The Don Lemon Show
HOT TOPICS | Bill Clinton To Testify In Jeffrey Epstein Investigation!
27 Feb 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Don Lemon Show. Hot topics, as a matter of fact. 10 a.m. Eastern Time, right here on the Don Lemon Show on the Don Lemon Channel. First order of business, as you know. Thank you very much. Someone just said, 120 Life works.
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Um, we live in a crazy world, an upside down world. It's crazy.
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Chapter 2: What is the latest news about Bill Clinton's testimony in the Epstein investigation?
But as we get ready to talk about this Paramount deal, again, I want to show you this live shot that is happening in New York just real quickly in Chappaqua, because I know both of your platforms will be writing about this as well. This is a stunning development, Ben. It's kind of unheard of that this is happening.
I think Bill Clinton should be answering questions about this, but I'm not sure if these are the right people.
I mean, it's a real throwback, right? Bill Clinton being hauled in front of a congressional committee. This is like, it's the 90s all over again. And actually, in some ways, a reminder of it. Yeah, that... you know, house investigations going after presidents on both sane and crazy grounds are like genuinely not a new development in American politics and American life.
The Clintons, you know, went through lots of this stuff in the 90s, some of it serious, some of it nutty. Yeah, and I think, you know, this is the consequence of the release of the Epstein files. They're just kind of spreading like an oil slick and anybody who's in them is getting, you know, is getting sucked in.
Yeah. You'll be writing on it, Colby. As I watched yesterday, I was stunned by the level of immaturity that happened on the Republican side. I have to be honest, especially with Lauren Bulbert, but also a pretty, it's not stunning, but I was impressed with the seriousness and the calmness of Hillary Clinton after when she came out to speak about what happened.
She's a pro. She's a seasoned veteran. Let's not forget that she sat for, what, 11 hours in that Benghazi. Remember Benghazi? That was the smoking gun. She and Bill Clinton are very, very good at, largely through a lot of experience of having been grilled about stuff. I think a lot of people believe that, look, if any of these people were...
you know, not just smeared, but legitimately part of this terrible sort of pedophile ring, then they should be held accountable. But I think this could ultimately backfire for the House GOP because they're setting a precedent that could easily come back to haunt them. And you're already seeing that
if they are willing to sort of have the Clintons in this sort of setting, people are asking, what about Howard Letnick, right? And so that opens the door. It opens the door for ongoing conversation.
What about Donald Trump?
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Chapter 3: How has the Epstein case affected public perception of powerful figures?
He left CNN as the top. Since I left?
I'm kidding.
And since when Don Lemon, it all went to, when you guys, when you left, it all went to crap. And that's not, I mean, that's kind of a joke, but it's also largely true.
It's also true.
You know, when Mark Thompson came in to replace Chris Licht, he stabled the sort of listing ship. But when he decided to keep the top lieutenants, the Amy Antelis, the Virginia Mosley, the Eric Sherling, you know, it was clear that he wasn't going to make any wholesale changes.
And as a result, the network has been still sort of more bound into this like sort of inside the beltway kind of Upper West Side salon sort of, It's like cable news version of The New Yorker, which doesn't really rate. It gets good advertising. So I don't know that, I guess my point was a lot of things can be true at once.
It's terrible and authoritarian, what appears that Trump did by putting his thumb on the scale to make this happen. Do I expect CNN to suddenly turn super hard right? No, that just would belies any logic. I think a lot of talent there are concerned and maybe panicking. I think most of them are fine.
But the network needs a fresh set of ideas because it's not really working in its current iteration. And its digital strategy, getting people to pay a subscription fee for something that they're not willing to watch for free on their set-top box isn't necessarily working. So my column was mostly a reaction to the hand-wringing by a lot of the chattering class.
Yeah, let's see. There's some folks arriving. I'm not sure exactly who, if they're worth, but folks are arriving. It looks like folks who will be taking part in this in Chappaqua. Again, we're going to keep an eye on that. I want to bring in Max Taney, though. Max Taney is an editor over at Semaphore as well. Hey, Max. Good morning. Thank you. Welcome to the program.
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Chapter 4: What does Bill Clinton's involvement in the Epstein investigation mean for accountability?
That's, that's a pretty strong statement, Ben.
No, it's just, I mean, they're in the cable business and you're, you know, and the rest of us these days are in the internet business, which by the way is cursed too and has its own problems. But, you know, CNN had this incredible run of receiving cable affiliate fees where you're paid X dollars per cable subscriber and there are fewer and fewer cable subscribers every year.
And so that number, which I think this is a Warner overall number, but if it's like 700 million one year, it's 650 million the next. And that's nice money to have, $700 million. $650 million is still nice money to have, but the line is just going steadily down and down and down. And so they're just built on this cost structure that doesn't extend into the future.
And that's totally separate from these questions around tinkering around the edges of ideology. And in fact, like this basic CBS News story is that David Ellison wants to make movies, wants to own Warner, you know, is probably a little Trumpier than his predecessor, but also just wants to get this deal done.
