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Laura Coates Live
Trump DOJ Release Trove Of Heavily Redacted Epstein Files; Trump's Name Added To Kennedy Center, A Memorial For JFK; New Details Emerge About Brown University And MIT Shooting Suspect. Aired 11p-12a ET
Aired December 19, 2025 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[23:00:00]
CARI CHAMPION, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Cheers. For the last three years we've had a wonderful opportunity to do the New Year's Eve show together. After Andy and Anderson signed off --
SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR AND SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.
CHAMPION: -- it's you and I, and it has been a pleasure. We have a ride together. This lady is fun. We have so much fun together.
SIDNER: We do it in Austin.
CHAMPION: We do it Austin.
SIDNER: We get all decked out. Boots, hats. I mean, the whole thing.
CHAMPION: We're going to do special boots this year. We're learning it. You're dancing.
SIDNER: We're doing a dance.
CHAMPION: Yes. All the things.
SIDNER: Yes.
CHAMPION: What else is there to do?
SIDNER: I mean, and we're going to flavor. We're going to have a lot of --
CHAMPION: Oh my gosh! Yes. I forgot all about that. Yes.
SIDNER: We've got some --
CHAMPION: Are you guys going to be in Austin for New Year's Eve? She's actually --
(CROSSTALK)
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH, SALEM RADIO HOST: No one inviting me. I don't know. SIDNER: Oh, come on.
(LAUGHTER)
SIDNER: Shocking. She's public enemy just like flavor.
(LAUGHTER)
Thank you so much for watching "NewsNight." "Table for Five" tomorrow morning at 7 and 10 Eastern. "Laura Coates Live" is now.
LAURA COATES, CNN HOST AND SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Tonight, inside the Epstein files. Thousands of pages released with thousands more still under wraps. So, what's in it, what's not, and what might still be missing?
Plus, why do you do it? A new profile emerges of the gunman behind the Brown University and MIT slayings. We're learning about the 48-year- old's past that could lead to a motive.
And later, a living memorial to a fallen president now has a current president's name on it. The backlash behind the Kennedy Center rebrand.
Tonight on "Laura Coates Live."
All right, so, some of the episode files are out, and I say some because the DOJ did not release all of them, which is in violation of the law that compelled their release in the first place -- what? By midnight tonight. We'll have more on that part of the story in just a moment.
But before we go through what we've seen in the files so far, and I do hate to sound like a broken record on this, but it is worth repeating in a digital world, just because a person shows up in the files or in a photo without anything else doesn't mean the person did anything wrong. I mean, man, do you know how easy my trials would have been if all I had to do was hold up a picture and say, convict? I needed more then. You know what? I still need it. And to this date, the only people ever criminally charged in relation to Jeffrey Epstein's crimes are Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Now, that said, if you actually manage to make it to the DOJ website to look through these files, you probably noticed a lot of documents that looked like this. No, your eyesight is fine. These are heavy redactions. Line after line blanked out, like this contact book. Other documents are fully black, no exaggeration. This one with the heading "Grand Jury NY" is nothing but 119 pages of complete redactions. Seriously? Seriously.
The files also confirm what we've known. That Jeffrey Epstein ran in some pretty elite circles. There are photos of him with several celebrities, people you absolutely know. Recognize him? It's Michael Jackson. And we don't know when the picture was taken.
Former President Bill Clinton also appears in multiple photos, which the White House is trying to seize on, even though Clinton has never been accused of any wrongdoing here. One shows him shirtless in a hot tub. A person next to him is redacted. No other context is given. Another photo shows him in a pool swimming alongside or near Epstein's longtime accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell. An unidentified woman in the pool is redacted. Again, no additional context.
Clinton's spokesman is putting out a statement tonight accusing the White House of shielding itself from what comes next, saying, "There are two types of people here. The first group knew nothing and cut Epstein off before his crimes came to light. The second group continued relationships with him after. We're in the first. No amount of stalling by people in the second group will change that."
Now, we're also learning unsettling information about Epstein himself and the investigation into Epstein. These are notes from an interview with an unidentified witness taken two months before Epstein's 2019 indictment. The investigator wrote, now pay attention. At one point, redacted witnessed him asking for ID, asking for ID to girl, wanted to make sure under 18, but he wasn't believing them because redacted messed up by bringing more older girls. He wanted to make sure they really were young.
Another document is from Epstein's message book.
[23:05:01]
A 2005 note from a redacted sender says, I have a female for him. A female, like she's some other species. So, if you only have a part of these files,0 when will we see the rest of the files? The number two at the DOJ, you know, Todd Blanche, says the department needs more time to sift through all the files.
