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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt

New Numbers Show 119 Dead, At Least 172 Missing In Texas Floods; Sen. Tillis Breaks With Trump; Investigating Comey & Brennan; Sources: Hegseth Did Not Inform The White House Before Authorizing Pause On Weapons To Ukraine. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired July 09, 2025 - 16:00   ET

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

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: -- Christian camp, where at least 27 young campers and counselors perished.

[16:00:05]

One of them was eight-year-old Virginia Wynne Naylor. Her family says that she was staying in Camp Mystic's Bubble Inn when the flood hit. They tell CNN they started a nonprofit in Wynne's honor in hopes of replacing grief with hope.

Wynne's family says she had a, quote, great love of the outdoors, a love for God, a love for her community. This is how our girls dance through this world. This is how they will be remembered.

Thank you so much for joining us on "CNN NEWS CENTRAL" this afternoon. The news continues in just a moment.

THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT starts right now.

KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Deadly flooding strikes another state as questions mount about what went wrong in Texas.

Let's head into THE ARENA.

In New Mexico, at least three people are dead after a flash flood struck a mountain village. This as Texas continues to search for survivors five days after its own tragedy. We're live on the ground in Kerrville.

Plus, Senator Thom Tillis breaks with President Trump and says he won't run for reelection. Jake Tapper is here with a clip from his exclusive new interview with the North Carolina Republican.

And then the former heads of the FBI and CIA under investigation. Ahead, why the Trump Justice Department is looking into allegations that James Comey and John Brennan lied to Congress.

Hi, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. Welcome to THE ARENA. It's wonderful to have you with us today.

Right now in Texas, the search for survivors continues more than five days since catastrophic flooding struck the region. One hundred and nineteen people are now confirmed dead. Among them, dozens of children who were attending summer camps along the banks of the Guadalupe River.

This morning, CNN affiliate KSAT reported that on the morning that the flooding began, a volunteer firefighter asked the sheriff's office to issue a mass notification to cell phones in the area that alert didn't go -- did go out, but not until almost six hours after that firefighter requested it. And right now, authorities don't have an answer for what caused that delay.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERRIFF LARRY L. LEITHA, KERRVILLE, TEXAS: Those questions are going to be answered. I believe those questions need to be answered to the family of the deceased loved ones, to the public. Please understand that.

You know, we don't have -- we're not running. We're not going to hide for anything. That's going to be checked into at a later time. I wish I could tell you that time. I don't know that time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: And now, Central Texas not alone. Historic and deadly flooding strikes New Mexico.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh my God. Oh my God.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: That is an entire house floating away in a village in the mountains of southern New Mexico. At least three people were killed there in a flash flood caused by torrential rain. Two children are among the dead. One person is missing.

And this video came to us from a store in the area. It's a time lapse, but it shows just how quickly the water rose. In a matter of just minutes. The entire room is flooded with the furniture floating up against the ceiling.

New Mexico's governor has declared a state of emergency and requested federal assistance.

We have team coverage to start us off. CNN's Isabel Rosales is live in Center Point, Texas, along with CNN anchor and chief investigative correspondent Pam Brown, who is in Kerrville, Texas.

And, Pam, we, of course, want to get first to you as you are just back from -- you had a chance to talk with the family of nine that survived the flooding, including their 83-year-old matriarch. What did they tell you?

PAM BROWN, CNN CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: It was such an incredible story, Kasie, incredible story of survival with Penny Dupree (ph), 83 years old, and her family. She had her family visiting over the Fourth of July. And she says they saved her life. Basically, she said that she got up in the middle of the night and she

went to the other side of her house and she said it was like an ocean coming in, and she ran on the other side to get her -- wake up her sons, and she had her grandbabies, their one years old, three years old, and woke everyone up. Seven in total. And the two kids and then the two dogs and they, in their quick thinking, went up a ladder to the top part of the house, the attic.

And they saw the water rushing, going higher and higher and higher. And they thought, well, we're going to be trapped up here and were going to drown if we stay here. But there's no escape. And so they got a lobster buoy and banged on the back of the wall and created a little makeshift escape hatch that was very narrow. And they all squeezed, barely squeezed through that escape hatch into the fast-moving water. And then they were able to make it onto the top of the -- on the gutter, all of them.

And all they were using was a little night light for one of the babies.

[16:05:00]

And just imagine, it's pitch black. There is raging, fast moving water and they just say it is an incredible story of survival that they went to get up, get out to the world. These stories, the positive stories like this, and they understand that so many didn't make it out alive and their hearts are with them.

