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Early Start with Rahel Solomon

Trump Authorizes Release Of Some Epstein Documents As Fury Grows; WSJ Reports On 2023 Letter To Epstein Bearing Trump's Name; U.S. House Passes Trump's $9B DOGE Cuts Package; CBS Canceling Stephen Colbert Show. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired July 18, 2025 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:26]

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

It's Friday, July 18th, 5:00 a.m. here in Washington, D.C.

And straight ahead on EARLY START.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAURA COATES, CNN HOST: After resisting calls to release the Jeffrey Epstein files, Donald Trump appears to be giving in.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: The president is now asking the DOJ to release any pertinent grand jury testimony.

JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: The U.S. president has fired off a furious response to a new report on the Jeffrey Epstein saga.

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Democrats have now seized on this as if they ever wanted transparency.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN HOST: In a move that has shocked and confounded the entertainment world, CBS said it is canceling "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" next May.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I really think that this is financial. The current model of television does not support that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: We are following two major developments in the investigation surrounding convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. A story President Trump has repeatedly tried to downplay, making it clear he wants the whole messy affair to go away.

On Thursday, Trump wrote on Truth Social that he's told Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent grand jury testimony related to Epstein, and he once again called the uproar a scam perpetuated by Democrats. Epstein pleaded not guilty back in 2019 on charges that he operated a sex trafficking ring in which he abused dozens of underage girls. He was later found dead in his cell in what was ruled a suicide.

Bondi quickly responded with her own post, saying she's ready to ask the court to unseal the grand jury transcripts as early as today. And earlier on Thursday, the White House press secretary fielded questions about the Epstein controversy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Can you clarify which part of the Epstein hoax is the hoax part?

LEAVITT: The president is referring to the fact that Democrats have now seized on this as if they ever wanted transparency. When it comes to Jeffrey Epstein, which is an asinine suggestion for any Democrat to make.

Well, in terms of redactions or grand jury seals, those are questions for the department of justice. Those are also questions for the judges who have that information under a seal. And the president would not recommend a special prosecutor in the Epstein case. That's how he feels.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: This comes just hours after "The Wall Street Journal" reported on what it called a body letter from Donald Trump to Epstein, for the late convicted pedophile's 50th birthday, according to "The Journal", the letter is framed by the outline of a naked woman. The newspaper wrote, "The letter concludes happy birthday, and may every day be another wonderful secret."

"The Journal" reported that President Trump denied writing the letter or drawing the picture.

He told "The Journal", "This is not me. This is a fake thing. It's a fake 'Wall Street Journal' story. I never wrote a picture in my life. I don't draw pictures of women. It's not my language. It's not my words."

He went on to post on Truth Social, "The Wall Street Journal", and Rupert Murdoch personally were warned directly that the supposed letter they printed was a fake, and if they print it, they will be sued. Mr. Murdoch stated that he would take care of it, but obviously did not have the power to do so.

Misty Marris is a defense and trial attorney, and she joins us now live from New York.

Misty, thank you so much for joining us, because there is so much here to dissect.

Let's start with the grand jury testimony that the president says he is now authorizing his attorney general, Pam Bondi, to publicly release. But really important, he said any and all pertinent grand jury testimony.

What does that mean? Pertinent to what?

MISTY MARRIS, DEFENSE AND TRIAL ATTORNEY: Well, it's interesting because Pam Bondi and Trump don't have any ability to actually release grand jury testimony because grand jury testimony is as a default secret. It's kept behind closed doors. And there are only very limited exceptions where a court will allow grand jury testimony to be public.

So, the first step would be for the attorney general to make those motions in court and see if a judge will actually allow the release. But when you're talking about what you would find in grand jury testimony, it's going to only be a fraction of what would be in the possession of the investigators of the federal prosecutors because the standard that needs to be established at the grand jury is what's called probable cause.

[05:05:07]

It's the lowest standard under a law, under the law. So it's that a crime was committed and that Jeffrey Epstein is the individual that committed the crime, that standard again, probable cause. So, when you're talking about what would be in the grand jury testimony, you could hear from witnesses regarding the elements of the crimes that he was charged with. But it's not going to be the extensive amount of digital evidence videos, documents that may have been seized during the course of the investigation.

