Laura Coates Live

The Justice Department on Friday released the long-awaited transcripts of a weeks-old interview it conducted with convicted Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell. The Maxwell interview was one of two steps the White House took to try and quell outrage over its handling of the Epstein files. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A California parole board has denied parole for Erik Menendez, who was convicted alongside his brother Lyle of murdering their parents in 1989, delivering a crippling blow to the brothers’ yearslong fight for release. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Texas House of Representatives has passed a redistricting bill, paving the way for Republican-drawn maps that could net the GOP as many as five US House seats to be finalized in the coming days. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

President Trump escalated his campaign to purge cultural institutions of materials that conflict with his political directives on Tuesday, alleging museums were too focused on highlighting negative aspects of American history, including “how bad slavery was.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned Russia’s latest strikes across Ukraine, which killed at least 10 people, saying the Kremlin intends to “humiliate diplomatic efforts” and underscores “why reliable security guarantees are required.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

US President Donald Trump said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin made “great progress” but did not emerge from today’s summit with a deal on the war in Ukraine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gov. Gavin Newsom formally kicked off his push Thursday to redraw California’s congressional maps in response to a Republican-led effort in Texas, setting up the next stage of his fight against both the Trump administration and a coalition of gerrymandering opponents within the state. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The DC National Guard began appearing in the nation’s capital after President Donald Trump announced he is deploying guard troops and placing Washington, DC’s police department “under direct federal control,” citing a public safety emergency after an assault on a former government worker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Trump announced that he is placing the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department under federal control and is deploying the National Guard to deal with crime in the city. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

President Trump, justifying his temporary federal takeover of policing in the nation’s capital, claimed at a press conference Monday that the violent crime situation in Washington, DC, “is getting worse, not getting better.” But violence in the capital is actually falling. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

President Donald Trump said he’ll be meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin next Friday in Alaska after earlier in the day previewing terms of a potential peace deal to end the war in Ukraine that could include “some swapping of territories.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

President Donald Trump announced in a social media post on Thursday that he has directed the Department of Commerce to begin work on a new US census that excludes undocumented immigrants from the population count. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

President Trump tries to shrug off a scandal he cannot seems to shake by dismissing the fallout over Jeffrey Epstein with one of his new favorite words. Plus, the redistricting war that started in Texas and spread to South Carolina. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Top Trump administration officials will gather at the vice president’s residence Wednesday evening as they continue to weigh whether to publish an audio recording and transcript of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s recent conversation with Jeffrey Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Texas House speaker said he signed civil arrest warrants for Democrats who did not show up to the special session today. State House Democrats fled Sunday in a bid to block a redrawing of the state’s congressional map, which was orchestrated by Republicans with the support of President Trump. Legal experts say the civil arrest warrants are likely unenforceable outside of state lines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We don’t know whether Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche was moved by anything Ghislaine Maxwell had to say to him, but she sure was moved to a minimum security camp some call cushy. Plus, the President didn’t like the numbers and he fired the number cruncher. But, economists are warning the red flags are real. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The family of Virginia Giuffre speak out about the Epstein scandal with questions for the president alongside one very direct message. Plus, an attorney general joins to answer why he believes he can end Trump’s tariffs via the courts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In a MAGA letdown in the Epstein saga, a look at what’s really in the grand jury testimony which has people asking if that’s really all the information available. Plus, Kamala Harris says she will not run for California governor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A massive earthquake has triggered multiple tsunami alerts all across the Pacific region, including Alaska, Hawaii, and the entire United States West Coast. The 8.8 magnitude quake hit off Russia’s east coast just before 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time. This is the strongest earthquake on the planet since 2011, when a 9.0 earthquake struck Japan and triggered a devastating tsunami. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Four people, including a New York Police Department officer, were killed in Midtown Manhattan, authorities said. The officer, Didarul Islam, 36, was a three-and-a-half-year veteran of the department and an immigrant from Bangladesh, Mayor Eric Adams said. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

President Donald Trump denied again today that he was briefed on his name appearing in files tied to the Jeffrey Epstein case, despite reports by CNN and other outlets on the briefing. The administration remains dogged by public criticism over its handling of the case. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said he will continue his interview with Ghislaine Maxwell for a second day Friday after meeting with her Thursday. Blanche and Maxwell met at the US attorney’s office in Tallahassee, Florida, as President Donald Trump continues to face backlash over the Jeffrey Epstein saga. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bryan Kohberger has been sentenced to life in prison without parole for the murders of four University of Idaho students. Kohberger declined to speak during the hearing and the victims’ families remain in the dark about his motive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Department of Justice said Tuesday it has reached out to Jeffrey Epstein’s former associate Ghislaine Maxwell for a meeting amid backlash over the administration’s handling of files related to Epstein. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Trump administration has released records of the FBI’s surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr. The release involves more than 240,000 pages of records that had been under a court-imposed seal since 1977, when the FBI first gathered the records and turned them over to the National Archives and Records Administration. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Trump administration’s chaotic handling of the so-called Jeffrey Epstein files continued Friday as the Justice Department asked a federal judge to make public years-old grand jury testimony made behind closed doors against the convicted sex offender. In its filing, the department justified releasing the heretofore secret evidence as “a matter of public interest.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A collection of letters gifted to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003 included a note bearing Donald Trump’s name and an outline of a naked woman, according to a Wall Street Journal report published Thursday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Maurene Comey, a federal prosecutor in Manhattan and the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, has been fired from her job in the Southern District of New York, according to people familiar with the situation. Comey was a prosecutor in the case against accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and more recently against Sean “Diddy” Combs. The reason for her firing was not immediately clear. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Some of President Donald Trump’s most loyal allies in Congress aren’t satisfied by his decision to not release additional files from the Jeffrey Epstein case, and it’s threatening to deepen the MAGA divide he now faces from his base. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jeffrey Epstein’s former attorney joins as the controversy over the Epstein files turns into political quicksand for the president. Plus, Barack Obama tells Democrats to toughen up. Will his party listen? Also, Trump’s dramatically new tone on Russia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

