Reps. Thomas Massie & Ro Khanna, Director Kevin Hassett

0:00I'm Margaret Brennan in Washington and this week on face the nation the long awaited release of the Epstein files and will that good news about inflation improve America's views about President Trump's handling of the economy. President Trump is wrapping up the year with a tighter focus on the economy and affordability, both in the Oval Office and on the midterms campaign trail, boasting of his 2025 accomplishments. This is a far better term than it would have been had I done it the more traditional way. It really is. It's a more powerful term. It's a more powerful term. And the biggest news of all is yesterday, it was announced that inflation is far lower than anybody expected.

0:43I told you. That's an exaggerated claim, but any sign of prices going lower is good news for Americans. Our new CBS poll shows that half the country says Trump's policies are making them financially worse off. We'll ask White House Chief Economic Advisor Kevin Hassett about that and more. Plus, a bipartisan conversation with the two members of Congress who pushed to pass the law calling for the Epstein files to be made public. Has the Trump administration obeyed that law? We'll talk with Kentucky Republican Thomas Massey and California Democrat Ro Khanna. Finally, we'll talk with the head of UNICEF, Catherine Russell, about the children of Sudan and Gaza.

1:23It's all just ahead on Face the Nation.

1:41Good morning and welcome to Face the Nation. So far, there have been few surprises in the tens of thousands of documents related to the case against convicted sex offender and accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his partner, convicted child sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell. The Justice Department says that 1 ,200 names identified as victims or their relatives were redacted, along with materials that could result in their identification. Will the release of the documents satisfy Congress and the political forces who lobbied for their disclosure? And much more importantly, will it satisfy the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and their families?

2:22The two House members who push their colleagues into passing the bill to release these documents, Republican Thomas Massey, who's in Garrison, Kentucky, and Democrat Ro Khanna, who joins us this morning from Palo Alto, California. It's good to have both of you here. I want to start with you, Congressman Massey, because in these past 48 hours, we have seen the Justice Department acknowledge it's an incomplete release, but they have put out more than 13 ,000 files. They say more will come. This isn't everything you asked for just yet, but would you acknowledge that they are complying with the spirit, if not the intent of your law?

3:01No, they're flouting the spirit and the letter of the law. It's very troubling the posture that they've taken. And I won't be satisfied until the survivors are satisfied. You know, I said in the hours leading up to this release that we will know if they are complying, if they implicate any of the other criminals that are involved and the suspects that are involved, that the witnesses, the victims themselves have given to the FBI and they've never been mentioned. Well, there are some disclosures in here that seem new, Congressman Kanna. The documents confirm that the FBI received a complaint about Jeffrey Epstein back in 1996, but the woman, whose name is Maria Farmer, who made that complaint, said federal officials failed to follow up.

3:49She said the disclosure makes her feel redeemed and that this was one of the best days of her life to see these documents made public. What action do you want taken around a case like this? that was the single most important disclosure of what we got i know maria's sister she sounded the alarm in 1996 she complained to the fbi the problem is that epstein was so connected with law enforcement and powerful politicians the fbi did nothing for a decade frankly she deserves compensation she deserves an explanation but the broader point is blanche was on this morning saying then Massey and I have a problem that it's taking too long.

4:29That's not the problem. The problem is this was a slap in the face of survivors. What do they want? They want to know who are the rich and powerful men who visited Epstein's rape island and covered up the abuse. And the key documents that our law basically said needed to be released, the 60-count indictment that actually implicates a lot of these people and the prosecution memo were not released. It's not about the timeline. It's about the selective concealment. Well, yet. Right. The deputy attorney general said there are more disclosures that will be made. You believe that they will not release that particular part?

5:06I mean, you did give them some leeway for redactions. Well, first of all, the redactions were excessive. And even Harvard law professionals who have looked at that have said you can't redact internal communications. You can't redact workforce product. And the courts are going to find that these were excessive. But my point, and I'm sure Congressman Massey can elaborate, is that we want the files out. So if if if are sounding the alarm on what is missing is going to help them get those files out, fine. But this shouldn't be a big document. There's a pretty simple point. Who raped these young girls?

5:43Who covered it up? And why are they getting away with it? So you're saying specific things regarding the indictment. Congressman Massey, I saw in a video that you posted, you had a very specific benchmark of success here. You said, you know, there are at least 20 men accused of sex crimes known to the FBI. How do you know that number? And do you know those names? Yeah, the survivors lawyers have told me those numbers and they've described their professions in general. But they've only given me one of those names. And I mentioned that in a congressional hearing just daily. So I searched these documents.