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TODD BLANCHE, UNITED STATES DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: I expect that we're going to release more documents over the next couple of weeks. So, today, several hundred thousand. And then over the next couple of weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: But top Democrats and even some Republicans are saying the Trump administration is already defying Congress.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ROBERT GARCIA (D-CA): This is absolutely breaking the law. I mean, they have not produced actually what they were required to do, which was all the files by today.
REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): There are none of the files on Epstein's computer. And we do not know then who these other rich and powerful men were who abused these survivors. And we know from the survivors and the survivors' lawyers that that information is in the files. So, this is deeply disappointing. They have not complied with the law.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: Raise your hand if you've done doc review for a law firm and you met your deadline. Well, our lead guest tonight knows what matters and what doesn't because he has been trying to get answers for years, representing victims of Jeffrey Epstein, including Maria Farmer, who filed one of the first complaints against Epstein in the 1990s.
James Marsh joins me now. James, welcome back. I mean, you have said that you would know whether the DOJ is complying in good faith when you get a full unredacted copy of Maria Farmer's file. So, tell me, are you satisfied with the release so far?
JAMES MARSH, REPRESENTS ACCUSERS OF JEFFREY EPSTEIN: Well, hello, Laura. Thanks for having me on again. And as I warned you a couple months ago, we'd be back here on a Friday night discussing Jeffrey Epstein, and here we are.
COATES: Here we are.
MARSH: I think what we received today, at least for Maria, is beyond anything we could have imagined, which was a copy of her complaint to the FBI as she has long maintained from 1996. I know there has been a lot of focus on the 2000s and beyond, but this really gets at the root of what's going on with Jeffrey Epstein, which is everything that came after this. And a report by my client, which is largely unredacted, where the FBI indicates that the nature of the case is child pornography, child sex crimes in 1996.
And I know that there's a lot of disappointment out there tonight by everyone that came after. But at least for Maria, this is real serious validation of everything she has been saying over the years. I mean, imagine, you yourself, you know, filed, made a call 40 years ago. What did you say? Who took the notes? Is this ever going to see the light of day?
And when I spoke to her this afternoon, she was literally in tears, tears of joy, but also tears of heartbreak because there is some survivor guilt that she tried and did her best and made the report. And now, we have it as proof that it actually happened. But look at everything that happened after this.
COATES: It's unbelievable.
MARSH: And the chance to stop Jeffrey Epstein in 1996 would have resulted in hundreds, if not over a thousand women, from being subjected to his abuse. It is a real tragedy. And at least for us, it's sort of the beginning of the story, not the end, because we don't have the answers --
COATES: Right.
MARSH: -- to what happened after. I mean, we know what happened. We don't have the answers to what the FBI, law enforcement, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York did with this report.
COATES: Had she ever read that report before it was released today? MARSH: No. We didn't. All --
COATES: She has never seen that report --
MARSH: No one has ever seen that report since 1996.
COATES: That's unbelievable. Was it revelatory for her? The facts that she read, did it remind her or jog her memory in other ways that might be useful for other survivors or even an insight into what more is to come?
MARSH: Well, the curious thing about this, and it's all detailed in our complainant, which was, you know, on file, you know, in May before any of this started. What we did have is this report. We had 2006 notes of an interview with Maria.
COATES: Right.
MARSH: During a time when Jeffrey Epstein was being investigated. And we did not have the original report. We have the 10-year later report.
[23:10:00]
In this report, she mentions filing a report with the FBI. And she was very curious at the time on how the FBI found her 10 years after this report.
COATES: Right.
MARSH: So, we always had a really good sense that there was something in the file, something in the database, something in the FBI's, you know, sentinel, as I think what they call it, that led them to Maria Farmer 10 years after this report. We need answers about those 10 years. The victims need answers. The survivors need answers. Transparency and justice demand to know what happened between here, the report we haven't seen until today since 1996, and here, 2006, the notes of Maria Farmer 10 years later, which led in part to Jeffrey Epstein's ultimate prosecution and downfall.
COATES: Are there other specific files that you believe exist?
MARSH: I mean, I guess the question for me is -- as I've said on your show before, during this period of time, 1996, we wanted to unwind the clock. What was going on in 1996? Jeffrey Epstein was under investigation, a very serious criminal case by the Southern District of New York for being an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest financial crime before Bernie Madoff, Towers Financial, right? He was under investigation.
Number two, he was also being prosecuted by the Southern District of New York for reneging on a lease with the State Department for the Iranian consulate in New York, which he was renting for $15,000 a month.