And they said, look, we've had a lot of loss here in Kerrville and a lot of loss. And we as a family have had a lot of losses, but we've also had some wins. And they say those wins every day. They're finding new treasures in their home.

And get this, Kasie, one of the treasures is that their great, great- grandmother was the author of "The Secret Garden".

HUNT: Wow.

BROWN: And, of course, the famous, the secret -- yeah, "The Secret Garden". And she had many other famous works. And she -- she's an amazing woman. And they were able to find the original copies that their great-great-grandmother wrote of "The Secret Garden", semi recovered, you know, but they're, there. And so, they found wedding rings and so forth.

So, they said, these are the little winds that keep us going amid this tragedy. But they are one incredible family with a survival story. And there are many others here, too, even as so many others have lost their loved ones from this devastating flooding. So much to grapple with here on the ground, Kasie.

HUNT: Yeah, remarkable. I loved that book growing up. Really poignant detail. And Pam, I actually do. We actually do have a little bit of this interview to play for everyone to show you walk through their house with them. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, this is a lobster buoy that's used in the East Coast. And they use this end to barrel through the wall that was at the back of the House. And there were three buoys, and they each had one of these.

BROWN: And they were just banging.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And actually, the neighbor straight behind me yesterday or the day before said, I heard you guys yelling and I heard you banging on the walls, trying to get out of your house.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Yes. And so there you go, Kasie. You heard it from Penny there, just how fortunate she is to be alive after what was so horrifying. But it was so fascinating. And talking to her, she said, I didn't realize in that moment.

I mean, you don't know what its like to go through life threatening flooding until you're actually in it, right? And she said, I just kept keeping my focus on, I'm going to get out of here alive. She said it never crossed her mind she was going to die in the floods, and she wanted to make sure her grandbabies, of course, were okay.

And she said that once they made it on the top of the gutter, that the parents held the grandbabies and sang, they sang songs and was able to get them to go to sleep. It's really, really moving story and I think you can maybe see some video. I went up that ladder to see that space where they were, and it must have just been so horrifying as they watched that water rise and felt like they didn't have any escape, and then they were able to figure out a way out. Just incredible.

HUNT: Yeah, for sure.

All right, Pam, thank you so much for that.

And I want to bring in Isabel Rosales, who's been in Center Point, Texas. Thats about 15 minutes or so southeast of where we just heard from Pam.

Isabel, what have you been seeing today?

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kasie, I am at an RV resort. This is the Guadalupe Keys RV resort, where I've been speaking with the owner. His name is Drew, and he says that the Fourth of July weekend is his busiest weekend of the year. And on July 4th, he had 12 campers out here on his property.

And he told me, this is Drew right here. He told me that he woke up at 6:00 a.m., Drew, but it wasn't to an emergency alert on your phone, is that correct?

DREW: No. I had a park manager, and I don't know how he got alerted. He just called me and said, get going. We got a flood coming.

So, at that point, I put on what I have on and we took off and started evacuating the park.

ROSALES: So these are customers.

DREW: Yeah.

ROSALES: You started going and knocking on their door.

DREW: Knocking on doors. Telling them to leave, we're evacuating. And they all got out.

And you know, because they're Airbnb, they already have suitcases and everything. So, they just grabbed them through. So, we got everybody out in ten minutes.

ROSALES: Walk me through how quickly the water came. And then also, what am I looking at over here?

DREW: The water came up. It was probably I guess there's about 27 feet. It's what they're guessing. It came up in probably 15. Well, we were flooded in 20 minutes.

ROSALES: Twenty minutes.

DREW: Yeah, we were over 20 feet in 20 minutes.

ROSALES: What am I looking at? That twisted metal beyond the trees.

DREW: That is my camper. That's my camper. It's all the way from there. It's about, what, 300 yards? And it's in that pile and it's just --

ROSALES: On the Guadalupe River, on the banks, at least.

DREW: Uh-huh, uh-huh.

ROSALES: And I'm looking at --

DREW: All this debris. All this all came here because this river turns right here. So, everything came right here. So, they've been hauling all this out for days, three days.

[16:10:02]

So --

ROSALES: Do you ever wonder about that knock? What would have happened at that knock didn't come? Did that save your life?

DREW: Yeah, it would have been devastating. You know? There's no doubt that those people didn't have more time to get out. I mean, they would have made it. And we lost ten campers.

ROSALES: Drew, thank you so much. I appreciate you talking to us.

