Epstein files bill heads to Trump; President defends MBS on Khashoggi
Congress approved a bill to disclose all Jeffrey Epstein case files, including court documents, internal communications and investigation records related to his death. The bill now heads to President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature, and once he signs it, a 30-day countdown to release the files begins.
Plus, Trump rolled out the red carpet for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, but the atmosphere shifted when an ABC reporter pressed both men on the CIA’s finding that MBS approved Jamal Khashoggi’s murder.
And new findings show the six workers killed in the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse never received a warning, even though they could have had roughly 90 seconds to escape.
These stories and more highlight your Unbiased Updates for Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025.
Trump to sign Epstein files bill after only one lawmaker voted ‘no’
President Donald Trump is expected to sign the Epstein files bill on Wednesday. It’s the final step that will force the release of all Jeffrey Epstein case files.
Once he signs it into law, the clock starts.
Within 30 days, every record, every communication, and any material related to the investigation into Epstein, including his death in federal custody, must be made public.
The House passed the measure in a landslide on Tuesday. It was a bipartisan breakthrough that took months and a special election in Arizona to get across the finish line.
And late Tuesday, the Senate cleared the bill by unanimous consent — meaning no objections and no debate — sending it straight to the president’s desk.
Only one member of Congress voted “Nay”: Louisiana Republican Clay Higgins.
In a post on X, Higgins said the bill’s wording could reveal and injure “thousands of innocent people,” including “witnesses, people who provided alibis, and family members.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson earlier in the day tried to get the Senate to amend the language to better protect victims’ identities.
For survivors of Epstein’s abuse, this vote is a watershed moment. It’s something they’ve spent years fighting for, and many say they wouldn’t be here without one woman.
“I’m thinking about so many women as I am here today and most of all, you know, I’m thinking… About Virginia Roberts Giuffre,” said Epstein survivor Annie Farmer. “We would not be here without her. There is no doubt in my mind about that. And, you know, I very much, I think, like many people, you know, there were fights going on, there were definitely women that, you know, worked so hard for so long for justice. But I had, you know, given up on the idea that anything would happen in this case.”
Virginia Giuffre died by suicide in April, but her memoir “Nobody’s Girl” was published posthumously just last month.
President Trump says he will sign the bill once it reaches his desk, a sharp reversal after months of his administration working to block the files’ release.
Trump interjects after reporter presses Saudi prince on Khashoggi’s death
In the past 24 hours, President Trump rolled out the red carpet for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It was his first visit to the White House since the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
And the moment that stole the show wasn’t the F-35 jet deal or even the trillion-dollar business agreements. It was the answer the president gave to a reporter’s question directed at both him and the Crown Prince.
“Your Royal Highness, the U.S. intelligence concluded that you orchestrated the brutal murder of a journalist. 9/11 families are furious that you are here in the Oval Office. Why should Americans trust you? And the same to you, Mr. President.”
Trump responded, asking the reporter which news network she was with, to which she replied, “ABC.”
Trump responded:
“Fake news, ABC fake news, one of the worst, one of the worst in the business. But I’ll answer your question. As far as this gentleman is concerned, he’s done a phenomenal job. You’re mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you liked him or didn’t like him, things happen, but he knew nothing about it. And we can leave it at that. You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.”
The “Gentleman” Trump is referring to is Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist murdered and dismembered in 2018. It was a killing that U.S. intelligence says the Crown Prince himself approved.
Salman then called the killing “painful” and a “huge mistake,” saying Saudi Arabia “did all the right steps” afterwards.
That moment capped a day full of honors, including flyovers, red carpets and a black-tie dinner. It all came after the president promised to sell Saudi Arabia F-35 fighter jets for the first time ever.
Khashoggi’s widow told Britain’s Sky News after the Oval Office meeting that it was “shameful” to ask reporters not to press the Crown Prince on the killing and that she wishes she could have introduced her husband to him.
Immigration efforts expand to New Orleans: CBS News
The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown is moving deeper into the south. After weekend raids in North Carolina, CBS News now reports Border Patrol is preparing to send about 200 agents to New Orleans in the next two weeks.
Armored vehicles and special operations teams could roll in by Dec. 1.
CBS says the New Orleans operation is part of the same enforcement push that swept through Charlotte. There, federal agents arrested more than a hundred people, and local leaders and protesters pushed back, saying the tactics fueled fear and confusion.
But New Orleans presents a different political landscape: the city has a Democratic mayor but a Republican governor, Jeff Landry, who’s a close ally of President Trump.
Back in June, Landry signed a bill pledging Louisiana’s full cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, including support for detentions and deportations.
NTSB: Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse preventable
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) detailed what went wrong the morning a cargo ship, named the Dali, collided with Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge — and what could have prevented the deaths of six workers who were patching potholes.