And there's some affirmation of those facts here because the name on the report is Jeffrey Epstein. No address, no phone number, no height, weight, or description. So, I can only surmise, as what I've said, is that when Maria Farmer called up complaining about a guy in New York City --
COATES: Right.
MARSH: -- named Jeffrey Epstein, they knew exactly who she was talking about.
COATES: Wow.
MARSH: It's that guy that's under investigation. So, what I'm really looking forward to, Laura, is for the file from the Southern District of New York, the prosecution file --
COATES: Yes.
MARSH: -- both for Towers Financial. Both Jeffrey Epstein and Hoffenberg are dead, so there's no reason to keep those under wraps. And I want to know about the investigation by the State Department into the lease. And then we will have what so many other survivors don't have with these pictures and notes, redacted files, we will have context for what happened to Maria's report in 1996.
COATES: Tip of the iceberg.
MARSH: Tip of the iceberg.
COATES: James Marsh, thank you so much.
MARSH: Thank you, Laura. Thanks for your continued coverage. And we will definitely keep CNN posted on any new developments.
COATES: Thank you. The public wants to know.
MARSH: Thank you. And they deserve to know.
COATES: With me now, one of the survivors of Epstein's abuse, who says she was just 14 years old when she met him. Marina Lacerda was identified as minor victim one in the 2019 federal indictment against Epstein, and she joins me now. Marina, I'm glad that you're here. I have been wondering since these files have been released, at least in part, how you have been feeling.
MARINA LACERDA, EPSTEIN SURVIVOR: A lot of mixed emotions. I feel like we don't know how to even, you know, feel about this. I think today was supposed to be a really good day, right, for all the survivors. And we were really disappointed. In some ways, we kind of expected this.
COATES: That it would be small batches of things given out. What were you hoping for?
LACERDA: Well, we kind of knew it would be a problem when, you know, President Trump, you know, changed his mind really quick about signing this off. We didn't think that even the files would even come out today, to be honest with you. And when we do look at the files, we just seem to -- we seem to wonder where are the real files. Where are the files that are, you know, redacted with the names that are supposed to be redacted? You know, we have all these files with all these redacted names that are supposed to be out there, we're supposed to see these names.
COATES: And you don't trust that these are even the right files or that it's just insufficient?
LACERDA: I think these files already have been out. When we start to really look at them, we start to see that some of these files already have been out, right? And then we start to see that some of these files are still protecting the powerful rich men and not protecting some of the victims.
In the last, you know, pile of files that came out, some of the names were leaked. Some of the victims, some of the survivor names were leaked. So, why can't we just leak the names that are supposed to be leaked? And, you know, these men are supposed to be brought to justice. And we're sitting here, waiting for that to come.
COATES: There have been a lot of pictures that have been released. The word "context," I continuously hear. And I'm saying myself in terms of a picture being worth a thousand words.
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But what am I seeing here? What are you telling me as a part of a file that this person is in this picture? I need the next connected dot. When you see there hasn't been maybe investigative notes or things to accompany the photographs, what does that tell you?
LACERDA: It's exactly what I was saying earlier when I was going through some of the pictures. And there were some silly pictures, I should say, right? There were like pictures of like his -- of his plants or of his watches. It's pictures that are -- it doesn't mean anything, right?
And like you said, there's nothing that is explaining what the pictures are and where is the pictures, right? Is it in a Florida home? Is it in a New Mexico home? Is it in the Virgin Island? Is it in the New York home? A lot of the pictures that I did see, I did not and I didn't go through all of them, obviously. I've seen some of the New York pictures, but I did not see any pictures that were irrelevant, that were relevant to what we need to see. So, it goes back to what you said, you know, it's irrelevant, a lot of these pictures, and it makes no sense to all of us. It's very confusing.
COATES: What would make you feel as though this is really a transparent investigation and that the questions that you need answers to, you might be actually able to see? What is it you need?
LACERDA: I think, first, you know, we all -- we all want to see our own story. What happened with us with Jeffrey Epstein?
COATES: Because you don't recall or you just want more information about the full context for you? LACERDA: We need the full context, right? Like all of us have -- this has happened -- look at Maria Farmer, for example. It happened in 1996, correct? That is a long time, right? That's a lot to jog back on your memory of like when, where, how.
And, you know, this is something that we all try to put together. We try to put the pieces together. And even though we are together, we are connected, we try to do that as survivor sisters. But there are a lot of things that with trauma, it just blocked our memory, and we want it for us, for our -- to clarify what we've been through, you know?
I think that justice today for all of us is to release the files, redacted with the victims, with the survivors' names, and let the names that we need to see, which are the rich, the powerful men. And if we don't bring these men to justice, they will continue to do what they're doing and get away with it.
