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Trump Prepares to Tout Economic Wins in Pennsylvania Visit; Sources Say, Hegseth to Brief Key Lawmakers Today on Boat Strikes; Federal Judge Allows Release of Ghislaine Maxwell Court Documents. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired December 09, 2025 - 10:00   ET

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

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, affordability crisis. President Trump hits the road to address concerns about rising prices. His message so far, it's all a hoax. Will Americans buy it?

Plus, quote, I am America first. The war of words heats up between Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and the president. He is once again calling his former ally a traitor. She'll join us live here in The Situation Room.

And an abortion report deferred. Whom the CDC blames for the delay of its first annual report since the Supreme Court overturned Roe versus Wade.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: A gang of eight briefing, bipartisan leaders of Congress are about to go. Behind closed doors to get answers about recent strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean.

Plus, quote, start accepting things. President Trump claims Vladimir Putin always had the upper hand. What he says will end Russia's war on Ukraine.

And follow the money, new details emerging about one of the investors behind Paramount's hostile takeover bid for Warner Brothers Discovery and why it could raise eyebrows with the president vowing to get involved.

Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer with Pamela Brown, and you're in The Situation Room.

Happening now, President Trump is about to take his economic message on the road. He'll visit a critical swing district in Eastern Pennsylvania today as he celebrates the state of the economy. He said this in an interview with Politico.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I do want to talk about the economy, sir, here at home. And I wonder what grade you would give your --

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: A-plus.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A-plus?

TRUMP: Yes, A-plus, plus, plus, plus, plus.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: But many Americans strongly disagree. A recent CBS News/YouGov poll found 60 percent believe the president makes things sound better than they really are when it comes to prices and inflation. 27 percent said he is right on point. 13 percent feel he paints a gloomier economic picture than what's really happening.

Let's go to CNN Senior White House Reporter Kevin Liptak right now. Kevin, is this the message people in Pennsylvania can expect to hear today from the president?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes. And this is really an opportunity for the president to road test that economic message and his claims that he's bringing prices down.

This event itself has become something of a rarity for the president. You know, we really haven't seen him go out for a campaign rally-style event, speaking to his supporters about his agenda since April. And many of his allies have felt that that was just too long, that it signaled a lack of focus and attention on the people and the issues that brought him to the White House in the first place. And so that will be sort of his mission when he is up in the Poconos today.

Now, whether the president delivers the message that many Republicans want him to deliver I think is a second question. You know, the president has spent the last several weeks really downplaying, this idea of affordability, calling it a con job, calling it a hoax. And so it remains an open question of whether he will be able to sort of convince some of these people that he's speaking to in Eastern Pennsylvania that he's doing everything he can on the economy.

I want you to listen to more of what the president said in that Politico interview about this very topic.

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TRUMP: It is been ten months. It's amazing what we've done. If you think of gasoline a gallon, they had it at $4.50 cents, almost $5. You go to some of the states, you had it at $6. We hit three states two days ago, $1.99 cents a gallon. When that happens, everything comes down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIPTAK: Now recent political experience has shown that it can be quite difficult to convince Americans that the economy is doing better than they feel. President Biden tried that and it didn't really work. This district that the president is heading to is a critical swing district. Joe Biden won it in 2020.

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Trump won it in 2024. The freshman Republican representative there, Rob Bresnahan, is a top target for Democrats in next year's midterm elections.

And polls even in Pennsylvania show that voters really don't find that the president's handling of the economy has been top-notch. A survey from Quinnipiac showed that those who found that this economy was doing either not so good or poor was 52 percent. Those who said it was good or excellent, it was at 46 percent.

And so how the president messages this today, I think, will be important to watch. His advisers say that this will be the first of many domestic trips talking about the economy coming up as the midterm elections start to get underway.

BLITZER: And the president yesterday announced a $12 billion bailout for American farmers. He says the payout wouldn't be possible without his tariffs. But would it be necessary without them?

LIPTAK: Well, listen, the farming industry has been squeezed for a long time. Their prices have been rising on fertilizer and on seeds. But, obviously, the president's tariffs have had the effect of making some of those even worse. You have seen China cutoff its purchases of soybeans as this trade war heated up between Washington and Beijing, all of that contributing to this decision by the President to add this lifeline to American farmers.