6:19I didn't see Jess Staley's name, nor did I see 19 other names. And here's why we shouldn't be optimistic that Blanche or Bondi are going to release these things. They sent a six-page memo to Congress and said they cited pre-existing laws as reasons that they weren't going to follow our law. For instance, our law requires them to release information regardless of embarrassment. But they are trying to say that a previous law prevails when it doesn't. Common sense says it doesn't. The Privacy Act doesn't protect them from that. And then also, as Rose said, internal communications, those they're using a FOIA standard that doesn't apply because our law already says they have to give us internal communications.

7:00In terms of the gentleman there you referenced as accused, I mean, being in the document doesn't necessarily prove criminal behavior, right? And in terms of the redactions, what the deputy attorney general said is that they were abiding by your law and also a judge in New York had ordered them to listen to victims. So they're claiming that information that they had initially even published Friday, they had to pull down because they were trying to protect victims. You don't sound convinced that they are abiding by this intent. No, they are not abiding. And all three judges who released the grand jury material said that our law trumps the prior law.

7:48That's just common sense, law school 101. Yet Todd Blanche is using a different theory that wouldn't survive first contact with any court, which is he's trying to say that prior laws override our law. That's not the way this works. OK, what are you going to do about it to force them to comply? I mean, can you do anything? Oh, absolutely. Look, people have talked about, and by the way, Todd Blanche is the face of this, but it's really the attorney general's office, Pam Bondi, who is responsible. And there are several ways to get at this. Some take longer, some are shorter. The quickest way, and I think most expeditious way to get justice for these victims is to bring inherent contempt against Pam Bondi and that doesn't require going through the courts and give her you and basically Ro Khanna and I are talking about and drafting that right now.

8:44Okay well I mean on another network this morning Democratic Senator Tim Kaine said impeachment or contempt it is premature Congressman Khanna and the Deputy Attorney General said bring it on. They don't seem to be taking this very seriously and if you just don't have the math in the Senate including at least now, this Democratic senator not being convinced, doesn't that sort of show that you're at the limit of pressure? No, we only need the House for inherent contempt, and we're building a bipartisan coalition, and it would fine Pam Bondi for every day that she's not releasing these documents.

9:21I'll tell you why I've talked to the survivors, why this is such a slap in the face. One of the survivors said they released her name accidentally, but they still have not released the FBI file about the people who abused her at her request. And the problem here is that there are rich and powerful people. We all know this. There are 1 ,200 victims. There are rich and powerful people who either engaged in this abuse, covered it up, or were on this island. And what the American people want to know is who are these people? And instead of holding them accountable, Pam Bondi is breaking the law. And this is the corrupt system, the Epstein class, that people are sick of.

9:56So I believe we're going to get bipartisan support in holding her accountable and a committee of Congress should determine whether these redactions are justified or not. Sometime in January when you all come back, I assume that that'll happen. I want to ask you, though, Congressman Kanna, there have been images released in the past 48 hours. Some of them include former President Bill Clinton. There's at least one image of Donald Trump. I should say neither man has been accused of any wrongdoing related to Epstein, though they clearly knew him. But since Friday's publication, we're showing the image here now, one of the pictures was pulled down.

10:36There were 15 images total that were then redacted from the DOJ website. And it's kind of hard to see, but it's an open drawer with a photo of President Trump.

10:49Why do you think that was pulled down? Because the deputy attorney general says this was victims saying that their privacy or somehow their integrity was being compromised by having that image published. Well, I'm less concerned about that photo. I don't know the facts. My concern is the major documents that we know are out there that haven't been released. The 60 count endowment that shows massive financial fraud and foreign interference, the prosecution memo. And look, they put out these Bill Clinton pictures. Well, they're allegations that they're foreign governments that potentially were involved.

11:29And that all needs to come out. And it needs to come out in the indictments. It needs to come out in the prosecution memos. But the reality is they put out these pictures from Bill Clinton. Fine, put it all out, but don't distract from the fundamental issue, which is who are these powerful people who visited the rape island? I mean, there are 1 ,200 victims. It defies common sense. that it was just Epstein and Maxwell, and they're hiding something. And you know why the American people are so upset? My ex-account had MAGA supporters supporting me for the first time, saying, you know, Pam Bondi whiffed, according to Susan Wilds.

12:01She is breaking the law. She needs to be held accountable. You're referring to the Vanity Fair quote that the chief of staff gave, saying the whiffed, and she said that Pam Bondi gave them binders full of nothingness, and then when it came to the client list, she said it was on her desk. There is no client list quote, and it sure as hell wasn't on her desk. Do you see that as an acknowledgement here, though, that that the politics have overtaken the substance? No, for us, it's about the survivors. And if you look at Thomas Massey in my comments the morning of the release, we were giving Blanche the benefit of the doubt.

12:38We said, if it's not all there, fine, just get the information out. It's when the survivors said that this is an insult. This is a slap in their face. that we aren't getting the truth about who these men were on Rape Island, that we started sounding the alarm. And this is more documents of nothingness. And I guess the question the American people have, even to me, is, is the system so corrupt? Is the system so corrupt that Thomas Massey and you defy the odds, pass a bill through a discharge petition, get the Senate, get the president to sign it, and still these rich and powerful people are being protected?

