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Inside Politics

Bill Forcing Release of Epstein Files Heads to Trump's Desk; Epstein Survivors Say They Want to Be in Oval Office for Bill Signing; Trump Administration Accelerates Push to Dismantle Education Department; Federal Court Calls Texas GOP Gerrymander Into Question; Trump Threatens Primary Challenge to State Lawmaker Impeding His Redistricting Effort in Indiana. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired November 19, 2025 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:45]

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: -- and that meant being with these women, survivors who showed a photo of one of them holding up a photo of herself as a girl when she -- each one of the women, basically when they went to the podium, held up -- almost everyone held up a photo and said, this is a picture of me when I first met Jeffrey Epstein. And these are -- you can see these are children. And they were all there together and they were all in the House Gallery, applauding for it.

But when you look at the, the political impact of this, Marjorie Taylor Greene -- Marjorie Taylor Greene, right? Said at the press conference, this has ripped MAGA apart. And that is the general consensus. Ro Khanna said to me that he, Democrats have been pushing back on him and saying, focus on the price of eggs, focus on the price of healthcare. This bill did that to MAGA. It also, I think very importantly, is the first time in the second Trump presidency when Congress has bucked the president on anything.

TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE ATLANTA JOURNAL- CONSTITUTION: Yeah. And I think that is -- I cover Marjorie Taylor Greene.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR OF 'INSIDE POLITICS': Yes.

(LAUGH)

MITCHELL: I've been talking to a lot of people, you know, it's -- Marjorie Taylor Greene has been consistent. And what we saw this week is that, when the vote became imminent, it became clear that many Republicans who, unlike Marjorie Taylor Greene, had up until this point been unwilling to publicly go against Donald Trump, were going to do it for this, on this vote. And that's because that MAGA split that we've been talking about, their constituents have been telling them we are confused by Donald Trump's second term because he's not doing the things he campaigned on.

He said he was going to release the Epstein files. He said he was going to end foreign wars. He said he was going to make grocery prices go down. That is not happening. And we are confused. And for the most part, Republicans have been trying to give Donald Trump time, not publicly challenging him, but on this vote, they were saying that was going to be too far. And that's what caused Trump to cave.

BASH: In the short term, really short term, one of the questions is, how the president is going to sign this. Is he going to do it quietly or is he going to have some of the survivors from Jeffrey Epstein with him? Listen to what Lisa Phillips, one of those survivors, told Audie Cornish this morning,

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR AND SENIOR ANALYST: Does this president owe you an apology or a visit or a signing ceremony?

LISA PHILLIPS, JEFFREY EPSTEIN SURVIVOR: Oh, we would love that. We want to -- we want to feel seen and heard by him as well. We do.

CORNISH: Are you going to get it?

(LAUGH)

SHARLENE ROCHARD, JEFFREY EPSTEIN SURVIVOR: We don't know. I mean, it's up to him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: What are the chances? You cover the White House.

SEUNG MIN KIM, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, ASSOCIATED PRESS: Yeah, I just -- well, it -- there's nothing on his schedule --

(LAUGH)

MIN KIM: -- indicating that as of today. It is just really remarkable, first of all, how quickly things can move when the political pressure is inevitable. I mean, Speaker Johnson, while he was saying he would support the bill yesterday, was saying there are all these little problems in the bill that maybe John Thune in the Senate can fix. And John Thune is like, nah, we're just going to let this.

(LAUGH)

DOVERE: (Inaudible) with the roll call vote, just the voice vote.

MIN KIM: Exactly. We're just going to let this go through. And it was really just a week ago that administration officials were bringing Lauren Boebert into the Situation Room to answer questions and try to prevent her from continuing to endorse this discharge petition. So I think president, when he made this -- the abrupt face on Sunday night saying, let's just go ahead with this legislation. I think he really recognized this political inevitability of getting these files out there.

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: The overwhelming speed that this happened with yesterday, and one vote was stunning. But let's remember, Donald Trump lost yesterday. What does he hate? Being a loser. And he caved because he had no other choice. This was the only way to save face to say, OK, put it out there. I think the question is to the Republicans, is this a turning point, or is it just isolated? Donald Trump has survived a lot of scandals that would take down any other politician, but the word you keep hearing over and over again, two words, lame duck.

And the Republicans themselves are putting this out there. They see the poll numbers. They understand about problems with affordability. Their voters spoke to them about these files. They want to get reelected.

BASH: Yeah. And I just want to say that the blast radius from this is very wide and pretty deep.

