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Sources: Bondi Told Trump In May His Name Was In Epstein Files; Sources: Deputy A.G. Todd Blanche To Meet Today With Maxwell; Lawmakers Say Epstein Issue Won't Go Away As House Recesses; Hulk Hogan Dead At 71. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired July 24, 2025 - 12:00   ET

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

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MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR, INSIDE POLITICS: Today on Inside Politics, from doubt to disaster. CNN has learned a crucial reason why President Trump has changed his tune on the Jeffrey Epstein case. He knows his name is in the so-called Epstein files that does not implicate him in any crime, but does it raise questions of a cover up?

Plus, the Powell pressure campaign. The president will tour the Federal Reserve today as he attempts to use the $2.5 billion renovation to hammer the Fed chair he wants out. And Carolina in my mind. Democrats may be humming James Taylor, hoping former Governor Roy Cooper's expected Senate bid can help turn the swing state blue.

I'm Manu Raju in for Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

We start with a story that has engulfed the White House all month. Today, and maybe as even as we speak, Jeffrey Epstein's accomplice. Ghislaine Maxwell is meeting with the Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, a Trump loyalist. Her attorney already arrived at the federal courthouse in Tallahassee this morning.

Now Maxwell is imprisoned nearby, serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking. Of course, it is highly unusual for the number two at the DOJ to be involved in a meeting like this, but it's against the backdrop of news that out last night that Attorney General Pam Bondi told the president back in May that his name is in the so called Epstein files, which Trump's MAGA base has been demanding the DOJ release. And it was just last week that Trump denied Bondi said anything of the sort.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did the attorney general briefed you on the DOJ and FBI review, the findings of that review? Did the attorney general brief you on that?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: On what?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: On the DOJ and FBI review. TRUMP: On what? On what subject?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Epstein. On Epstein. The review of the files. Did Attorney General Pam Bondi brief you on that?

TRUMP: A very quick briefing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did she tell you -- what did she tell you about the review, and specifically, did she tell you at all that your name appeared in the files?

TRUMP: No, no. She's given us just a very quick briefing, and in terms of the credibility of the different things that they've seen. And I would say that, you know, these files were made up by Comey. They were made up by Obama.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Now we don't know the context, and the president has not been accused of any wrongdoing related to the case. I'm joined now in the room by a terrific group of reporters, CNN's Alayna Treene, Bloomberg's Mario Parker, Nia-Malika Henderson of CNN and Bloomberg, and CNN's Evan Perez. Nice to see you all.

What are we in week three, four of this story. I mean, it seemed like this was going to go away some time ago. It has continued to snowball beyond what the Trump's -- obviously the White House hadn't wanted. They've wanted to turn this page. They have not been able to turn the page. How damaging right now is this for the White House at this moment?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, BLOOMBERG POLITICAL & POLICY COLUMNIST: Well, listen, I mean, we have seen President Trump call his base, sort of idiots and losers for believing it in the first place. That didn't really work. He tried to tamp it down with some of the conservative, chattering class of folks. That didn't work.

RAJU: He's losing control of the narrative.

HENDERSON: He's losing control of the narrative. He tried to, you know, sort of distract with these lies about Obama in 2016. I don't think we yet know how damaging this could be to the president. We've seen from the House some movement there, because they really wanted to sort of wrestle with this and not have to go home and say that they hadn't done anything on it.

We'll see what the recess provides in terms of pushback from the base. This is core to the MAGA base. This is core to Trump's identity. The idea that he would come into power and really root out the deep state and arrest people, right, arrest particularly Democrats, right? That is what the MAGA base case wants, and it is abundantly clear that that is not likely to be the case at all.

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RAJU: And they want the files. Trump's name is in the files. We don't know the context of any of that, but of course, there's a lot of questions about what it actually says about the president. This is what the White House told you yesterday, Alayna.

So, the White House does not view this as groundbreaking or new or surprising at all, the official said, adding there's no evidence that Trump was involved in any wrongdoing. Take us inside the White House about the reaction, the aftermath of the revelation that his name is on the Epstein files.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah. I mean, the White House, of course, is trying to downplay this, and to -- I mean, to their point, only to say, it's not clear with the context of his name coming up. And like many high-powered people in the 1990s in New York, Trump, we know was close with Epstein. They had a relationship.

And so, that part is unclear. What they're trying to argue now is that, you know, we saw the statement from the White House Communications Director Steven Cheung. He's saying that this is fake news. When I talk to people at the White House about it, they're like, look, we're not disputing his name was in the file, some of his -- some of those binders that Pam Bondi had these influencers carry out in the White House earlier this year, had that as well.

