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Interview With Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX); Columbia University Settles With Trump Administration; Trump Administration Targets Obama; Trump in Epstein Files?; DOJ Meets With Ghislaine Maxwell. Aired 11- 11:30a ET

Aired July 24, 2025 - 11:00   ET

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

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Happening now, breaking news: a key meeting with the Ghislaine Maxwell today. The deputy attorney general of the United States will sit down with Jeffrey Epstein's former girlfriend and convicted sex trafficker. We're live outside the Florida courthouse where we saw her legal team arrive just a little while ago.

Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer. Pamela Brown is off today, and you're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BLITZER: And we begin with the breaking news in the Jeffrey Epstein case. Right now, we're awaiting a pivotal meeting involving his former girlfriend and accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.

This is her attorney, David Oscar Markus, arriving just a short time ago at the federal courthouse in Tallahassee, Florida. Maxwell is imprisoned nearby for sex trafficking. She's serving a 20-year sentence.

Sources are telling CNN she's expected to meet later today with the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche. It's the latest ripple in a whirlwind of developments. The biggest headline, President Trump was told that his name is in the Epstein files. According to sources, the attorney general, Pam Bondi, briefed the president back in May about the Justice Department's review of the case and told him his name is included.

To be clear, there is no context and the president has not been accused of any wrongdoing with Epstein. But, just last week, Trump denied knowing his name is in the files. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: On Epstein, of the review of the files, did Attorney General Pam Bondi brief you on that?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Very, very quick brief.

QUESTION: Did she tell you -- what did she tell about the review? And, specifically, did she tell you at all that your name appeared in the file?

TRUMP: No, no, she's given us just a very quick briefing, and in terms of the credibility of the different things that they have seen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Congress is demanding answers from the Justice Department with new subpoenas. House Republicans have joined Democrats to demand the Epstein files be released in full. And the House Oversight Committee wants to depose Maxwell at the same time.

CNN's Alayna Treene is here with me in THE SITUATION ROOM.

I want to start with CNN's Ivan Rodriguez. Ivan is over at the Tallahassee courthouse for us. He's on the scene.

What do we know, first of all, about Maxwell's expected meeting with the deputy attorney general?

IVAN RODRIGUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, good morning. It's been a little over two hours now since we saw Ghislaine Maxwell's attorney, David Oscar Markus, walk through the front doors here behind me of this federal courthouse.

Both of them are expected to meet, as you said, with Deputy A.G. Todd Blanche. And right now it's unclear, Wolf, if the meeting is already under way, if we're still waiting for Todd Blanche to arrive. I have been outside of the federal courthouse here for the last few hours now. No clear indication on my end whether Todd Blanche has already come inside.

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A clear indicator of the meeting already being over we will know is when we do see Maxwell's attorney exit the front doors here of the federal courthouse. We will be very interested to see as well what he has to say. He didn't make any comments going into the federal courthouse earlier this morning, but we will see if he does have anything to say on the exit here from that meeting.

And, again, Wolf, as we have been reporting, all this comes as a judge declined yesterday to release those grand jury indictments, the grand jury documents from a criminal probe into Ghislaine Maxwell. So a lot of eyes are on what comes out of this meeting here, Wolf, and as well as what Todd Blanche can possibly bring to the table as well.

BLITZER: All right, Ivan Rodriguez on the scene for us down in Tallahassee, thank you very much. We will stay in close touch with you.

I want to bring in Alayna right now.

What do we know about the president's name in these unreleased Epstein files?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, so "The Wall Street Journal" first broke this news, Wolf, but then I caught up with some sources.

And I'd remind you that the Justice Department, one of their key goals when coming into the Trump administration was to go through all of these documents and try to figure out what was in the Epstein files. And what we have learned is, the president's name came up several times, multiple times, according to the sources that I talked with for this.

Now, we also are learning that when Attorney General Pam Bondi briefed President Donald Trump on this in May, I was told it was a routine briefing, but she told him that his name was in the documents. Now, the White House has been very clear with me in my conversations with officials there that it was a routine briefing.

The scope of that meeting was not solely to tell him that his name was in it. They talked about a lot of things, including how they believed there was a lot of unsubstantiated claims in the documents. There were multiple names of high-profile figures also included in them.

But the reason that this is gaining so much attention is because the president himself denied that when asked about it last week. And so much the attention right now, the reason the story has become so monumental and lasting for about three weeks now is because people feel like the White House isn't being that transparent about what they actually know is in those documents.