Kasie, as they're working to clean up here, we're obviously still very much an active search and rescue. There are first responders all over the Guadalupe River. Still looking for those over 170 people that are missing. And we know in Kerr County, they haven't found a survivor since Friday -- Kasie.

HUNT: Really tough reality.

All right. Isabel Rosales, thank you so much for that as always.

All right. Joining us now to discuss all of this further is John Morales. He is a longtime hurricane specialist in southern Florida and the founder and lead meteorologist at ClimaData.

I'm so grateful to have you on the show today. I really appreciate your willingness to come lend your voice to this, because you have decades of experience reporting on the weather, and you've been warning us all about the impacts of climate change. And of course, the way that we do our own systems here.

Can you give us a sense of how you think this flood compares to other types of disasters that you've covered, especially considering the speed with which the water rose?

JOHN MORALES, FOUNDER, CLIMADATA: You know, there's -- there have been many flash flood events in the U.S. that have led to a pretty severe casualties, to be honest. So, this is definitely not the first time this has happened. You already know, and I don't need to repeat that.

This particular part of Texas is particularly flash flooding. But what we do know is that we're starting to see the rate of rainfall be stronger. So, these rain bombs, which continue to repeat one after the other, and these 1 in 100, 1 in 500, 1 in 1,000-year events that instead of waiting 1,000 years to happen, are happening with a lot greater frequency. Well, sadly, this is a trend that is likely to continue and even worsen, meaning that we'll see a lot more of this in the future.

HUNT: Really tough reality, but it makes sense when you lay it out that way. Sir, you've, of course, argued that the budget cuts, the staff cuts from the Trump administration that relate to agencies that deal with natural disasters have made predicting these kinds of weather events harder.

Can you shed some light on why that is, and whether you think it may have impacted the situation here?

MORALES: Well, let me -- let me answer the second question first. A lot of question marks as to whether this particular incident was impacted by those cuts. Okay. And I can flesh that out a little bit.

But let me -- let me lay the groundwork here, because it's important for folks to know that a lot of the cuts have already happened. Okay. This is not just the fiscal year 2026 budget as proposed from the White House, and yet to be approved by Congress, which proposes extreme cuts to NOAA and further cuts to the National Weather Service, including shutting down national labs, which help us understand flash floods and be better at forecasting them and warning people and saving lives, and also tornadoes and hurricanes and all kinds of weather threats that need to be studied for us to get better at saving lives.

Now that's -- those national labs to be shut that's in the future. But think of everything that's happened already, right? Five hundred sixty National Weather Service employees no longer there, including some key managerial positions in these very offices, San Angelo and San Antonio, Texas, that don't have a hydrologist, that don't have a meteorologist in charge, that don't have a -- listen to this title.

A warning coordination meteorologist, right, to make sure that all these messages are getting to the right people and getting to them on time.

You would think, however, that a lot of the processes that these managers put in place and given the extra staffing that, for example, San Antonio had that night, that everybody at the national weather service would have done their job to get the warnings out there. And the warnings were out there, and they were timely.

And where did the fail on this? You know, we got to investigate.

HUNT: Right. And that's, of course, why we're talking so much about cell phones and sirens and who may be able to pay for things like this. So, we heard from President Trump's nominee to lead NOAA on Capitol Hill today. And he told senators that he supports the budget proposal for NOAA.

What's your reaction to that?

MORALES: The budget proposal for NOAA is another, another attack on science in this country.

[16:15:01]

And we could spend another hour talking about that, because it's not just weather and those type of events. It's health. It's so many other things that are being attacked.

However, in regards to NOAA, I am telling you that my reaction to this type of proposal is that we are going to lose our ability to study, monitor, forecast and warn people in regard to increasingly frequent severe weather events across the planet, including the U.S., and without being able to do those things, lives are going to be unnecessarily lost.

HUNT: All right. John Morales, very grateful to have you on the program today, sir. I do hope you'll come back, although let's be real, it's better if we don't have to hear so much from you. It would mean people were safer and better off. But we're grateful that you're there when things like this happen. Thank you.

All right. For more information about how you can help Texas flood victims, go to CNN.com/impact, or text "Flood" to 707070.

All right. Coming up next here, new CNN reporting on a decision Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth made without telling the White House. But first, Jake Tapper will be here in THE ARENA with his exclusive

interview with Republican Senator Thom Tillis. It is his first national interview since he announced his retirement following that very public blowup with President Trump over spending in the deficit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): Because it's not sustainable and it's politically -- I think it's politically just devastating.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST, "THE LEAD": When you told that to the president, what did he say?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:21:00]

HUNT: All right, welcome back.

