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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt

Just In: Judge Sets Thursday Hearing After Temporarily Blocking Trump's Ban On Foreign Students At Harvard; Now: Stocks Tumble On Trump's New Tariff Threat; Trump Hosts More Than 200 Wealth Crypto Investors At His Virginia Golf Club During His "Personal Time"; Sources: Suspect In Killing Of Israeli Embassy Staffers Wore Digital Recording Device On Night Of The Shooting. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired May 23, 2025 - 16:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Caretakers are dressing up as bears, creepy, creepy bears, to prevent the little one from imprinting on humans because no one would want to imprint on that guy.

[16:00:09]

But he is -- oh my Lord.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN HOST: That feels --

KEILAR: I can't even read -- that is a nightmare. But the bears doing great.

JIMENEZ: That's good.

KEILAR: He's questioning the outfit though for sure.

THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT starts right now.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: It's Donald Trump versus Harvard again.

Let's step into THE ARENA.

Right now, the president weighing in on his fight with the nation's oldest university, warning he may take action against other schools after a federal judge temporarily blocks a ban on foreign students at Harvard.

Plus, the breaking news unfolding on Wall Street. Stocks dipping after new tariff threats from the president as he says he doesn't want a new trade deal with the European Union.

Also this hour, the presidential dinner, one Democrat is calling a, quote, orgy of corruption. We'll discuss with one senator vowing an investigation into Trump's cryptocurrency venture.

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SANCHEZ: Hi, everyone. Welcome to THE ARENA. Great to have you on this Friday. Kasie Hunt is off. I'm Boris Sanchez. And as we come on the air, we're tracking new developments in the

Harvard halt. President Trump, just within the last few minutes, putting other universities on notice as well. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Are you considering stopping other universities besides Harvard from accepting foreign students?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, we're taking a look at a lot of things. And as you know, billions of dollars has been paid to Harvard. How ridiculous is that? Billions. And they have $52 billion as an endowment. They have $52 billion. And this country is paying billions and billions of dollars and then give student loans, and they have to pay back their loans. So Harvard's going to have to change its ways.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Those new comments, coming about three hours after a federal judge blocked the president's effort to ban foreign students from attending Harvard. The school sued the administration within hours of the ban being announced, and scored at least a temporary win, as the case is being put on the judicial fast track, the judge scheduling arguments for Thursday less than a week from now.

The government is expected to lay out its case in that hearing. Why? They say there is a compelling national security interest in barring the enrollment of international students, including those already in the United States, attending classes. Keep in mind, this is just the latest episode in President Trump's very public battle with Harvard. After yanking billions in federal funding and threatening to revoke its tax-exempt status.

My panel is here, along with CNN's Katelyn Polantz.

So, Katelyn, bring us up to speed on what the administration is trying to do here.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris, the administration wants Harvard not to be able to have international students on its campus who are there on student visas. They said on Thursday that immediately effective that they were revoking the student visa program for this major university, something that would affect what Harvard says is a quarter of its student body, all of the students from 143 different countries coming to Harvard, doing things like running labs, teaching courses, assisting faculty, doing research, playing sports at the university, and, of course, being students. They're just the lifeblood of the university, largely built, in many ways around these international students coming to campus.

Then, this morning, it was a very, very swift response from Harvard, filing a lawsuit asking a federal judge in Massachusetts for emergency intervention. And the judge stepped up. Judge Allison Burroughs, she is on the federal court in Boston. She said that Harvard had showed initially that they would face immediate and irreparable harm, and that she was going to stop the Trump administration and the Department of Homeland Security from giving any force to what it said it wanted to do with Harvard as part of its immigration approach and what it says as its combating antisemitism.

Harvard, though, Boris, says this is a much bigger legal issue and retaliation. They say it is in violation of their First Amendment rights, their ability to teach students what they want and conduct their business on campus as they see fit. And they cannot overstate how significant this would be, not just for the campus, but for all of those students. More than 7,000 in total, who are international students coming to Harvard this summer, this fall, even graduating next week -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Katelyn Polantz, please stand by.