And I do want to be clear that just because his name is in there does not mean that there was any wrongdoing. The context of how his name came up is unclear. Like many other high-profile 1990s figures in New York, I mean, he was brushing arms with Epstein. He was an associate of him. That is well-documented.

And so it's unclear what the context of his name being in there is. The main thing is that he was told about this and denied it. Now, I do want to read you a statement from one of the officials who I spoke with, one of the White House officials.

They told me -- quote -- "The White House is not surprised by this. Trump's name was present in the binders that Bondi produced and handed out." We also got a statement from the White House communications director, Steven Cheung, on this. Like a lot of things relating to Epstein, Wolf, he called this fake news.

When I talked to the people at the White House, though, about this, they said they're not disputing that his name is in these documents. They're disputing the fact that they believe there's some sort of broader conspiracy, that he was tied up in some sort of wrongdoing associated with Epstein. And so, look, I think going forward this is not something that's going

to quell a lot of the dissatisfaction with a lot of the president's supporters over the handling of this and just kind of the latest turn of the wheel in everything we're learning about this case.

BLITZER: They were pals. They were friends for many, many years. And that's clear, right?

TREENE: It is. It's clear. I mean, they did have a very well- documented falling out long before these allegations about Epstein being a sex trafficker or involved in child abuse ever surfaced.

So that's why it's not surprising that his name is in these files. The main thing is that he lied to reporters when asked if he was told about it.

BLITZER: Interesting point. All right, Alayna, thank you very much for your excellent reporting.

TREENE: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Appreciate it very much.

I want to continue this discussion right now with CNN's senior legal analyst, Elie Honig, a former federal and state prosecutor.

Elie, how unusual is this meeting, first of all, between Ghislaine Maxwell and the deputy attorney general of the United States, Todd Blanche?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it is entirely normal and common for this type of meeting to happen, for a federal criminal defendant to sit down and meet with federal prosecutors.

Of course, what's so unusual here is the federal criminal defendant is Ghislaine Maxwell. The prosecutor is the deputy A.G., the number two- person in the whole Justice Department, Todd Blanche. What happens at these meetings, Wolf, is essentially prosecutors try to get a full download of every single thing that the person knows about everybody and anybody at any time.

And, ultimately, the decision that DOJ prosecutors are trying to get to is, do we want to enlist this person as a cooperating witness? And I should say, by the way, it takes many, many meetings. This is not going to be resolved today. I think it's highly unlikely that ultimately DOJ signs up Ghislaine Maxwell as a cooperator.

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A, they have to be convinced that she has come fully clean on everybody and everything. She's shown no indication of any willingness to do that at any point over her life. And, second of all, DOJ has to be convinced they're willing to base indictments on her testimony, to go to a judge to say, we vouch for this person and we want you to give her a reduced sentence.

I think all of that is extremely remote.

BLITZER: All right, Elie, I want you to stick around. We have more questions for you coming up on very substantive legal issues. Stand by for that.

In the meantime, President Trump's director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, is rushing to her boss' defense one day after the president accused Barack Obama, the former president, of treason. She has declassified a highly sensitive congressional report. Tulsi Gabbard insists it contains evidence of what she describes as a treasonous conspiracy to undermine the 2016 presidential election.

And now Attorney General Pam Bondi is creating a strike force to assess Tulsi Gabbard's evidence and to -- quote -- "investigate potential next legal steps" -- close quotes.

President, former President Obama and his administration top officials would be the targets of that.

Let's go to CNN's Kevin Liptak. He's over at the White House for us.

Kevin, what are you hearing? What are you learning this morning?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, I think there are two ways to look at this.

One, it's clearly an attempt to pivot away from some of these Epstein questions that the president has spent the last three weeks or so trying to tamp down. But it's also a continuation of this campaign of retribution that the president promised as a candidate, but now that we're seeing him really kind of execute and demonstrating his willingness to pull all of the levers that he has available to him to try and carry this out.

And so we did see Tulsi Gabbard come to the White House Briefing Room yesterday to say that they had evidence of what she called a yearslong coup and treasonous conspiracy against President Trump and saying that the evidence that they had found directly pointed to President Obama.

The crux of her argument is that the president, President Obama, ordered up this intelligence assessment into Russia's attempts to interfere in the 2016 election. And she says that it was meant to undermine President Trump.