Republican Thom Tillis recently came in as the target from -- former President Donald Trump's ire, after the North Carolina senator voted against advancing Donald Trump's domestic policy bill. That Big, Beautiful Bill. Just a day later, Tillis said he would not seek reelection, which, of course, ended speculation about his political future.

Our own Jake Tapper spoke exclusively with Senator Tillis in his first national interview since announcing his retirement.

Jake, I know you're going to have this full interview coming up on "THE LEAD". What did Tillis tell you, though, about this decision to oppose the bill?

TAPPER: Quite a bit. In his statement after he announced his retirement, he said that he thought legislators in Washington, not enough of them, spent time thinking about how legislation will affect young adults living in trailer parks, for example, and that actually describes him. He was once a young adult living in a trailer park. He talked about the serious reservations he had about the changes to Medicaid in the Senate bill.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TILLIS: The House bill I had no problem with, and I actually had sympathy with some of our debt hawks of which I am one to say. I think we should cut more. I think we should find $200 billion more in savings for a trillion dollars, just not in this way, because it's not sustainable and it's politically -- I think it's politically just devastating.

TAPPER: When you told that to the president, what did he say? TILLIS: I think he probably heard it, maybe resonated with it. I was

told by more than one person that he preferred the House bill more, but there's no question the Democrats are going to say that he broke his promise and that Medicaid recipients are going to be at risk, but he's got people that are giving him bad advice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: He did a lot of that during the interview, talking about his concerns about people around the president, people giving him bad advice, not just about this legislation, about, but people who act like they're the ones who are president, not President Trump, and people who make bad recommendations for cabinet positions. And we talked about that, too, given his previous reservations, although he ultimately voted for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

HUNT: Jake, do you think this is just him being careful not to criticize Trump directly, or what was your read on that?

TAPPER: I think he -- I mean, he has a year and a half left and I don't think he particularly enjoys fighting with President Trump. And I think that he and it's probably a little bit of both. It's probably a little bit of I'd rather have something accomplished. And the best way to achieve that is to not pick a fight directly with President Trump.

I also think that he genuinely thinks that President Trump can't be in the weeds on every single policy, and that I think -- I think he thinks that there are people giving President Trump bad advice. And he seemed to suggest that in the coming days, weeks, months, he will be naming names.

HUNT: All right. Jake Tapper, very interesting. Thank you.

And of course, you can see more all of Jake's interview with Senator Thom Tillis. It's coming up next hour on "THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER". So, stick around here. Don't miss that.

TAPPER: Thanks, Kasie.

HUNT: Jake, thank you.

All right. Our panel is here now in THE ARENA. CNN political analyst and national political reporter for "Axios", Alex Thompson; CNN contributor, "New York Times" journalist and podcast host Lulu Garcia- Navarro; Democratic congressman from Maryland, Glenn Ivey; and CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings.

Welcome to all of you. Thank you very much for being here.

I want to flash back to the Senate floor briefly, as we kind of talk about what Tillis is doing here, because you heard him tell Jake there, right, that he doesn't think the politics of this are going to work for Republicans. And you can almost see the Democratic campaign ads being written from this speech on the floor. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TILLIS: So, what do I tell 663,000 people in two years or three years, when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding is not there? It is inescapable that this bill, in its current form, will betray the very promise that Donald J. Trump made in the Oval Office.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[16:25:09]

HUNT: I mean, Scott Jennings, a swing state senator, with that message for the agenda for your party.

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I know I think he's wrong. And most -- virtually every Republican thinks he's wrong. There's nothing politically devastating about trying to bar 1.4 million illegal aliens from getting welfare. There's nothing politically devastating about encouraging 4.8 million people who choose not to work to try to work a little in order to get government benefits. And they did in the senate, install a $50 billion fund for rural hospitals, which was something he also raised concerns about.

So, I don't agree with his political analysis, nor does virtually every other Republican who helped to craft and ultimately pass this bill. And I think Republicans ought to lean into these things. Work requirements are good, encouraging work instead of welfare is a good thing, and it will work in campaigns.

HUNT: Congressman, you run for reelection every two years. Obviously, Democrats have a shot to retake the House. Does this bill make it easier?

REP. GLENN IVEY (D-MD): I think it does. I think that's unfortunate, but I think it does.

