Video News Clips: In Their Own Words

Scott Jennings Befuddles CNN Host With Question About What Democrats Aren’t Saying After Epstein Files Dump

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“CNN Newsnight” host Abby Phillip appeared flustered Thursday after Salem Radio Network host Scott Jennings noted no congressional Democrats were naming names from files associated with registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The Department of Justice released 3.5 million pages of documents from the files on Jan.30, which included contacts Epstein had with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and former White House aide Steve Bannon. After former Obama administration official Ashley Allison and former NewsNation host Dan Abrams clashed over how to proceed with those named in the documents, Jennings cut in.

“One thing that has I don’t understand, I’ve not understood it since this story has been going for the last several months: There are members of Congress who claim to have had conversations with the victims where they heard them name names. No one ever goes to the floor of the House, or anywhere else for that matter, and says, ‘Here is the information that I was told,’” Jennings said. “I think they would have protection to do so if they did on the floor of the House. I’ve never understood why that — I’m with you. I’m disgusted by all this. Somebody, somewhere is alive and knows names of the people you’re talking about who actually, to your point, did something horrific. But no one ever says the name. Why?”

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Comments on the floor of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate are immune from defamation suits due to the “speech and debate clause” of the Constitution, which was cited in the dismissal of a March 2025 suit against Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina over her Feb. 10, 2025, speech accusing multiple men, including her ex-fiancé, of sexual misconduct.

“That feels like — but that feels like a nuclear option, right? Like —” Phillip responded, with Jennings asking, “Aren’t we there?”

“Well, not really, because, I mean, I think that the part that is frustrating about this is that kind of what you were alluding to,” Phillip responded. “There is this presumption that everybody was just hanging out with Epstein, emailing him, joking around about sex with underage girls, but that nobody did anything criminal. And I’m not sure that’s the assumption that we should have. Shouldn’t the Justice Department say, ‘You know what? Let’s go back to the drawing board on all of this. Let’s go back to the witnesses.’”

Abrams, who is the chief legal analyst for ABC News and who founded Mediaite, pointed out that such measures had already been taken, leading to a brief back-and-forth with Phillip.

“There’d be no better prize for any DoJ, Biden or Trump, to be able to prosecute someone who was engaged in a crime with Epstein,” Abrams said.