We're joined now by our panel. We have Washington house -- rather White House bureau chief for "The Washington Post", Toluse Olorunnipa, CNN political commentators Jonah Goldberg and Xochitl Hinojosa, and Republican strategist Doug Heye.

Great to see all of you. Thank you for sharing this afternoon with us.

Jonah, how much of this is actually about combating antisemitism and what the administration calls pro-terrorist conduct on campus?

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JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, I think very little. I do not want to be put in a position of actually defending a lot of the things that Harvard has done. I think Harvard has behaved craptacularly across a broad array of areas. But this is -- it's not even taking a hatchet when a scalpel would be better. It's taking a hand grenade, when a scalpel would be better.

And it is -- I think Harvard is right. It's a violation of their First Amendment principles and all sorts of things. I am fine in principle with revoking individual visas for individual students who have done individual acts that should be condemned and are contrary to the school's interests, the country's interest to our foreign policy. That's fine.

But to say as a class, just as a group, foreign students need to go, and Trump's phrasing about how we give billions of dollars to these schools, this country after World War II made a concerted effort and decided that we were going to do basic research in universities. And we spent billions of dollars for treatments for cancer, for all Alzheimer's, all sorts of things, that's what those billions of dollars go for. They don't. It's not -- it's just not gifts to Harvard.

So, I think as I so often get frustrated as a conservative, directionally, I think Trump has a lot of good points or has points in his favor. But the methods and the scope of what he's doing is just way out of whack.

SANCHEZ: Xochitl, what do you make of those good points? XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, this is an attack

on civil society. We've seen this from the start of Donald Trump's presidency, where he went after law firms, especially the law firms that don't always align with his policies or might challenge Donald Trump and his administration.

He goes after universities, if they don't agree with him, he's going after companies if they don't do exactly what he wants. So -- and every turn, we have seen that Donald. Trump is targeting those who disagree with him and his administration.

And a judge rightfully put a halt to this because it does. I mean. Harvard states in their papers that this is unconstitutional, impacts the First Amendment rights. So, I do think while this is the beginning and I think this is terrible for all the reasons that Jonah mentioned, in terms of research, people don't understand that Harvard provides life-changing and, you know, life-saving research. But the reality is, is that this is just the beginning of his administration, and he will continue to do these retribution campaigns unless courts stop him.

SANCHEZ: Doug, educational attainment happens to be one of the most efficient predictors of political leanings across the board. So, I wonder when you consider the politics of this, is there truly an effort by this administration to attack institutions of higher learning that the base sees as expendable or against their interests?

DOUG HEYE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: So, I have a client that it's a lot of educational work, a lot of universities. And I said to one of them two weeks ago, you need to understand that while, yes, you're under attack for a lot of unfair reasons, you need to know why you're not popular and the American people don't like you. And if you can't figure that out, you're going to continue to have these problems both individually for a school and as a whole class.

I would also say, as a member of the UNC North Carolina Board of Visitors, North Carolina is a school that did it right. When we had protests over October 7th on our campus, we never let the flag touch the ground. And the next day, the chancellor was on campus raising that flag. That was an example of how to do this right, when we've seen especially. Columbia being a great example of how to do it wrong. Learn from your mistakes, so that you're not then such obvious victims the next time.

SANCHEZ: Xochitl brings up a good point, Toluse, about this being one of many legal fronts in which the administration is trying to flex executive power and test the limits of it. From your reporting, do they think this is going to be successful?

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: They're doing a throw spaghetti against the wall strategy in which they are pushing the limits of executive power and seeing how far they can get. In some cases, courts have been willing to let them move things through the court system, willing to allow these things to play out before they ultimately get to the Supreme Court. In some cases, district court judges have said no, this is actually unconstitutional. We have to stop you before irreparable harm is done. And so, this is one of those cases where a court in Massachusetts is

saying, you can't continue to do this. You can't move beyond where you've gone because this is unconstitutional. So, they are moving forward with a lot of these things because they believe that they can flood the system and get a lot of things through, even if courts stop them half the time.