LEE: And this is all subject to approval from a judge, right? So, the judge would have to decide what is the pertinent information that could be released. Walk us through a little bit more the various considerations that the judge would have to make on what could be and would be made public.

MARRIS: Right. So, the grand jury process is secret for a reason. It's so that witnesses who testify before a grand jury, prosecutors can present a case in order to indict. This is the first step to indicting any individual in a criminal defense and a criminal defendant.

So, what the judge would have to consider is very, very narrow exceptions for when grand jury testimony or the grand jury process at all can become public. And one thing that is not a factor, MJ, and this is really important because in other areas of the law, there's this idea of public transparency. So, when it comes to a trial and filings that may be on the docket, when it comes to other court processes, public transparency is a factor.

That is not a factor in the grand jury proceedings. So, the types of areas where you see grand jury testimony being unsealed, becoming public, is when maybe it's used as far as a defendant challenging an indictment, maybe it's going to be used in another criminal investigation. But those exceptions are very, very narrow.

So, the idea that public transparency would be a factor, a judge will consider is simply not true. So, in my view, it's unlikely that the attorney general will succeed on getting a federal judge to get the stamp of approval on this.

LEE: Okay. I mean, in addition to everything that you just laid out, I mean, we're also talking about Jeffrey Epstein, who had dozens and dozens of alleged victims. We know there's a lot of redacted information in the grand jury testimony, and you're laying out all the reasons that all of this is so veiled in secrecy. Talk to us about how the judge would consider specifically the victim's privacy here.

MARRIS: Absolutely. The victim's privacy is something that would be considered not just at the grand jury proceeding level, but throughout the course of a case you'll often see that the privacy of victims is sexual -- especially when it comes to sexual exploitation and especially when it comes to conduct that occurred when victims were minors. That is often shielded to protect those victims.

Whether or not you're talking about a grand jury proceeding or throughout the entirety of a trial, you'll see just in in any case where you're talking about victims, sometimes they proceed as a pseudonym. Their identities are not revealed. Certain information or identifying information will always be under seal, and will not be for public consumption. So that is absolutely another factor. If a court were to review what could become public or not, that would certainly be something the judge would consider.

But it's just interesting because in any federal investigation, the amount of information that investigators and prosecutors have is tremendous. Anyone who practices in federal criminal court knows these exchanges are huge. Theres so many. Theres so much documents, evidence.

You know, we're talking about raids on and searches and seizures from Epstein's homes. The grand jury process is not going to be all of that all encompassing information. It is such a small percentage. And so that's what -- if it were to become public, you might expect a lot less information than some may think.

LEE: All right. Misty Marris, thank you so much for your insights on this.

MARRIS: Thank you.

LEE: The Epstein case also caused an upset on Capitol Hill, delaying a vote on President Trump's federal cuts package Thursday. U.S. House Republicans eventually passed the bill. It's expected to cancel $9 billion in funding to foreign aid and public broadcasting. The final tally was one 216 to 213, with Republicans Mike Turner and Brian Fitzpatrick voting against it.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said he's delighted to send the bill to the president's desk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: We clawed back $9 billion in taxpayer funds and wasteful spending. [05:10:02]

Fraud, waste and abuse, we've been targeting that every area. This was directed to wasteful spending in the previous State Department. Of course, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and a couple of other areas, we looked at that. We thought it was a waste of taxpayer funds, and we're taking care of business.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: A nonbinding resolution was also advanced that calls for the release of the Epstein related materials, but the speaker refused to commit to bringing that to the floor.

And I want to now bring in Dylan Wells, who is a political reporter for "The Washington Post".

Dylan, thank you so much for getting up early with us.

So, this was a victory for President Trump overnight on the Hill. The passage of this $9 billion in spending cuts to foreign aid and public broadcasting. Just talk to us first about the impact of this package and why this was such a priority for the president.

