[0:00]Right now they feel as if there's a war that's not even theirs that is being fought on their land and they're having to sacrifice for it. Hey everybody, welcome to Here's the
[0:13]Scoop from NBC News. I'm Christine Romans filling in for Yasmine Vasugian. Today on the show with more unrest in the Strait of Hormuz, how the people of Lebanon are feeling about the tentative
[0:23]ceasefire. Plus, why Epstein survivors are calling for more investigations into his property in New Mexico, the Zorro Ranch. Up first, Iran's military says it will
[0:35]retaliate after the US seized an Iran-flagged cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend. Global energy prices were back up on that news and and could be for the foreseeable future.
[0:46]Energy Secretary Chris Wright said this weekend that gas prices may not drop below $3 a gallon until next year. And inside the region, people are scared. With the ceasefire between the
[0:57]US and Iran set to expire this Wednesday, nobody knows what's going to happen next. I'm filling in this week, of course, because your regular host, Yasmine Vasugian, is in the Middle East
[1:08]covering this story for us today. She is joining us from Beirut. Hi, Yasmine. Hi, Christine. This is odd. I know, great to see you on the other side of the mic. >> Um before we get into the news, Yasmine,
[1:19]you've been talking to correspondents in the region since before the war began. You've been on the ground in Lebanon for the past few days now as a side player uh in the war that's become a major
[1:30]battlefield. Uh what are what are your first impressions from Lebanon? So, I think the geography of the city of Beirut specifically is really important
[1:41]for folks to understand if they haven't been here. It is a very dense city. So, you have house on top of house on top of house. And as we've been making our way
[1:52]around Beirut today, um we went to two separate um places that had been you know bombed. If you remember um just after
[2:04]Iran and the United States struck a peace deal, there was major bombing in Beirut. Um there was about a hundred or so blasts all throughout uh the Beirut area. We went to two of those blast
[2:15]sites um today. And you see kind of these areas where there is, you know, just bombed-out apartment buildings, huge bombed-out high-rises. And then
[2:25]next to it is completely untouched. It's indescribable. So, that was from the bombing on April 8th, the day the Iran-US ceasefire went into effect. What
[2:35]was that day like for people in Beirut? Yeah, so I spoke with um two girls. Um they were in their late
[2:44]20s. One's name was Maryam, another's name was Yasmina, actually. And um they worked across the street from a bombed-out building.
[2:56]And um they helped special needs kids. And they had just left work when the bombings had happened. I mean, that was the most devastating day of bombing
[3:07]since the war uh began a few weeks ago here. And they are dealing with trauma. They are dealing with PTSD. Um up until the
[3:17]ceasefire began, they were afraid to, you know, leave their house at times to even go to work thinking that every turn they made might be their last.
[3:27]Yasmine even said to me at one point, that could have been us. Uh it was very devastating because it's so close to home. I mean, it's a place we go to every day. We come here. I've been coming here for the past 4 years, every
[3:38]day. So, when I saw it on the news, it was just heartbreaking for me to know that something this close happened and this bad. I met this other man who didn't want to tell me his name. He was on the first floor of his building
[3:49]across the street with his three children and his wife when the bombing happened. They could feel the blast through the window of their apartment.
[4:00]They ran immediately down to the basement and waited thinking that they could be next. And luckily, they were not. They had had a meeting in their building a few weeks before saying, "Watch who's
[4:12]coming in and out of your building. Make sure that you know who's coming in and out of your building because if someone is a target and they're coming into our building, that could make us a target." Uh there was another area that we
[4:22]visited um today in which a storage facility and a parking structure had been bombed out. 80 people died there. I spoke to a shop owner
[4:34]um and his wife who owned the smoke shop. They were in their smoke shop when the bombing took place. All the windows um of their shop, all of
[4:44]the products inside had been completely bombed out and ruined. In the 12 days since, they have managed to rebuild some of their shop, but he had he had little tears in his eyes like, "We can't keep living through
[4:56]this." We want to live free from war. We want to raise our children, provide for our families, eat, drink, and live with dignity. We love to travel, to go out, and to
[5:08]experience life. Why have we become a battleground? His wife said to me that she literally now winces if a fly goes by her head.