Investigators reviewed the timeline, noting that those workers had only 1 minute and 29 seconds to escape, but they were never warned.
Police stationed on the bridge did not call the construction inspector — even though they had his number — leaving crews unaware that the powerless ship was drifting directly toward them.
“This tragedy should have never occurred; lives should have never been lost. As with all accidents that we investigate, this was preventable,” Jennifer Homendy, NTSB chairwoman, said.
Investigators identified a series of failures, starting with a loose wire that caused an initial blackout on the cargo ship, which led to the loss of steering control and a fuel-pump setup that deprived the ship of power just seconds before impact.
They say the crew had replaced the more expensive flushing pumps with cheaper ones months earlier, and the ship’s operator likely knew about it.
The NTSB also criticized the Maryland Transportation Authority for never evaluating the bridge’s vulnerability to a major ship strike, a concern safety groups have advocated nationwide for decades.
The Washington Post reported that Maryland now estimates the rebuilt key bridge will cost up to $5.2 billion and won’t reopen until 2030 — more than twice the state’s initial estimate.
Education Department dismantled, key offices shift to other agencies
The Trump administration took its first significant steps toward dismantling the U.S. Department of Education — a key campaign promise now being fulfilled.
The administration announced six new inter-agency agreements Tuesday, officially starting the process of breaking up the department and redistributing its main functions across the federal government.
Under the plan, the Department of Labor will no longer co-manage major K-12 and higher education programs, including elementary and secondary education initiatives and several higher-education grant programs.
The Interior Department will assume control of the Office of Indian Education.
Health and Human Services will take on child care access, which funds on-campus child care for student parents, along with foreign medical accreditation.
And the State Department will take over international and foreign language education.
It’s still uncertain when these agreements will officially go into effect.
Klimt masterpiece sells for $236.4M
A rare Gustav Klimt portrait with a remarkable survival story just set auction records.
Klimt’s “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer” sold for $236.4 million after a 20-minute bidding war at Sotheby’s in New York on Tuesday — setting a new record as the most expensive piece of modern art ever sold at auction.
The 6-foot-tall portrait was created between 1914 and 1916, and its history is just as extraordinary as its price tag.
When Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, the Lederer family’s extensive art collection was looted, but their portraits were left behind, deemed “too Jewish” to be worth stealing, according to the National Gallery of Canada.
Elisabeth Lederer survived by claiming that Klimt, who wasn’t Jewish, was her father.
With assistance from her former brother-in-law, a high-ranking Nazi official, she obtained documents claiming she was descended from the artist. It was a lie that protected her and allowed her to stay in Vienna until her death in 1944.
More from Straight Arrow News:
Trump called her work ‘genius’. Now this artist documents his deportation push
NEW YORK — Isabelle Brourman’s art has been likened to that of the German Expressionists, painters like Ernst Kirchner and Max Beckmann who documented post-World War I Germany with fierce and vibrant brushstrokes. Major art collectors have purchased Brourman’s sketches, she had a solo show at New York City’s Will Shott Gallery, and her work will be featured at Art Basel Miami in December.
What Brourman describes as the “Tasmanian-devil glamour” of her work has won praise from art critics, media figures and even the president of the United States.
But Brourman has carved out an unlikely niche: finding art in the banal confines of U.S. courtrooms. She started with sketching high-profile cases, such as the actor Johnny Depp’s defamation lawsuit against his former wife, Amber Heard. She sketched Donald Trump’s civil and criminal trials last year and even visited Mar-a-Lago, where Trump sat for a portrait. “There’s a lot of genius in the work,” Trump said.
Now Brourman, 32, is documenting how Trump’s immigration policy plays out. Most weekdays since July, she has been in New York City’s federal immigration court, a main hub of Trump’s plan to deport millions of people living in the United States without legal status.
Brourman’s sketches — bold, sometimes chaotic images of judges, of federal agents, of immigrants awaiting their fates — are the only visual evidence of the dramas that unfold daily.
“She’s an artist who became a sketch artist,” the art collector Dakis Joannou, who owns multiple works by Brourman, told Straight Arrow News. Joannou first saw her work on art critic Jerry Saltz’s Instagram. Joannou said it was her breaking of barriers that piqued his interest.
“How do you get there? How does it work? Do you have a magazine behind you? She just had nobody.” He laughed. “She was a very special case.”
To Brourman, who has art degrees from the University of Michigan and Pratt Institute, it is important that she is present in immigration court to bear witness.
“The high-profile trials are where artists are being sent and paid to document,” Brourman told SAN. “But the immigration court was empty. I was the only one — and am the only one — there.” Read the full story now>
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
