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The Source with Kaitlan Collins
Iran Expected To Respond Tomorrow To U.S. Proposal; Lawmakers Grill Lutnick For 4.5 Hours Over Epstein Ties; The Atlantic: Patel's "Personalized Bourbon Stash" Draws Scrutiny. Aired 9-10p ET
Aired May 06, 2026 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[21:00:00]
SHAWN VANDIVER, PRESIDENT, AFGHANEVAC: --AfghanEvac has always been about regular people standing up and fighting for doing the right thing, fighting for our American dream and our American promise, and we can still do that. We've seen success. We're going to continue to see success. But only if we continue to see every-day Americans stand up and say, Hell no.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, ANDERSON COOPER 360: Yes.
Shawn VanDiver, appreciate your time tonight. Thank you very much.
VANDIVER: Thank you so much.
COOPER: That's it for us. The news continues. "THE SOURCE WITH KAITLAN COLLINS" starts now. I'll see you tomorrow.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, CNN HOST, THE SOURCE WITH KAITLAN COLLINS: A single page. That is the length of the President's latest proposal to end the war with Iran.
I'm Kaitlan Collins. And this is THE SOURCE.
Tonight, sources say, there are signs of movement from Iran and signs of skepticism inside the White House. Officials, familiar with the talk, say that Tehran appears to be inching closer to United States' demands to bring an end to the war.
And if you're thinking, Yes, I've heard that before? You're not wrong. But what you haven't heard is this. The U.S. proposal, that is now at the center of these negotiations, is apparently only one page long, leaving the toughest, thorniest issues for later.
In the Oval Office today, flanked by UFC fighters, promoting an upcoming event, President Trump indicated that the ball is in Iran's court.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I think we won.
REPORTER: Mr. President-- TRUMP: Now it's -- now it's only a question of -- look, if we left, right now, Iran, it would take them 20 years to rebuild. You would call that--
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (inaudible).
TRUMP: We're in good shape, right? Fantastic. Yes. We're in good shape.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (inaudible).
TRUMP: And now we're doing well. Now we have to get what we have to get. If we don't do that, we'll have to go a big step further.
REPORTER: Is that what--
TRUMP: But with that being said, they want to make a deal. We've had very good talks over the last 24 hours, and it's very possible that we'll make a deal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: While Iran says it's still reviewing the document. U.S. officials say that the brief memo is the point to coax the Iranians back to the negotiating table. That leaves us tonight, of course, with a cliffhanger. What is the President demanding? What is he willing to kick down the road, and will it be enough to finally break this stalemate?
Two of my top foreign policy sources are here tonight with details and analysis in moments.
And if things don't go the way the President wants, he also warned that the United States will start bombing Iran again at, what he claims will be a quote, Much higher level and intensity than before.
But he signaled that Tehran isn't on the clock.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.
REPORTER: Do you have a deadline for when you expect to hear back?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, press.
TRUMP: Never a deadline.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, press.
TRUMP: It will happen. It will happen. But never a deadline.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: The President saying there, Never a deadline, of course, is the same president who has also extended several deadlines during these negotiations.
And as we bring you those headlines from around the world tonight, and we wait to see what happens next between the United States and Iran, I want to recognize the reason that we're able to do so, the reason that CNN is even on the air right now.
Ted Turner, a true pioneer, a titan of his industry and the founder of CNN, died today at the age of 87. He once famously lamented that after working until 7 o'clock or so each night, he would never be home in time to catch the network broadcast. He knew he wasn't alone in that and missing the news, and so he changed it. 46 years later, here we are.
It's hard to wrap your mind around just how transformative Ted Turner truly was, making news available at any hour, anywhere in the world. But perhaps it's put best by the reporters that he hired all those years ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: He was somebody who believed in breaking down the barriers between peoples and between nations.
I remember when I was still, you know, in 1980s, in New York, and I was climbing up the ranks, I started in September 1983, in Atlanta, and I remember when he banned the word, Foreign. And I was absolutely devastated. I wanted to be a Foreign Correspondent, like Edward R. Murrow and all those people. And he brought the word, International. And it wasn't just a little thing. It was because he didn't want to drive a wedge into people by calling them, Foreign, and he didn't want to have separation. Imagine that kind of leader.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Ted Turner's philosophy, as my friend, Wolf Blitzer, always reminds us, is that the News comes first. The news is the star.
You'll hear much more this hour on Ted Turner's life and his legacy that we all seek to proudly carry on.
But just as Ted said, the news is the star. So, that's where we're going to start tonight.
I mentioned my expert sources who are here with me tonight.
Karim Sadjadpour is the Iran expert, and the senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
David Sanger is the White House and National Security Correspondent for The New York Times.