HINOJOSA: Well, and I also think that they feel that they can go to the Supreme Court in all of these matters, whether it is, you know, challenging the law firms and or whether law firms challenging the administration or the Harvard case. I do believe that the Biden or the -- sorry, the Trump administration believes that if they get to the Supreme Court, they could get a favorable ruling.

GOLDBERG: But there's also -- there's also just a political benefit. Forget poll numbers kind of benefit in much the same way of going after law firms, going after the universities, even if it will fail in court. I think most of this will fail in court. It still has a chilling effect, right?

You're going to have -- we've seen the number of foreign students applying to go to universities dropping. Foreign tourism is dropping.

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They think that's a winning thing, either on the policy or on the politics. And that is in effect, that's a benefit they get regardless of what happens in the courts.

SANCHEZ: Still plenty more to discuss. So, panel, please stand by.

Up next, President Trump is reigniting his tariff threats, this time against Apple and the European Union. We'll discuss that and the broader impact of the tariff war on the economy with former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.

Stay with us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: You know, the iPhone, if they're going to sell it in America, I want it to be built in the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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SANCHEZ: Back now with the latest twist in the tariff turmoil. Just a few minutes ago, the closing bell bringing an end to another lackluster day for stocks. The Dow, S&P 500 and the Nasdaq all down, ending the worst week this month for all three major indices. The uninspired results on Wall Street today, a result of President Trump injecting a new wrinkle into his global trade war.

Within the past hour, the president in the Oval Office saying this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I'm not looking for a deal. I mean, we've set the deal. It's at 50 percent. But again, there is no tariff. If they build their plant here. Now, if somebody comes in and wants to build a plant here, I can talk to them about a little bit of a delay.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Not looking for a deal. Those comments coming just a few hours after he posted that the European union has been, quote, very difficult to deal with, and adding that he's, quote, recommending a 50 percent tariff on a imports from the E.U. starting June 1st.

Now, Europe isn't alone in these new threats. The president today also putting Apple and other smartphone makers on notice, demanding the company make iPhones in the U.S. or face a 25 percent tariff. An administration official tells CNN that Apple CEO Tim Cook met with the president at the White House this past Tuesday, though the official didn't say what the two talked about.

On an earnings call earlier this month, Cook told investors that he expected Apple would face a tariff burden of nearly $1 billion just this quarter, billion with a B. Later, during remarks in the Oval Office, Trump expanded his threat to include Samsung and anybody making smartphones outside the United States.

Let's discuss with former treasury secretary and former president of Harvard, Larry Summers.

Larry, great to see you.

So, Trump also just announced a partnership between U.S. Steel and Japanese steelmaker Nippon that he says will keep the headquarters of U.S. Steel in Pittsburgh and draw $14 billion of investment toward the U.S. economy. He said this as he was boarding Marine One. He's headed to Bedminster for the weekend.

I wonder what your reaction is to that news.

LARRY SUMMERS, FORMER HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT: I don't know the details well enough to comment. I guess it's good that some arrangement has been made. That merger was obviously a good thing for the U.S. economy, and had been blocked by the Biden administration, and then had been blocked by the Trump administration.

So the idea that somethings being worked out is, I suppose, good. But I find the whole approach of constantly moving goalposts deal making with individual companies based on the president's personal loyalties that he's taking to economic policy to be disastrous and I think ultimately, it's going to have very bad consequences for our economy.

SANCHEZ: I wonder, Larry, how you read his statements today. I mean, he started off by saying that he's recommending 50 percent tariffs on the E.U. Then later said, we already said a deal. It's at 50 percent. How do you think the U.S. is? Or rather the E.U. is absorbing those statements?

SUMMERS: Look, I think the president of the United States is showing himself to be someone who you can't make a deal with and have that deal stick. And I think that's very costly for our country. I think ultimately, it raises questions about how trusted we are going to be in financial markets. And that will mean higher interest rates, higher borrowing costs, higher mortgage costs. I think it will mean over time a weaker dollar, which means well have to pay more for everything that we import.

And so, I think at a time when we've never had more debt and were never accumulating government debt so rapidly to alienate the whole rest of the world that holds a substantial fraction of that debt is a very misguided strategy. If I were sitting in China, I would be cheering all of this on. I would be thinking that the president of the United States is taking what was a strong country with a strong economy and cutting it off from the rest of the world and building up its rate of accumulation of debt as rapidly as he could. And it'd be hard for me to imagine receiving a greater strategic gift.

SANCHEZ: What do you make of his threats toward Apple and other smartphone makers?

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Twenty-five percent tariff if they don't make their smartphones in the United States? I mean, what would that mean for consumers?

SUMMERS: I think consumers would much rather buy smartphones cheap than make them. I don't know many people who are looking for jobs assembling smartphones in a factory. And we're sitting with a large number of manufacturing jobs all already open.

So, why we would want to move people from the jobs they have now to jobs making smartphones. I cannot imagine, and I can't imagine that an economy that's ever more about information, about interconnection, that jacking the price of smartphones way up is going to be a big burden on American families. So, this seems to me almost completely misguided as economic policy.

SANCHEZ: I also want to ask you about the president's battle with Harvard. The tuition and fees from international students generate a large portion of a university's income, and Harvard has already lost billions in grants and funding. Do you imagine that the school is going to endure some financial hardship because of this? How much more pressure can it take?

SUMMERS: I mean, a court has already reversed the president's, decision, at least on a temporary basis. The finances are a blow to Harvard, but Harvard's a wealthy university and can manage that. What's much more serious is the blow that this is to our country, as we alienate thousands of people whose dream was to come study in the United States at Harvard, as we send away the people who were going to be the next generation of entrepreneurs, of our great companies, as we interfere with the ongoing research projects that are curing diseases like cancer and diabetes. That's what this is about. It's about showing whether we're a generous nation that is open to the

world and proud of what people can learn here, or whether we're at war with the idea of learning and teaching students from all over the world. It's about whether the United States is going to be a moral beacon. That's my focus today, and I think that's the focus of most people at Harvard.

Harvard is being used to send a message, and that message is a very, very dangerous one. Courage is contagious. Harvard has shown courage in using all the legal redress mechanisms open to it, and I'm glad they'll continue to do that.

SANCHEZ: Beyond the moral argument that you've made, there's also an economic one, and you sort of alluded to it. I'd like for you to expand on it. It's the entrepreneurial injection that these foreign students represent for the U.S. economy, right? There's a Stanford study that found that 44 percent of U.S. unicorn companies, those are startups valued at $1 billion or more, are actually founded or co- founded by immigrants.

And specifically for Harvard, "Axios" found that around 24 of those companies were co-founded or founded by Harvard international students. So ultimately, what would this represent for the economy as a whole if you're excluding these brilliant students from attending U.S. universities?

SUMMERS: It's going to make us -- it's going to make us poorer. It's going to make there be fewer high quality jobs. I don't know, I think most people would rather work at the next Google than work assembling an iPhone. And we're making a choice to become the kind of economy that assembles iPhones, rather than being the kind of economy that invents iPhones.

And that's a very costly mistake. It's a misguided judgment. And ultimately, it's going to be poorer.

I speak to all kinds of American students. They think that part of what is great about coming to a university like Harvard is the way they meet the most talented young people from around the world.

So, I don't know who wants to have that opportunity denied to them. What a fantastic opportunity it was for us some years ago to be able to have Xi Jinping's daughter brought up in that system, come and spend four years in our system.

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And what an opportunity that is to show the difference between our kind of society and theirs. And we're just throwing that all away.

SANCHEZ: The counterargument from the administration would be that some of these universities have coordinated with the Chinese communist party in ways that advance anti-American sentiment. But what I hear you saying is that it's actually a boon to have students like them here. And I'm sorry, but we have a very short time for response. What do you think? SUMMERS: I don't know where -- I don't know where -- I don't know

where they get this idea. Historians have studied how Russia fell, and a lot of it has to do with the ideas of perestroika and glasnost that Gorbachev put forward. He got those ideas from his ideological advisor, Alexander Yakovlev. Yakovlev got those ideas, was able to conceive that because of a year he spent studying at a U.S. university in the late 1950s.

There are dozens of examples of people who had formative experiences in their lives studying at American universities. If were proud of what our country is, why don't we want people to come for a time and be part of it and take that back?

SANCHEZ: Larry Summers, fascinating to get your perspective. Appreciate your time.

SUMMERS: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Up next, an inside look at president Trump's ritzy and exclusive meme coin dinner. Senator Richard Blumenthal, an outspoken critic of the event, will join us in THE ARENA to discuss.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): This private secret dinner in which individuals who have put money in Donald Trump's pocket get access to him, is maybe the most corrupt of all the corruption.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): Donald Trump's dinner is a -- is an orgy of corruption.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Democratic lawmakers using some colorful language to describe President Trump's private black tie dinner last night for the top investors in his cryptocurrency meme coin. One of those investors, a Chinese born crypto entrepreneur, posted this video giving us an inside look at the exclusive event.

CNN has learned that the 220 wealthy guests dined on filet mignon and halibut, and that the president gave a 20-minute speech.

Here's a bit of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We paved the way for the strategic reserve to acquire even more bitcoin in the years ahead. We have a strategic reserve. I also created the United States digital asset stockpile so the government can leverage the power of crypto assets for the first time ever. You know that. And it's really becoming -- it's becoming powerful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: The White House says the president attended the event in his personal capacity. But critics like our next guest, says the dinner presented foreigners with the opportunity to purchase access to the president.

With us now is Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.

Senator, thanks so much for being with us.

I want to play for you some sound from the Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt specifically talking about Trump's presence at this dinner. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president is attending it in his personal time. It is not a White House dinner. It's not taking place here at the White House.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Senator, should the U.S. president be allowed to partake in a function like this during personal time?

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): You know, the function reflects the scam, and the scam is that this access to the president, because he was president, not because he's Donald Trump, the private citizen, is the result of his office. And in effect, he's putting a "for sale" sign on the White House.

He is, in effect, saying to the investors in his crypto meme coin that they can gain access to him and he will know who they are if they have, for example, investigations underway as the top investor has Justin Sun, he has a case before the SEC. And remember that the meme coin has no value in its tie to any specific asset. Its function is simply a speculative item, and it is the result of speculation in being tied to the president and the access that has been sold here.

So, it is really the height of scams, unprecedented and unconscionable. Selling the office, in effect, and the functions just reflects that kind of scam. It is truly putting this president on a Mount Rushmore of corruption.

SANCHEZ: We should note that case that you mentioned was put on hold in February. I'm curious about the substance of what some of the attendees shared with reporters. They argue that this venture is part of an effort to modernize the economy and to embrace financial innovation in a way that the previous administration didn't. I wonder how you respond to that and whether you have any evidence that the attendees actually had private time with the president to lobby for any kind of change with regulation in regard to cryptocurrency?

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BLUMENTHAL: You know, let's be realistic. They may not have had time last night to lobby with him, but he can look around the room and there's a record of who attended. He knows full well how much they've invested. And by the way, there was a leaderboard, a competition and a contest for who was going to invest the most and the one who invested the most was actually Justin Sun. You spoke earlier about his SEC case. It was paused and negotiations begun to settle it. Shortly after he began investing in this meme coin.

So, the president doesn't have to talk to anybody in that room for him to know who is putting money in his pocket. And let's be very clear, the sole function of this meme coin is to put money into his pocket, funnel cash to his family. It is the most blatant, outright misuse of office in the nation's history.

SANCHEZ: Senator, I also want to ask you about the situation with Harvard, this legal fight and a judge temporarily blocking the administration's efforts to ban international students enrolling in the university. The administration says that this is an effort to root out pro-terrorist antisemitic activity on campus. It does come at a time when we are seeing Jewish people get murdered on the street for their beliefs in this country.

I wonder what you make of the administration's efforts to address antisemitism.