Now, China has said that it will resume those soybean purchases after the president struck a deal with President Xi Jinping. But, certainly, this is another example of how the president has had to take action to ease some of the pain caused by his own economic decisions. You've seen him ease up on some of the tariffs on coffee, for example, as prices were rising there, all of it contributing to kind of a tough economic position and a tough economic message that the president will certainly try and massage later today in Pennsylvania.

BLITZER: All right, we'll see how he does. Kevin Liptak, thank you very, very much. Pamela?

BROWN: All right, Wolf. Well, clearly, there is some disconnect between how the White House views the economy and what Americans are feeling and seeing in their bank accounts. So, let's bring in CNN Senior Reporter Daniel Dale to get a fact-check here.

So, Daniel, nice to see you. Here's what the president said yesterday about prices.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Prices are going to be going down already. I mean, the prices are way down. We've brought prices way down from what it was. We inherited high prices. We inherited the biggest inflation in the history of our country. That means prices going up and we brought it down very substantially. Now, inflation is essentially gone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So what are the facts, Daniel?

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: The president's making a whole lot of claims about prices. Very few of them are true. So, he's saying overall prices are down during this presidency. They're not down. They're up. They're up 1.7 percent. That's as of latest data from September. So, 1.7 percent up in September compared to January, the monthly return to office, up 3 percent in September compared to the previous September.

And we said inflation is essentially gone. He also said yesterday we brought it down to a very normal number. That 3 percent year-over-year rate in September is the exact same rate he inherited in January. And September was the fifth consecutive month it had increased. So, it's not disappearing. It's rising.

Now, he was asked a question yesterday about grocery prices and also said that those are way down. Those are not way down either. Those are up 1.4 percent in September compared to January, up 2.7 percent in September compared to the September prior.

The president also keeps saying that beef is the only grocery product whose price has increased in this presidency. That's not even close to true either. Dozens of grocery products have seen their prices increase. Far more have increased than have decreased. Though there are some, like egg, that have gone down. So, comprehensively on this subject, the president is just making inaccurate claim after inaccurate claim.

BROWN: The president likes to point to the gas prices. You just heard him tell political prices in some states drop below $2 a gallon. What are the facts there?

DALE: So, this is a subject where the president has real facts he could boast about, but instead is stretching them again. So, it is true that gas prices are down. As of today, the AAA national average was about $2.95 per gallon. That's down from about $2 per gallon on the same day last year, about $3.12 per gallon on President Trump's inauguration day in January early this year. But no state average is below $2.37 and the majority of states are above $2.80.

So, why is he saying three states below $2? It's possible if he's talking about GasBuddy, the firm that tracks gas prices, finding that about 40 stations of the 150,000 stations, it tracks nationwide that were below $2. So, a tiny number of stations are below this $2 threshold. So, he might be referring to those, but he's not telling people when he does that. He's talking about a very, very small fraction of the gas stations that people come across.

BROWN: All right. Daniel, as always, thank you so much.

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Wolf? BLITZER: And happening now, sources tell us that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine will brief a bipartisan group of lawmakers known as the Gang of Eight on the deadly double-tap strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean.

With us now is CNN Senior National Security Reporter Zach Cohen. So, what do we know about this meeting, Zach?

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, guys. We're told this briefing should cover a range of topics, including U.S. military operations around Latin America. And this is really the first opportunity top lawmakers going to have to directly question Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about his role in that September 2nd strike, which we now know the U.S. military carried out that double strike, raising allegations of a potential war crime.

And so lawmakers want to know where Hegseth was both physically on that day when this operation was being carried out, and also what his role in the decision-making process is. We've seen Hegseth try to distance himself a little bit from this strike, essentially saying that it was ordered by Admiral Bradley, who we know went to the Hill last week and briefed lawmakers behind closed doors, also showing him that unedited video, the full video from this operation that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agree should be released publicly.

Now, that's something the president initially said that he supported and has since walked it back, but take a listen to where Donald Trump appears to be on that front now.