13:13Who has this kind of hold on our government? What are they hiding? Why are they not releasing this? Well, you want what people involved in those initial investigations down in Florida reexamined and possibly prosecuted? I want the information out, which was in that prosecution memo that Acosta disregarded that were in those indictments, that there were 60 counts against Epstein. Only two counts were prosecuted. I want to know who were these other people who were on the Epstein's rape island? Who were the people who saw young girls being paraded around at parties, 13, 14, 15 year olds and didn't say anything?

13:53And why why is it so hard when there's a law requiring these names to come out? What we're seeing is survivors names come out, but not the men who abused them. And instead of instead of holding elites accountable, Pam Bondi is breaking the law. Well, we will see when you gentlemen come back to work sometime in January what your next measures are. It sounds like you've made it clear you're moving action against the attorney general. Thank you both for your reaction today. Face the Nation will be back in a minute. Stay with us. We always recommend Shopify. It took us from an idea to a real business.

14:28We got set up, I think, in less than a day with very little effort. We could just focus on the supply chains and the product development. Shopify gives us the ability to customize without the complexity. We can change something without introducing fragility or having to pay a developer. We're Thirsty Turtle, and we leveled up our business with Shopify. Start your free trial at shopify.com slash au. We turn now to the economy and our executive director of elections and surveys, Anthony Salvato. Good morning. Good to have you here. Good morning. So the president was speaking throughout the past week about the economy, even in this Oval Office address.

15:10He's trying to reframe public perception of what's going on. We know sentiment has been low for years now. Do people really expect that a president can fix everything in the first year? So let me start with that big context because it's so important. Yes, all through 2025, people have said they thought the economy was bad. When you talk about going back years, this goes back to before the pandemic was the last time that a majority of Americans said the economy was good. So we are in this long and a lot of people think the structural change that the economy has gone through. Things got more expensive coming out of the pandemic and people still are trying to adjust to those higher costs.

15:48That's what underpins all those sentiments. Now, the political part of this is coming into 2025, more people did think that Donald Trump would fix it. The expectations were high. We measured that back in January. Right now, you have this less than one in five that feel like his policies have made them financially better off. And even when you ask people then to look ahead to 2026, it's a little bit better, but it's not overwhelming that people think his policies will make them better off. So there's this real disconnect there. And if you come back to the description of the economy, people right now, I ask them to just grade it and they give it a C, a D or even worse, which is different than a lot of the times the way the administration has described the economy.

16:33That sets up the fundamental challenge. I think you saw that this week for him in the in the address. So it's not a new tactic for a current president to blame the last one for all the problems of today. But we checked. And in that primetime address, the president said it was Biden's Biden's name, Biden's fault, about seven times. Does the public buy that? Well, when you pick up on what we just talked about, this long term trend, the president did inherit economy where people thought a majority of people thought it was bad. At the same time, right now, more people say the current economy is Donald Trump's responsibility.

17:11He's the one that's on his watch right now. Having said that, he had been declining on his handling of the economy throughout the year. That's leveled off now in recent weeks. And one thing you do find is, yes, there's this disconnect. People think he is describing it as better than it really is. maybe there's political credit to be gained by starting to address what people are feeling. So one thing we know is that health care costs for both private insurance users and government insurance users is going to be up. Congress is still debating what to do about the Obamacare Act. But how much public focus is there on this issue?

17:50So if you look at the most immediate part of that argument, a big majority thinks that Congress should extend those added subsidies. But in the wider context of this, when we ask people, how do you feel about trying to afford all these various aspects, these basics, cost of living, health care is one of the ones that stands out that a lot of people say they have trouble affording. And I think you're picking that up in the general sentiment of how people process health care, health insurance costs as well. It's a very important part, obviously, of people's budgets, but also one that they tell us that concerns them a whole lot.

18:25So one of the structural changes you sort of alluded to earlier is the change coming from artificial intelligence. You were looking at this. We've seen a lot of discussion about how it's reshaping things. Are Americans sort of digesting that? How do they understand it? Yeah, we've been following this all year because, right, it's driving stock market gains. There's a lot of investment in it as well. Right now, you see a lot of uncertainty from the public about it. On one hand, when I ask people, what parts of the economic sectors are you most or least optimistic about? Technology stands out as people being optimistic about it in general.

19:03But with regard to AI in particular, more people tell us they think it's going to decrease jobs than increase them. And a number of corporations forecasting a lot of spending on technology in the new year. What do all these dynamics mean politically for the midterm races in 2026? So let me start with the president, because one thing I asked heading into 2026, is there anything that the president could do to change your mind about it? And there are a substantial number of people that say yes. Perhaps not surprisingly, when I follow and ask, well, what would that be about? They say it's the economy.