COATES: If Congress can't force their hand, what next? What would you do?
LACERDA: You know, we are working on it. We, as a team of the survivors, we are working on a plan. We will have a plan. We haven't come up with one yet, but we will come up with a plan and we will continue to fight. You know, it's not something that we are going to give up easily.
COATES: Something tells me you won't. Thank you so much.
LACERDA: Thank you so much.
COATES: Up next, Democrats say DOJ is breaking the law. They want all the documents, and they want them right now. So, what are they going to do about it? I'll ask Congressman Eric Swalwell. And ahead, Kerry Kennedy says she is going to take a pickax to the newly-renamed Trump Kennedy Center. She's not the only one who's angry.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KHANNA: Congress is talking about possible impeachment. They're talking about inherent contempt for the attorney general or deputy attorney general. Any Justice Department official who has obstructed justice could face prosecution in this administration or a future administration.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: That was Congressman Ro Khanna tonight, one of the lawmakers behind the very law that was intended to force the Department of Justice to release these files today. But you can hear it. He's not happy. Most Democrats are not. They say DOJ is not complying with the law. They are not releasing enough documents and looking into what they can possibly do about it.
Let's talk about it with Democratic congressman and candidate for governor of California, Eric Swalwell, who serves on the House Judiciary Committee. Congressman, thank you for joining me. You heard the congressman on this very issue.
REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA): My pleasure.
COATES: Will the Department of Justice, can the Department of Justice face any real meaningful consequences for not fully complying with the, and the name says it all, the Epstein Files Transparency Act?
SWALWELL: They better, Laura. Otherwise, what purpose does Congress serve if it's not going to enforce the laws that were passed? This transparency act was passed with all but one of the 535 members of Congress. That's the mandate that the public gave us to seek justice for these victims.
I'm not surprised that a small percentage of the Epstein files have been released. After all, this is the same White House that was rooting on a government shutdown over the reason of Jeffrey Epstein and preventing a member of Congress from being sworn in to facilitate this from happening.
But we can't do enough. And we have the power of the purse in Congress. We have, of course, the ability to go to court in Congress. And, of course, we have the subpoena power to bring people to Congress to have expectations.
But the bottom line is this: For the last year, Democrats have asked Donald Trump to release the Epstein files. Instead, all he has done is release George Santos. That's preposterous. And he should just be forthcoming with the American people.
COATES: Well, the DOJ is who's required as well, right? The White House is pointing out, just evoking them, that several pictures of the former president, Bill Clinton, were released from the file. There's one that shows him with a woman whose face is redacted. The DOJ claims he's a victim. As you know, Clinton has never been accused of any wrongdoing in this context. And his spokesperson says that he cut ties with Epstein before his crimes even surfaced.
[23:25:01]
I point out that one example as a concern that some people have in terms of what it is they're actually seeing. Photographs, no accompanying context, the idea of not having investigative files that are completely transparent, telling you why things are included. Do you have concerns and questions about what is being released?
SWALWELL: We want the full context. That's the very minimum of what the victims here deserve. And the difference between Democrats and many of the MAGA Republicans, not the Republicans in Congress who voted for this, but those at the administration, is that we don't care who's implicated in this. You know, the victims deserve justice, period. And so, we are seeking full transparency and full context as to who exactly was involved.
And the best thing the president can do is to just get this issue out of the way. He has been stuck in this vortex, this quicksand, because he has put himself there. The American people just want him to focus on lowering costs and being as transparent as he said he was going to be. But instead, he has created this distraction for himself, and he's not going to get out of it because there's a mandate from the American people and a bipartisan Congress that wants justice for victims.
COATES: You mentioned the power of the purse as but one potential remedy to a failure to comply with the law. What is the intention? Is there a threat that or consideration of withholding funding or other important monetary things to something like the Department of Justice or otherwise?
SWALWELL: Yes, that absolutely should be on the table. You know, really -- you know, hit them at their pocketbooks, so to speak, and reduce their ability, you know, to spend on their priorities, not to hurt any, you know, American citizen, but on their priorities, send the message that we're serious. And what Democrats have to do right now --
COATES: Well, could that -- hold on, congressman. Could that backfire, though? Obviously --
SWALWELL: Yes. Go ahead.
COATES: And we've talked about this before. One of the concerns has been when there has been an attack on the DOJ as being weaponized. You yourself have talked about the full scope of the department that's focused on so many cases for so many different areas of the law. Does a threat to use the power of the purse, would that backfire on the mission more broadly outside of this context? And if so, what would you do about it?