[5:19]If a door opens too loudly, everything scares her after what took place um on April 8th. I used to be fearless and never scared
[5:32]of anything, but now even a fly passing by makes me anxious. If a car drives past, I panic. I have strong reactions and I'm also becoming very forgetful.
[5:42]It's as though I experienced death without actually dying. What are people saying about this ceasefire? You say they're not really trusting of the ceasefire process. Yeah, I mean,
[5:53]they're thankful, right? We're 4 days into the ceasefire at this point. It took place at 5:00 p.m. local time here last Thursday. Um they said every day up until that point,
[6:05]they were scared to literally come out of their house. So, they're thankful right now that they're in the midst of a ceasefire and they could kind of normalize life for a little bit, but do they trust it? No, they don't. I mean,
[6:17]to be clear, Israel is not that far away. We have a correspondent on the ground in Israel right now. I could get in the car and drive to her if I was allowed to do so, but you cannot drive through the border between Lebanon and
[6:28]Israel. So, they're that close, but they are consistently at war. The one good thing I think that people are looking towards is of course Thursday because both the
[6:38]Lebanese ambassador to the United States and the Israeli ambassador to the United States are meeting in Washington, D.C. on Thursdays. So, they're saying, "Okay, hopefully we can get through Thursday." Explain something for viewers or
[6:50]listeners and viewers who might not understand all the players in the region. You have Hezbollah, which is kind of scattered throughout Lebanon, but mostly in the south of Lebanon. They
[7:00]are Shia Muslims. You have the Sunni Muslims, you have the Christian community, then you have the Israeli interests and what they are looking for with their security um at the border,
[7:11]hence why they're creating this buffer zone in the south of Lebanon. Then you have Iran attaching itself to Hezbollah because Hezbollah is a proxy of Iran. Iran saying their ceasefire sticks so long as Lebanon the
[7:23]Leb- Lebanon ceasefire sticks. And so, because of all of these different things, the Lebanese people feel as if they are being used as a pawn. Right now they feel as if there's a war that's not even theirs that is
[7:33]being fought on their land and they are having to sacrifice for it. Until, you know, just even a few days ago, it felt as if the path forward here
[7:45]was toward a resolution of some sort. And then, a development. Um the news today is the US firing on and boarding an Iranian ship. Around now Iran now
[7:55]says again that the Strait of Hormuz is closed for business. Can you give us the latest on the back and forth about the strait? So, on Saturday, there were some Iranian
[8:07]Navy boats, kind of these small uh boats that are constantly cruising around and protecting the Strait of Hormuz that fired on some um Indian carriers. That was kind of the initial spark that
[8:18]something was happening in the Strait of Hormuz amidst the ceasefire. And after Saturday's ordeal, Sunday happened in which you had um
[8:28]a Iranian uh carrier coming from the I believe the south of the Strait of Hormuz from from the Sea of Oman in which what we're learning is a US carrier
[8:39]essentially said at the blockade, "Stop, stop, stop." The Iranian carrier kept coming. The US carrier subsequently opened fire on their uh machine area, their like
[8:51]their controls area, and then took control of the Iranian ship. Iran has subsequently said the president, for instance, and I'm
[9:01]paraphrasing here, that they believe in dialogue, but they also have the right to respond in kind because of the United
[9:11]States taking control of their ship. The Strait of Hormuz is a huge sticking point, as you well know, because of all the money and the oil that is going through the Strait of Hormuz. And Iran has understood they can
[9:23]weaponize the Strait of Hormuz. It's the only leverage. It's It's the only leverage they >> leverage. And so, they have differing stances on how they should decide who manages and controls the Strait of
[9:33]Hormuz when it comes to this um ceasefire deal. And that I I think it's going to be one of the biggest sticking points uh going into this meeting in Islamabad between the two
[9:44]sides. We talk about this Wednesday deadline. The ceasefire between the US and Iran expires Wednesday. You mentioned those talks in Islamabad just now. Though Iran's foreign ministry said it hasn't yet made a decision whether to
[9:56]participate. You also talked about those talks in DC on on Thursday. Well, I mean, what do people on the ground hope is going to happen from the talking about talking this week? >> Ideally, peace. Everything goes back to
[10:08]normal, call it a day, we move on, and we're done with it. But is that the reality? No. I go back to something that I've talked about in this podcast for a long time, which is these things take time, and
[10:19]everybody understands that. And you know, I mean, especially being here in Lebanon, there are so many different factions that have an interest in what actually happens, and all of them, to a certain
[10:30]extent, want something different. And the same can be said for the negotiating that's happening between Israel, the United States, and Iran as well. And so, when you think about the ceasefire deal
[10:42]between the Iranians and the Americans, it took 2-plus years to negotiate the JCPOA. Do they hope that there is a prolonged
[10:53]ceasefire that leads to an eventual permanent end to the war that will then subsequently help establish a permanent end to the war here because of Hezbollah? Yes.
[11:04]Do they think that's what will happen? Maybe. But I actually think that here in Lebanon, there they feel like they have less hope even than ending the war
[11:15]between Iran and the United States because there is more of a history between Israel and Lebanon, a prolonged fighting between Israel and Lebanon, than there has been between Iran and the
[11:26]United States. And Lebanon does not have the leverage, for instance, with Israel that Iran has with the United States. And as you well know, the president understands
[11:37]that the consequences to this war that he's feeling at home could help propel him forward to negotiate an end to this war, even if that means potentially
[11:49]compromising. Yasmine is going to be bringing you her reporting from the region every day this week. Yasmine, thank you very much. Talk to you tomorrow. Thank you, Christine. See you tomorrow. When the Justice Department released its
[12:00]trove of documents related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, new disclosures put his ranch in New Mexico into sharp focus, including an
[12:09]unsubstantiated anonymous claim that two bodies were buried on that property. Authorities have never fully investigated what happened at the compound, and up until this year, it had
[12:21]never even been fully searched. But at least 10 girls and young women have alleged they were groomed or assaulted at Zorro Ranch. And survivors say they've been reporting abuse at that
[12:32]compound for decades, and advocating for someone to be held accountable. So, why has it taken authorities so long to act?
[12:42]And will survivors finally get justice? NBC News senior Washington correspondent Hallie Jackson was granted rare access to that area, and she joins me now. Welcome, Hallie. Hey, Christine. Good to
[12:53]be with you. So, we're We've heard a lot about Epstein's other properties, you know, the private island, the New York penthouse, but this ranch has really been underreported. Describe the
[13:05]property and what the victims say happened there. So, you drive out, Christine, from either Albuquerque or Santa Fe, and there's like this two-lane road that goes out the back way between
[13:15]those two big cities, and that's where you find what used to be Zorro Ranch. You pull up, uh there's a memorial now on the side of the road right near the entrance to where the gate is, the main
[13:26]driveway that has signs and crosses and posters put up by people who want to remember the victims. It's one of those things, even just standing there, we're out there for several days, and you hear people, you know, they'll honk as they
[13:37]drive by if they see you out there. There's signs that say investigate. One of the things we heard again and again from people who have connections to the ranch, survivors, survivors' family members, is that it felt really
[13:47]isolating. It's You look at these images of it, Christine, and like it's just huge. It's all desert. There's a kind of a ridge, like a hill, and that's where Epstein built this 26,000-sq-ft mansion.