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REPORTER: Mr. President, you said you would have no problem with releasing the full video of that strike on September 2nd off the coast of Venezuela. Secretary Hegseth now says --

TRUMP: I didn't say that. You said that. I didn't say that. This is ABC fake news.

REPORTER: Will you release video of that strike so that the American people can see for themselves what happened?

TRUMP: I don't know what they have. But whatever they have, we'll certainly release, no problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: So, Defense Secretary Hegseth has not released the video yet and ensure to face questions today from lawmakers who, again, there's bipartisan consensus, they believe this video should be released to the American public and see it for themselves. But take a listen to what Hegseth said over the weekend when he was asked pretty explicitly, will he or will he not release the video?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, Mr. Secretary, you will be releasing that full video.

PETE HEGSETH, SECRETARY OF WAR: We are reviewing it right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that a yes or no?

HEGSETH: That is for -- the most important thing to me are the ongoing operations in the Caribbean with our folks that use bespoke capabilities, techniques, procedures in the process. I'm way more interested in protecting that than anything else. So, we're viewing the process and we'll see.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: So, Hegseth a little non-committal there, but lawmakers are trying to ramp up that pressure, compel him to turn over the video, even including a provision in their giant defense policy bill that would cut Hegseth's travel expenses if he does not provide the video to relevant committees on the Hill.

BROWN: Yes. And it's worth reiterating that DOD has released edited videos of other strikes off the coast of Venezuela.

COHEN: Including this one.

BROWN: Yes, exactly, the first strike.

Zach Cohen, thank you so much.

BLITZER: All right. There's more news we're following. Still ahead, Marjorie Taylor Greene joins us. We'll discuss her upcoming retirement from Congress, the Trump presidency, and the MAGA movement going forward.

Lots going on, you're in The Situation Room.

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BLITZER: All right. Breaking news just coming into CNN right now, a federal judge in New York has just granted the U.S. Justice Department's request to unseal records from the investigation and criminal prosecution of Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell, of course, was an associate of Jeffrey Epstein.

The ruling opens the door for the department to publicly release evidence that had gathered against Maxwell. The trove of documents includes grand jury transcripts, financial records, travel documents, and notes from victim interviews obtained during the investigations. It is not yet clear when the department plans to make the documents public.

Once again, this is just breaking and we're going to bring you more details as they come in. Stay with us for that.

BROWN: And new this morning, Wolf, ICE has released the woman with family ties to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. Bruna Ferreira is out on bond per an immigration judge's order. She's the mother of Leavitt's, 11-year-old nephew. Ferreira was arrested last month right near Boston. According to her lawyer, Homeland Security officials say she is in the U.S. illegally. Her lawyer says that isn't the case.

BLITZER: CNN's Priscilla Alvarez has been tracking all of these developments, as she always does. Priscilla, tell us about the terms of her release.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, part of this release includes mandatory check-ins with immigration and customs enforcement. This could be quite common for anyone who was released on bond. Her bond was set at $1,500 and in court money Monday. Her attorney argued that she is, quote, not a danger and she's not a flight risk.

Now, the judge, of course, granted that and granted this bond and she is expected to be released, if not already released after she was held at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center.

Now, this is what her attorney had to say. Quote, she has established her entire life here in the United States since she has been a child. She looks forward to reuniting with her son and getting back to her life as a hardworking business owner.

Now, she was previously engaged with the White House press secretary's brother. The two share custody of their son. And so now, as her attorney says, she'll be able to be reunited with her son while she's on bond and while these proceedings continue about her immigration status.

As you read there, the Department of Homeland Security says that she overstayed a visa. There was a period of time, however, where she was a recipient of the DACA program. Remember that's the Obama era program that allowed people who had been children who had come into the United States to remain here on a temporary basis, but that elapsed during the first Trump administration.

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So, her legal proceedings are continuing in so far as her immigration status, but, for now, that is something that she'll be able to deal with outside of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention.

So, this is a happy development for her attorneys, for her to be reunited with her son, certainly though a stunning turn after she had been arrested by ICE last month, again, someone who has ties to the White House press secretary.

BLITZER: All right. Any comment yet from the White House press secretary?

