Trump would fire Howard Lutnick if he saw video of his Epstein testimony, say House oversight committee
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2026/may/06/donald-trump-iran-howard-lutnick-jeffrey-epstein-midterms-redistricting-latest-news-updates
Ro Khanna criticizes commerce secretary after closed-door interview about ties to Jeffrey Epstein as Democrats call performance ‘embarrassing’
Wed 6 May 2026 15.58 EDT
Trump would 'fire' Howard Lutnick if he saw video of testimony, say oversight Democrats
Following closed-door testimony from Howard Lutnick before the House oversight committee on his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, Democrats called the commerce secretary’s performance “embarrassing”.
“If Donald Trump had seen the video transcript, he would have fired Howard Lutnick,” said congressman Ro Khanna, a progressive Democrat from California.
Lawmakers pointed to alleged inconsistencies between Lutnick’s previous comments on podcasts that he stopped associating with the late sex offender after 2005.
The justice department’s release of case files showed that Lutnick had two engagements with Epstein years past that. He attended a 2011 event at Epstein’s home. And Lutnick’s family had lunch with Epstein on his private island in 2012 – four years after Epstein was sentenced to 13 months in jail for procuring a minor for prostitution.
Lutnick admitted to the 2012 lunch during his 10 February testimony before the Senate appropriations committee. “I did have lunch with him, as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation,” Lutnick said. In that testimony, Lutnick also insisted that he “barely had anything to do” with Epstein.
According to Suhas Subramanyam, a Democratic representative of Virginia, the commerce secretary said “he could remember nothing about the visit to the island. Couldn’t remember why he was there. Couldn’t remember anything he saw.”
Oversight Democrats also said that Lutnick did not answer their questions about whether he spoke with Donald Trump ahead of giving testimony before the panel today.
“I feel very comfortable saying that Howard Lutnick is a pathological liar who is enabling the most egregious cover-up in American history,” congresswoman Yassamin Ansari told reporters, while noting that the commerce secretary told lawmakers it was “inexplicable” that he visited Epstein’s private island. Lutnick described his encounters with Epstein as “meaningless and inconsequential,” Ansari added.
- Here's a recap of the day so far
- Trump says Iran wants to make a deal 'very badly' and has agreed to not have a nuclear weapon
- FBI searches office of Virginia state senator who played key role in redistricting fight – reports
- Trump would 'fire' Howard Lutnick if he saw video of testimony, say oversight Democrats
- GOP House oversight chair says Lutnick ‘wasn’t 100% truthful’ about Epstein ties as commerce secretary faces grilling
- FBI investigating leaks to journalist who wrote about Kash Patel's drinking and behavior - report
- Trump praises Ted Turner and lambasts CNN: 'It became woke'
- Michigan Democrat wins state senate special election
- CNN founder and media mogul Ted Turner dies aged 87
- Indiana results show that Trump holds 'unwavering allegiance' of his base, says former Obama advisor
- Former presidential candidate Ramaswamy wins Republican nomination to run for Ohio governor
- Commerce chief Howard Lutnick to face Epstein grilling in closed-door interview today
Here's a recap of the day so far
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Following closed-door testimony from Howard Lutnick before the House oversight committee on his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, Democrats called the commerce secretary’s performance “embarrassing”. “If Donald Trump had seen the video transcript, he would have fired Howard Lutnick,” said congressman Ro Khanna, a progressive Democrat from California. Lawmakers also pointed to alleged inconsistencies between Lutnick’s previous comments on podcasts that he stopped associating with the late sex offender after 2005, despite justice department files that show Lutnick had two engagements with Epstein years past that.
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Earlier, James Comer, the Republican chair of oversight committee, told reporters that Lutnick had, in the past, not been “100% truthful” about whether he had ever visited Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous private island. After the closed-door testimony Comer said that commerce secretary has been “very forthcoming” with his “three” interactions with Jeffrey Epstein over the course of a decade.