Add to the points that you just heard a moment ago, I mean, I think there's a lot of issues that will prove themselves. For example, if hospitals are shutting down, if OB-GYN units are disappearing from hospitals, it really doesn't matter what the Republicans think right now, the people who live near those hospitals and can't go there anymore, they're going to be upset about it.

The people who've been promised tax breaks and aren't going to get them are find out that they got something, but its only for three years. And it's not that much, they're going to be angry and they're going to turn on the Republicans, and rightly so.

HUNT: There was some creative timing in this bill.

ALEX THOMPSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I was just going to say like you say, Republicans should lean in, but most of these Medicaid cuts don't come until after the midterms. Why is that?

JENNINGS: Well, I mean, states run the Medicaid program. I do think it's reasonable to give them time to prepare to enact changes to the program. But it doesn't matter, because Democrats are obviously going to go all in on this hysteria campaign. So if you're running a Republican campaign out there, you're going to have to debate the issue. And I'm telling you as a debating point, if Democrats want to run on giving Medicaid to illegal aliens and people who wont work or choose not to work, Republicans have a counter message that will work if they are willing to courageously defend it.

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I would just say that it's not Democrats versus Republicans in so much as it is people who will tell their stories. And I think that is where Republicans in this particular case are going to have some trouble, because what -- you talk about illegal aliens or you talk about people who won't work. All you have to do then is talk to a mother who is working two jobs, and then now has to try and do this paperwork twice a month to get the bare minimum for herself and her family. That is going to cause some problems, I think, for Republicans a little bit down the line.

People need health care in this country. It is what many people believe to be a human right. And so, I think that is going to really cause Republicans some difficulties.

HUNT: Yeah. Go ahead.

IVEY: I was going to say, I mean, you're putting your Republican colleagues of mine in the position of having to declare people to be deadbeats at the time when they are working two jobs, they are doing everything they can to make ends meet. And you guys are going to take the rug out from under them, and they're not going to be happy. They're going to be rightly, I think, upset about.

JENNINGS: You guys are conflating two populations, and it's not my conjecture. Just ask the CBO. Everybody likes to cite the CBO, the CBO numbers.

HUNT: Except you, typically.

JENNINGS: Eight million -- well, I'm going to cite them because they tend to be popular, at least in here, 4.8 million people on Medicaid who choose not to work. Thats not my going out and counting. That's the CBO, 1.4 million --

HUNT: But, Scott, have you ever -- there are so many people --

(CROSSTALK)

JENNINGS: There is a population that chooses not to work that maybe should try a little.

HUNT: How many --

JENNINGS: People you cite are not going to lose their benefits I don't believe.

HUNT: How many of those people, though, are people who actually can't be working, whose families are going to have to cover the cost of their health care if they don't get Medicaid, right? Like people who are addicted to substances. I mean, this -- it goes beyond just that exact -- it's characterizing that population as just people who've decided not to work and are trying to get government health care. It doesn't necessarily describe the entire population accurately.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And just as a bit of political analysis, I mean, this is really what I'm trying to do here is that it is much easier to run on a message of someone took something away from you than it is to say, no, actually, we didn't take it away. Some certain populations are undeserving, certain populations, you know, aren't actually there to get it.

And so, what I would say probably is that you are facing a real issue where Republicans are becoming the party of taking things away, of cutting things -- cutting things.

JENNINGS: Because, look, I hear your analysis and it's a valid debating point. My rebuttal to that would be Democrats have become the party of exploding government benefit programs during COVID, vastly expanding Medicaid beyond what it was ever intended to do, and then saying, gee whiz, now people are trying to take things away.

[16:30:07]

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Do you think people like health care though? I mean, do you think people like healthcare?

(CROSSTALK)

JENNINGS: I think they like healthcare. I don't think they like the system we live under, which is not a Republican system.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: By the way --

JENNINGS: It exploded premiums and is vastly expanded the welfare state.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: There's no question the one bipartisan thing that people will agree with is that in this country, health care is a hot mess and it's a nightmare. And ask anyone who has ever tried to do it, either through private insurance or through Obamacare.

HUNT: Look at the reaction to what Luigi Mangione did.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yeah, exactly.

So but what I'm saying is most people do believe that there should be a basic ability to go to a hospital and get some care.

JENNINGS: I agree, but I think most people also believe that people should not be able to sit and do nothing and receive government benefits, or be in the country illegally and receive government benefits and attempt to work is a good thing. And the Republican ethos is encouraging work. The Democratic ethos is encouraging government dependance.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I'm not -- I'm not debating what the Democrats are or not. I'm just saying that because you're the party in power and you just passed legislation, that is going to be how people are --

HUNT: I'm going to give the congressman the last word.

