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Early Start with Rahel Solomon

White House Weathers Epstein Storm; Race For A.I. Dominance; Weapons For Ukraine, Deadlines For Russia. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired July 16, 2025 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:22]

MIN JUNG LEE, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and welcome to our viewers, joining us from the United States and all around the world. I'm MJ Lee. Rahel Solomon is off.

It's Wednesday, July 16th, 5:00 a.m. here in Washington.

And straight ahead on EARLY START.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody.

PAM BONDI, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Nothing about Epstein.

REP. TIM BURCHETT (R-TN): I'd just like to see the files turned over.

REP. RALPH NORMAN (R-NC): I think that the American people need to see what's in there.

CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS WRITER: President Trump has made it a key priority to increase U.S. investment in A.I infrastructure.

TRUMP: We believe that America's destiny is to dominate every industry and be the first in every technology.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: President Trump appeared to rule out sending long range missiles to Ukraine.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: The Kremlin said it took the suggestion of supplying offensive weapons very seriously.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(MUSIC)

LEE: We begin this morning with new CNN polling showing that Americans still aren't sold on President Trump's sweeping tax and spending act, which is designed to fund his domestic agenda.

Sixty-one percent of those polled said they opposed the president's policies and the so-called Big, Beautiful Bill, with 39 percent saying they were in favor of it. The majority also think the U.S. economy will be worse off because of it. More than 50 percent of Americans think the massive legislation packet will hurt the economy. Less than 30 percent think it will help and 20 percent feel it won't have any effect.

This new polling comes as the U.S. Senate is set to meet in the coming hours to debate another bill that would enact spending cuts, advised by DOGE, formerly headed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

And U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, has joined a growing list of Trump loyalists pushing for more transparency on the Jeffrey Epstein files. Take a listen to just some of those calls.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. CHIP ROY (R-TX): I do think there needs to be more transparency. I do think that all needs to move forward, and I think -- I think the administration needs to address that.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: But you don't believe what the Justice Department is saying?

BURCHETT: I don't know. No, I don't, I don't. I think -- I don't, I don't, I don't trust them.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: You should put everything out there and let the people decide it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: While that may be the view of some Republican members of Congress, the U.S. president says he doesn't see why there's so much interest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I don't understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody. It's pretty boring stuff. It's sordid, but it's boring, and I don't understand why it keeps going.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: There's been a renewed interest in the Epstein case after the Justice Department released a memo last week saying there is no evidence that the convicted sex offender kept a so-called client list, or that he was murdered.

At a news conference on Tuesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi said the memo on the investigation speaks for itself, declining to release new documents.

CNN's Paula Reid has more from Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Attorney General Pam Bondi has a whole menu of options for how to proceed amidst this enormous controversy. For one, she could release additional material, something President Trump called for on Tuesday, saying that he would support it as long as she believes that that is credible. She'd also appoint a special counsel, something she doesn't appear to be ready to do at this point.

But instead, it was pretty clear on Tuesday at this press conference that she's going to try to proceed with the last option, which is just ride this out, hope it goes away. I was one of about half a dozen reporters who asked her questions about Epstein, and each question she deflected, she gave us nothing of substance. She did not answer anything directly, but that shows her willingness to try to go about her day to day without changing course on how she has approached this.

The end of the question, she just said that her memo from last week, quote, speaks for itself.

But what's not clear is if the strategy is going to be able to sustain her over the coming months and potentially years that she's in that job, because, remember, it's not the Justice Department press corps that is drumming this up. This is something that the MAGA base has been asking about, has been pushing for since day one. If you look at anything she or many of her staffers at DOJ tweet in response, no matter what the tweet is about, people are asking about Epstein.

So, it's unclear if this long game she's playing is going to prevail. If it doesn't, she could always tap a U.S. attorney to serve as sort of a special counsel or independent review. She could also release additional material. But it was clear on Tuesday at that press conference, she is going to try to ride this out and hope it blows over.

[05:05:03]

Unclear if that's going to work.

Paula Reid, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEE: Joining me now is Holly Baltz, an investigations editor with "The Palm Beach Post".

Holly, good morning to you. And it's so great to have you.

You and your some of your colleagues have covered Jeffrey Epstein extensively going back years and years. Having said that, I'd like to first get your reaction to President Trump now claiming that the Epstein files were made up by Democrats like Barack Obama and Joe Biden. He's also blaming former FBI Director James Comey. What do you say to that?

HOLLY BALTZ, INVESTIGATIONS EDITOR, PALM BEACH POST: Yeah, that's a very interesting statement, because, you know, they went his administration under the Justice Department arrested and charged Jeffrey Epstein in 2019. You know, Jeffrey Epstein never goes away. He's a subject of constant attention and fascination.

I can tell you, you know, we've been covering him since he was originally arrested here in 2006. And, you know, he is he will always be around, it seems so. So, yeah.

