that he was actually paying attention and that he was actually observing his surroundings. He helped us out a lot. He was able to break this case.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WHITFIELD: Brian Todd, thank you so much.

And this breaking news now. Sources telling CNN that the U.S. has seized another vessel off the coast of Venezuela in international waters. This would be the second known instance of the U.S. intercepting a vessel in that region in the last two weeks.

We've got so much more straight ahead on this breaking news. Stay with us. You're in the CNN Newsroom.

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[14:29:15]

WHITFIELD: All right, new video shows the U.S. strikes against dozens of alleged ISIS targets in Syria on Friday. Officials say the U.S. was retaliating for the recent attack that killed two American service members and a civilian interpreter. CNN's Barbie Latza Nadeau has the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

BARBIE LATZA NADEAU, CNN REPORTER: The United States says it hit at least 70 targets in Syria in multiple strikes on Friday in retaliation for the killing of two U.S. service members and an interpreter by a gunman who had been part of Syria's internal security service. Possible links between the gunman and ISIS remain unclear. The overnight strikes, which also involved Jordanian warplanes, hit ISIS infrastructure and weapons stores, the U.S. Defense Department said.

[14:30:00]

But the strikes were not an act of war, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on social media. They were, he said, "an act of vengeance." U.S. president Donald Trump called the strikes, dubbed "Operation Hawkeye," to honor the fallen soldiers' home state of Iowa, a success.

DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENT: I ordered a massive strike on the terrorists that killed our three great patriots last week, two soldiers, one interpreter, all great people. And it was very successful. It was precision. We hit every site flawlessly, and we are restoring peace through strength all over the world.

NADEAU: The killing of the service members and the retaliation come just weeks after the new Syrian president visited the White House, with Syria joining the U.S. led coalition against ISIS.

Barbie Latza Nadeau, CNN, Rome.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right, coming up, a bipartisan push to impeach Attorney General Pam Bondi over failing to fully release all Epstein files. Some now wonder if the DOJ should face consequences.

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[14:35:42]

WHITFIELD: All right, welcome back. A powerful storm system is bringing damaging winds to parts of the northeast. Now more than 70 million people are under wind alerts. In New York City an unsecured crane was actually captured on video spinning in the wind, as you see right there. It may look out of control, but it's actually supposed to be able to spin freely in the wind so it doesn't fall over. Still can be unsettling to see. The wind threat could disrupt travel during this busy pre-holiday weekend. AAA is predicting more than 122 million Americans will travel from now until January 1st.

CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar has the latest.

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ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: If you are dreaming of a white Christmas, you may have to keep dreaming. And that's because warm air is expected to surge across much of the U.S. as we head into the upcoming week. And one thing to note is that it starts in a lot of places over into the west, but then you start to see it spread eastward. Even places that have been relatively cold over the last two to three weeks are now finally going to see their temperatures jumping back above normal, especially for Christmas Day itself. And not just a few degrees above average. We are looking at several areas that could be looking at record temperatures, and a few places that could break record temperatures two or even three days in a row. This is a look, again, at Thursday, Christmas Day. Look at all of these dots representing a location that could end up having a record high temperature that day.

Now, again, if you're looking for snow, you may have to kind of see where the snow is located now to determine whether or not you actually have much of a chance. Here is where we have current snow cover. You can see a lot of it out into the Rockies, portions of the Great Lakes, and even some of the higher elevations of the northeast. Now, one area where we may actually add some snow before Christmas is going to be out west. We've got a series of systems coming in that's going to bring not only rain, but also snow, especially to the Olympics, the Cascades, and even into the Sierras. You notice a lot more color coming into the screen right through here, through Christmas Day because of those next systems that will be arriving.

Everywhere else, though, it's going to be warm air that starts to surge in. Take a look at Chicago. The average this time of year, about 36 degrees. Sunday will be below that. Every single one of the rest of the seven days is actually going to be at or above that. And it's not just portions of Chicago. Kansas City is also going to be above average. Their average of 41 degrees. They will be above that every single one of the next seven days, including, look at this, Christmas Day almost getting to 70 degrees. Again, remarkable how warm some of these areas are going to be, even Dallas. Take a look at this. The average high temperature is 57 degrees. Most of the low temperatures forecast for this week will actually be warmer than their average high temperature.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WHITFIELD: My goodness, just as we were getting used to the parkas and the hats. All right, Allison Chinchar, thanks so much. We'll be right back.