[21:05:00]
You're both here tonight, and it's great to have you, especially as we are in this moment that I feel like so many people, David Sanger, may say, We keep hearing this, that Iran is saying one thing, the United States is saying another, We're getting closer to a deal, A deal is not happening.
Now we're hearing tonight at CNN that Iran is expected to respond tomorrow to this U.S. proposal.
David, as you're trying to make sense of this, what is your sense of this?
DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL & NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST, WHITE HOUSE & NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES, AUTHOR, "NEW COLD WARS": Well, Kaitlan, my first sense of this is that even if Iran agreed to everything on this one-page document? And we've heard pieces of it, but we don't understand all of it. It wouldn't constitute what I think you and I would call a deal. It's more an agenda of what needs to be negotiated.
I don't know how you can call it a deal, if it kicks all of the nuclear issues to a later negotiation, one that's supposed to take place in 30 days, but which I think most of us who've watched nuclear negotiations know could take months, if not years. There's a reason that it took two years for the Obama administration to negotiate their agreement, which ran a 160 pages, to make sure that the Iranians couldn't make their way through many loopholes.
So, I'm sure the President will sell it as a deal, but what it really will be would be an agenda for discussion. It may get the Strait reopened, and I think he's very desperate to do that before he arrives in China, on Wednesday night, Beijing time, because I think he wants to be able to say to the Chinese he has solved the problem that is keeping 30 or more percent of their oil and gas bottled up in the Persian Gulf.
So, he's under pressure from Congress, from his own party. And so, what you're going to see is a one-page outline.
COLLINS: Yes, and he did predict today, to your point, on the timing of the China trip. He said, Maybe this should be done in a week. Obviously, that would be right when he's departing Washington to make it to China.
SANGER: Sure.
COLLINS: Karim, I mean, as you look at this, what's your sense of everything?
KARIM SADJADPOUR, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST, SENIOR FELLOW, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE, IRAN EXPERT: Well, as usual, Kaitlan, I very much agree with David.
And one of the reasons why this is going to be a long process is that there is really zero trust between the United States and Iran, and negotiations between the United States and Iran are always a zero-sum game. It's not two parties who are trying to get to, Yes. It's two parties who, I said, deeply mistrust each other. And for the Government of Iran, when they sense that President Trump's resolve may be waning, or he's eager to conclude this war and move on to the next topic? That's when their demands will actually go -- will increase.
So, as David said, yes, maybe we have a one-page agenda about the contours of what a deal would look like. Obviously, that will be about enriched uranium, the highly enriched uranium stockpile, and the future of the Strait of Hormuz. But this process is going to probably be with us for months to come.
COLLINS: I mean, months to come, David, is pretty stark. Because you mentioned Congress and the President's party. That's because they're hearing from their constituents who are paying so much money for gas right now. I mean, it's surged more than 50 percent of what it was at the beginning of this war.
And the President today was talking about oil prices, and this is what he told reporters inside the Oval.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I thought oil prices would go to $200, $250. It's at a $100 now. And I think you're surprised, and I'm surprised. But even if it went to $200, it would have been worth it. I understand that. We had just set a record, 50,000 on the Dow, 7,000 on the S&P, a record. And I said, I hate to do this, but we have to make an excursion down to Iran, because we can't let them have a nuclear weapon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: I wonder, David, how you think that hits when the national average for a gallon of gas is now at $4.50 for the first time in four years.
SANGER: Right. I mean, what he's essentially saying is, Be thankful it's at $4.50. It could be at $8 or $9, right?
The second part, if you take the elements of what he said were, It was worth it to get rid of their nuclear program. And perhaps it is. I mean, their nuclear program has been a huge threat, and the United States has tried this across four or five presidencies to solve it. But we don't have any indication yet that he's done a thing about the nuclear program.
[21:10:00]
The nuclear material, which I think he did a good job of bombing and encasing last June, is sitting right where it was. The Iranian nuclear equipment is sitting right where it was. He may, at the end of the day here, get them to ship it out to Russia, as President Obama got 97 percent of it shipped out in 2015 and 2016. He may, at the end of the day, get them to give up further enrichment for some period of time.
But he has a really high bar here, because he not only has to strike a deal. He has to show that he strikes a deal that addressed all of the criticisms that he had of the 2015 deal, which you'll remember, he pulled out of, three years later, in 2018. So, he's set himself a really high bar for what this agreement's got to look like.
And Karim had it just right. The Iranians sense that he can't afford to restart the war.
COLLINS: Yes.