LEE: Yeah. And, you know, pam is trying to stand her ground for now. She says that the DOJs controversial memo, the very memo that so infuriated so many in the MAGA world, quote, speaks for itself. How tenable is this position that Bondi is in right now, Holly, both when it comes to standing behind that DOJ memo, but also just in terms of keeping her job.

BALTZ: Well, I can't -- it's hard to speak to her, keeping her job. You know, I think writing this thing out seems an extraordinary thing to do because again, the Jeffrey Epstein case has attracted so much fascination. It does always feel like there is something going on behind the scenes or has been that people don't know about, you know, she -- it looks to me like its kind of a matter of overpromising and under-delivering. I'm not clear why she -- she said these things would be released, that they were being redacted. And then suddenly, no, we're not going to release them.

DOJ investigated Epstein, you know, not only in 2019, also investigated Ghislaine Maxwell. And she was convicted, but they also did an extensive investigation after the case in our county. And as to whether federal prosecutors, you know, were correct in the way they handled that case.

So there's all that investigative material that they could release. There's probably some of it available in the court case on the federal court level. But I would suspect there's more. And they could redact it and release it.

LEE: Yeah. I mean, I'm really glad you took us there because I was going to say, you know, in the same breath that she defended this DOJ memo yesterday, Bondi also said, we will get back to you about anything else. This was when she was talking to reporters. I mean, what else could the anything else possibly be?

You're talking about some documents that could be redacted. Explain to people what else she could potentially release.

BALTZ: Well, again, investigative documents that I know of, you know, with the investigations that they have done, you know, they in that professional standards investigation, they talked to everyone involved in the original case, including our state attorney who was the one who took the case to a grand jury and basically tanked it. We just got last summer after a five-year lawsuit, finally got the transcripts, and they were worse than anyone expected.

So, you know, it's strange that they won't release anything.

I mean, I've seen in documents, full pages of black with the page numbers, so you can still see that, you know, there -- there was something there.

[05:10:00]

There was something that wasn't left out. So, yeah, it's strange, and Epstein doesn't go away. So, I don't know how this is going to work for her.

LEE: That's really fascinating. Yeah. You know, you're talking about how Epstein never goes away. It seems like there's endless fascination about him and his actions.

I did want to ask you about this new CNN poll released earlier this week that said half of Americans are dissatisfied with the amount of information that the government has released about the Epstein case. I mean, what do you make of that? What are people really wanting to know?

BALTZ: Oh, I think they want to know if there's a client list, you know, bottom line. But, you know, from all the documents and coverage I've done of Epstein, I just have a hard time believing that there is because he was just really smart and diabolical. And why would he put that all in one place, you know? You know, he has a contact list that's been released that has everything from, you know, the local pharmacy to a lot of big names on it with phone numbers. But, you know, that's obviously not something that someone would be charged with a crime over so.

LEE: All right. Holly Baltz, your deep knowledge on the Epstein story is really appreciated this morning. Thank you so much.

BALTZ: Thank you.

LEE: Tech and energy companies have committed more than $90 billion to create an A.I. hub in Pennsylvania. President Trump made the announcement on Tuesday, driving home the point that the U.S. wants to be the number one superpower in artificial intelligence.

CNN's Clare Duffy has those details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS WRITER: Yet even leading up to this event, President Trump has made it a key priority to increase U.S. investment in A.I. infrastructure, especially data centers. This is really seen as a national security priority for the U.S. to remain a global tech leader in this A.I. era. The challenge is you can't necessarily keep growing and building new data centers without building new energy resources to power them. These are essentially warehouses full of stacks of computers. They require significant electricity.

President Trump actually saying at this Tuesday event that he believes the United States needs to at least double its electricity output to keep pace with A.I. advancement.

So, we're getting a sense now of the way that the tech community, the investment community, the energy community are all coalescing around this goal with the White House announcing more than $90 billion of investment in Pennsylvania by more than 20 companies. Some really big names on this list, Anthropic, Blackstone, Brookfield, Constellation Energy, Google and Meta. They will be investing in new data centers, new power facilities including natural gas, nuclear and hydropower, and also in training for A.I. workers, data center workers, power facility workers.

The White House says this is going to create thousands of new jobs in Pennsylvania. But I will say in some cases, the timeline of these investments isn't necessarily clear. For example, a data center doesn't get stood up overnight. But certainly, I think key progress for Trump on a really crucial priority.

Clare Duffy CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEE: CNN projects Adelita Grijalva has won the Democratic primary in Arizona's seventh congressional district. Grijalva is the daughter of the late Democratic Congressman Raul Grijalva. He represented that district for two decades until his death in March. Adelita Grijalva is favored to win the September 23rd general election. The former county supervisor is up against Daniel Gutierrez, who CNN projects to win the Republican primary.

President Trump appears to be ruling out sending longer range missiles to Ukraine, saying Kyiv should not target Moscow but other U.S. weapons are already headed to the battlefield. New details after the break.

And the United Nations is sounding the alarm, demanding accountability for the hundreds of Palestinians killed while attempting to seek food aid in Gaza.

You're watching CNN.