SWALWELL: If -- that's a great question. If they were doing the mission of the Department of Justice, I would be worried that something like this could stop them from doing that. But they're not. Instead, as you've seen, the president is taking comedians off the air when they make a joke about him, going after his vocal opponents as he has done with me and Adam Schiff, as well as going after blue state governors and pulling cancer research funding if they say something he doesn't like.
And so, if the Department of Justice was doing something, you know, that was in furtherance of keeping us safe, I would agree with you. But Democrats have to telegraph what being in the majority looks like. People have to believe that in the majority, accountability is coming, that all of this will come out, we can do it now or we can do it when we're in the majority, and that there's going to be a reckoning for anybody who is out with the shovels right now and trying to bury this evidence beneath the earth.
COATES: Tell me what you expect to find in this, because we do know that some of the files have been released. There are a lot of what we've already known. It has been known for a long time that Trump and Epstein were close friends. He had a lot of powerful people in his orbit. To what extent they were actual personal friends, I have no idea. Epstein survivors have not accused Trump of wrongdoing. We have not seen them point the finger at some of the other people disclosed. What do you say to critics who think that the release so far is cherry picked or inconsequential?
SWALWELL: I don't know the full extent to Donald Trump's involvement with Jeffrey Epstein. Nobody other than Donald Trump knows the answer to that. But he is sure acting like somebody who doesn't want you to know the answer to that.
Laura, and as you know, as a federal prosecutor, judges instruct juries every day that a witness or defendant's efforts to conceal evidence or destroy evidence can be used to infer they did something wrong. So, I don't know why he would act so guilty if he didn't do anything wrong. But the American people at least deserve to know how close their president was to the most notorious child sex trafficker in American history.
COATES: Congressman Eric Swalwell, thank you.
SWALWELL: My pleasure.
COATES: Well, ahead, the Kennedy Center is now Trump Kennedy Center. But not for long if the Kennedys have anything to say about it.
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COATES: All right, 61 years ago this month, this photograph was taken. It's LBJ breaking ground on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performance Arts. It was to be a memorial to honor a fallen president, a memorial that was approved and passed by Congress.
Now, fast forward to today, and look what you see here. A new name before JFK's, Donald J. Trump. The board made up of Trump loyalists voted to change the name yesterday. And how efficient to get it up there today. Trump, of course, thrilled.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Well, I was honored by it. The board is a very distinguished board, most distinguished people in the country.
[23:35:02]
And I was surprised by it. They voted on it. There are a lot of board members, and they voted unanimously.
(END VIDEO CLIP) COATES: Indeed. Well, one Ohio Democrat in the board says that's not true, though. Congresswoman Joyce Beatty says she wanted to oppose it but couldn't because she was muted on the call. Kennedy's grandnephew, Joe Kennedy, yesterday pointed out that it's illegal to change the name and used this anecdote to make the point.
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JOE KENNEDY, III, FORMER MASSACHUSETTS CONGRESSMAN: It is named this way under federal law. So, it would be somewhat akin to if somebody or President Trump wanted to put his name on the Lincoln Memorial because he liked Lincoln, right? Like you can't. Just because you say you did doesn't mean you can. It doesn't mean you can actually go out there and start chiseling a name into stone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: Joining me now, former White House senior aide to Joe Biden and current candidate for Congress in Massachusetts, Dan Koh. Also, Ben Ferguson, host of "The Ben Ferguson Show" and co-host of "Verdict with Ted Cruz." Ben, I'll begin with you here because having Trump's name on the building, according to this, doesn't appear to be legal because it requires an act of Congress. Was this a mistake?
BEN FERGUSON, RADIO HOST, PODCAST CO-HOST: I don't think it was a mistake. I think what you see here is the president of United States of America came in. He understood the Kennedy Center was in serious need of injection of cash. It had been forgotten by Congress. And so, they got the 250 million to update it. I mean, we're talking about basic things, even like the seating. And if you've been in the Kennedy Center, you knew that it was dated, and he wanted to bring it back to what it is.
And when you do this on college campuses, whether it's at Harvard or an SEC school, usually, when people do things like that, what do they end up doing? They name the buildings after them, they made the auditoriums after them, the stadiums after them.
Not only that. He put together an amazing board. And if you look at the gala we just had the other night, the biggest night, they have it once a year at the Kennedy Center, they doubled the fundraising from the year before to 23 million from about 12 million.
So, when you look at the leadership here, what the president has done is to save the Kennedy Center and to bring incredible acts to the Kennedy Center and to grow it and to double that fundraising and get the funding from Congress. I think it's appropriate that his name is on the building because he's the guy that said, I'm willing to do this and no one else was.