Well, and Karim, on that front. Part of the confusion that people might have, as they're listening to this tonight, is the President just had this big reversal on escorting vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. We heard the Secretary of State talking about it.
NBC is reporting tonight, that's because this move by the Trump administration caught the Saudis off guard. It surprised them, it angered them, apparently.
I mean, when you hear that, what do you make of the fact that they didn't know about it and they didn't like it when they did hear about it?
SADJADPOUR: Well, one of the things which all of our regional allies in the Persian Gulf, whether that's Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, a profound concern they have is indeed the future of the Strait of Hormuz. Because before this war, the Strait was an international waterway, and they're incredibly dependent on that for both exporting their energy and importing critical items that makes their economy and nations run.
And Iran is now trying to essentially normalize and formalize its control over the Strait, to turn it into a revenue generator and to deter potentially future attacks against it.
And so, that wasn't on the agenda item before this war began, but it is going to be an agenda item now.
COLLINS: Yes.
SADJADPOUR: And if this war somehow concludes with Iran having some control over the Strait, it's going to be a big defeat for the President.
COLLINS: Karim Sadjadpour. And David Sanger. It is always great to have the two of you here to break down the headlines with us. So thank you so much.
SANGER: Thank you, Kaitlan.
SADJADPOUR: Thank you.
COLLINS: And up next. As I mentioned, we tonight are remembering a legend and a true visionary. The CNN founder, Ted Turner. He worked with two people, incredibly closely, that are going to join me in the early days of this network.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TED TURNER, CNN FOUNDER, AMERICAN BUSINESSMAN AND TELEVISION PRODUCER: I wish God had made us just a little bit smarter, you know, but -- smart enough to where we didn't go to war with each other and practice cruelty on each other, if we were nice to each other. That's the kind of world that I envision and the world that I've been working for.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[21:15:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TURNER: To act upon one's convictions while others wait. To create a positive force in a world where cynics abound. To provide information to people when it wasn't available before.
I dedicate the news channel for America, a cable news network.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Ted Turner, the man who launched CNN, died today at the age of 87. He started this company, nearly 46 years ago, transforming how the United States and, really, the entire world, watched the news, with the first ever 24-hour news channel.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TURNER: Well, I actually thought about it back in '74, or '75, six years before I did it, I thought, it would be really convenient whenever you got home to be able to tune into the news, instead of having to get home at 06:30 or wait till a 11 o'clock, because in those days, the news only came on in the early evening and very late.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: And tonight, as we sit here nearly 46 years after the launch of this network, we strive to practice the principles that Ted set out for CNN.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TURNER: I want to present both sides of controversial stories and let the viewers make up their mind, rather than having Walter Cronkite make it up for you. He's always recommending what people ought to think. CNN didn't do that. We let people think for themselves. I figured that was the best way a democracy should be run.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Ted Turner did many things in his storied career and life, but he called CNN, the greatest achievement of his life. And to help remember his life and his enduring legacy, my sources tonight are two people who knew him well.
The CEO of C-SPAN, the former CNN Vice President and our DC Bureau Chief, Sam Feist.
And a trailblazing CNN day one original, the former anchor and executive, Mary Alice Williams.
And it is amazing to have both of you here tonight.
But Mary Alice, you were hired by Ted, and you helped oversee the construction of the New York Bureau.
MARY ALICE WILLIAMS, FORMER CNN ANCHOR, FORMER CNN VP AND NY BUREAU CHIEF: Yes.
COLLINS: And I mean, those early days of CNN, I will never -- when I read the first book on what it was like. I mean, it was chaotic, it was crazy, it was new.
ALICE WILLIAMS: And, man, do I have stories. But Ted's motto was Lead, follow, or get out of the way, you know? So, we didn't have a lot of choices.
[21:20:00]
But when you think of it, back in 1980, Ted was a wild man. I mean, a go-for-broke-idea guy who believed that if all of us could see each other -- the craziest idea, perhaps, was CNN. But he believed that if all of us could see each other, that we had shared challenges, that we could share practical solutions, that there was a chance, maybe a chance, at world peace. He believed that. I know it sounds naive, even far-fetched, but that's the principle on which this network was founded.
COLLINS: And what was it like, you know? I mean, now everyone is like, of course, I know what CNN is. You can watch it in other countries. You can see what's going on. But, I mean, in those days, people probably thought you guys were insane.
ALICE WILLIAMS: Well, yes, and they called us names. You heard Chicken Noodle News repeated today, I'm sure, a number of times. They did think that we were crazy. But it was -- even though the giants of journalism at the time were pooh-poohing us, they were coming down to the New York Bureau and cheering us on, and saying -- I remember Mr. Cronkite saying, Young lady, I'm going to teach you how to read five newspapers a day. I'll never forget that.