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[05:18:51]

LEE: Ukraine came under a massive Russian attack overnight. Ukraine's air force says Russia launched 400 drones and a missile targeting several cities. The attacks killed at least three people, and the regional military chief says they detected at least 17 explosions in the span of just 20 minutes in Kharkiv, in Ukraine's northeast.

U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed on Tuesday that the new Patriot defense missiles are on the way to Ukraine. He says he's not looking to give Kyiv longer range missiles that could strike targets deeper into Russia. And he says Ukraine should not target Moscow.

President Trump is also defending his decision to give Russia another 50 days to make a peace deal with Ukraine, or face 100 percent tariffs, as well as secondary sanctions on Russia's trading partners.

Currently, the U.S. is doing virtually no trading with Russia, so any new tariffs would not have much of a practical effect. Russia's foreign minister brushed off the economic threat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): Fifty days, it used to be 24 hours. It used to be 100 days. We've been through all of this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: More details now from CNN's Kristen Holmes at the White House.

[05:20:03]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: President Trump on Tuesday appeared to rule out sending long range missiles to Ukraine, despite recent conversations with Ukrainian in which he asked what they were capable of doing, including if they were capable of striking Moscow or Saint Petersburg.

Now, in those conversations, CNN is told that the Ukrainians were stunned and that Zelenskyy at that point had said that they would be able to do that if they had the right --the right weaponry. Of course, right now it seems as though President Trump is not looking at that in terms of sending them offensive missiles.

Now, when speaking to reporters, President Trump also defended his 50- day time period to get Russia to the table. Here's what he said.

TRUMP: I don't think it's a long time. A lot of opinions change very rapidly. Might not be 50. It might be much sooner than 50 days.

HOLMES: And, of course, just a reminder that announcement came on Monday as President Trump said that he was going to issue these 100 percent secondary tariffs on countries that did business with Russia in 50 days. If Vladimir Putin did not, in fact, come to the table.

Now, President Trump said he had not spoken to the Russian president since he made that announcement. He also said that when he speaks to Putin on the phone, when he has conversations with him, that the Russian president indicates that he wants peace, but that President Trump has come to believe that its all just talk now. This is all part of what we have seen in the last several weeks, which is a growing frustration both publicly and privately when it comes to his relationship with Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine.

One of the things that he said that he would be able to end upon getting into office almost immediately, that has been proven harder for him to be able to do, and something that has made him angry, particularly when it comes to the Russian president. So what happens next, of course, is the big question. But as we know, those patriot missile systems are already going to Ukraine from Germany.

The United States has got to start ramping up their production of that to send them back to that country as a backfill, as all part of this new weapons deal that President Trump also announced on Monday.

Kristen Holmes, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEE: The U.N. says there must be accountability for the shootings of Palestinians seeking aid in Gaza, demanding investigations into each and every killing. This comes as a new video has emerged of machine gun fire near an aid site over the weekend, and a warning some of the images you're about to see are disturbing.

The video shows some Palestinians trying to crawl to safety as bursts of gunfire hit the ground close to them. Eyewitnesses say it shows the Israeli military opening fire on Palestinians as they waited for food.

For more on this, CNN's Paula Hancocks joins us live from Abu Dhabi.

So, Paula, what is the Israeli government saying about all of this amid so much international outrage?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, MJ, this was an incident that happened on Saturday. The Palestinian ministry of health says that at least 30 people were killed in this incident as they were waiting for aid. It happened about half a mile or 800 meters away from the site, the aid distribution site of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

It is a controversial distribution incentive that's been created by the U.S. and Israel. And there have been a number of deadly incidents, reports of another one just this morning in in Gaza.

Now, this particular one, you can see from the footage there that there are bursts of gunfire that are hitting the ground just meters away from people who are trying to crawl away. Now, the Israeli military says that they are reviewing details of this video. They did say on Saturday that Israeli fire in the area did not result in any deaths or any injuries. Now you don't see the source of the shooting in that video, but eyewitnesses did tell CNN that that they believed it was the Israeli military.

It is just yet another of these deadly incidents close to or nearby either the GHF sites or other sites where aid distribution has -- has been happening. And it just goes to show exactly how deadly it can be to try and secure humanitarian aid at this point. The United Nations itself calling for an investigation.

Let's listen to more of what they have to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THAMEEN AL-KHEETAN, U.N. OHCHR SPOKESPERSON: As of the 13th of July, we have recorded 875 people killed in Gaza while trying to get food, 674 of them were killed in the vicinity of GHF sites.

[05:25:04] Now, the data we have is based on our own information gathering through various reliable sources, including medical, human rights and humanitarian organizations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANCOCKS: Now the U.N. is calling for aid to be funneled once again through the U.N.-run institutions on the ground, rather than GHF -- MJ.

LEE: Paula Hancocks in Abu Dhabi, thank you so much.

And just ahead, why Americans prescription drugs may soon cost more, and so could that morning cup of coffee. And despite President Trump's promise to lower prices, they just keep going up. We'll have the latest report on inflation.

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