COATES: Dan, what do think about that? I mean, say he helped to restore the Washington Monument or the Lincoln Memorial or the Rotunda in Capitol Hill.
DAN KOH, FORMER WHITE HOUSE SENIOR AIDE TO PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: You know, look, Donald Trump likes to think that names on buildings are going to be his legacy. Let's put some names on his actual legacy. How about the -- how about the Donald debt? OK, $40 trillion. Most added to the debt in history of any president, $8 trillion.
How about Trump's trough? It was supposed to be a new part of the White House. He destroyed the East Wing. And now, the budget is going to be four times what it was now, 400 million, funded by tobacco companies. How about the president's parentless kids with all these ICE raids taking people off the streets?
Trump thinks it's going to be this glorious Kennedy Center. His legacy is actually going to be those egregious things.
COATES: We'll have to see how all this shakes out in the long run. But I have to ask about this. I'm talking about New York. We're talking about a New Yorker although he's in Florida now. We know. I want to talk about Elise Stefanik because she now not only dropping her run for governor, Ben, in New York, she's retiring from Congress. This was someone who was supposed to be the U.N. ambassador until Trump pulled that to protect the majority. And, you know, many Republicans understand that cost benefit analysis.
But then, he seemed to embarrass her by bear hugging Zohran Mamdani whom she was very vocally criticizing. Why do you think she's no longer running or going to be a member of Congress? What happened to the whole maybe Trump rewarding the loyalty that she demonstrated?
FERGUSON: Yes, I don't think this has anything to do with the issue of loyalty. And I promise you this is not the last you're going to hear from the congresswoman. And I think you'll be surprised to see what she ends up doing in her future.
I do think there is fatigue. And she's one of those that didn't look at being in Congress as something that you should just do indefinitely. She wants to do big and different things. She had a great impact there. She decided to run for governor. She looked, I think, at a lot that politicians don't look, at the actual data. She realized it was going be an uphill battle because it is New York as a state. The primary there was going to be another example of, I think, as she described it, wasting some time and having this infighting when you've got to have one candidate that goes after the Democrat who's in office, the incumbent right now.
And so, I think she looked at it and she probably said, all right, this is not the right time. It probably won't happen this time. And we'll see what she does next. But I don't think it's an issue of loyalty at all. You look at the comments coming from the White House and White House press secretary earlier who, by the way, used to worked for as her boss. It's very clear she's in the great graces of the president. And I promise you, if she calls for something else, I'm sure this White House would say, we'd love to get behind you because she's really good at her job.
COATES: Dan, what's your take on the decision to leave? I mean, she was running for governor. She has pulled out.
[23:39:58] Obviously, candidates across the spectrum, if the numbers aren't there and they see that early enough on, it often is prudent to step aside. I don't know what her real reason was here. But how do you see this, given you got Marjorie Taylor Greene as well who will be leaving this very slim majority? And now, you've got Stefanik stepping out. Is this somehow a tea leaf reading moment?
KOH: I think there should be a wake-up call to every single person who has bent the knee to Donald Trump over the course of his career, that he turns his back on people when they need them the most. He says he's fighting for unions. He stripped a million collective bargaining rights from people. He said he was going to fund fertility treatments. We're still waiting for that proposal. He said he was going to help farmers. Because of the tariffs, the markets have collapsed, for soybeans, for example, by over --
COATES: What about Ben's point that -- and you have read what the tweets and commentary -- they were very praising of Elise Stefanik. It didn't appear to be a --
KOH: They love her.
COATES: -- yes, thank God --
KOH: OK. But let's look at the record. Elise Stefanik was there for Donald Trump's reelection announcement when few people were, right? She got appointed ambassador to the U.N. They made her pull out. They tried -- they said go run for governor. Then he refused to endorse her.
If I'm Elise Stefanik, what do I think about Donald Trump's loyalty? And, therefore, what should every Republican think of all these people who have compromised their values for the past 10 years now about what --
FERGUSON: As a Republican, let me answer that. Let me answer that because you went -- you went really far off the reservation. Elise, first of all, would have won reelection if she decided to stay a congresswoman. No one is doubting that. And the president was going to back her. She chose to walk away from Congress because she didn't want to be a lifer there. And she's one of those that says I did great work, what is going to be next?
The second point, hold on, that you said there is like people are afraid of Donald Trump when it comes to loyalty. The number one endorsement that Republicans want and they go to the White House to get is the president's because they understand that when you work well with him, you get things done. So, this idea that like there's lack of loyalty, there's a line out the White House --
KOH: Ben --
FERGUSON: -- for people running for office that are saying, please, let's work together. And she agrees with that.