But it was -- I think, the fun fact that people don't realize is that Ted and I had a rough beginning. We were -- he was my great supporter and dear friend, but we had a bit of a rough beginning.
I was flown down to Atlanta, so that Ted could meet the New York Bureau Chief, and I didn't make it into the door of his office when he was standing up and saying, A woman, nobody told me -- it was 1980, baby steps, 1980. And we, in short order, came to an agreement, sort of set of our boundaries, and he became a great fan and a great fan. And in short order, so many women were hired at CNN, and especially the New York Bureau that the WAGs (ph) started calling us Petticoat Junction. COLLINS: I mean, Sam Feist. I hear you laughing. When you hear that and you think of your decades at CNN. What is your favorite memory of Ted Turner?
SAM FEIST, CEO, C-SPAN, FORMER CNN VP AND DC BUREAU CHIEF: Like Mary Alice, I have -- we have so many. You know, I started at CNN in 1990, so CNN was, by then, maybe a teenager. We were still -- we were still -- still scrappy. Ted loved to be a part of it.
So, when I started at CNN, I was working in the Atlanta newsroom. Ted lived right upstairs above the newsroom. And if there was a big news story, I mean, I was working overnights, you could almost count on Ted and his wife, Jane Fonda, to come down the elevator, walk into the newsroom with a plate of cookies and brownies that probably Jane -- Jane made. They were -- they were in their bathrobes. But he would visit with us. He wanted to know what was happening in the news. It was -- it was magical.
He was a great boss. He was a visionary. And he loved the news. He just loved it, and he loved to be a part of it.
COLLINS: Yes. I mean, and Sam, and obviously, our coverage of the Gulf War is what took CNN from being known as Chicken Noodle News Network.
I want you to listen to something that Ted Turner said about that coverage, and what it meant for CNN.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TURNER: I got up, and I turned on the television, and I turned the NBC, and there was Tom Brokaw talking about the war. And I flipped over to ABC, and there was Peter Jennings talking about, sitting at desk, talking about the war. And I flipped over to CBS and -- and there was either Dan Rather or Walter Cronkite, whoever was there, talking about the war.
And then I flipped over to CNN, and there was the war. I missed the first shot, but not by much, maybe five minutes or so. And I said -- I still believe that that was the greatest scoop in the history of journalism.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: I mean, Sam, it really says something about the reach CNN had in that moment.
FEIST: It was the first time a war had ever been seen live on television. The prior war in the United States was the Vietnam War. None of that was live on television.
The Gulf War was remarkable. We all remember Bernard Shaw in the Al- Rashid Hotel, telling the world what he was seeing, that skies over Baghdad are illuminated. And then we saw live from the battlefield, live television pictures from Iraq, from Saudi Arabia, beamed around the world. It was remarkable at the time, we take it as second nature now. But no one had ever imagined that. [21:25:00]
And I think it didn't just change journalism. It changed warfare, and it ultimately created what, I think, Ted wanted to create, and as Mary Alice noted, that he thought he could create peace this way, a global village, where we all could talk to each other, at the same time, in a way we weren't able to do before CNN.
COLLINS: Yes. I mean, just in that moment, it also speaks to his legacy. It's going to -- I mean, his -- his -- you look at his life. But his legacy will go on forever. I mean, it's not an under -- an overstatement to say that he changed and transformed the news business.
ALICE WILLIAMS: The news business and the world as we -- as we understood each other. I remember in 1989, Bernard Shaw and I were sent to the funeral of Emperor Hirohito, the last of the World War II enemy combatants. And every king, every president and prime minister, every queen in the world, was there for that funeral, and I thought, Right, because we've all watched each other, and they all knew what was going on.
COLLINS: Yes. Well, it changed also global affairs. I mean, Christiane was talking about how he didn't want to use the word, Foreign. He wanted to use the word, International.
ALICE WILLIAMS: Right.
COLLINS: I had actually never heard that before until she said it today.
But I mean, it changed that they could also watch the news from around the world, and see what was happening, in a way that they could not before.
ALICE WILLIAMS: I was struck in being reminded that he said, I dedicate this television network to the United States of America. And in fact, in very short order, he had made it a global entity.
COLLINS: Yes.
I mean, Sam, you must have been talking to so many CNNers today, about his legacy. Did you have a favorite story that you heard?
FEIST: Well, first of all, you mentioned the word, Foreign. When he banned the F-word, it was called the F-word at CNN, anyone who used the word, Foreign, was fined $50 out of their paycheck, and it was no joke, and it didn't take much time for a few people to be fined, and no one used the word, Foreign, again.