DOVERE: Yeah.

BASH: We're not just talking about Donald Trump. We are not just talking about other Republicans. We are talking about Democrats. We're talking about the former -- Larry Summers, the former Treasury Secretary who has now -- who was very much in some of the things that we saw released by the Hill already, pulled back from the rest of his public life, quit boards and stuff like that.

And then there is a delegate, Stacey Plaskett, who was on the Situation Room this morning. Before I play, I just want to set the scene and explain the context.

[12:35:00]

She was on the -- on a committee, doing some questioning of Michael Cohen in 2019. And when she was on that committee, according to what was released by the Hill last week, she was texting with Jeffrey Epstein. And during that text exchange, Epstein suggested to her that she asks -- asked Michael Cohen about the president's former aide, Rhona Graff, and she did that. So, Pam Brown asked her about that exchange, listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAM BROWN, CNN CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Yes or no, if Epstein had not brought up Rhona to you in that text, would you have asked Michael Cohen about her independently?

DEL. STACEY PLASKETT, (D) VIRGIN ISLANDS: Probably not. I asked about three other individuals as well. So as a prosecutor, as an investigator, you glean information, get information where you can, some of it is relevant, some of it is not. And you put it all together and you ask the question.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And then the question that Pam asked is whether or not, knowing what she knows, and certainly was out there, a lot of it back in 2019 about Jeffrey Epstein, does she have any regrets? (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: As you look back, do you think that it was an error in judgment to be communicating with him at all? Do you have any regrets?

PLASKETT: Well, listen, I think Jeffrey Epstein is a reprehensible person, absolutely disgusting. I believe that Jeffrey Epstein had information, and I was going to get information to get at the truth. Having a --

BROWN: No regret?

PLASKETT: -- a friendship with him is not something that I would deem to have. And so I'm just looking forward, I'm moving forward, and I think that that's what we as American people should do, is move forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: What's your read on that?

DOVERE: She also took campaign donations from Jeffrey Epstein. So, some of this is -- that's a credible, I'm gathering information as a prosecutor, but there -- the relationship goes beyond him sending the those questions, suggestions. But I think you're right. The blast radius here is huge. And that's just with what we've got in the last week. Right? Like I said, I was with Ro Khanna yesterday.

Ro Khanna said to me, and I have this in the story, I am (ph) going to say that he was on the phone with Larry Summers three weeks ago debating about economics. Larry Summers was like the biggest pain for the Biden White House because (inaudible) he went down not because he was on the island, but because he was just asking Jeffrey Epstein for dating advice, which that's not how I would go about things. But --

(LAUGH)

DOVERE: -- we just don't know how many people are going to be part of this because --

BASH: Yeah.

DOVERE: -- they sent an email or a text message or whatever it is.

BASH: And we don't know how much the Trump Justice Department is going to redact.

Mitchell: Right. But I do think it gets to the core of why so many American people, particularly on the right, have been pushing for this in the first place because they've been told for years that the blast radius is huge and you deserve to know who's in it, whose names are there. And I think there are a lot of voters, quite frankly, on both sides of the aisle who are fine with other people going down as a result of this.

Like, I think there are people saying if you were canoodling with a -- someone who did these reprehensible things that you now say was such a bad person, but you gave him access or you took his money, or you were texting him and you enjoyed this whatever type of relationship you had with him. And if you go down as a result, I think there are a lot of voters who say, so be it.

DOVERE: Yeah. Kind of called it the Epstein class to me, that it speaks to something deeper in society.

BASH: Standby, everyone. Coming up, for years, conservatives have called for an end to the Department of Education. Will it finally happen? The Education Secretary Linda McMahon is my guest next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:43:25]

BASH: The Trump administration is stepping up its push to break up the Department of Education, transferring much of the agency's workload, including six offices to other federal agencies. The move is drawing criticism from education advocates and even some Republicans. Here with me now from the White House is the Education Secretary, Linda McMahon. Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it.

So, I know that you've said that you're doing some testing on the effort to ultimately eliminate the department that you lead. What does that actually mean? Testing in practical terms?

LINDA MCMAHON, UNITED STATES EDUCATION SECRETARY: Well, Dana, thanks for having me today. And it's really great to speak with you. These are kind of first steps, as we are looking to move some of the programs out of the Department of Education. What we're doing is proof of concept. In other words, we are taking some of the programs that are currently being handled at the Department of Education and moving them to different agencies. Sometimes, perhaps that program was at the particular agency before there was a Department of Education. And other times, this would be -- this will be a new effort to see how it will work.