DYLAN WELLS, POLITICAL REPORTER, WASHINGTON POST: This is $9 billion, and this is central to all of Trump's goals thus far, with the one big, beautiful bill that we saw, with his DOGE cuts, reducing some of this federal government spending. But it can have huge impact both on the federal international funding, on the USAID front, and also when it comes to this public broadcasting, that is a concern that many Democrats and even some Republicans and members of Trump's own party raised could hurt their communities, particularly rural communities that rely on this public broadcasting for information.

LEE: And you spend lots of time out in the country talking to voters. And I wondered how much you hear about sort of the issue of the size of government as something that people care about, you know, because this is all about, as you said, Trump and conservatives wanting to downsize the federal government. But I did want to know, like, how much do voters care about this?

WELLS: Well, I think that absolutely, on both sides of the aisle, voters have been expressing more and more in recent years that they don't really trust America's public institutions, particularly the government here in D.C. and the size of the federal government is part of that.

Obviously, we've seen that more on the Republican front with Trump's base really praising these moves he's made on the first few months of his administration to cut back on the number of federal employees and these agencies. Democrats are hoping that this is one of many areas for them to make inroads ahead of the midterms. And even 2028. Sharing the plight of former federal workers, or the impact that will happen with, you know, they're not being this federal government spending and some of these efforts. But when it comes down to it, a lot of people who are out there voting

and are undecided don't have a great sense right now of what some of these federal agencies did or a sense of why that was a priority versus the day-to-day expenses they face in their daily lives. So that's a messaging concern for both parties as they figure out how to kind of spin Trump's moves so far, as well as Elon Musk when he was leading this DOGE initiative ahead of the midterms.

LEE: That's interesting.

Dylan, let's circle back to the Jeffrey Epstein story and the political fallout from this saga with the news overnight that Trump is now directing his AG to release grand jury testimony on Epstein. Is this the president caving to the immense pressure that he's come under from his own supporters for there to be more transparency?

WELLS: Well, this is the latest sign that this story line is not going away this week, despite Trump and the administrations wishes. You did see yesterday, Speaker Mike Johnson overnight saying that there isn't daylight between Republicans on the hill and President Trump on this issue.

But what we saw yesterday would suggest otherwise with to your point, even this minor league delaying the efforts to cut back on this federal spending. And so, this is not going away. And we have seen members of Trump's own base speaking out and saying that they want more from the administration.

But at the same time, with "The Wall Street Journal" story you mentioned overnight last night, we have seen some circling of the wagons with even people in the party who say that they do think Trump needs to do more, saying that they don't really believe that particular story has much of an impact and view it as just being another political attack on Trump.

LEE: All right. Dylan Wells from "The Washington Post", thanks so much for joining us.

WELLS: Thanks for having me.

LEE: And it's the end of an era for CBS as it prepares to pull the plug on one of the most popular shows on late night TV. Why it is saying goodbye to Stephen Colbert.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:19:06]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST OF "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT": CBS. I'm not being replaced. This is all just going away. And I do want to say --

(END VIDEO CLIP) LEE: CBS is canceling one of the most popular late-night shows on American television. Stephen Colbert announced Thursday, "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" will end in May of next year. Colbert has hosted the show since 2015, also serving as executive producer and writer. He says after he leaves, "The Late Show" will not get a new host. The network says the decision is solely financial and not related in any way to the show's performance, content or other matters at parent company, Paramount.

More now from CNN's chief media analyst Brian Stelter.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Why is the most watched late night TV talk show in America suddenly canceled?

That's the question Stephen Colbert's fans have now that CBS has announced that "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" will be ending next May.

[05:20:02]

Colbert announced the news to his viewers on Thursday night, and you could hear the audible boos from his live studio audience inside the Ed Sullivan Theater. Colbert made clear this was not his decision, he said. CBS informed him about it on Wednesday night. And so, there he was on Thursday night, telling the world.

Now, on Friday, viewers are left to wonder what's going on. After all, Colbert show usually beat its rivals in the ratings, and there was no indication that Colbert was going to leave any time soon. CBS said in a statement that this was a business calculation.