COLLINS: Wow.
FEIST: We quickly had an International Desk and International correspondents--
ALICE WILLIAMS: Right. FEIST: --and International bureaus. But it was real. And Christiane was right, it changed the way we thought about the word, and nobody, nobody. And I think, still today, nobody uses the F-word anywhere around CNN. It just -- just doesn't come into your vocabulary.
COLLINS: I love that quote, Mary Alice, that he used. Lead, follow--
ALICE WILLIAMS: Or get out of the way.
COLLINS: --or get out of the way.
COLLINS: Sam Feist. And Mary Alice Williams. Thank you both so much for being here tonight.
ALICE WILLIAMS: Thank you.
FEIST: Thanks, Kaitlan.
COLLINS: Up next here for us on THE SOURCE. Back to the news in Washington. Closed-door testimony from Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, on his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. My congressional source was in the room, questioning him. What she heard? Next.
[21:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: For nearly five hours today, the Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, was grilled by the House Oversight Committee, on his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
His voluntary sit-down happened, after months of questions, from both parties, following the release of the Epstein files that directly contradicted what he had claimed, last October, about severing ties with Epstein in 2005.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOWARD LUTNICK, COMMERCE SECRETARY: We left, and in the six or eight steps it takes to get from his house to my house, my wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again.
MIRANDA DEVINE, AUSTRALIAN COLUMNIST AND WRITER: Oh, yes?
LUTNICK: So, I was never in the room with him socially, for business, or even philanthropy. That guy was there, I wasn't going, because he's gross.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Emails published by the Trump Justice Department that date back to 2011 showed that Lutnick did actually meet with Epstein, several times.
And lawmakers pointed also, despite those comments that you heard there, to this photo from the files, showing Howard Lutnick in the blue shirt here, on Jeffrey Epstein's private island. A 2012 visit that Lutnick defended later on Capitol Hill.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LUTNICK: We had lunch on the island, that is true, for an hour, and we left with all of my children, with my nannies, and my wife, all together.
We were on family vacation. We were not apart. To suggest there was anything untoward about that in 2012, I don't -- I don't recall why we did it, but we did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: As for what happened behind closed doors, during Howard Lutnick's interview with the Oversight Committee today, which was transcribed but not recorded on video. It depends on who you ask and really what side of the aisle they sit on.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): If Donald Trump had seen the video transcript, he would have fired Howard Lutnick. It was really embarrassing.
REP. YASSAMIN ANSARI (D-AZ): I feel very comfortable saying that Howard Lutnick is a pathological liar who is enabling the most egregious coverup in American history.
REP. JAMES COMER (R-KY): I feel compelled to have to come out and clean up and correct some of the statements that the Democrats made. I couldn't believe, as I was getting updates of what they were saying. And I hope that when you get the transcripts, you fact-check them on what they say. This is a habit of the Democrats, on this committee, coming out, telling you all stuff that was said, that was not said.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[21:35:00]
COLLINS: My source tonight was among the lawmakers in the room today. Democratic congresswoman, Yassamin Ansari of Arizona.
And thank you for being here.
I mean, you heard Chairman Comer there. You said, Howard Lutnick is a pathological liar. Why?
ANSARI: Thanks, Kaitlan.
You just showed a clip of Howard Lutnick, from the podcast, last year, where he very forcefully says that he thought Jeffrey Epstein was disgusting, and that him and his wife agreed that he would never see him again or have a personal or professional relationship.
We grilled him today on that, we went line by line, like over the transcript from that podcast. And what was so jarring was that the Secretary doubled down and tried to say that he was not lying in that podcast.
He really was trying to redefine what he meant when he said, You know, I would never have this relationship. He kept saying, I, as a man, would never again be in a room with Howard Lutnick. So trying to say that he meant by himself? Then, of course, we know that in 2012, he took his entire family to Jeffrey Epstein's island.
I then asked him about whether or not he knew about the sweetheart deal in 2008, and the many allegations against Jeffrey -- against Epstein, saying that he was a child abuser. Howard Lutnick tried to tell me that he had never heard of those things back in 2012, he had no idea.
To me, as a woman, I was the only female member of Congress who took part in the transcribed interviews today, I found that appalling. I mean, I was a child at the time when this happened, and I remember hearing about Jeffrey Epstein and what he was accused of, and then, of course, what he got the sweetheart plea deal for, which was still solicitation of a minor.
So, I do hope I -- the only thing I would agree with Chairman Comer on there is that I do hope Americans read the interview and read what happened today. It's very disappointing that they won't be able to see the video like they saw with the Clintons.
COLLINS: Did Howard Lutnick say anything else about that visit to Jeffrey Epstein's island?