COATES: I hear what you say. Go ahead, Dan. KOH: Ben, she chose to walk away from Congress because she was offered ambassador to the U.N. Trump revoked that. So, she had to go back.
FERGUSON: No. She was involved in that decision.
KOH: That's why she went back.
FERGUSON: That's a lie.
KOH: That's why she went back.
FERGUSON: That's a lie.
KOH: They didn't want to lose the House. That was what happened.
FERGUSON: You are not telling the truth.
KOH: That's what happened. Look at the facts.
FERGUSON: -- the carpet out from under her. That didn't happen. What did happen was they had a real meeting and a conversation. And what she decided was, after talking with the president and the White House, is that if she left, it was going to put the majority at risk. She did what exactly a great leader does. And she said, OK, let's withdraw my name from this because we're not going to risk the House going to the Democrats in that moment. That is what great leaders do.
KOH: Check her social media. Check her social media at that time where she had extended goodbye.
COATES: Well, let me give the final word here and just say the majority will be impacted by one less Republican since she's leaving. However, you say that it's a pretty safe seat. We'll see if the American public and voters believes the same. It's a democracy after all. Dan Koh, Ben Ferguson, thank you both.
Next, he is now being described as brilliant, confrontational, and arrogant. But investigators still don't have a motive. The new information we're learning about the man behind these magic university killings. That's right after this.
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[23:45:00]
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COATES: We're getting brand-new information tonight, brand new. The suspect in the Brown and MIT shootings was dead for longer than we previously knew. Tonight, the Rhode Island attorney general told my colleague, Erin Burnett, the suspect swiped into that New Hampshire storage unit on Monday. And the medical examiner is now saying the suspect likely died of suicide on Tuesday, two days before his body was found. But investigators, they still face the enormous challenge of piecing together the why, why he committed these crimes. And here's what we do know. The suspect is a 48-year-old man, Claudio Neves Valente. He is a Portuguese national. He studied at the same Portuguese university as the slain MIT professor, although it's unclear if they really knew each other. And he previously briefly studied at Brown around the year 2000. Now, as for how he did it, investigators say he was -- quote -- "sophisticated in hiding his tracks" and they can pinpoint his moves all the way back to November.
With me now, former FBI profiler, Gregg McCrary, along with retired FBI supervisory special agent, Jason Pack. Jason, thank you for being here. Greg, you as well. I'll begin with you here, Jason, because from your experience, I am curious, how is it an investigator could actually determine a motive now not being able to question the suspect? Now, knowing the timeline possibly of his death, what's next to try to uncover the why?
JASON PACK, RETIRED FBI SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT: Well, that's a great question, Laura. The first thing investigators are going to do is try to piece together some of this digital evidence. They're going to be looking for things left behind both at that storage facility and his residence in Miami. And I would suspect even contacting the legal attache office and working with the Portuguese authorities to go back and just see what things may have happened back in the early to mid- 90s when he first encountered the professor.
COATES: I would hope they'd be cooperative in that endeavor as well. I mean, Greg, law enforcement officials are telling CNN that they do believe that Valente targeted the MIT professor, but they don't believe he specifically targeted any of the victims at Brown. And we know he briefly attended there. And his former classmates, they describe him as brilliant, but also arrogant and difficult. I suspect the families of those that he has killed or harmed has very different adjectives.
[23:50:00]
But what would compel someone like this to target these students?
GREGG MCCRARY, FORMER FBI PROFILER: I think it's better to think of it as him targeting the institution of Brown. He didn't know the students. They were, I think, just victims of opportunity. These types of violence are targeted. They're instrumental. They're offensive and targeted violence.
Basically, the idea that these lone actor offenders have is their mindset is my life sucks and you're to blame. They're angry. They're paranoid enough to blame others. They're also depressed and suicidal enough to either take themselves out or be willing to be killed during the course of the action.
Now, the other thing to keep in mind, these things are prolonged in the response cycle. This is probably brewing for a long time. And that response cycle includes the planning phase as well as the actual act of aggression itself.
Now, we know from the end of November up through these acts that he was planning. And I think the final stages, going back to the university, doing some recon there. And then he was careful. He was evidence-conscious, as you indicated, as well to try and cover his tracks. Credit cards were not traceable to him. He had a phone that was hard to track. You know, all those sorts of things. He got hung up on running the car. He had to use his own driver's license.
COATES: Right.
MCCRARY: It is very hard to fabricate. So, once that broke, then everything began to fall into place.