Quote, "This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. It is not related in any way to the show's performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount."

Now. I've covered late night TV for years, so I've been hearing about these financial pressures for quite some time. As the ratings for late-night have declined overall, with viewers heading in lots of different directions, networks have not been able to charge advertisers the kind of premium that they were used to. Basically, these shows are very expensive to produce, and they're taking in a lot less money from advertisers.

And I'm told by a source close to CBS that the late show was no longer profitable. So, from a spreadsheet point of view, you know, from the C-suite level, this cancellation makes financial sense.

However, there are lots of fans out there. Stephen Colbert fans wondering if CBS is succumbing to political pressure. That's because Paramount recently settled a lawsuit lodged by President Trump. Remember, Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to Trump's future presidential library to make that lawsuit go away. Trump later made remarks about other possible terms of the deal. We don't know what those terms were. Now, there is no evidence that Colbert is connected to any of that,

but he was on the air just a few days ago making jokes about the Paramount settlement and also acknowledging the rampant online speculation that his future might be in jeopardy under the new ownership of CBS.

All of this is happening as CBS and Paramount awaits Trump administration approval of its merger with Skydance Global. The owners of Skydance are the Ellisons, Larry Ellison, the billionaire behind Oracle, who's a friend of President Trump, and his son David, who will have day to day management of CBS, if and when the merger is approved.

So, you have this business backdrop to what should be a very funny topic. We're talking about late night TV and the laughs that Colbert has brought to his viewers for years. But soon enough, those will be over. He says he will sign off in May, and CBS will retire the franchise altogether, essentially giving up on late night TV already in Hollywood, there's speculation that Colbert might end up somewhere else. Maybe some streaming service like Netflix might come along, try to hire him to launch a new show instead.

Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEE: News of the Colbert cancelation sparked some strong reaction from Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren. She said the timing was suspicious, coming after Paramount's settlement with the Trump administration, a deal she said looks like bribery.

The panel on CNN "NEWSNIGHT" had this to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: What on earth is Congress doing wasting their time on this? CBS is a private industry. If they want to give AOC the show, God bless them. If they want to go Fox News, God bless them. They're private.

PHILLIP: That's right.

HONIG: First Amendment, Congress. If Democrats, if Elizabeth Warren, they go down this road. What an utter waste.

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: We don't know why they're mad about it? Well, who was even on the show tonight? Adam Schiff. These shows, Colbert and the rest of them have become nothing but anti-Trump fever swamp.

TOURE, HOST, "TRUTH TALKS" PODCAST: I really think that this is financial. I really do believe CBS, the model of putting on a very expensive show at 11:30 p.m., where the host is making eight figures and there's a large team, the current model of television does not support that.

(END VIDEO CLIP) LEE: Israel is losing support among Americans over its military actions in Gaza. We'll have brand new poll numbers when we return.

Plus, a church in Gaza that had a special relationship with the late Pope Francis gets hit by Israeli fire.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:28:39]

LEE: New CNN poll just out this morning suggest Americans are souring on Israel over its war in Gaza. Half of them now believe Israel is using too much military force against Palestinians. That's according to a poll by CNN and SSRP, 10 percent say Israel is using too little force and 39 percent say it's about right.

And meanwhile, the number of those who say Israels actions is fully justified has tanked to 23 percent. That's compared to 50 percent back in October 2023, 22 percent say it's not justified at all, up from 8 percent from before the war, while 27 percent say it's partially justified.

And finally, Americans are evenly divided on whether the U.S. is doing too much or the right amount to help Israel. That's 42 percent on each side, 14 percent believe the U.S. should do more.

The number of people who say the U.S. is doing too much has jumped 8 percent since March. And Israel's prime minister is blaming, quote, stray ammunition for a fatal strike on Gaza's only Catholic Church. Officials say three people were killed when the Holy Family church was hit by Israeli fire on Thursday. Several others were injured, including the parish priest.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel deeply regrets what happened, and it is investigating the incident. The church has been a shelter for Gaza's small Christian community during the war. One displaced person said after the incident there's no such thing as a safe place in Gaza anymore.