US District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, ordered that DHS must develop guidance for officers to determine “reasonable suspicion” outside of the apparent race or ethnicity of a person, the language they speak or their accent, “presence at a particular location” such as a bus stop or their occupation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A federal judge agreed to issue a new nationwide block against President Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship. The ruling from District Judge Joseph Laplante is significant because the Supreme Court last month curbed the power of lower court judges to issue nationwide injunctions, while keeping intact the ability of plaintiffs to seek a widespread block of the order through class action lawsuits, which is what happened Thursday in New Hampshire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As monstrous floodwaters surged across central Texas late last week, officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency leapt into action, preparing to deploy critical search and rescue teams and life-saving resources, like they have in countless past disasters. But almost instantly, FEMA ran into bureaucratic obstacles, four officials inside the agency told CNN. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

More than 160 people are known to be missing in Kerr County as a result of the flooding in central Texas, according to Gov. Greg Abbott, who cited “combined law enforcement efforts.” At least a dozen others are missing in other parts of the state, he said. Separately, officials confirmed that more than 110 people have died. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

More than 100 people have died after devastating floods hit central Texas. Camp Mystic, an all-girls summer camp that sits along the Guadalupe River, has confirmed that 27 campers and counselors died in weekend floods. Ten campers and one counselor are still unaccounted for. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sean “Diddy” Combs was denied bail after a jury found him guilty of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution this morning. The judge cited Combs’ history of violence and past illegal conduct while explaining why he declined to release Combs as he awaits sentencing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The jury sent a note to the judge saying they have reached a verdict on the counts of sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution, but they are unable to reach a verdict on the racketeering conspiracy count. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A marathon voting session on President Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic policy bill is underway in the Senate and has stretched overnight into the early hours of Tuesday morning after a weekend of negotiations and delays. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Supreme Court limits the power of lower courts to block Trump’s agenda. Though the case was intertwined with Trump’s executive order effectively ending birthright citizenship, the ruling does not settle the issue of whether the president can enforce that order. And there were signs that lower courts could move swiftly to block the policy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Emerging from a highly anticipated classified briefing on Thursday, Democratic and Republican senators were not in agreement over exactly how much US strikes on Iran set back that country’s nuclear program. Many Republicans said that they believe it will now take Iran years longer to build a nuclear weapon, though some acknowledged the threat is not completely neutralized. But Democrats said the picture is far less clear – and one said the US strikes set Iran back only by months. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

CIA Director John Ratcliffe on Wednesday said in a statement that the agency had obtained “a body of credible evidence [that] indicates Iran’s Nuclear Program has been severely damaged” by recent strikes, underscoring a broad intelligence community effort is ongoing to determine the impact of the US strikes on three of the country’s nuclear sites on Saturday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The US military strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities last weekend did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, according to an early US intelligence assessment that was described by seven people briefed on it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Trump announced a ceasefire, claiming that Israel and Iran both approached him asking for peace. Plus, IDF says Iran launched missiles towards Israel as ceasefire nears. And, FBI and DHS warn of heightened threat environment in U.S. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Israel and Iran exchanged fresh strikes as the conflict entered a second week with little sign of ending. President Donald Trump meanwhile indicated that his two-week timeline for a decision on US military involvement in Iran is the “maximum” amount of time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

President Donald Trump said he will allow two weeks for diplomacy to proceed before deciding whether to launch a strike in Iran. A powerful Iran-backed militia in Iraq vowed to attack US military bases in the region if Trump decides to enter the conflict. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As the Israel-Iran conflict enters its seventh day, President Donald Trump held a Situation Room meeting Wednesday afternoon to discuss US options. While saying earlier that his patience “has already run out” with Tehran, Trump indicated he has not yet made a final decision on whether the US would get involved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As the escalating conflict between Iran and Israel entered its sixth day, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on social media, “The battle begins.” Hours earlier, US President Donald Trump demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender.” He also called the supreme leader an “easy target” and said that America’s “patience is wearing thin.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As Israel and Iran trade strikes on a fifth day of conflict, civilians in flashpoint areas face waves of attacks. In Iran, at least 224 people have been killed since hostilities began. In Israel, 24 people have been killed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Two people have been killed in Israel and dozens injured by Iranian strikes, Israeli authorities said. Iran reported at least 78 people killed in Israeli strikes, including senior military officials, and 320 wounded, mostly civilians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Israel has launched unprecedented strikes on Iran, targeting its nuclear program and senior military leaders in an attack that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said will last many days. The attack plunges the Middle East into fresh uncertainty, increasing the risk of a regional war as Israel braces for Iran’s retaliation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices