The Daily Signal - Epstein File Release Passes Congress, Implicated House Democrats in Censure Panic | Nov. 19, 2025

Starting point is 00:00:00 The bill to release more of the Jeffrey Epstein files passes the House and the Senate, but new revelations create a possible nightmare scenario for House Democrats. Daily Signal President Rob Bluey joins us to discuss what's next on Capitol Hill, and Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee joins us to explain what often delays, diverts, and alters good legislation into the omnibus nightmares that Americans detest. I'm Tony Kinnett, host of the Daily Signals Tony Kinnett cast, syndicated nationally at 7 p.m. Eastern. It is Wednesday, Wednesday, November 19th, 2025.

Starting point is 00:00:32 This is the Daily Signals, top news in 10. Yesterday afternoon, the House of Representatives voted 427 to 1 to pass the bill releasing more of the files on the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. The only Republican to vote against the bill was U.S. Representative Clay Higgins of Louisiana. The Senate then passed the measure via a unanimous consent resolution. provided here by Senator Chuck Schumer. Senate has now passed the Epstein bill as soon as it comes over. Sending it to the desk of the president.

Starting point is 00:01:11 Regarding national security concerns, there is a clause in the legislation that says the Attorney General, in this case, Pam Bondi, may withhold or redact the segregable portions of the records that, A, contain personally identifiable information of victims or victims personal and medical files, etc. B, depict or contain child sexual abuse materials, etc., or C, would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution, provided that such withholding is narrowly tailored and temporary. It's not quite clear what means narrowly tailored and temporary in this particular instance.

Starting point is 00:01:48 After the House of Representatives passed the bill sending it to the Senate, a certain amount of dyspepsia hit the Democrat side of the House after Republican Ralph Northam of South Carolina introduced a motion to censure Stacey Plaskett, non-voting representative of the U.S. Virgin Islands, who had previously coordinated with Jeffrey Epstein against Donald Trump's administration and legal team during a 2019 oversight investigation. Resolution 888 censoring and condemning delegate Stacey Plaskett and removing her from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence for Conduct that reflects. the discredibility on the House of Representatives for colluding with convicted felon and offender

Starting point is 00:02:34 Jeffrey Epstein during a congressional hearing. Following is some of the footage compiled by both the Washington Post and the House Oversight Committee on Plaskett receiving text messages and instructions from Jeffrey Epstein in February of 2019 to change her strategy as well as take some verbal cues on camera. Obama was president of the United States. And while we were once driving through a struggling neighborhood in Chicago, he commented that only black people could live that way. Attorney Klein privilege, yes, I will turn it over. You as my friend, Mr. Meadows, pointed out, misled this committee even today in a written submission that contradicted your testimony. You have suggested you were going to review that.

Starting point is 00:03:18 Did you review, are you going to review it in our next break to correct the record? Yes. Yes. Question, you helped out the president's campaign or were involved in the campaign as a representative. campaign as a representative, as a spokesman, even in your words today. It was your idea for the campaign dating back to 2011. Is that accurate? Yes or no? Yes. Mr. Weisenberg and other individuals, Ms. Rona, who are those individuals? Are they with the Trump organization? They are. There are other people that we should be meeting with. So, Alan Weisselberg is the

Starting point is 00:03:48 chief financial officer. Uh-huh. You got to quickly give us as many names as you can, so we can get to them. Yes, ma'am. As Ms. Rona, what is Ms. Rona? What is Ms. Ronagraph is the Mr. Trump's executive assistant. And would she be able to corroborate many of the statements that you've made here? Yes, she was, her office is directly next to his, and she's involved in a lot that went on. Plaskett's response and excuse for communicating with Epstein boiled down to saying that he was just a constituent of hers. And I got a text from Jeffrey Epstein, who at the time was my constituent, who at the time was my constituent, who was not public knowledge at that time that he was under federal investigation.

Starting point is 00:04:33 Other Democrats in the House rushed to her defense, eating up wonderful committee time in the House of Representatives. Representative Catherine Clark, Democrat of Massachusetts and the Minority Whip, suggested that this was somehow a partisan action censuring a member of the House for coordinating with a convicted felon under sexual assault charges to go after Donald Trump. Victims of Jeffrey Epstein to have justice and transparency. And now minutes later, the gentleman from South Carolina is filing yet another partisan resolution. I ask all of my colleagues to support this motion, to refer this to the Ethics Committee,

Starting point is 00:05:17 and I yield back my time. And Democrat Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland got up in front of the House to proclaim he who is without the sin of coordinating with Jeffrey Epstein cast the first stone. Well, they want to give them another headline, which is that they've arraigned a Democratic member for taking a phone call from her constituent, Jeffrey Epstein, in the middle of a hearing. And of course, I don't think there's any rule here against taking phone calls in a hearing. Now, if you want to actually give her the chance to explain what happened, then we would take it to the Ethics Committee. I still don't see what the charge is.

Starting point is 00:05:56 Where is the ethical transgression? Where is the legal transgression? Are you saying anybody on your side of the aisle who had a phone call with Jeffrey Epstein should be censured? Be careful your answer there, because there's a lot more that's about to come out, right? President Trump has stated that he will sign the bill into law. Meanwhile, Rob Bluey, president of the Daily Signal, joined us yesterday to discuss what's next for the Capitol Hill and why the impending continuing resolution fight coming up in January is a little bit different than the previous one. So when I look at this kind of follow through on promises to the American people, we look at crime, we look at immigration. Now we pivot over to the economy where the president has made it very clear that he is putting a lot of attention on affordability.

Starting point is 00:06:39 He's working on kind of changing how he approaches the tariff game. The question that I have for you is that by the time we get to the January, next continuing resolution fight because we're all going to be back here again. This time we won't have the USDA to talk about regarding SNAP because that's been funded for the entire year, but there will be some questions likely in the continuing resolution fight as to affordability and maybe housing subsidies, maybe talking about, again, we've talked about the mortgages a little bit. What do you see Congress doing, if anything at all, regarding using the affordability language going into the next

Starting point is 00:07:17 government shutdown fight? Well, sure. I think the best thing that Republicans can do is pass the remaining nine appropriations bills. As you've previously reported on your show, you know, they did get the three done, which includes USDA, but there's still nine appropriations bills that they need to

Starting point is 00:07:33 finish. And so then that way you don't even have to deal with a continuum resolution. You would just pass them through the normal appropriations process. I have my doubts as to whether or not they're going to do that. And so in the absence of that, you're right. They do need to figure out some of the questions related to affordability or the economic situation in our country. The good news is that because Republicans passed the one big beautiful bill so early in Trump's

Starting point is 00:07:56 second term, unlike at the end of the first year of his first term, those effects will start to kick in in 2026. Our colleague, Victor Davis Hansen, has talked about this on some of his shows about how he expects there to be an economic boom in 2026, not only the investments that others are making in the United States, but also the effect. of the tax bill that has already made it to the president's desk with his signature. So what can they do in the continuing resolution? Well, I think that they need to make sure that they're doing everything possible to not contribute to the inflationary problems in our country. And with many Americans taking notice of how quickly Congress was able to pass the bill

Starting point is 00:08:36 on Jeffrey Epstein with the Senate simply passing a unanimous resolution that left many pundits suggesting that the Senate would be in the midst of a logjam when they were passing one of the quickest pieces of legislation in U.S. history, Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee joined us to explain what often delays, diverts, and alters legislation that is so unlike what occurred yesterday. You got staff, and its staff is really the sewer. Why don't call it a swamp? I don't call it a swamp, something pretty cool God created.

Starting point is 00:09:07 You know, it filters water. It's an ecosystem. This is a sewer. It's man-made. So you get these chairman of these committees, oh, I'm going to change everything. And what do they do? They hire the same dudgum staff. And so the lobbyists have the same contacts.

Starting point is 00:09:20 They have the same control. You know, they're going on a little trips. They're going out for a little steak dinner, buying them drinks. And case in point, last night, once again, you got staff members. I mean, you have a bill that's a study bill. You know, it starts out as maybe something strong, some anti-terrorist thing or whatever, anti-whatever group. Something that's going to do some good. maybe.

Starting point is 00:09:45 Yeah. And it has the same title. But what happens is, you go, you know, I have a bill to stop the Chinese from getting our genetic information. I've been working on a thing for a year to get it. And here's what happens. The lobbyist has got some staff members here. And they say, they come to the member and say, hey, I don't think we can pass this

Starting point is 00:10:07 bill right now. I don't know, really? You know, and you're thinking, and I'm thinking, why is this unelected bureaucrat telling an elected congressman that I can't pass the bill. And I say, well, I tell you what, why don't we do a study on it and just keep the same name and then next year when we get the results? Now, I've been in Congress eight years, brother.

Starting point is 00:10:29 I've never seen one of these studies. I think there's a warehouse like that final scene and Raiders of the Lost Art where all these studies go. And so I, you know, I'll know. It's that basement in, it was it, West Virginia, Pennsylvania where they're keeping all the retirement applications, that mine that the Doge found? Yeah, it's salt mine. Yeah, it's dry or whatever. Before you go, head down to the description and make sure you're subscribed to the Tony Kinnett cast.

Starting point is 00:10:56 And join us tonight at 7 p.m. Eastern, where we dig into the day's news and nonsense. I'm Tony Kinnett, and this has been The Daily Signals. Top News in 10. Take care. Thank you.

The Daily Signal - Epstein File Release Passes Congress, Implicated House Democrats in Censure Panic | Nov. 19, 2025

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