And the goal is that we have thought through this very carefully. We've carefully selected the people who are being, on a temporary basis, transferred over to these different agencies. And I said, what we want to do is to show Congress that this implementation works. It's a proof of concept and it's a show and say, OK, this is how a permanent transfer to this department is going to work.

[12:45:00]

We need their vote to do that. And we're not looking at this lightly. And I've kept Chairman Cassidy from the Senate and Chairman Wahlberg from the House informed of this, have spoken to many congressional members already, to say, this is what we're doing. We want -- we know we need to show you that it will work to do this. So we had signed, one, it's called an interagency agreement. We did that a few weeks ago. The first move to Labor. We've signed -- we signed six that we announced yesterday. Now, this six that we announced yesterday aren't ready to implement right away. This is just the beginning stage as you're setting up these interagency agreements. So we will see, two more moving to the Department of Labor, to HHS, one to State, and one to the Interior. And I think these are -- make very practical common sense moves. And once we've had the proof of concept, then we'll ask Congress to approve the permanent move.

BASH: I'm sure you've heard, one of the biggest criticisms and concerns is that if you are successful in what you call this proof of concept and ultimately dismantle the Department of Education, what is going to happen is an even more complex bureaucracy that will make it harder for families to find the resources when they need help. What do you say to that?

MCMAHON: They will just go directly to the agency that is handling the particular issue that they are looking to get answers on. And I don't think it will be any more complex than trying to get those answers from the Department of Education. I think they'll be better served because they will know exactly where the answers lie and which agency to go to. So, I don't have any worry about that at all.

BASH: Your fellow Republican, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania is not happy about this. He released a statement which said in part, "The United States Congress created the U.S. Department of Education for very good reason. And for millions of families, particularly those raising children with disabilities or living in low-income communities, the department's core offices are not discretionary functions. They are foundational. They safeguard civil rights, expand opportunity, and ensure that every child in every community has the chance to learn, grow, and succeed on equal footing." And he went on to say, "Altering them without transparency or congressional oversight would pose real risks to the very students they were created to protect. I will not allow it, and I urge all of my colleagues to stand with me." What's your response to your colleague in the House?

MCMAHON: Well, certainly, I think what I started out by telling you, we know we need congressional approval. That's why we're doing these proof of concepts. And Dana, please do understand that before there was a Department of Education, Title I funding for those students in lower economic areas, IDEA funding which is for students with special needs, that money was appropriated by Congress. It flowed through to those states, and those programs existed and were handled very well.

The Department of Education only acts as a pass through for that money that is appropriated from Congress. And so, I understand that Congress wants to have transparency. That's why we're doing these proof of concepts, so that we can go back to them and say, this is what we've done. This is how it's worked. This is how we believe that it will actually even be more efficient to operate this way, and with less bureaucracy, less regulation. Dana, do you know that in the state of Tennessee, I got a statistic one day that told me that of a grant that went into one of the public schools, that teachers spent $0.47 of every dollar just in regulatory compliance.

And as we've seen, our test scores drop continuously since the Department of Education was set up. And we spent $3 trillion in the process only to see test scores continue to fall. It's time to do something different. It's not working. So let's give it a shot.

BASH: So I just want to be clear, you're talking about regulatory compliance, but you're also saying that the programs inside the Department of Education ultimately would move back as they were before Jimmy Carter created the department, to other agencies. So, how will that do anything about the red tape that you're talking about?

MCMAHON: Well, first of all, let's make sure, I just want to be clear. I understood you to say that would move back to the departments, not necessarily to the same departments.

BASH: OK.

MCMAHON: In fact, some of those programs might not have been created (inaudible) particular time.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: Move out of the Department of Education.

MCMAHON: Yes. Move out of the Department of Education to other agencies because there won't be the regulatory compliance, it first has to go through the Department of Education and then perhaps through another agency. That has happened -- that's happening already in government. Basically what we're not seeing is money getting to the students.

[12:50:00]

President Trump really does not believe that any child should be kept a prisoner in a failing school. And that's why we saw through the Big Beautiful Bill, the first National Program for School Choice. This president understands that the best education is that that's closest to the child and not wrapped up in the bureaucracy of Washington.

BASH: Yeah. And as you have said many times, and it is true, the Department of Education has a lot of functions, but most of the function of sort of "governing education" is done at the local level. And that has been true for a long time.