[13:59]It's enormous, you know, very opulent, the pool, the fountains, the tennis court, the stable, et cetera. And so, I think about Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who memorably wrote about Zorro Ranch in her posthumous memoir. She died by
[14:11]suicide about a year ago, but she described the abuse she says she suffered at the hands of Epstein, including at Zorro Ranch, that she was groomed by him there. She writes in her in her memoir that sometimes after
[14:21]Epstein had, in her words, lent her out to somebody, he would almost reward her, so to speak, with a trip to Zorro Ranch because he knew that she liked to ride the horses there, the big open spaces.
[14:32]>> You sat down with some of these survivors and their families in New Mexico, including Rachel Benavidez. She first came in late 1999. She was 22, and she met Jeffrey Epstein a few months
[14:43]later. I want to I want to play a little bit of your conversation with her. It was very intimidating, and I always wondered if something would happen to me. What
[14:53]did she tell you about what happened to her at that ranch? That that she faced so much pressure, she she said, again and again to return. That the people who called her would say, "But you know that
[15:05]he likes your massages." She was hired as a massage therapist, and she says, you know, she first was hired by uh Ghislaine Maxwell, and then was introduced to Jeffrey Epstein a couple of months after that. So, she she just
[15:16]remembers, and when she talks about it, feeling that pressure, like she couldn't say no, even as she was being assaulted by Epstein is is is how she describes it. And she talks about how for that period of time she just felt like she
[15:28]shut down. It in some ways derailed parts of her life. She now has a thriving career. She still lives in New Mexico, and one of the things that she says that I I think resonated, and I heard it from others, too, was like,
[15:40]"This is our state. He did this in New Mexico." And she told you that she thought she was the only one. I thought I was the only one. Do you Can you believe that? Like when I
[15:50]would go out there, and I would see all these girls, like who I thought they were Victoria's Secret models, there was no way he was doing that to them. It wasn't until years later that she found out that
[16:02]there were others. And I will say even now, Rachel, she's, you know, these survivors, they talk about, you know, the the sort of courage is contagious, this idea. Many of them credit Virginia Roberts Giuffre with speaking out so publicly and giving them the courage to
[16:14]speak out. And for Rachel Benavidez, you know, she said she said, "I still don't know that I feel heard. I don't know that there will be justice until survivors are heard and seen and believed." She felt like there were
[16:25]missed chances to hold Jeffrey Epstein accountable for what he had done. Virginia Roberts Giuffre, in her book, she compared the ranch to Disneyland, and she wrote about how the property had
[16:35]a miniature town that housed his servants and groundskeepers. Um you spoke with her brother, Sky, and sister-in-law, Amanda Roberts, in New Mexico. You actually went with them to the compound. I want to play a little
[16:46]bit of that. It's really hard to look at that gate and think that that's the gate my sister went through, like to the gates of hell. Of course some of the horrific things
[16:57]have happened here, because look how far away this is from anyone. It almost gives an abuser this perception that I can do whatever I want here,
[17:07]and no one will know. You can scream as loud as you want, and no one will hear you. And that's why it was so important for us to show up. This is another chapter that we must
[17:19]take a look at. What does accountability look like for the survivors and their families? I think for many of these survivors, there is a hope potentially for the possibility of criminal
[17:30]prosecution. That is a different bar than what the truth commission, this bipartisan group of lawmakers, is looking at. And that's another piece that I think is important to those in New Mexico, because there's Think about it, there's two different levels, right? There's the criminal prosecution, that
[17:42]involves, obviously, a legal case that you are building against somebody. There is also simply telling the truth of what happened at the ranch. What are the explanations for why this has taken so
[17:52]long? I mean, I know NBC News spoke with both the former and current New Mexico attorneys general. There had been probes into this. What Why Why was this just Why was this
[18:04]allowed to persist? >> It's a great question, and that's kind of sitting central to so much of this. The former New Mexico attorney general, Hector Balderas, in 2019, tells us he opened an investigation. He had been looking into this and for even before