COATES: And thank God for that good Samaritan with the instinct to think something was off and give that clue. The slain MIT physicist, Jason Nuno Loureiro, was considered to be highly accomplished in his field. I mean, he was an MIT professor, for goodness sakes. We don't know the motive. But one theory is that the suspect may have held some sort of grudge against him. I mean, what kind of evidence would be key to even evaluate, let alone reach that conclusion?
PACK: That's why it's important to go back and start at the beginning and retrace those steps, and even to these days on his social media accounts, anything he may have left in his house. Those types of things are important. And, as Greg said, to piece together. This thing has been boiling over for a while. He just didn't show up and start -- you know, decide to do it one day. He was in the area several times.
And if you read the affidavit on the Rhode Island attorney general's website, it's pretty chilling. It shows that a custodian saw the person in there as well a few days even before that. So, he has done a lot of surveillance on the property. We mentioned the SIM cards. We mentioned the flipping of the license plate. So, there is a little bit of sophistication there. But I don't think he was counting on John, the person with the Reddit post, who ultimately was his demise.
COATES: Gregg McCrary, Jason Pack, thank you both so much.
MCCRARY: You're welcome.
COATES: Up next, the definitive answer to the age-old question, is "Die Hard" a Christmas movie?
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(SINGING)
(GUNSHOTS)
UNKNOWN: (INAUDIBLE).
(GUNSHOTS)
UNKNOWN: Welcome to the party, pal!
(GUNSHOTS)
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[23:55:00]
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COATES: It's almost midnight here in the nation's capital and the countdown to the holidays is officially on. Let's kick off the weekend with our friend, Elex Michaelson, who's out in Los Angeles. Elex, how you doing?
ELEX MICHAELSON, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Good, Laura. Good to see you. Happy Friday.
COATES: Happy Friday. Let's talk movies, OK, my friend, because "Home Alone" star Macaulay Culkin is now weighing in, finally, on one of the most heated and controversial holiday debates. Is "Die Hard" a Christmas movie? Is it? Listen.
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UNKNOWN: Is "Die Hard" a Christmas movie?
MACAULAY CULKIN, ACTOR: No, it's not. It's based around Christmas. Don't fight. Fight me on the moon.
UNKNOWN: It's really messed up.
CULKIN: It's based around Christmas. But if it was also St. Patrick's Day, it would still be -- it would work, you know. Yes. But you couldn't do like Memorial Day "Home Alone." Like, no, it doesn't work that way.
UNKNOWN: I think Arbor Day works. You can be in a tree house.
CULKIN: I'm just saying is that like, listen, I'm kind of the godfather of Christmas nowadays. So --
(LAUGHTER)
So, you know, yes, my opinion has some sway in this argument.
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COATES: The godfather of Christmas. All right, what's your reaction? Tell me what your favorite movies are. What is your list?
MICHAELSON: Well, my favorite Christmas movie is "Home Alone." I think it's the best. The music, the soundtrack, the feeling, the family, the whole thing.
COATES: The soundtrack? What? I don't remember the soundtrack.
MICHAELSON: The soundtrack -- the soundtrack of "Home Alone" is amazing. On your ride home tonight, listen to the soundtrack of "Home Alone." COATES: All right. I'll do that. You know, I have like a list. Like my
list is like long. I binge watch Christmas movies. I'm talking about everything from -- "Home Alone" is on it, of course, but I've got like "Meet me in St. Louis." I've got "The Ref," which is ridiculous people to think about. I love that movie. I've got things like --
MICHAELSON: Oh.
COATES: -- well, how long is my list?
(LAUGHTER)
I mean, it's like -- I got to put "Die Hard" on that list as well. I might add "Elf." But I'm probably going to put things like "The Preacher's Wife" because I love Courtney B. Vance (INAUDIBLE) Whitney Houston this Christmas.
[00:00:04]
Anyway, we'll talk movies another day. Let me ask you this. Go ahead.
MICHAELSON: It's a long list. And, of course, "Home Alone 2" starts the Pigeon Lady, which looks remarkably like Piers Morgan, which is the best part of that movie.
COATES: You're blowing my mind. A soundtrack and a Piers Morgan reference. OK, I'm going to go home and watch it. Tell me what else you got coming on tonight.
MICHAELSON: Well, we've got a great show with folks all over the map, from Gloria Allred to Frank Luntz to Kisha Ann Johnson (ph). We've got run the gamut here on "The Story Is" tonight.
COATES: All right. Well, get to it. Have a great one.
MICHAELSON: Thanks, Laura. Have a great weekend. Happy holidays to you.