IVEY: Just real quick points. You said 4 million. I mean, the number that that's expected to be bounced could be up to 17 million.

JENNINGS: So that's totally --

IVEY: Well, even if it's wrong, let's say its only like 12 million. That's still a big problem for Republicans.

And the other problem too is even if you're talking about they don't -- they don't want to have people on the rolls that aren't working. That works fine as long as somebody else when it's actually them that are getting bounced off the rolls, and they're like, I got to stay home because dad's got Alzheimer's or whatever, they don't want to hear that. They want their health care coverage, they want their Medicaid coverage.

HUNT: All right. Well, clearly, we're going to have a lot to talk about in this midterm election cycle because, you know, come back.

Up next here, the former government officials who are now under investigation by the Trump Justice Department.

Plus, there's a big new job opening if you want Elon Musk to be your boss. We'll dig into that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:36:27]

HUNT: All right. Welcome back.

How's this for a headline? The FBI is investigating former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey for possibly making false statements to Congress. It is not clear whether the probe has moved beyond a preliminary stage.

CNN's Evan Perez joins us now.

Evan, why is this happening now?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kasie, look, I mean, we spent a lot of time talking about the 2020 election, which, of course, president Trump continues to be obsessed with. But this is about the 2016 election, right? We're going to relitigate that. It appears.

And so, what we know is this we know that the FBI has at least opened investigations into John Brennan, former CIA director, and James Comey, the former FBI director.

Now, in the case of John Brennan, John Ratcliffe, who is the current CIA director, had made a referral to the FBI citing possible false statements that were made by Brennan in to congress about the handling of that. That Steele dossier, the opposition research document that alleged there were ties between Trump -- the Trump campaign and Russia and, of course, became part of the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller.

One, we don't really know how far this investigation has gone or how far it will go, but we know, obviously this has been something on President Trump's mind for a long, long time. He has wanted law enforcement to go after these two men. He spoke about that to reporters this afternoon when he was asked.

Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: James Comey and John Brennan are now under criminal investigation related to the Trump Russia probe. Do you want to see these two guys behind bars?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I know nothing about it other than what I read today. But I will tell you, I think they're a very dishonest people. I think they're crooked as hell. And maybe they have to pay a price for that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREZ: Kasie, and we don't know -- again, the extent of what they're looking at in related to James Comey. We know that part of the concern here appears to be on the part of the FBI that he's made some false statements. We also know that he's been a bit of a fixation for the FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI officials.

You remember back in May, he posted a picture on social media with some shells that had the numbers 86, 47 that was taken by some to be a threat on the life of President Trump. He was interviewed by the Secret Service, and we don't know where that has gone. But clearly, now, this has opened a way for the FBI to look into the conduct of James Comey, as well as John Brennan. I should mention that both of these men say that they've not heard anything, or they're -- the people representing them say they have not heard anything from the FBI about any investigation at this point.

HUNT: All right. Evan Perez, thanks very much for that. Really appreciate it.

So, Alex Thompson, why now? Right. I mean, both these men have been out of office for a while. Obviously, Evan outlines they've been, you know, of interest. This is something that president himself has obviously been very focused on.

I think it's worth noting that investigations for lying to Congress can be pretty selective. Some people get in a lot of trouble for it. Other people don't. It usually is about how upset members of Congress are about it. Not always, but sometimes.

What do you make of it? THOMPSON: Donald Trump deeply believes that the Justice Department,

justice system was weaponized against him the last four years, and so he has no reservations about doing the exact same thing back to the people that he feels tried to wrong him, tried to discredit his presidency.

[16:40:011]

And so, you are seeing a weaponization of the justice system, but only because he believes it was weaponized against him first.

HUNT: Yeah. Congressman, what do you make of this?

IVEY: I mean, the timing may be that I assume they're kind of bumping up against the statute of limitations, because you're coming up on ten years. So that might be one issue. But the key point I think to remember here is it can't just be false. It has to be materially false in a way that would derail an investigation. We don't know exactly what they're looking at, but that's not an easy standard to hit, especially in a congressional testimony scenario.

HUNT: Can you dig further into that? What's the difference between what you like?

IVEY: Well, for example, you know, Kenny wasn't there at the time of the shooting when he actually was. That's materially false because the investigators would go after Kenny if they knew. But if it's just, you know, I had pancakes for breakfast that morning, it doesn't really matter.