BLUMENTHAL: Harvard is making an effort to address antisemitism. It has taken steps to stop the harassment of students on campus and to end any kind of terrorist activity that could in any way, be interpreted as supported by Harvard. But, you know, the irony here is that the administration is saying Harvard is coordinating with the Chinese communist party.

And yet at that dinner last night, a number of the meme coin buyers were actually from China. You can bet they have a connection to the Chinese government. And the problem with that meme coin dinner is that it makes him beholden to foreign interests in a way that the emoluments clause sought to prevent. That's why I went to the floor of the senate and asked that we have a vote on all of these payments the plane, the meme coin, and others.

And that we have a list of who was at that dinner. It's undisclosed. We know nothing about who was there.

And Harvard is standing up to this administration in its slide toward a surveillance state. The demands it is making are purely retaliatory. And their violation of the First Amendment, which is why a court today put a temporary restraining order on the administration's demands from Harvard and its ending of the visa program that enables students, international students, to attend Harvard.

It's a blatant violation of law, unconscionable and unprecedented, and intrusion on academic freedom, because what the administration wants to do is tell Harvard what to teach, who should teach, and who should be students there. And that is a violation of academic freedom. But the First Amendment, because it's based on viewpoints, not on terrorist activity or coordination with the Chinese communist party.

SANCHEZ: Senator Richard Blumenthal, we have to leave the conversation there. Very much appreciate your time.

BLUMENTHAL: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Our panel is back with us now, and we want to talk more about Trump's meme coin dinner last night.

Toluse, initially when this invitation went out, there was an indication that some of the top spenders on this meme coin were going to get a private tour of the White House that was since scrapped after it was reported on. We don't know exactly where this private tour is going to take place yet, do we?

OLORUNNIPA: We don't know. But we do know that a lot of the top spenders are people from foreign countries. And this is a new way for them to donate to our political system, to donate to the person in power in the White House.

Foreigners are not allowed to do political donations through because of legal restrictions. This is a new avenue that Trump has opened up, and we saw a number of foreign officials, a number of foreign businesspeople took advantage of that, and they realized that not only will they be able to attend this dinner, but they will be able to have this private period. The smaller group where they could lobby the president. A lot of them publicly said that they were going to be lobbying the president.

So that is a big concern that we heard from the senator and that were hearing from Democrats as well.

SANCHEZ: Xochitl, on the idea that the senator and some of his colleagues are going to investigate this dinner, it's going to be tough, really, to point to something that was blatantly illegal, wont it?

HINOJOSA: Well, I think that you're right. I think what -- but I think the hard part about all of this and what Trump and the administration understand is, while they say he was in his personal capacity, you're never in your personal when president of the United States, there is no personal capacity. So, I agree it's going to be very difficult for Congress, especially a House and a Senate, that Democrats don't necessarily run right now for them to investigate and for there to be consequences. And that's the problem with all of these things, is that Trump feels he can do whatever he wants because Democrats don't have control of the House or the Senate.

They don't have. They can try to call people up to the Hill, they can try to investigate this. But what kind of authority do they really have? And that's the problem. In addition, the Supreme Court said. Back last year, that essentially, Donald Trump can -- doesn't necessarily -- doesn't -- couldn't be prosecuted, right? And so, they gave him sort of an open door to do whatever he wants.

And so, I think this has led to things like this. The corruption, potentially taking foreign money. And benefiting off of all of this.

SANCHEZ: It kind of makes you want to start a meme coin, doesn't it, though?

HEYE: I don't think mine would do as well. But look, I think one can think that crypto is innovative and good and support Trump administration policy on crypto while also thinking this is a terrible idea. And what we've seen with Donald Trump is everything that he wants to do, he wants to do it bigger and better than anybody else. Corruption as well.

When I first started in campaigns in politics, I remember we were talking about Bill Clinton and the Lincoln Bedroom. And then a few years later, we learned that even presidents have private lives, private capacities.

And so, what we've seen is then, you know, obviously, Hunter Biden's terrible artwork is going to donors. Donors have all kinds of access. This is a new way of doing it. It obviously allows foreign donors as well, and it's a much bigger way. It should cause a lot of problems. I can't wait for one Republican House or Senate member to say that publicly.

SANCHEZ: Jonah, is that going to happen? Likely not.

GOLDBERG: Likely not. Although there are murmurs about basically there is -- I think there's space to get, a consensus around members of Congress not trading on stocks because there's a lot of sketchy stuff going on, on that front. And there are people on both sides of the aisle. But as long as if it's seen as aimed at Trump, it's not going to get anywhere with most Republicans.

Look, I agree with Doug. I agree with everybody here. This is just really gross-seeming and so unnecessary. The one place I disagree with Doug on this is that I actually think is crypto policies are terrible, too, and that the idea of a strategic reserve of bitcoin is ludicrous. It's this idea -- it's sort of like the sovereign wealth fund stuff, but dumber insofar as were kind of come up with an alternative currency to the dollar when our entire economic system is based on the idea of us being the reserve currency for the world. And he says, well, let's come up with this other thing that there's no reason for the United States government to stockpile bitcoins or any of this stuff.

And so, I think in some ways this is much better for political fights and all that kind of stuff. But the policy itself, I think is ludicrous.

HEYE: I will say not all of Donald Trump's policies are always well thought out and on strategic reserve, I don't disagree, but clearly the previous administration was they were bad crypto. They were bad crypto at all. You know, no crypto none of the time.

Obviously, he's opened the door to this in some ways that are good on policy. The personal on this is obviously not just bad optics but bad.

HINOJOSA: But he's opened the door because he can personally benefit from it, too.

HEYE: Sure.

HINOJOSA: I mean, that is -- that's the whole thing, that he doesn't do anything for anybody else. He does it for himself. And so that is -- that's what we're seeing here.

HEYE: I don't disagree with you.

SANCHEZ: I appreciate all of your perspectives.

Coming up, we have new details about the man accused of shooting and killing two Israeli embassy staffers right here in Washington, D.C. The device law enforcement say they found in his backpack.

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[16:48:03]

SANCHEZ: We're learning new details about the man charged with murdering two Israeli embassy staffers Wednesday night, right here in Washington, D.C. Sources tell CNN that the suspect wore a digital video recording device on the night of the shooting.

Let's bring in CNN's Evan Perez and CNN's senior law enforcement analyst, Andrew McCabe.

Evan, first to you, walk us through what you learned.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Well, sources told John Miller and me, Boris, that this this suspect had this video recording device, and it was recovered from his backpack after he was detained by the metropolitan police after the shooting. Now, it's not clear whether this was intended to live stream the attack or whether this was something that he was trying to do and didn't succeed in doing. And it's also not clear what exactly was on this recording, but it is something obviously that is very important for the investigators to go through.

And look, we've seen this in some of these recent attacks where, for instance, in the New Year's Day attack in in New Orleans, where the suspect there was trying to, it appears live streamed the attack. And we've seen this in -- over the years in a number of other terrorist attacks. But it is interesting, obviously. Given the planning that that investigators believe went into carrying out this, these two murders on Wednesday night.

We also know that there the investigators are also trying to get everybody around the suspect, people associated with him, friends, family, every one of those people they're trying to talk to. One reason is because we know that there's these writings that were posted online about an hour after the attack, well before his name became public. Those were posted online. And so, the question is, did he time the release of that publicly online, or did someone else do that for him?

Again, no indication of that yet, but it is something that is that gives you a sense of what investigators are still trying to comb through, just in a couple of days since this attack happened.

[16:50:07]

SANCHEZ: Evan Perez, thanks so much for that reporting.

Andy, I do want to play a bit of what an eyewitness told CNN last night. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATIE KALISHER, DC SHOOTING EYEWITNESS: Suddenly, a man comes in and he looks very distressed, very scared. And I think we all generally assume that he must have just been out in the street. And we didn't have any idea that he was, in fact, a murderer. So here he was in the room for at least 15 minutes, sitting with us.

I'm talking to him and I'm like, so how do you like the museum? How is your day going? And he's like, oh, what kind of museum is this? And I understand now, he was kind of playing dumb with me. So I told him, oh, it's a Jewish museum. And he asked me, do you think that's why they did it?