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Ted Turner, the founder of television news network CNN, has died at the age of 87. The cause of death was not immediately released, but Turner had revealed that he was suffering from Lewy body dementia, a progressive brain disorder, in 2018. Turner became one of the most powerful figures in US media and entertainment, after he launched CNN as the first 24-hour news channel in 1980.
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The FBI has launched a “criminal leak investigation” focused on Atlantic journalist Sarah Fitzpatrick, who wrote a detailed story last month about government officials’ alarm over the bureau’s director Kash Patel’s alleged “bouts of excessive drinking” and “unexplained absences”, two people familiar have told MS NOW. The move is highly unusual, given that leak investigations are usually focused on government officials – not journalists – who may have disclosed state secrets or classified information.
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In the Oval Office, Donald Trump said that Iran now wants to make a deal “very badly”. He added that the situation had changed quickly. “A few days ago. It’s a long time ago in the world of war,” Trump said. He also repeated his claims that the regime’s military capabilities have been decimated, but also added that Iran has agreed to not have a nuclear weapon moving forward.
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The FBI raided the office of Louise Lucas, a Virginia state senator who played a key role in the recent fight to redraw the state’s congressional maps, according to several reports. In a statement to the Guardian, the FBI only said that it was executing a “court-authorized federal search warrant” in the city which sits next to Norfolk. They added that this is an ongoing investigation with no further information publicly available at this time.
Trump says Iran wants to make a deal 'very badly' and has agreed to not have a nuclear weapon
In the Oval Office, Donald Trump – flanked by Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fighters ahead of a 14 June fight at the White House – said that Iran now wants to make a deal “very badly”.
“A few days ago. It’s a long time ago in the world of war,” Trump said when asked about why this moment is different. He repeated his claims that the regime’s military capabilities have been decimated, but also added that Iran has agreed to not have a nuclear weapon moving forward.
The president also claimed, falsely, that Pope Leo XIV suggested that Iran should be able to create a nuclear weapon. “If that happened, the entire world would be hostage,” Trump said, repeating baseless claims that informed his admonitions of the pontiff. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, is set to meet the pope on Thursday in Rome – hoping to remedy a strained relationship between Washington and the Vatican.
Speaking to reporters after Howard Lutnick’s closed-door testimony, James Comer, the Republican chair of the oversight committee, said that the commerce secretary has been “very forthcoming” with his “three” interactions with Jeffrey Epstein over the course of a decade.
Comer also insisted that there is no “cover-up”, as suggested by Democratic members of the panel.
“We asked very substantive questions the first hour,” Comer added. “The Democrats, during their hour, repeated the exact same question.”
FBI searches office of Virginia state senator who played key role in redistricting fight – reports
The FBI raided the office of Louise Lucas, a Virginia state senator who played a key role in the recent fight to redraw the state’s congressional maps, according to several reports.
Citing people familiar with the matter, the Associated Press and the New York Times both report that Lucas’s district office in Portsmouth, Virginia, was searched. The AP adds that the search was part of a corruption investigation.
In a statement to the Guardian, the FBI only said that it was executing a “court-authorized federal search warrant” in the city which sits next to Norfolk. They added that this is an ongoing investigation with no further information publicly available at this time.
Lucas, 82, has been a state senator for 34 years, and is also the first woman and first African American to serve as the Virginia senate’s president pro tempore.
Trump would 'fire' Howard Lutnick if he saw video of testimony, say oversight Democrats
Following closed-door testimony from Howard Lutnick before the House oversight committee on his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, Democrats called the commerce secretary’s performance “embarrassing”.
“If Donald Trump had seen the video transcript, he would have fired Howard Lutnick,” said congressman Ro Khanna, a progressive Democrat from California.
Lawmakers pointed to alleged inconsistencies between Lutnick’s previous comments on podcasts that he stopped associating with the late sex offender after 2005.
The justice department’s release of case files showed that Lutnick had two engagements with Epstein years past that. He attended a 2011 event at Epstein’s home. And Lutnick’s family had lunch with Epstein on his private island in 2012 – four years after Epstein was sentenced to 13 months in jail for procuring a minor for prostitution.