HUNT: Scott, what do you make of this? Is it appropriate?

JENNINGS: Well, without knowing exactly what they're investigating or what the parameters of it are, I can just tell you what Republicans think of these guys. I mean, these are some of the biggest purveyors of misinformation that exist out there. Comey has acted flat out weird and bizarre since he left the job, and they all obviously are afflicted with Trump derangement syndrome.

And so, I don't think Republicans are incorrect to wonder whether they abused or misused their positions politically, but without knowing what the parameters of the investigation are. It's hard to say, but just the Republican view of these guys, very low.

THOMPSON: There's some deep irony, though, because James Comey does not send that letter ten days before the 2016 election. Donald Trump is probably never president. He's never heard from again.

HUNT: Yeah, it's -- I flashback to that moment periodically, regularly, even however many years later we are from 2016.

All right. Coming up next here, Elon Musk needs a new CEO. Is there anyone out there who wants the job? We'll talk about it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:46:26]

HUNT: All right. Welcome back.

A shakeup in the tech world today. Linda Yaccarino stepping down as the CEO of X, formerly known as Twitter after two years leading Elon Musk's social media platform. Yaccarino, who did not provide a reason for her departure, oversaw a very tumultuous period at the company, including the rebranding from Twitter, trying to manage Musk's rocky relationship with advertisers and dealing with a series of public relations crises stemming from hateful content and misinformation on the site.

The most recent example emerging just yesterday when the company's Grok A.I. chatbot began spewing antisemitic tropes in response to users' queries.

Joining our panel in a moment is CNN contributor Kara Swisher, of course, the host of the podcast "On" and "Pivot". We are working on Kara's connections, so we're going to talk about this at the table for a second.

First, Alex Thompson, surprising, not surprising?

THOMPSON: Well, I guess it's surprising given that she put up with so much for so long. And now this is the thing that, like, makes her leave. I mean, she had -- there was reporting that she had basically one of the biggest PR crises during her daughter's wedding, like about a year ago. And then she still stayed on then.

So, it is a little bit surprising that this Grok update was what actually led her to leave.

HUNT: Well, so let's put that to Kara Swisher.

Kara, I think you're with us now. Is that why Linda Yaccarino departed X? What's going on?

KARA SWISHER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: No. Well, you know, many months ago, I said she was going to leave because when they merged xAI with X, she didn't have a job anymore. She wasn't CEO, and she certainly wasn't going to be named head of an A.I. company. As talented as she is at advertising and has been in the past.

The second thing is she's -- I think she's sided with Trump. I mean, the relationship degradation is problematic for Twitter because they were sort of dining out on it.

They also had threatened lawsuits to advertisers, according to many reports, and now they don't have that cudgel, right? I mean, she has denied this. Let me be fair. I have talked to advertisers. They feel like they've been threatened many times by the company.

And so, she -- a lot of her tools that she was trying to work on weren't working. And then most problematic of all, I suspect, is, is that threads -- is about to supplant X as a bigger platform. It's not a safe platform. Advertisers don't like it. There are a lot

of the numbers are going to come in that you've been trying to improve. And I think she did.

In terms of safety, we're going to -- we're going to crater. And I think she understood that, you know, if the choice was between Elon and Donald Trump, she and she is a conservative would be Donald Trump, presumably.

HUNT: Yeah. I was going to ask you. I mean, what is her relationship like with Trump?

SWISHER: I don't -- I don't know if she knows him that well, but she was a supporter. I -- when I knew her, when she was at NBC, she was conservative, which was unusual actually, among different executives there, although not really. They were more sort of average Republicans. She was quite conservative and proud of it, actually.

And so, she was a -- she's a big fan of Trump. So, I think it's probably like many people, they're very difficult for her to navigate the situation now that Elon is in a full-scale battle with Trump.

And he is, and he's again, he's revived the Epstein allegations. And recently, even though he took them down before, he, of course, couldn't resist on the -- on the bill, I had said he couldn't resist, and he would be back.

[16:50:00]

And it must be difficult to run a company like that. And again, she's not really -- she wasn't really running the company in a lot of ways.

HUNT: Kara, how much damage do you think the breakup between Elon Musk and Donald Trump is going to do to Elon Musk's companies?

SWISHER: More to Elon than Trump, but I don't -- I never count Elon out. He's a guy who blows up rockets and therefore is willing to do things. He also has the means and knowledge, right? So, you know, he keeps dangling Epstein things, Bannons in the -- whatever, he alleges that.