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[14:43:21]

WHITFIELD: All right, returning to one of our top stories, we're getting reaction to the Department of Justice partial release of documents related to the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein. The DOJ was required under a bipartisan law to release everything by yesterday. The agency said delays and redactions of the material were to protect the identities of Epstein's survivors. Congressman Ro Khanna, who coauthored Epstein files law, says he is considering impeachment proceedings against the U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi over the incomplete release and heavy redactions. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. RO KHANNA, (D-CA): Nancy and I were actually in this morning talking, and we said, look, we're willing to give them some benefit of the doubt as long as the quality of the release is substantive. But what we found out is the most important documents are missing. They've had excessive redactions. And the central question that Americans want to know, who are the other rich and powerful men on the island raping these young girls or covering up has not been answered.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: With us now is Congressman James Clyburn. He's a Democrat from South Carolina and a member of the House Appropriations Committee and the Congressional Black Caucus. He is also the author of another book. This is his latest, "First Eight, A Personal History of the Pioneering Black Congressmen Who Shaped a Nation." I want to get to your book in a moment. Welcome. But first, you know, the DOJ, they didn't release all those documents, as required by law. You just heard your colleague, Ro Khanna, react. Are you satisfied with what was released? And if not, do you, too, agree that there ought to be an impeachment proceeding for the U.S. attorney general?

[14:45:02]

REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D-SC): I am absolutely not satisfied, and I agree with Ro Khanna. But I'm not surprised that we have all this delay and obfuscation. This is what you're going to get from this White House and from this administration. I don't expect them to ever release these documents, because I don't think the Supreme Court will ever make them do it. It's pretty much determined that the president is, above all else and all others. And therefore, I expect for them to ride this out. And I expect the Supreme Court, in the final analysis, to allow them to do it.

WHITFIELD: So you see no other potential criminal cases that could come as a result of the document released, or those few documents that were released, or any additional questions and inquiries that people still have?

CLYBURN: I think Ro Khanna is on to something here. The only way I see us getting to this is to do the impeachment. That's one thing that the Supreme Court has got nothing to do with. And I would hope that there would be enough Republicans to vote for impeachment. And hopefully the Senate will this time convict.

You know, one of the things you just mentioned, my book, "The First Eight," and one of the things in this book that I talk about was impeachment of Andrew Johnson, who missed conviction in the Senate by a single vote. If the Senate back then, it had what I would hope the Senate would have today, this country would be a much better place. And that is something that all of us should look forward to.

WHITFIELD: Also in the scope of, of your interest and work that you have done, I wonder if I can ask you about the Affordable Care Act, because you helped fight hard for it. Subsidies expire in days, not enough votes on Capitol Hill to extend it. What are your feelings today?

CLYBURN: Well, I think the tax credits that, or do, people who need them, they ought to get them. We don't have any problem giving tax breaks to wealthy people, no matter the cost. But when we talk about giving tax credits to low income and moderate income people in order for them to have health care, which will help the private insurance market, which will cost about one-third of what it cost us to give this big tax break to multimillionaires and billionaires, we've got a problem.

I just think that we need to look at our priorities, especially in this time of year, and hopefully when we come back after the new year, that discharge petition will come to the floor and enough -- I think we have enough votes in the House to move it forward. Hopefully we'll get the votes in the Senate to get it done as well.

WHITFIELD: And you don't see that as being too late?

CLYBURN: Well, it'll be too late for a lot of people, yes, but it's better late than never. It'll be too late for some people, no question about that. But we with legislation can make some of those retroactive. I think that we have the power to do that, and we ought to do it.

WHITFIELD: All right, now to your book, "The First Eight," as you pay tribute to your predecessors and reveal more about your journey. In recent presidential primary and general elections, you have really become known to be the kingmaker. Your endorsement of the person who would become President Obama and later President Biden, just to name a few.