And if CBS News is the minor sacrifice that you can throw the president, CBS News and something Trump really cares about, which is a great Max Taney scoop producing Rush Hour 4. Those are the two things the president really cares about. You know what? Like if that's what you got to give him to go and own the Harry Potter franchise, like that's kind of that's the broad outline of the deal.
It's interesting because I've just put this up. Someone says I am canceling subs as we speak because of these purchases. Max, you think that's going to happen a lot? Do you think that's a real thing? I mean, look what happened after Jimmy Kimmel.
Yeah, I think that more and more what we've seen is when it comes to subscriptions, a lot of times this stuff is really tied to people's personal beliefs and people's personal politics. I mean, we've seen this happen in the kind of positive way, right? Like you've experienced this to a certain degree, Don, when you saw you were charged by the federal government.
Basically, you saw your subscriptions rise. We've seen that.
uh and then we've seen the opposite of that right with the washington post when they decided that they didn't want to endorse kamala harris they lost a tremendous number of subscriptions i think that we've seen the reasons why people subscribe to things are either because they're getting some sort of value some sort of value that they need right in that moment i need to watch the white lotus because everyone is talking about it or that they want to support uh in some way uh and that's kind of those are the two reasons why i feel like most people subscribe to things
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of Paramount acquiring Warner Bros.?
Why don't we talk about the Knicks for just a second?
No, no, you're here. I think Ben, what happened to Ben? There he is. Fixing my lighting here. That's all that I'm doing. I didn't want people to see me on, you know. standing up to close the curtains. But go on. What were you saying, Max?
No, I was just I was just saying that I think that one of the big beneficiaries, you know, of a potential CBS, CNN merger, tie up, whatever that they're going to do and move to the right is Versant and MS Now, which has struggled in some ways. But I think that, you know, it it it
It allows that to basically be kind of firmly on the left and in, you know, kind of presenting an alternative to some of these other television news outlets that are moving to the right. I think that I think that it's a pretty good day maybe to be Rebecca Cutler and Mark Lazarus. I don't know. Do you guys agree with that or am I?
No. I will tell you this, and I was speaking to, I don't think that she would mind. Hold on one second, Colby. I don't think that she would mind. I was speaking to Kara Swisher, who voiced via text last night, voiced a very similar sentiment as you are saying, Max, and Kara is sort of in on these things.
And I have to tell you, look, I'm not, I don't really watch that much cable anymore, but I find if I'm going to, I'm watching MSNOW. That's where I'm going to for information. And usually that place would have been CNN. And, you know, for entertainment purposes, I would turn on Fox News just to laugh. But, I mean, now I find myself going to MSNOW and saying, you know what?
You know, considering the times that we're in right now, they're doing the best job of all of them. And if I do need something from cable news, I turn to them. So point taken.
Well, I think it's interesting to look at how all like the three major cable news networks. And, you know, if you want to include News Nation, News Nation is clearly pivoted hard right. and only to appeal to Trump to try to get this sort of, you know, next star acquisition of tenure through, which is, you know, pretty shameless, but it's irrelevant. No one really watches that network.
You know, MS now has become a little bit less hyperventilating. They've become, you know, under Rebecca Cutler, like from 2024 to 2025, they're a lot more sort of like, I don't know, dispassionate and calmer about how they cover politics, clearly with a, left of center bet.
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Chapter 6: How does media consolidation affect the future of news?
Today, we hope to be able to do as we did yesterday and continue to bring some of the most powerful people in the world in to answer questions. Again, no one's accusing anyone of any wrongdoing, but I think the American people have a lot of questions and our House Oversight Committee is committed to getting answers. We're committed to transparency.
We've already seen a lot of very powerful people who have been held accountable by having to resign in disgrace from various boards all over the world. We're going to continue to seek the truth, try to figure out how the government failed the victims, and try to hopefully hold more people accountable. That's what the purpose of this investigation is. I will say this, it's very difficult
to get people in for these depositions of great power and great wealth. And I used yesterday and today as an example, it took seven months, seven months to get the Clintons in here. But we've got them in here and we look forward to answering, to asking lots of questions that I think any curious media outlet in America would have. Yesterday, Ms. Clinton deferred a lot of questions
to her husband today. There were at least a dozen times when she said, you'll have to ask my husband that. I can't answer that. So we already had a big portfolio of questions for him, and that increased yesterday. So we look forward to that. We'll be happy to answer a couple of questions.
Chad. Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Explain to us specifically what you need to hear from President Clinton today.
Well, I think everyone's seen there are a lot of photos that have been released by the Department of Justice as well as the Epstein estate. There are a lot of email correspondence that included President Clinton. We know President Clinton had and Secretary Clinton confirmed this yesterday. Jeffrey Epstein was in the White House 17 times while Bill Clinton was president.