ANSARI: He just repeated the same -- the same lines that it was very short, that he kept repeating, that his family was there, his staff was there. The line that he actually repeated, I will have to count, it felt to me like 20 or 30 times, that the interactions he's ever had with Epstein, the several that he's had, were meaningless and inconsequential. That's what he said repeatedly.
But to me, I mean, this all just comes back to the fact that he did lie to the American people, very blatantly. And then today, to say that, to try to -- to try to change the definition of words, I mean, it is so black and white. You said you never saw this person again, you were so disgusted by him in 2005, your wife was so uncomfortable with him. But then you took your wife to his island just seven years later? There's no that -- none of it makes sense.
COLLINS: This will be a transcript that we'll see because -- or we'll be able to read. Chairman Comer said that's because it was a voluntary interview from Howard Lutnick.
But you know, when you're reading something and seeing something, it's often, sometimes has a different interpretation. Do you think there's anything that we won't be able -- that people won't be able to glean from the transcript that happened in the room?
ANSARI: Yes, that's absolutely true. I mean, I think the defensiveness, the body language, all of that won't be seen. But I still actually do think that reading the back and forth will be very revealing in and of itself, because it's just so baffling, like, the way he tries to get out -- if I were him and all of this had come to light? I don't understand why you don't just admit that you were lying. But he refused to do that, and he tried to say he didn't lie.
So, I still highly recommend every American who cares about justice for the victims here, reads this, and I think that the Secretary should resign, and that we need to actually bring him back again in the future.
COLLINS: Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari, we will obviously all be reading that transcript. Thank you for joining us tonight.
ANSARI: Thank you.
COLLINS: Up next. There's new reporting we're also covering here from The Atlantic, on what the FBI director allegedly gives out to people he meets in his capacity.
Plus, breaking news from health officials who are in Georgia say that they're now monitoring two people who just got back home after traveling on that cruise ship that had the Hantavirus outbreak.
[21:40:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: When you meet officials in Washington, you might get their business card, maybe their social media handle, maybe a commemorative challenge coin, something that the President is a big fan of and keeps on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. But apparently, depending on who you meet, you might actually get a bottle of liquor.
There is new reporting from The Atlantic, tonight, that details a, quote, Personalized bourbon stash that the FBI director, Kash Patel, travels with. The bottle is apparently engraved with the words, Kash Patel FBI Director, and an FBI badge.
And sources tell The Atlantic that, quote, Patel has given out bottles to FBI staff as well as civilians that he encounters in his duties, and that Patel, quote, And his team have transported the whiskey using a DOJ plane, including when he went to Milan during the Olympics in February.
Now, the FBI is not disputing this reporting. A spokesperson actually tells the outlet tonight, quote, "The bottles in question are part of a tradition in the FBI that started well over a decade ago, long before Director Patel arrived. Senior Bureau officials have long exchanged commemorative items in formal gift settings consistent with ethics rules. Director Patel has followed all applicable ethical guidelines and pays for any personal gift himself."
My political sources are here with me at the table tonight.
Former Democratic congressman from New York, Mondaire Jones.
And former Republican congressman from Michigan, Peter Meijer.
Mondaire Jones, did you ever get a personalized bottle of bourbon when you were in Washington?
[21:45:00]
MONDAIRE JONES, (D) FORMER NEW YORK CONGRESSMAN: No, not from a--
COLLINS: Are you sad about that?
JONES: Not from a government official at the FBI or elsewhere.
COLLINS: I mean, but I think the larger context of this is -- obviously the reporting that they're suing The Atlantic over, which is FBI employees and people telling The Atlantic that they thought that he had -- that he had excessive alcohol use and whatnot. Something he vehemently denied, and obviously took them to court over. But what do you make of this?
PETER MEIJER, (R) FORMER MICHIGAN CONGRESSMAN, CO-FOUNDER & HEAD OF STRATEGY, THE NEW INDUSTRIAL CORPORATION: Well, and I will say for the record, I have been gifted bottles of bourbon and scotch and whiskey.
JONES: Ooh.
MEIJER: All -- all three--
COLLINS: From whom?
MEIJER: You can accept gifts as long as they're under $50 and not solicited. As a member of Congress, I did not solicit it. But I may have mentioned liking whiskey on a podcast one time. And next thing I know, we were clearing it through the Ethics office.
So, there is a very strong tradition in Washington, D.C., of gifting alcohol. And, in this case, Woodford Reserve? Pretty good taste.
COLLINS: I guess the question though is, the FBI director is different than, no offense, a member of Congress getting a bottle of whiskey from somebody.
JONES: And if not--
MEIJER: You take it.