I do, before I let you go, want to ask you about Harvard and the tug of war, the fight that the administration has been having with that university. Federal funding that the Trump administration had blocked is now flowing again after a judge ruled in Harvard's favor. But there are other ways the administration is putting pressure on the university. The president said a few weeks ago that the administration is close to finalizing a $500 million deal with Harvard on trade school funding. And there are other investigations though, that are still going on, not necessarily through your department, but through others. So where do things stand? How active are conversations between the Trump administration and Harvard right now?

MCMAHON: They are active and we're working with the Justice Department and ongoing conversations with Harvard. And I hope to have that wrapped up pretty soon.

BASH: Like -- like this week soon or can you -- can you quantify that?

(LAUGH)

MCMAHON: No, I'm certainly not going to put a deadline on it because when you have to go through courts and settle suits and do all of that, it just takes time.

BASH: And you're talking about across the board holistically, what the administration, the sort of -- the pressure points on various fronts that, that will all be over as part of whatever negotiations you're involved in?

MCMAHON: Correct. We are looking to, just as we did in the Columbia deal, we want to make sure that Title VI is clearly enforced. Section 117 of the farm reporting, all of those kinds of things. And Title IX, we just want to make sure everything is all buttoned up in this deal. And I'm looking forward to having a good outcome with Harvard.

BASH: Education Secretary, Linda McMahon, thank you so much for being here. Appreciate it.

MCMAHON: Thanks for having me, Dana.

BASH: And up next, could Republicans' the unprecedented redistricting push be backfiring? We'll explain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:56:10]

BASH: President Trump's effort to squeeze five new House seats out of Texas is now on hold. A Trump-appointed judge -- a Trump-appointed judge in the Lone Star state ruled the effort was likely an unconstitutional racial gerrymander and ordered the state to revert to its current map ahead of next year's crucial midterms. My smart reporters are back. I mean, this is where it all started.

GANGEL: Right.

BASH: California did what it did with Prop. 50 and perhaps, it will end up backfiring and they'll have fewer seats going into the midterms, the GOP.

(LAUGH)

MIN KIM: And look, there are a lot more twists and turns coming in this redistricting story, not just in Texas, but in states across the country. But it is remarkable that the sort of redistricting arms race, if you will, that began because the White House wanted to pick up more seats in the state of Texas, is now potentially backfiring on them because we saw California only went ahead because Texas was doing this. They did it through a voter-led -- they did it through the voting process. And now you -- I think you're going to see the White House, the president clearly starting to be more aggressive in other states where they feel that they could redraw the lines to pick up more states.

But a lot of those states have constraints as well. Obviously, we've seen a lot of talk about Indiana, where Republican officials are resisting the efforts there, even though the president certainly is not backing down from public political pressure. I was talking with sources in Florida this morning that's being eyed for potential redistricting, but they say maybe at best you can get one to two seats out of there. Republicans privately and some publicly are not happy about this heavy hand from the White House.

BASH: OK, so let's go back to Indiana, Jamie. And this is something that the president is very focused on because there are state legislators who say, no, we're not doing this, including one that the president has called out by name. He said Rhino State Senator Rodric Bray, who doesn't care about keeping the majority in the House in D.C. is the primary problem. Soon he will have a primary -- soon he will have a primary problem. I'm trying to -- I might get his voice here.

Min Kim: Yeah.

(LAUGH)

BASH: -- as will any other politician who supports him in this stupidity. And we'll just show what we're talking about on Indiana, there are -- I mean it's a red state. There are two Democratic districts. And what the president and his political team want is to just get rid of those by changing the way that it's drawn. And Jamie, I wanted to come to you on this because it's another example of those two words you used.

GANGEL: Lame duck.

BASH: Yes. Because to me, this, the fact that there is pushback at all, nevermind what the judge did, because that's a constitutional question, but this is a political question in Indiana that there is pushback against the president saying, no, well, we're not going to do this.

(LAUGH)

GANGEL: Right. And they're going on the record. I don't have to say anymore that Republicans are privately --

BASH: Yeah.

GANGEL: -- pushing back. Look, this is -- be careful what you wish for is what happened with Texas. I also think you have to give a hat tip to judges because they've come in time and time again with different rulings. This one is -- this is -- California did this, as you said, just because of Texas and their language does not have in the final ballot measure that it depends on Texas. So, I think this is a prime example that you're going to see of Republicans pushing back on Trump on the White House, no matter how many capital letters he uses because they want to win their elections. DOVERE: It's a classic monkey paw, the situation. Donald Trump wished for redistricting to get changed and wished for it to change the power structure in the election --