We know that Bill Clinton flew on Jeffrey Epstein's plane at least 27 times. So those are questions that we're going to ask. Everything that most media outlets have reported with respect to pictures and correspondence between Epstein, Maxwell, and Bill Clinton, these are all questions that we're going to ask today.
Yesterday you both told me that you were planning on asking about an email that Howard Lutnick sent to Jeffrey Epstein, I presume about a Hillary Clinton fundraiser. I think that was the one. If he's worth asking about, is he not worth asking in to talk about what he might
Yeah, and I think it'll be interesting when we hopefully get that video out later today or tomorrow as quick as we can get it out. I think it'll be interesting what Hillary Clinton said about Howard Lutnick. And how she said it. And how she said it. I think that was Ms. Mace with the line of questioning. So there was a pretty thorough line of questioning yesterday between Ms. Mace and Ms.
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Chapter 7: What are the reactions to CNN's potential shift in editorial direction?
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Obviously, we've heard from Secretary Clinton after her deposition. She described the session as repetitive. She said it veered off topics about things like UFOs, explain why those topics were brought up also
And she also said there were substantive questions yesterday, too. But one reason there were repetitive questions about Epstein is because we went through every email and every correspondence that implied Hillary Clinton and Jeffrey Epstein communicated often. You all have seen the email where he said that she looks better in person and all of that. Those were questions we asked. So every every.
item of evidence that would suggest Hillary Clinton and Jeffrey Epstein had a close relationship, we went and asked about that. So it may have seemed repetitive because there was a lot of documentation that would suggest that she had a relationship with Epstein. Go ahead.
To be clear, Secretary Clinton actually asked about the NDAA. Sorry.
Go ahead. To be clear, Secretary Clinton actually asked us about what happened with the disclosure language in the NDAA. So I mean, I know she's trying to pivot from the fact that she's here and she had a very close relationship regarding the Clinton Foundation and Epstein and Maxwell.
But the point is, and I think I'd like to hit on this with probably Miss Mace here, but I think we have a very important interest in
curiosity about what specifically the co-conspirators had a role in all this, right? We know for a fact that some of these were women.
And I think that today, at least with my line of questioning, you know, I'm curious about that. Why is it that these women were given plea deals as adults for trafficking minors? How much of that did they witness, et cetera? And so, you know, I don't know that Secretary Clinton was all that honest about the context of this investigation. We asked extensively about intelligence ties.
whether or not she felt that she was targeted as a result of possibly an intelligence gathering operation. And she was very curiously interested in that. And then also, you'll hear it in the response, but had told us to follow up with a few countries, one of which is our ally. So that's interesting.
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Chapter 8: How do the panelists view the seriousness of the congressional investigation?
Good morning, Congresswoman Yasemin Ansari from Arizona's third district. I am grateful that we are here day two of these depositions with Secretary Clinton and President Bill Clinton. We've always said we will take answers from anyone and nobody is above congressional oversight. But let's be absolutely honest about something. If the Republicans want to be serious about this investigation,
and getting to the truth and accountability for perpetrators, then we have to look to the most powerful person in the United States and the world, which is President Donald Trump. He is mentioned in the Epstein files more than almost anyone. And just this week, incredibly damning,
Reporting came out to say that there were credible allegations from a woman who said that she was abused by Donald Trump when she was a minor. The FBI investigated this and interviewed this individual multiple times. You do not do that if it is not serious. Further, we need to investigate the ongoing White House cover up. We know that the Department of Justice has been withholding files.
They have been making illegal redactions. The FBI and Kash Patel have been lying under oath. All of these people need to be deposed before this committee. We need to take this investigation seriously. There are more than 1,000 people who were harmed by Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and many other rich and powerful people, children whose lives were literally altered
forever at the hands of this abuse. This is very serious. And I think the fact that some of the Republicans on the Oversight Committee feel that it is appropriate to make statements to say that President Trump is somehow exonerated. Congresswoman Ana Paulina Luna said this last night. That is the most outrageous thing that I have ever heard.
Donald Trump needs to come before this committee and we will not stop fighting until we get the truth and there's accountability and justice for the survivors.
I'm Ro Khanna from California. I want to echo what all my colleagues said. A new precedent has been set in America today. Before this, we had the Trump rule. Trump defied, as all of you know, a congressional subpoena with the January 6th committee. He said presidents don't have to testify.
Now we have the Clinton rule, which is that presidents and their families have to testify when Congress issues a subpoena. And that means that Donald Trump needs to come before our committee and explain what he knew about Epstein and explain why we have not had a full release of the documents. We also need other people, part of the Epstein class, to come before this committee.
If President Clinton can answer questions, many others need to as well. I was pleased to see Congresswoman Nancy Mace today calling for Howard Lutnick to come before our committee. I believe we will have the votes to subpoena him, and we will work with Ranking Member Garcia to make sure that he comes before our committee next. A couple questions. Go ahead.
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