ALVAREZ: Not yet. We will keep you updated.

BLITZER: Okay. Thanks very much, Priscilla Alvarez reporting.

All right, we're just getting Elie Honig to give us some legal analysis right now on this Justice Department decision to release a whole bunch of documents involving Ghislaine Maxwell, the woman who was involved with Epstein, as all of us know.

What's your sense when are these documents going to be released and how significant are they?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Wolf, so these are the grand jury materials that relate to the Justice Department through the Southern District of New York's prosecution of Ghislaine Maxwell, which happened primarily in 2020. Now, DOJ had gone to this judge, Judge Paul Engelmayer, before, a few months ago, and asked for permission to unseal the grand jury materials. At that time, the judge denied the request because grand jury materials are ordinarily supposed to be confidential, and the judge said, I don't see any compelling reason why we need to change that.

Now, what has changed, however, is that Congress has passed and the president has signed this Epstein Files Transparency Act, which essentially overrides the normal concerns about grand jury confidentiality. So, the judge today has said, well, in light of this law that's been passed, I now order that the grand jury materials should be released.

Now, as to what's in them, we have a little bit of a clue, Wolf. Because when Judge Engelmayer denied the initial request a few months ago, he said essentially there's really not much that's new in these files. Most of what's in the grand jury materials is already known to the public through the indictment of Ghislaine Maxwell, through her extensive trial, through the briefs that the parties submitted, through the evidence at the trial.

So, I don't think we should expect based on that to see anything brand new and shocking, but what we will see is what evidence did prosecutors put in front of the grand jury, what testimony did this FBI agent give around the case. It'll give us some more visibility into how the Maxwell case happened.

BLITZER: And I just want to be precise and correct. This was a federal judge who ordered the release of these documents, not the Justice Department.

Elie, is the Justice Department clearly going to obey what this federal judge has just ordered?

HONIG: Oh, for sure. Yes. So, prosecutors do not have the ability to release grand jury materials on their own. The process is, in the rare instance where a prosecutor, DOJ, is seeking to release grand jury materials, you have to go back to the judge and get special permission. The Judge Engelmayer has now ordered that, yes, DOJ, you can and must release those documents. DOJ has to. The law that was passed a few weeks ago requires DOJ to do this. The judge has now signed off. So, everything is now in place. Those materials will be released.

As to the when, Wolf, the law that was passed gave DOJ 30 days to release the Epstein materials. Day 30 is this coming Friday, which will be December 19th. So, presumably, DOJ, if they follow the law will make at least the first bulk of those of those public disclosures. A week can change from today. December 19th is sort of the key data watch.

BLITZER: All right. Stand by, Elie. Katelyn Polantz has been doing a lot of reporting on all of this. What do we anticipate, Katelyn? How significant will these documents be?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf and Pam, one of the things that Elie just said is that this judge, Judge Paul Engelmayer, in the Southern District of New York, he has already looked at these documents once. This is the second time around where the Justice Department has come to him and asked for the unsealing of these records, and the first time he looked at them and said, not much is here that isn't out there already publicly, because these are the grand jury records from the federal criminal case against Ghislaine Maxwell, who did ultimately go to trial and was convicted.

And so much of what may be in this material are the types of things that would've come out at Ghislaine Maxwell's trial, things like financial records, travel documents. Those are the things that are specified in the court order today is what may be in these grand jury records.

We do know, though, another important point that the judge indicates here in this order this morning, saying, yes, now that Congress has passed a law, we can unseal these grand jury records even though you asked once before and the judge said no. In this round, whenever these grand jury records come out, the judge says that there will need to be some redactions made here to protect victim privacy, specifically information about victims and personally identifiable information.

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So, this is the Justice Department taking a step forward, going back to the court, now that Congress has passed that act of transparency to release the Epstein files, the Justice Department going to court and getting some of the bulk of the records, but this is by no means what everybody has wanted to see, which is the full FBI file. This is just what's in the hands of the court and what is very likely already largely out there.

BROWN: All right. Well, we shall see, but this is certainly a significant development. It's unusual for a judge to allow the release of grand jury documents.

All right, Katelyn Polantz, thank you so much.

We'll be right back.

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