Lutnick admitted to the 2012 lunch during his 10 February testimony before the Senate appropriations committee. “I did have lunch with him, as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation,” Lutnick said. In that testimony, Lutnick also insisted that he “barely had anything to do” with Epstein.
According to Suhas Subramanyam, a Democratic representative of Virginia, the commerce secretary said “he could remember nothing about the visit to the island. Couldn’t remember why he was there. Couldn’t remember anything he saw.”
Oversight Democrats also said that Lutnick did not answer their questions about whether he spoke with Donald Trump ahead of giving testimony before the panel today.
“I feel very comfortable saying that Howard Lutnick is a pathological liar who is enabling the most egregious cover-up in American history,” congresswoman Yassamin Ansari told reporters, while noting that the commerce secretary told lawmakers it was “inexplicable” that he visited Epstein’s private island. Lutnick described his encounters with Epstein as “meaningless and inconsequential,” Ansari added.
Donald Trump’s aggressive and wide-reaching immigration-enforcement agenda has convinced increasing numbers of adults that the US is no longer a welcoming country for outsiders, a new poll has found.
About six in 10 respondents to the Associated Press-NORC poll, conducted last month, say the country used to be a great place for immigrants, but no longer is.
Another one-third said they or somebody they knew personally had been affected by the Trump administration’s crackdown in the previous 12 months, rising to about 60% of Hispanic adults.
Almost half of the Hispanic adults who responded said they had started carrying proof of their US citizenship or permanent residence for fear of being detained or deported by federal immigration agencies.
The wide-ranging poll paints a damning portrait of how opinions have changed in the 14 months since Trump returned to the White House and embarked on his long-threatened “largest deportation operation in US history”.
The survey found that only a quarter of adults still believed the US was welcoming to immigrants, while about one in 10 believed it never was.
A question about birthright citizenship, which Trump has attempted to remove by an executive order blocked by federal courts and currently under deliberation by the justices of the US supreme court, brought a mixed response.
Overall, 65% believe that all children born in the US should be entitled to citizenship regardless of their parents’ status, and 75% believe the same for children whose non-citizen parents are legally present in the US on work visas.
Read the full report here:
At the White House, Trump said the situation in Iran is “very much under control” after the president told the regime to accept a deal to end the war in the Middle East or face a new wave of US bombing “at a much higher level and intensity than it was before” in a post on Truth Social.
He claimed, at the military Mother’s Day event, that Tehran wants to “make a deal very much”, while noting the ongoing naval blockade in the strait of Hormuz is “unbelievable”.
“[Iran is] not getting anything through one way or the other, so they’re out of business,” Trump said. “We’ll see whether or not they are agreeing, and if they don’t agree, they’ll end up agreeing shortly thereafter.”
At a military Mother’s Day event at the White House, Donald Trump used the opportunity to tout his new ballroom project, which the president said now comes with a $400m price tag earlier on social media.
“We’re a little bit ahead of schedule, right on budget, but it’s going to be something great. It’ll be one of the most beautiful buildings of its kind anywhere in the world,” Trump told attendees in the East Room. “Aside from being secure, I think it’s going to be the most beautiful ballroom I’ve ever built. And it’s something that the White House has needed.”
Earlier this week, Senate Republicans released the text of a new immigration enforcement reconciliation package that includes a proposed $1bn that could go to security measures related to the ballroom, part of the president’s “East Wing modernization project”.
And in an internal memo, the Warner Bros Discovery CEO, David Zaslav, called Ted Turner a visionary and a trailblazer. He wrote to colleagues that “Ted’s entrepreneurial spirit, creative ambition and willingness to take risks changed the media industry forever”.
He did not just disrupt media. He transformed it.
In 1980, many questioned the logic of launching CNN, the world’s first 24-hour news network. Ted believed the world deserved access to news as it happened, and he acted on that conviction.