Now, we should say that what she has pointed out is that President Obama encouraged the intelligence community to come up with this assessment before he left office. But nothing that she has pointed out points to any sort of criminal conspiracy. And it also doesn't necessarily refute the finding that Russia attempted to interfere in the election.

She says that she's referred these charges to the Justice Department. It's not clear how serious Pam Bondi, the attorney general, is about pursuing President Obama or other officials. But she says in a statement that they will leave no stone unturned to deliver justice -- Wolf. BLITZER: Our senior White House reporter, Kevin Liptak, thank you

very, very much.

I want to bring back senior legal analyst Elie Honig right now.

Elie, will we really see former President Obama or his aides prosecuted?

HONIG: Wolf, they say never say never, but I will say never here.

I mean, I went back and very carefully and slowly read all of Tulsi Gabbard's press releases and explanations. It's incomprehensible. I can't even understand what she is alleging Barack Obama did wrong, never mind criminal. Apparently he ordered up an intelligence assessment, which is something presidents do.

That assessment that came out of that has been corroborated by Senate Republicans. And I want to be clear, when you hear people talking about treason, that's not just a word that gets thrown out. There is a specific federal criminal charge for treason. It means trying to overthrow the government of the United States. And the punishment for that is up to the death penalty. That's how serious this is.

I don't see anything in anything that's come out from Tulsi Gabbard or anyone else suggesting that Barack Obama or anyone else committed anything even resembling treason here.

BLITZER: Yes, good point.

Elie Honig, thank you very, very much.

Other important news we're following right now, Columbia University in New York has agreed to pay the federal government more than $220 million. The settlement with the Trump administration restores federal funding that had been revoked over campus protests. The deal also ends the government's probes into whether the school violated anti- discrimination laws.

CNN senior reporter Betsy Klein is here with me in THE SITUATION ROOM.

Betsy, this has been a long battle between Columbia University and the Trump administration. Does this mark the end of this fight?

BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE PRODUCER: Well, they certainly hope so.

And just to step back, back over the spring, the Trump administration revoked about $400 million in federal research funding from Columbia University, as well as Harvard, over the handling of antisemitism on campus.

But it really extended beyond that figure to billions of dollars in future federal funding, something that Columbia officials said posed an existential threat to their research. And so after months of painstaking negotiations between Columbia and the White House, they have been able to reach a deal. Now, under this deal, Columbia did not admit to any wrongdoing, but

they have agreed to pay the U.S. government a $200 million settlement over three years, plus $21 million to settle a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigation. And, in return, the federal government is said to reinstate a vast majority of federal grants.

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Now, this comes as a broader push for policy changes on campus really raising questions about academic freedom and the role of the federal government for colleges and universities.

BLITZER: I know just a few moments ago, Betsy, you had a chance to speak with the Trump administration's education secretary-, Linda McMahon. What did she say?

KLEIN: Well, shortly after this funding agreement was reached, she called it a seismic shift for higher education and said it could provide a road map for other schools.

So I caught up with her on the phone just a minute ago. She expressed some optimism that Harvard University will also reach a deal. She said that discussions with the university continue. She believes that the lawsuit over federal funding is going to play out in court, and then they would like to have a resolution outside of the court.

Now, Harvard, of course, faced off with the Trump administration in court on Monday. They are arguing that that $2 billion funding freeze is a violation of their First Amendment rights. But Secretary McMahon described those talks as ongoing and hopeful that they will bear fruit, Wolf.

BLITZER: We will see what happens.

Betsy Klein, thanks very much for the excellent reporting. Appreciate it very much.

And still ahead: A jaw-dropping new report finds how the warning system floundered during those critical hours leading up to the deadly floods in Texas. We will be joined by a Texas lawmaker about this newly revealed information.

And, later, President Trump's tariff bet and whether it could pay off with one of America's largest trade partners. We will dive into new numbers, as the president continues to push the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates at the same time.

Stay with us. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

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BLITZER: New this morning, a stunning revelation about the critical hours and minutes leading up to the deadly and devastating floods that hit Central Texas. The Kerr County sheriff tells CNN that the man responsible for

coordinating the emergency response was likely asleep, asleep at the time.

We're joined now by Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett of Texas.

Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.