And then suddenly he reaches into his backpack and pulls out a keffiyeh and looks me in the eye and says, I did it. I did it for Gaza.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Andy, what do you make of the alleged gunman's actions immediately after the shooting?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yeah, Boris, it's hard to imagine the -- just the dissonance between the horrific attack he just committed and then this seemingly nonchalant presentation of himself inside the very location he tried to victimize. But I will say it is clear from -- for a number of different angles that this shooter was absolutely intent on becoming publicly known through the process of executing this crime. And that's not something that we see in every single case.

But this was very clearly an act that was motivated by his political ideology. He did it in a bold way. He made no attempt to flee the scene. He goes inside instead of trying to run off into the darkness of the rainy night in D.C. and then and then confesses to the people who were also attending the event and to the police to try to take him into custody.

This guy wanted to be known, wants to be known as the person who stood up and committed murder for Palestine.

SANCHEZ: Andrew McCabe, appreciate the point of view. Thanks for joining us.

MCCABE: Thanks.

SANCHEZ: Coming up, five years later, how the country has and hasn't changed following the murder of George Floyd.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:57:05]

SANCHEZ: Five years ago this weekend, George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. The video was painful. Last moments sparked unprecedented protests across the country, and conversations around police reform.

One of our panelists, Toluse Olorunnipa, coauthored of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "His Name is George Floyd".

Toluse, I wonder, given where we are five years later and some of the ebbs and flows that we've seen when it comes to relations between people of color and the police, where do you think the legacy of George Floyd stands right now, and how its taking shape toward the future?

OLORUNNIPA: It definitely remains to be seen. Even as my coauthor, Robert Samuels, and I were writing this book in 2021, we were starting to see some of the backlash in state capitals and in Washington, D.C., against the movement that took place after George Floyd was murdered. And we have seen that accelerate with President Trump leading the charge against diversity, equity and inclusion.

But when you look at the state level and the local level, we have seen major changes to policing that have endured for the last five years, bans on no knock warrants, ban on chokeholds, bans on things that would escalate the situation as opposed to de-escalating the situation. And we are continuing to see those things play out at the local level.

Now, when you throw this very contentious issue into our contentious national politics, it does look like the movement and the momentum behind the George Floyd movement has faded. At the national level, but at the local level, there's much more action taking place.

SANCHEZ: And politically, Doug, there was momentum toward actual reform, police reform on Capitol Hill, that certainly disintegrated.

HEYE: It did. And I think part of it was, you know, when we start using initials, it big initials, then it becomes something that it wasn't initially supposed to be. BLM then became not just about police reform, but a lot of other issues that some people said, wait, that's not what I signed up for. DEI sort of does the same thing.

A lot of people voted for Donald Trump to lower prices and fix the border. A lot of things that we see now aren't those things. MAGA, same thing.

SANCHEZ: Xochitl, I wonder --

HINOJOSA: Absolutely. I was at the Justice Department when we put in place the Minneapolis consent decree in January. And unfortunately, the Trump administration has now reversed some of that progress. And the reason why these consent decrees and police departments are important is that you have lasting changes and that you have training, and you stop the use of excessive force and discriminatory practices within these police departments.

So, it's unfortunate. Right before the anniversary, the Trump administration reversed the consent decree in Minneapolis. But luckily, the mayor understands that there are tensions within the community and will continue with some of the reforms. But that's not always the case in some of these various police departments. And so, you have some that are going to just put their hands up and stop with these reforms, which is unfortunate and could lead to further protests in those communities.

SANCHEZ: Jonah, we have about 20 seconds.

GOLDBERG: Yeah, I just think one of the things that's going to be very hard for historians to figure out is how to disentangle the protests, the backlash, the protests from the larger social dysfunctions that came from COVID. And that makes everything -- it colors everybody's memory of those events in ways that I just can have a very long half- life.

SANCHEZ: Very much enjoy the conversation. I hope you all enjoy the weekend as you should as well.

Thanks so much for joining us on THE ARENA.

"THE LEAD" starts right now.