CNN fundamentally changed how the world experiences history in real time, and its impact on journalism continues to be felt every day through the work of our teams.
With the launch of TNT in 1988, and through the sports legacy he built across Turner Sports, he helped redefine sports television and created a platform that brought iconic moments into millions of homes. In founding Turner Classic Movies in 1994, Ted ensured that great films and the history of cinema would be preserved and celebrated. TCM stands as a testament to his belief that great storytelling has no expiration date, and that honoring the past is essential to shaping the future.
Zaslav also paid tribute to Turner’s philanthropy and extended his deepest condolences to the late founder’s family.
It is our responsibility to honor and carry forward the legacy he built.
Ted Turner changed our industry forever. I’m grateful for his courage, his imagination and the lasting mark he leaves on Warner Bros Discovery and the world.
Reacting to CNN founder Ted Turner’s death, fellow media mogul and longtime rival Rupert Murdoch called Turner a “trailblazer” who “transformed the media industry” and “left an indelible mark on our cultural landscape”.
Ted Turner’s vision for 24-hour cable news transformed the media industry and gave viewers everywhere a front seat to witness history unfold. His impact as a trailblazer has left an indelible mark on our cultural landscape. He was a great American and friend.
The two men famously had a long-running and often hostile rivalry, which stemmed from a yachting collision in 1983 that resulted in Turner challenging Murdoch to a fist fight.
The drama intensified when Murdoch launched Fox News in 1996 as a direct, conservative rival to CNN. Turner at one point called Murdoch a “warmonger” and compared him to Adolf Hitler (he later apologized for that choice of words).
In later years it became more of a “friendly rival”, with Turner acknowledging Murdoch’s business acumen, “He’s one of the smartest guys in the media business.”
GOP House oversight chair says Lutnick ‘wasn’t 100% truthful’ about Epstein ties as commerce secretary faces grilling
James Comer, the Republican chair of the House oversight committee, told reporters earlier as he entered a closed-door interview with Howard Lutnick that the commerce secretary had in the past not been “100% truthful” about whether he had ever visited Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous private island.
A reminder that Lutnick – the highest-ranking Trump administration official prominently named in the Epstein files, aside from Donald Trump himself – said on a podcast last year that he had decided to “never be in the room” with Epstein following a 2005 tour of the financier’s home in Manhattan that disturbed him and his wife.
But the release of case files on Epstein earlier this year showed that Lutnick had kept in contact with Epstein – even after Epstein’s 2008 conviction in Florida for soliciting prostitution from an underage girl – and met up with him a couple of times in 2011 and 2012.
And under questioning from Democrats during an unrelated hearing earlier this year, Lutnick confirmed he had visited Epstein’s private island with his family in 2012 for lunch.
Comer told reporters ahead of the hearing that he planned to ask Lutnick why his interactions with Epstein spanned years beyond his initial claims.
We’re going to ask him all of these questions, and we’ll let the American people judge whether the credibility was damaged or not.
At the end of the day, I haven’t seen wrongdoing in the email correspondence, but he wasn’t 100% truthful with whether he had been on the island. So we’ll see.
FBI investigating leaks to journalist who wrote about Kash Patel's drinking and behavior - report
The FBI has launched a “criminal leak investigation” focused on Atlantic journalist Sarah Fitzpatrick who wrote a detailed story last month about government officials’ alarm over the bureau’s director Kash Patel’s alleged “bouts of excessive drinking” and “unexplained absences”, two people familiar have told MS NOW.
The move is highly unusual, given that leak investigations are usually focused on government officials - not journalists - who may have disclosed state secrets or classified information.
Indeed, according to MS NOW’s sources, there is concern among some of the FBI agents assigned to the probe. “They know they are not supposed to do this,” one source said. “But if they don’t go forward, they could lose their jobs. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.”
Fitzpatrick cited over two dozen anonymous sources in her reporting, detailing such alarm among FBI and DOJ officials over Patel’s alcohol consumption and erratic conduct that the FBI director feared his job was in jeopardy. Patel was known to “drink to the point of obvious intoxication”, she reported, and on multiple occasions his security detail had trouble waking him in the morning.