[18:16]then, was pursuing an investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and Zorro Ranch. He says he was asked to stand down by the feds, by the Federal Department of Justice in Washington. At the time it was it was in New York. That was he was leading the
[18:27]Epstein investigation. And he said that wasn't all that unusual. Like that typically happens, right? The fed And he said he phrased it with like the big hammer. You typically turn it over to whoever has the bigger hammer, whoever thinks they can build the stronger case,
[18:39]because ultimately you want to get the conviction. So, he said that part of the request seemed reasonable to him, because I asked him, "When they asked you to stand down, why didn't you push back?" And he said, "At at that time, it
[18:49]seemed reasonable what they were asking, because they'd worked this way with the feds in other cases," he says. "And typically, this is how it goes. The feds would then, he assumed, share the information after pursuing an aggressive
[19:01]investigation back with the state of New Mexico so that the state could pursue their own state charges." He said that's when things fell apart, that for a while, for years, he was under the assumption that the feds were
[19:11]aggressively pursuing something in the state of New Mexico, and he says it was only years later that he realized that that was actually not the case, and that in fact, they had determined there was not even probable cause to search Zorro
[19:22]Ranch. That was revealed, Christine, only recently in the release of these Department of Justice Epstein files. Now, NBC News reached out to the person who was helping to lead the Epstein investigation at the time, who did not respond to our request for comment, and
[19:33]the DOJ declined to comment on some of the specifics regarding, you know, various pieces that we asked them about, but they did say that they they're welcome additional investigations by New Mexico. They stand ready to provide any
[19:44]assistance. They say if those investigations do uncover any potential federal crimes, they stand ready to work with law enforcement partners to prosecute if that's where this leads. >> And the current attorney general, his
[19:55]office searched the ranch in March. That's the first time that's happened. >> Huge. They They The New Mexico attorney general, Raul Torrez, opened that investigation and went out and searched the property with permission of the new
[20:05]owners. Zorro Ranch was sold in 2023. The new owner voluntarily cooperated on that. A spokesperson for the ranch's new owner tells us here at NBC News that so far as they know, to their knowledge, no
[20:16]evidence of any potential crimes from the former owner was uncovered. Um but but Attorney General Torrez is pursuing this investigation. And so, that's something else that survivors and their family members are watching and hoping
[20:28]for. I when the Justice Department released that trove of Epstein-related documents, um there was this unsubstantiated anonymous claim that came to light that
[20:38]two, quote, foreign girls died during sex and were secretly buried on the property. State investigators have since launched new probes, in including a
[20:48]criminal case led by the New Mexico Department of Justice. What are the next steps in that investigation? >> That's all part of what the New Mexico attorney general is pursuing now. And that tip, you know, came to a radio
[21:00]station DJ, like a talk show host, this guy Eddie Aragon, who broadcasts there in the Albuquerque greater Albuquerque area. And he has been obviously talking about the Epstein case. People email him
[21:10]tips, ideas. This came through to him. He unsigned anonymous email, as you point out, this unsubstantiated tip that he said he turned over to the FBI, that it was processed. He said he never heard
[21:20]back from the FBI. The guy who was the attorney general in the state at the time, Hector Balderas, tells us he didn't even know that that tip had come in until this email got released in the
[21:30]DOJ document drop that happened just late last year and early this year. And so, as far as next steps, you've got the New Mexico state investigation that's being led by the attorney general, this criminal investigation to see what they
[21:41]could uncover. That is obviously in its you know, we're a couple months into that, not even a month or so. That's in its early stages. And then on a separate but collaborative truth commission that
[21:52]the New Mexico State House unanimously green-lit to try to tell the story of what happened at Zorro. Kelly Jackson, thank you so much. Thank you. That's going to do it for us at Here's the Scoop from NBC News. I'm Christine
[22:03]Romans filling in for Yasmin Vossoughian. We'll be back tomorrow with whatever the day may bring. If you like what you heard, subscribe. We thank you for watching. And remember,
[22:15]stay updated on breaking news and top stories on the NBC News app or watch live on our YouTube channel.