RAJU: Yeah. So, what is the fake part about it?

TREENE: What they're saying -- what they're saying is fake is this idea of what their argument is. Is that there's this narrative that perhaps Trump was involved in some of these nefarious activities with Epstein. They're saying that's absolutely false. There is no sign of wrong doing, and of course --

RAJU: And no one is reporting that.

TREENE: No one saying that. No one saying that. I think the key thing about this Wall Street Journal story, because I don't think people were surprised. I know the White House wasn't that his name was in this. It's the fact that they reviewed these documents, they found his name in it multiple times. I will say a lot of other high-profile figures, their names were in it too. They said there was a lot of unsubstantiated claims about that.

But then the president was asked about whether or not that was something that Bondi have told him about in that may briefing, and he said no. And that's what I think all of this entire story has really been about it. It's not necessarily about, you know, whether Trump was involved in any of what Jeffrey Epstein did. There's nothing to prove that. There's absolutely no evidence.

It's that -- there's this idea that, why are they not being transparent about this? What -- you know, a lot of his supporters even have been calling this a potential cover up. It's very unclear. You know, we don't have the files. We don't know what's in them, but what is clear is that the way that they've handled this is, is why this has become such a big story and has so many people so critical of what's going on because it is a very big lack of transparency.

RAJU: I mean, you cover the Justice Department. What was -- what is the Justice Department -- what are they saying about this?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, here's a problem. You know, those binders that Pam Bondi presented, the influence of -- MAGA influencers back in February at the White House. If you look at the binders, it says the most transparent administration ever. And so suddenly, you know, Donald Trump's name occurs multiple times in the second tranche of documents that they want to produce, and they suddenly are no longer that transparent, right?

They're saying there's nothing to see here. We're not going to release any more documents. And that is not going to fly when you've been promising all along. And this is a problem of their own making. Of course, you know, Bondi did that event back in February. By March, they knew Trump's name was all over the place in this thing, which is not a surprise, as you -- as we've covered.

And yet they still went out there and talked about it, kept building expectations. And so, this is a PR mess that they have created for themselves. And so, the latest effort to try to quiet this is this bizarre meeting, this unusual meeting between the Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Ghislaine Maxwell.

RAJU: Excuse me. What does that ever happen?

PEREZ: That never, right. I mean, she's a convicted felon, accused of -- and, you know, convicted and serving 20 years for being an accomplice with serious sex crimes. And she is getting an audience with the deputy attorney general, which never happens, right?

RAJU: And why? Why is that happening?

PEREZ: Right. What he is saying is that he wants to know whether Ghislaine Maxwell can produce any evidence or provide any information about people who could be charged, additional people who could be charged. They already know -- they already know the answer to that, which is they don't believe that there are any more people to be charged, but they need to cross this off the list and hoping that this helps quiet this storm again that they created.

RAJU: And this deputy attorney general is extremely loyal to Donald Trump.

MARIO PARKER, NATIONAL POLITICS TEAM LEADER, BLOOMBERG: Absolutely. He represented him on the campaign trail during the cases up in New York, for example. He's also quite friendly with Ghislaine Maxwell's attorney as well, appeared on Marcos' podcast at one point. Marcos at some point had tweeted out that he had given him advised during one of the trials representing Donald Trump to call Michael Cohen, the gloat, the greatest liar of all time, or some such as well.

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So, he's quite, quite friendly with him. This presents a perilous situation, right? What if Maxwell doesn't have anything to add, the fire continues to just emanate, as we've seen it do before. What if she does have something? Do you cut a deal with her? Do you cut a deal with someone who is convicted of the crimes that she's committed? And how does that square with the MAGA base as well and independence?

RAJU: And what if you don't divulge everything that you learned in this deposition or this interview to the world who wants to hear what that transpired here. We'll see what ultimately the readout is from this meeting, and they have the Republicans respond to this as well.

I mean, we have -- Trump has tried to say what, he's called them weaklings. He's called some of them stupid. He's called it a hoax. And what we've seen from this week is that even among his most loyal supporters on Capitol Hill, they're saying that this issue is simply not going to go away and is going to continue to build as they go home for the August recess.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. RALPH NORMAN (R-SC): You have to be -- have your head in the sand to say that this is going to go away. It's not. The public deserves it.

RAJU: How much of your constituents clamoring for more information about Epstein right now?

REP. ERIC BURLISON (R-MO): It's the number one phone call that we get by far. It's probably 501.

RAJU: 501?

BURLISON: Yeah. It's number of phone calls that we get.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: He's saying 501. Go ahead.

PEREZ: Real quick. On the fact that these Republicans in the House have been pushing this is why Todd Blanche is in Tallahassee today, because he needed to get ahead of this coming storm, which was coming from his own -- his own folks, the conservatives --

RAJU: Will they comply with the subpoena? Will the Justice Department comply with the subpoena? Came out yesterday, going for all the Epstein files.

PEREZ: I can tell you this --

RAJU: They say they got an issue with the subpoena.

PEREZ: Right. So, they're going to issue a subpoena, but the files are already redacted. So, the names of victims and every -- that it is already done, and it is sitting there. All we need is for Pam Bondi to decide that she wants to comply with this subpoena. And so that's where this will lie.

Once the subpoena lands at the Department of Justice, she can make that decision on whether to send it over. And it really is that simple. But what is happening today in Tallahassee, it's all because of that revolt that you see ongoing and building on Capitol Hill. RAJU: And you're seeing this uneasiness among for the speaker himself. He was, you know, he has really tried to shield Donald Trump from this. He tried to prevent a vote. He did prevent a vote from happening in the full House. The House had to go home early because it simply was paralyzed. Because Democrats have been exploiting these divisions within the GOP. Republicans were signaling that they want to side with Democratic efforts to force this issue on the floor of the House.

And so, he has said that he was in line with Donald Trump, but he's also not -- he's not in line with what Donald Trump has been saying, that this is a hoax.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): I've never seen the Epstein evidence. It wasn't in my lane. But I had the same concern and question that a lot of people do. Look, I think the president --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is not a hoax, in other words?

JOHNSON: He is not a hoax. Of course, not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: It's not a hoax.

HENDERSON: Yeah. Listen, contradicting the president --

RAJU: But he's in this impossible position. He's trying to protect Trump.

HENDERSON: Yeah.

RAJU: He's got this all these people in his party who want a lot more.

HENDERSON: And it's because, as you talk to the congressperson, there people in the base are calling and wanting answers to this. And Donald Trump in appointing people like Kash Patel and appointing people like Pam Bondi. He essentially said, listen, we're going to get to the bottom of this. That's what he was telling his MAGA base, all this time when Pam Bondi saying, oh, it's right on my file, you know, my desk. I'm going to release them. So, they have put themselves in this position, and it's not clear that they can put this genie back in the bottle.

RAJU: Yeah, no question about it. All right. This is still developing, as you can see. But coming up, we do have some breaking news. Hulk Hogan has died at the age of 71. The sad details are next.

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RAJU: Now to some sad breaking news. Wrestling legend, Hulk Hogan has died at the age of 71. Clearwater, Florida officials tell CNN, emergency personnel responded to a medical call at 9:51 am related to cardiac arrest. CNN's Andy Scholes joins me now. Andy, what are you hearing?

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Manu, I mean, it just the sports world mourning the loss of Hulk Hogan. You know, he was just -- it was a cultural icon. You know, no one put wrestling on the map more than Hulk Hogan did in the 1980s, you know, when he slammed Andre the Giant. I mean, that was just a moment that really propelled wrestling into the mainstream.

And, you know, I grew up, I was a Hulkamaniac as a kid. You know, I -- when that his song, real American hit, you know, just give you chills when he would come out to the ring. And he was just such a performer and what a speaker he was, you know, all the -- all the things he used to say, you know, what you're going to do when Hulkamania runs wild on you. Or when he was doing an interview with Mean Gene Okerlund, and he said, let me tell you something, brother.

I mean, it's just -- it's just the things he did, you know, that just resonated for decades to come. And he was such a powerful speaker, like I said, Manu, you know, I worked in Dallas. He once came on my sports show back in the day, called Inside Sports. And we help.

Can you -- can you rip off a promo for us? And he immediately, just like that, Manu, just like that was able to rip off a 22nd promo. No questions, but you know, the sports world and the WWE, everyone putting out a statement, just how sad of a moment this is. The WWE said, sad to learn. The Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan has passed away. He's one of pop culture's most recognizable figures.

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Hogan helped WWE achieve global recognition in the 80s and WWE extends its condolences to Hogan's family, friends and fans. And Ric Flair, who was an icon right alongside Hogan through the decades wrestling. He said, I'm absolutely shocked to hear about the passing of my close friend Hulk Hogan. Hulk has been by my side since we started in the wrestling business, an incredible athlete, talent, friend and father. Our friendship has meant the world to me. He was always there for me when I didn't ask for him to be.

Anyone wants to share some stories of the Hulkster. But Manu, you know, big, whole, big part of my childhood. I know everyone's got a Hulk Hogan moment. They remember he's just an icon, and it's sad that he's now not with us and leaving us at the age of 71.

RAJU: Yeah. There was nobody like Hulk Hogan. What a figure he was, society and wrestling and the like. And he'll be remembered by people, but not just in the sports world, but in the political world as well, which we're going to talk about here at the table. Andy Scholes, thank you so much for that. And we're back here around the table. Hulk, of course, was a big supporter of President Trump's. None of us can forget this memorable speech from the 2024 Republican convention.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HULK HOGAN, AMERICAN WRESTLER: Took a shot at my hero, and they tried to kill the next president of the United States. Enough was enough. And I said, let Trumpamania run wild, brother. Let Trumpamania rule again. Let Trumpamania make America great again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: I mean, I don't really remember it a lot from the Republican convention. I remember that vividly.

TREENE: I mean, yeah.

RAJU: You were in the room.

TREENE: I was. I mean, no one will forget the like, tearing off of the shirt. Look. I mean, he was someone, I remember when I was talking to a lot of people on the ground. They were like, this is what I'm excited for. People were so jazzed that they were going to be seeing Hulk Hogan. A lot of, you know, my sources, a lot of people I've talked with Raw, they're like, not a lot of people get me excited anymore, but Hulk Hogan does.

And it was interesting because he actually was a primetime speaker. He spoke, he was one of the last people to go on right before the President came out and gave his speech. He also was someone who didn't always support Trump. It was actually pretty late in the race that he ended up, going out and endorsing him. He said, after he saw him stand up at Butler, you know, that's what did it for him.

But look, I mean, he really became, not only obviously what Andy was saying, a huge icon, a figure, but he really became that in the Republican movement as well. We're seeing already. I was looking on my phone, on social media, people like Donald Trump Jr., a lot of the president's top supporters, family members, you know, saying that he was a legend. And, you know, rest in peace, Hulk Hogan.

RAJU: Yeah. What are your memories?

PARKER: No. I was there at the convention as well. I remember a moment where I said to my adulthood and my childhood kind of collided there. I remember Hulk Hogan, eat your vitamins, say your prayers, and the Hulkamaniacs, and all those things. But then also, of course, he became a figurehead for this movement that we've all been covering for the better part of the last decade. And he was -- his brand was so much Americana, and of course, MAGA, and Trump have really latched on to that as well.

HENDERSON: Yeah. His brand too was sort of masculinity, right? If you remember that night, and I was there too, it was Hulk Hogan, and it was Dan White, who, of course, is from the UFC and Trump himself had dalliances in the professional wrestling world. Think he got like a table, you know, hit over said, I don't know who it was. I grew up a Dusty Rhodes fan, people you probably don't remember.

But yeah, I mean, he certainly a cultural icon, put wrestling on the map, took it from sort of the dirty south where it was with these little leagues, and made it this really international sporting event. And you saw him there at the -- at the convention and helping usher in Donald Trump. And it really was an unbelievable moment.

One, I doubt what we won't really see moments like that. I don't think again, you can't imagine another political figure bringing somebody like Hulk Hogan onto the stage in that way and having a kind of authenticity, it made sense that Hulk Hogan would back somebody.

ALAYNA: Yeah. The Monster Jam, announcer voice, while doing it --

RAJU: Yeah. And as you mentioned, Alayna, Donald Trump Jr. just tweeted, rip to a legend, Hulk Hogan. They developed a friendship beyond, you know, just him being someone who -- as you can see on the screen, the tweet right there. Beyond just him being a celebrity that, you know, we see political parties bring celebrities on for a variety of reasons. But for the Trump world and Trump family, there was a friendship and a relationship that was built as well.

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ALAYNA: Totally and Hogan would go on some of the podcasts that they had. He did a lot of interviews around it. And I mean, look, he was someone who they all, like many other people, really idolized. And to have him, I remember getting up on that stage again, from all the conversations I was having, no one was more excited for him.

And everyone was chanting, U.S.A. It was one of those moments sitting in the convention center, where you could tell like the energy, was so excited for him. So, yeah, it's crazy. This news really sad that he's gone now.

RAJU: Yeah. And Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, just posted as well. I always saw him as a stature. He's a giant in stature and in life. That's what it says there on there. But you know, I remember him from my childhood, of course, WWF, back in the day, and mimicking him by jumping off the ropes say stop him, wrestling with my brother and my cousins and stuff.

I have friends tweeting, texting me about it too. Remembering WrestleMania, that moment where he's body slammed Andre the Giant. My friend Neil from Chicago texted me about that too. So, obviously this permeates beyond his politics, culture as well. Very sad moment. But remembering an icon there, Hulk Hogan, dead at the age of 71. We'll be back with more news.

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