JONES: If we're being honest. The primary issue here is that it's been reported by the same outlet that the FBI director has a drinking problem, right?
And so, this latest data point, it's hard to separate that from the broader context of alleged alcoholism, alleged dereliction of duty on the job, sort of alleged not taking his responsibility seriously, and being more interested in sort of traveling the world on the government's dime with his girlfriend, and now, apparently, an investigation into who leaked this information to that same journalist at The Atlantic. I mean, that's the -- that's the real problem here, and it is something that I think the American people deserve answers to from a waste, fraud and abuse standpoint, which even conservatives, I think, are increasingly concerned about when it comes to this FBI director.
MEIJER: And just in practical terms, I mean, it's more than likely that Republicans lose the House, which means that there'll be House Oversight hearings from the Democratic side, in the majority, that will be looking at all number of things. And doing anything that raises your profile? Probably not in the best interest.
COLLINS: Yes, and we know that Alayna Treene, my colleague, reported this week, the White House is kind of embracing staff there for what that's going to look like and how that--
MEIJER: As they should, as -- I think it's the appropriate type of preparation.
COLLINS: Yes, because it can be pretty brutal.
I mean, this had me thinking about the Justice Department overall. And actually, President Obama sat down for this interview with Stephen Colbert, where he talked in a way that we don't always hear from him, about his concerns about the Justice Department.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, 44TH U.S. PRESIDENT: The idea is that the attorney general is the people's lawyer. It's not the president's consigliere.
There's a bunch of stuff that you know, we can overcome. We can't overcome the politicization of the criminal justice system, the awesome power of the state.
(APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: You can't have a situation in which whoever is in charge of the government starts using that to go after their political enemies.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Do you agree that that's something we, as he puts it, as a country, will not be able to overcome?
JONES: It's the thing I worry most about.
Look, I'm optimistic that the next President of the United States will be a Democrat, and that we will once again, have a government that is led by people who care about ethics and who are at least trying to preserve the norms that pre-existed Donald Trump's presidency.
But I share the former President's concern about the politicization of the criminal justice system, in particular, because I worry about the American people just becoming numb to a lot of the conduct that we are seeing. The direct involvement of Donald Trump in prosecuting decisions that are being made by the Attorney General of the United States, by investigatory decisions being made by the FBI director. That's hard to come back from, because there was already a large group of people in this country who felt like the Justice Department was politicized, and they felt that way, because, to be candid, a lot of Republicans were saying that the Justice Department was politicized and weaponized under President Biden, even though there was no evidence to support that. His own Justice Department, we'll recall, indicted his own son, right? I mean, there's no better -- there's no better rebuttal.
MEIJER: And currently sitting president.
JONES: There's no better rebuttal to that.
Yes, and you know what? He was guilty of a number of the things that he was -- in fact, he was convicted of a number of things.
And so, the counterpoint can't be, Oh, well, the Biden Justice Department indicted and got convictions against the current President of the United States, as an example of weaponization, when his criminality is out there in the open and the vast majority of it has never even been prosecuted.
COLLINS: Yes, well, and that happened in state court. Of course, the federal charges went away because of what Judge Aileen Cannon ruled, and the fact that he won the election.
But to the point, overall, do you agree with President Obama on that?
[21:50:00]
MEIJER: It's a little rich coming from President Obama. If I'm Little Sisters of the Poor, I'd look at that and say, What the hell is this guy talking about?
I mean, the thing that I can't really get my head around, is in the moment, Barack Obama felt like a transformative president, that was somebody who was going to change and alter the course of the country? And he did in many spending-related ways. But at the end of the day, it feels in this moment like his presidency never existed. And I think to kind of see him talking on with a late-night talk show host, it just, it feels just like a celebration of irrelevance.
COLLINS: I mean, well, speaking of weird settings, I don't know if you guys saw what happened in the Oval Office today, but the President was surrounded by UFC fighters. Because obviously, they're hosting a UFC fight at the White House, in about six weeks from now.
They were in the Oval Office. He got a special title belt. He was showing reporters here, apparently, what this is expected to look like on the South Lawn. These mockings -- mock renderings of what this is going to look like for this fight, celebrating America's 250th birthday.
Did you ever think you'd see that? MEIJER: OK, we should do pay-per-view. It should go to pay down the national debt. We can fully take care of a lot of expenditures through this. But no--
COLLINS: You should pitch that.
MEIJER: Are you not entertained, Kaitlan?
COLLINS: You should pitch that. Well, entertain is one word for it. I mean, what word would you use?
JONES: You know, I -- I would use a lot of colorful language.