So along the way and in between, your constituents have implored you to make endorsements because they said voters were waiting for your cue. One of your former students writing that you are a moral compass in uncertain times. So how do you characterize what seems to be an awesome responsibility?

CLYBURN: Well, you know, I grew up here in South Carolina. My parents were very active politically, even when they could not cast an effective vote. They taught us from an early age to read. As my dad used to say, learn your community, learn the people that you live with, and do what you can to help make life better for all of them.

And that's all I've done all of my life. And so I've traveled throughout this community.

[14:50:00]

I've tried to know the people here well enough to know how to respond to their dreams and their aspirations. And I do have a network throughout the state. I don't have any kind of political machine. I just stay connected to the community. And I try to train as many young people as I possibly can.

I have this thing called Clyburn Fellows. We get 40 to 60 young people every year, and get them interested in government, meet with them regularly. They stay in this fellowship for a year just to learn the state of South Carolina. And a lot of them are now running for office, getting elected to office. And that's how I maintain a network.

So, when the time comes, people sort of know that I'm connected to the community, and they tend to ask questions. And I try to answer them.

WHITFIELD: You, of course, pay homage to your eight predecessors. You are the ninth of black congressmen hailing from South Carolina. And I wonder how important it is to highlight their legacy. There were 95 years between you and the eighth black congressman from South Carolina. And I wonder how, knowing of their history and their path, how that laid the groundwork for how you would serve South Carolina and the nation.

CLYBURN: You know, I've studied these eight people for a long, long time. They were not monolithic by any means. They didn't always get along with each other, but they always worked together. I learned a lot from them. There's so much difference between, say, Robert Smalls and George Washington Murray. They didn't like each other, didn't get along politically. But every time the time came, they coalesced and learned how to work together.

And so I try to do that in my work today, try to find common ground. One of the reasons I so admire our current leader Hakeem Jeffries, he maintains a climate in our caucus of sort of keeping people together, common cause. And that is what we need in the country today. And that's how -- that's what I learned from these eight people.

In fact, one of them wasn't even African American at all. He made the choice to live as an African American. Thomas E. Miller, who became the first president of South Carolina state, was not born African American. He made a choice, I think, after attending Lincoln University up in Oxford, Pennsylvania. That's when he decided to come back to South Carolina and live his life out as an African American.

WHITFIELD: It's a beautiful book of history, and, of course, underscoring your legacy, too. And I know you very prolifically, ask on a regular, where is democracy? Where is democracy today? How worried are you of its stability or the pledge from Americans to protect it?

CLYBURN: I'm very concerned about where we are today. And a lot of that has to do with history. I always say that history instructs. It is not just something to talk about or read and talk about. It is something that should instruct us as to how to conduct ourselves going forward. And as George Santayana, that Spanish philosopher, once wrote, if we fail to learn the lessons of history, were bound to repeat them.

Now we hear a lot of talk about the 1960s being the second Reconstruction period in the country. Well, the only reason you're going to have a second Reconstruction is because you had a first Reconstruction. And if it a second Reconstruction, that means the first one came to an end. And if the first Reconstruction can come to an end, then the second Reconstruction can come to an end. And I think that that's where we are in the country today. Are we

going to continue our trek toward a more perfect union, or are we going to do, as happened back in 1876, and turn the clock back? That's what led to Jim Crow, 95 years of Jim Crow is what rendered this country in the position it's in today.

WHITFIELD: If you don't know your history, it could be repeated. Congressman Jim Clyburn, the book is very lovely. Thank you so much. "First Eight, a Personal History of the Pioneering Black Congressmen Who Shaped a Nation."

[14:55:02]

And you're the ninth. Thank you so much.

CLYBURN: Thank you so much for having me.

WHITFIELD: Appreciate it.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Hello again. Thanks so much for joining me. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

CNN is now learning the U.S. has seized another vessel off the coast of Venezuela as the Trump administration ramps up pressure on Caracas. It's the second known instance of the U.S. interdicting a vessel near Venezuela in the last two weeks. Back in December, on the 10th, earlier this month, the U.S. military seized --