The National Weather Service began forecasting the flooding threat as early as the morning before. What's your response to this key emergency official possibly being asleep at such a critical moment?

REP. LLOYD DOGGETT (D-TX): It's really alarming. I think that there were failures at every level of government.

Certainly, the most gross negligent was at the local level, but the state and the federal also had a role here. If we had a plane crash and lose 135 people, there would be a major investigation of it. And I think that more investigation is needed at every level.

The National Weather Service under the Trump cuts lost a significant number of people. The primary person responsible for coordinating with that county manager was retired under the Trump "get out of here" approach that they took. And I think that there was not the level of coordination from the Weather Service that was needed.

They have told me that they focused primarily on the county emergency manager, who was apparently asleep. These alarms were not coming out until after most of Kerr County was asleep. This was a preventable disaster. It didn't have to take as many lives, including I think it's about 27 mostly little girls out of one camp. So painful.

FEMA was also not up to the task. But I do see the principal problem being at the local level and the fact that the state did not participate in helping them get alarm systems of water gauges in place to avoid this kind of tragedy.

BLITZER: Yes, they got to learn the lessons of the mistakes that were made in this case to avoid them down the road.

Texas lawmakers, Congressman, as you know, held their first public hearing on the response to the flash floods yesterday. The head of the state's emergency management testified that there's a lack of consistency in how each local government operates. Listen to this. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIM KIDD, TEXAS DIVISION OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT CHIEF: I believe the largest challenge in today's date is the cultural challenge. We have 52 to 54 independently locally, usually locally owned radio systems across the state. There's no state standard for governance in how they operate.

We do have -- and the Department of Public Safety can talk well about it -- great organization that has the statewide interoperability coordinator. But I think, when you talk to them, you're going to find there's no teeth and there's no funding. There's no carrot or no stick in what we want to get them to do so that we have a statewide covered network.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: So what do you think, Congressman? Is he right?

DOGGETT: I think the big question is, why not? The state of Texas has ample resources. It would not even approve legislation this past spring to look at this alarm system problem there.

So that's why I say the state of Texas didn't do its part. I think there were dedicated team members, like the director of emergency services that you just had testimony from, and dedicated Weather Service people out there. But the infrastructure was not there, the personnel were not there at the federal level to assure that this kind of catastrophe, with such a painful loss of life, did not occur.

BLITZER: As you know, Texas lawmakers are now in a special legislative session.

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The Texas governor, Greg Abbott, has added another item for state lawmakers to look at, President Trump's plan to try to redraw Texas' congressional districts. But, earlier this month, Governor Abbott said the legislature would address the issues that contributed to the floods.

Watch this and let me get your reaction. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): When you consider the fact that we're going to start a special session two Mondays from now, a special session that will have at the top of this agenda helping communities like in Kerr County and Kendall County, as well as in Central Texas and the Big Country, all areas affected by the floods of the past week.

Those issues are going to be on the agenda for the state to address from top to bottom.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: State Democratic lawmakers, Congressman, are arguing they have done little, if any debating on legislation to help your state recover from this horrible tragedy. What's your response to this?

DOGGETT: That's exactly right. And it's the same question.

And the question to the governor is, why did it take the loss of 135 Texas lives before you did anything about these issues? The Texas legislature has been in session. Could have acted. He's called this special session now, and they ought to focus exclusively on these flood issues to prevent other disasters like this. But, instead, he's following the direction of President Trump, who

called the Texas Republican congressional members over to the White House a few weeks back and told them, I must have five more Republicans from Texas.

We need to see what Trump's map looks like and how much it disrupts and harms Texas communities. And it's also clear that Texas is just step one. Trump is talking about protecting himself from any accountability by maintaining control of the U.S. House of Representatives by going state by state and trying to change democratic representation not by the will of the voters, but the drawing of crooked lines, just as he is proposing to do in Texas.

Today, there is a state House hearing in Austin, but we don't have the Trump map. They're really going through the charade of a public hearing without looking at the specifics of the Trump map, which I'm sure they plan to spring on us at the very last minute and to try to impose Trump's will.

BLITZER: Congressman Lloyd Doggett, thanks so much for joining us.

DOGGETT: Thank you.

BLITZER: Up next, a SITUATION ROOM special report into the impact of drastic cuts to foreign aid. CNN goes inside Afghanistan to investigate the Trump administration's claim that no one has died from aid cuts.

Stay with us. We will be right back.

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