19:36The reason that's important is in the dynamic here, a president is always key. He's not on the ballot, but he's always on people's minds in a midterm year. So that's the first thing to watch. But the other one, you know, if you're at your holiday gathering and people are arguing about what's going to happen, who's going to win, I think it's too far to know for certain. But at the same time, we can already see the conditions and the playing field that people will be fighting on. And that's clearly cost of living. It's clearly health care, among other things. And it's the race to define how people evaluate it.

20:08Anthony Salvato, thank you for this. Thank you. We'll be right back. We go now to the director of the White House National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett. Good morning to you. Good morning. We took you literally. You said last Sunday you'd come back and talk to us about that household survey, the jobs picture. You said you really trust it. That report came out. It showed America added 64 ,000 jobs with unemployment ticking up to 4.6 percent. But we've seen analysis, including from the top economist at U.S. Navy Federal, saying the U.S. is in a, quote, hiring recession. Very few jobs being added since the spring, and wage gains are slowing.

20:47Are we in a hiring recession? No, I don't think so. I think that basically the number was about what the market expected. It was a number that was less than 100, which is a little bit lower than you'd like. But then after that, we got the consumer price index numbers, which were really amazing. And so if you look at the three-month moving average of core consumer prices, then they're running at an annual rate of about 1.6%, way below the Fed's target. And my old friend all the way back to grad school, Austin Goolsbee, is now one of the Fed governors voting on interest rates, conceded that they should have cut rates faster and that he's going to do so in the future because of this inflation number.

21:28He was one of the dissenters when the Fed's decision came out. But when it comes to inflation, as you just referred to, that number showed there was still a rise in inflation. It was just at a slower pace than expected. If you pull out energy and pull out food, it rose at the slowest pace since 2021, up 2.6 percent in November from a year ago. But then there are quirks in here because it looks like the prices weren't gathered until Thanksgiving discounts kicked in. There was no increase reflected in terms of housing costs. Why do you trust the data now when you haven't in the past? Oh, you know, I think that you're right to always be suspicious about data.

22:10And it'll look a lot cleaner when we get a full survey, which we didn't have this time. But, you know, two of the three numbers, if we go back to the three month moving average, we're fine. And so I think that the error band around the 1.6 % inflation about that's the pace that's running is probably pretty tight. Surely there'll be some revisions, but I think the numbers are about right. And I usually, Margaret, don't like to go to year over year when we're talking about what's going on with inflation, because that includes a lot of high inflation Biden months in the back and fewer and fewer as we get further into the year.

22:46But I think that the trajectory right now is best seen by the three-month moving average. And that's below two, below the Fed target. So it means the Fed, as Austin Goolsbee said, has plenty of room to cut rates. But the president said inflation has stopped. You acknowledge that's an exaggeration. Well, I guess the inflation being above the target has stopped, for sure. And so, but inflation is not zero also. That's fair. Okay. He did not give those caveats. He just said inflation has stopped. Kevin Hassett, stay with us. I've got to take a quick break and I want to talk about the rest of what we've learned.

23:18We'll be right back with a lot more Face the Nation. White House advisor, economic advisor, Kevin Hassett is standing by and we'll hear from the new head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and also Catherine Russell, executive director of UNICEF. She's just back from Sudan. So stay with us. I'm Emma Greed, host of Aspire with Emma Greed, a podcast where I sit down with people who don't just dream big, they build big. From culture-shaping voices like Mel Robbins to leaders redefining success like Tracee Ellis-Ross to game-changing entrepreneurs like Mark Cuban, Aspire is about mindset, ambition, and doing the work that actually moves the needle.

23:55If you're ready to raise your standards and take charge about the life and career you're building, Aspire is where you start. Follow and listen to Aspire with me, Emma Greed, and Odyssey Podcast available wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to Face the Nation. And we continue our conversation now with the Director of the White House National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett. This past week, we saw the president announce further changes to immigration policy. He halted diversity visas. There are now 39 countries on this travel ban or restricted list. This is in addition to all the deportations and revocations of asylum.

24:29The business community has made clear that the constant changes make it hard for them to plan, particularly in the small business category. They're concerned about a labor shortage. And we've seen the U.S. workforce lose more than one million foreign-born workers in the past year. Are you hearing those concerns from the business community? Actually, it's the opposite. So in the sense that native-born workers are up more than two million. And so what we've seen is that as foreign-born workers, and a lot of them, don't forget, were illegal immigrants that have been deported that when foreign-born workers depart then it creates jobs for people who are native-born the interesting thing too which I'd like to remind everybody is that native-born Americans aren't necessarily racially distinct at all and so the majority of the native born jobs that have been created over the last year are Hispanic Americans it's it's you know just basically taking folks that are legally in the country and getting the jobs to them is what we see in the data.