Patel sued the Atlantic over the story, accusing the magazine of publishing “false and obviously fabricated allegations” and seeking damages for defamation.
FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson denied the investigation. “This is completely false. No such investigation like this exists and the reporter you mention is not being investigated at all,” he said.
In a statement to MS NOW, the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeff Goldberg, said:
We will have further comment when we learn more. If true, this would be an outrageous, illegal, and dangerous attack on the free press and the First Amendment. We will defend Sarah and all of our reporters who are subjected to government harassment simply for pursuing the truth.
Trump praises Ted Turner and lambasts CNN: 'It became woke'
While issuing condolences on social media following Ted Turner’s death, Trump called the late media mogul “one of the Greats of All Time” and a “friend”. However, he wasted no time using his Truth Social missive to slam CNN.
“[Turner] founded CNN, sold it, and was personally devastated by the Deal because the new ownership took CNN, his ‘baby,’ and destroyed it,” he said. “It became woke, and everything that he is not all about.”
Trump noted that the “wonderful people” at Paramount Skydance, run by the president’s close ally, David Ellison, might be able to bring back CNN’s “former credibility and glory” after the multibillion deal to acquire Warner Bros Discovery (CNN’s parent company) is finalized.
Michigan Democrat wins state senate special election
Chedrick Greene, a Democratic firefighter and marine veteran, won a special election in Michigan on Tuesday, allowing Democrats to retain control of state senate for the remainder of the year.
In the race for Michigan’s 35th senate district, a constituency that former vice-president Kamala Harris won by only a single percentage point in 2024, Greene beat Republican Jason Tunney – clinching more than 58% of the vote, compared with Tunney’s 39%, according to local results. The district includes parts of Bay and Saginaw counties, purple areas of the state.
Donald Trump ultimately won the state in the last election, but Michigan Democrats were hoping to hold on to their narrow majority in the senate ahead of the term-limited governor, Gretchen Whitmer, leaving office in January. Republicans control the state’s lower chamber.
“We delivered this decisive victory by listening and speaking to the things keeping everyday people up at night – worries about affordability, safety and freedom,” Greene told supporters on Tuesday, as he was declared the winner.
Hakeem Jeffries, the US House minority leader, heralded Greene’s win on social media. “State Sen.-elect Chedrick Greene’s decisive 19-point overperformance last night ensures Democrats keep control of the Michigan Senate,” Jeffries wrote on X. “A massive defeat for MAGA Republicans!”
The Senate seat had been vacant since January 2025, when Representative Kristen McDonald Rivet, a Democrat, left the post after she won a seat in the US House.
Tunney, a former prosecutor, vowed to challenge Greene again when voters return to the polls in November, to elect a representative for the 35th district for a full four-year term.
“Tonight, we fell short in the special election, but I’m incredibly proud of what this campaign accomplished together,” Tunney said. “This is only the halfway point. As we head into November, the contrast between Chedrick and myself will only become clearer to more and more voters. I’m excited about what lies ahead, and I’m not going anywhere.”
CNN founder and media mogul Ted Turner dies aged 87
Ted Turner, the founder of television news network CNN, has died at the age of 87.
The cause of death was not immediately released, but Turner had revealed that he was suffering from Lewy body dementia, a progressive brain disorder, in 2018.
Turner became one of the most powerful figures in US media and entertainment, after he launched CNN as the first 24-hour news channel in 1980. The network set a template for worldwide news coverage of wars, trials, revolutions, and human-made and natural disasters.
In 1996 Time Warner Inc bought his Turner Broadcasting System for $7.5bn, creating the world’s largest communications company, with properties such as HBO, Warner Bros movie studio, Time magazine, CNN, Cartoon Network and Turner Classic Movies.
According to a news release from Turner Enterprises, the media mogul was surrounded by his family at the time of his death, and is survived by his five children, 14 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
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