Look, one thing I'll agree with my former colleague on is it can, at times, feel like the presidency of Barack Obama never existed, because we have come so far in terms of the degradation of the Oval Office, like what we just saw in the clip you just showed, that it can feel like we -- how could it be that a country is now in this situation that just, I don't know, was it eight years ago, had a President of the United States who had been elected on bringing people together. That was -- that was about -- that was Barack Obama's candidacy in 2008 and 2012, and it's what inspire people, Republicans and Democrats alike.
COLLINS: Yes. We'll see how the fight goes. I'm not sure if it's going to go to the national debt, but that's a nice idea.
Mondaire Jones. Peter Meijer. Great to have you both here tonight.
JONES: Thank you.
COLLINS: Up next for us here. We have breaking news on the cruise ship stricken with Hantavirus. Health officials in Georgia say, they're monitoring two passengers who just got back home.
[21:55:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Tonight, Georgia Health officials say they're monitoring two people who just recently returned home from the cruise ship at the center of a Hantavirus outbreak. Officials say, they aren't showing any signs of infection, and that they are following CDC recommendations, after potentially being exposed to an outbreak that killed three people on board and has alarmed global health officials.
CNN's Will Ripley has the latest.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Off the coast of West Africa, a cruise ship under quarantine.
Three more passengers medically evacuated, all tied to a deadly outbreak of Hantavirus, a rare, typically rodent-borne disease, with no specific treatment or cure. The open decks of the MV Hondius, deserted. Dining rooms, empty. Passengers told to stay in their cabins.
JAKE ROSMARIN, BOSTON PHOTOGRAPHER: Hi, I'm Jake, and I'm spending the next 35 days crossing the Atlantic, visiting some of the most remote islands in the world.
RIPLEY (voice-over): This is how the journey began for Jake Rosmarin, a Boston photographer, one of around a 150 people on board.
ROSMARIN: People with families, with lives, with people waiting for us at home.
RIPLEY (voice-over): Health officials are now retracing the ship's route, trying to figure out where and when passengers became infected.
Their 35-day expedition began from the edge of Antarctica, visiting some of the most remote islands in the South Atlantic.
MARIA VAN KERKHOVE, WHO DIRECTOR FOR EPIDEMIC AND PANDEMIC PREPAREDNESS: On those islands, there are birds. Some islands have a lot of rodents. Others don't.
RIPLEY (voice-over): Hantavirus is usually picked up by breathing in particles from rodent droppings or urine. Symptoms often start like the flu, but can quickly cause severe breathing problems, organ failure, and death. The incubation period? One to eight weeks. Lab tests have yet to confirm it, but investigators think this may be a rare South American strain that sometimes spreads, not just from rodents, but between people.
VAN KERKHOVE: Among the really close contacts, the husband and wife, people who have shared cabins, et cetera.
RIPLEY (voice-over): This small boat medically evacuated a handful of infected passengers. Investigators say the outbreak began in early April. The first victim, a Dutch passenger, died on board April 11th. His wife died around two weeks later in a hospital in South Africa. A third passenger, a German national, died on board on May 2nd. A British passenger remains in intensive care.
Everyone else stuck on board, undergoing medical checks, a situation Kent and Rebecca Frasure know all too well.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We don't know how long you will have to stay in hospital.
RIPLEY (voice-over): I met them back in 2020. They were quarantined on the Diamond Princess cruise ship off Japan.
RIPLEY (on camera): What's the hardest part?
REBECCA FRASURE, DIAMOND PRINCESS PASSENGER: I'd say, the unknown.
RIPLEY (voice-over): Rebecca, one of the first Americans to test positive for COVID. RIPLEY (on camera): There she is. She's standing in the window right now. Rebecca. Here we are. Hi.
RIPLEY (voice-over): She spent weeks in a Tokyo hospital. Kent was quarantined in their cabin.
RIPLEY (on camera): What would be your advice for passengers stuck on this ship right now?
KENT FRASURE, DIAMOND PRINCESS PASSENGER: If you -- if you start thinking about what's happening around you, it is so difficult to stay away from a mindset where you're getting depressed and just like really fearful what's going to happen. You have to try to stay as upbeat as you can.
RIPLEY (voice-over): They know how difficult staying upbeat can be. For everyone on the MV Hondius facing fear and uncertainty on a floating quarantine zone.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: Thank you to Will Ripley for that report.
And thank you so much for joining us tonight.
"CNN NEWSNIGHT WITH ABBY PHILLIP" starts now.
[22:00:00]
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST, CNN NEWSNIGHT WITH ABBY PHILLIP: Tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: It's very possible that we'll make a deal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: But is the potential deal to end the war with Iran the same or worse than Barack Obama's--