And so, he could do things like he's willing to take it to the -- to the mat. He really is in a way that I don't think the Trump people quite realize. They think they've got him on the ropes with, whether it's with Starlink or investigating him or denaturalizing, which is nonsense. He's an American citizen, whether you like him or not.

And so, they can try to apply all kinds of problems. Tesla was under some investigations by regulators. They could revive those, et cetera., et cetera. And it also takes his eye off the ball if he's starting the America Party.

And so, there's all kinds of things they can apply to him. But this is someone who is -- who doesn't care. And so we'll see where that goes. I suspect initially Trump could really hurt Musk. I think in the long run, I would think Musk could hurt the Trump family and many others around him.

HUNT: Kara, do you think that Elon is serious about this third-party politics thing? Like how much of his brain space is he going to devote to that?

SWISHER: I don't know, he doesn't sleep. So, you know, I think he's very serious. I think he really feels burned. Recently, Sam Altman said he felt homeless, right? Like a lot of these tech people, they're like Trump and, oh, the Democrats, you know, so they're looking for something else. Even Mark Cuban was somewhat someone who has been fighting with Musk, was somewhat positive on it.

He doesn't have to be serious about creating a third party, because that's really difficult, right? And it needs to be built around an idea. And I'm not really clear that the ideas Elon have any constituency. I mean, libertarian, and that's a very small group of people.

I think what he does have is an ability to be a spoiler. Ross Perot certainly spoiled that election for George Bush. You could -- you could, you know, anyway, any number of people, Ralph Nader, et cetera., et cetera. And so, he could be a real spoiler if he picked off a couple of seats or he got people under his sway or paid for them to really jam up the Republicans and the Democrats.

I'm not so sure we'll have a third party, but we could have a third spoiler almost consistently if he if he applies himself.

HUNT: If he applies himself. Always the question.

Kara Swisher, always great to have you. Thanks for being here.

Our panelists stand by. We have one more conversation coming up after the break. We're going to talk about the defense of the secretary of defense.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:57:18]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Yesterday, you said that you were not sure who ordered the munitions halted to Ukraine. Have you since been able to figure that out?

TRUMP: Well, I haven't thought about it because we're looking at Ukraine right now and munitions, but I have no -- I have not gone into it.

REPORTER: What does it say that such a big decision could be made inside your government without you knowing?

TRUMP: I would know. If a decision was made, I will know. I'll be the first to know. In fact, most likely I'd give the order, but I haven't done that yet. (END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Well, sources tell CNN that it was Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth who authorized the pause on weapons shipments to Ukraine. But that he did not inform President Trump before making that decision.

CNN national security correspondent Natasha Bertrand joins us now with more.

Natasha, what have you learned?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, look, I mean, this really was it seems like a breakdown in communication. According to our sources, what happened was last month, President Trump had asked Secretary Hegseth to essentially provide him with an assessment of all of the stockpiles globally of munitions, particularly those very key air defense systems that U.S. troops in the Middle East, for example, needed at a time when Iran and Israel were attacking each other.

And Hegseth then delegated that assessment to the undersecretary of defense for policy, Elbridge Colby, who conducted his own review and determined that that particular shipment of weapons to Ukraine should be paused pending this broader review of U.S. weapons stockpiles globally.

Now, it's worth noting, of course, that Elbridge Colby has long felt that the U.S. should not be sending as much equipment and weaponry to Europe and Ukraine as it should be stockpiling in preparation for a possible conflict with Taiwan and China, for example. And so, he had his own reasons here as well, to recommend that this shipment be put on hold, according to our sources.

But ultimately, Secretary Hegseth signed off on that. He approved of it. But that's where things kind of broke down. We're told that he did not inform President Trump, the national security advisor, Marco Rubio, who's also the secretary of state, was not told. And in fact, Trump ended up reversing that decision altogether just days later and downplaying his decision. His role in that decision to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

And we should note, this is actually the second time this year that Secretary Hegseth has paused a shipment of weapons to Ukraine, only to then have it be reversed very quickly thereafter, Kasie.

HUNT: Indeed.

All right. Natasha Bertrand, thanks very much for that report.

I want to say thank you also to my panel. We don't have more time to chat today because we do have to get to Jake Tapper. But don't forget, if you missed any of this show, today's show, you can always catch up listening to our podcast. Just scan the QR code on your screen right there. Follow along wherever you get your podcasts. You can also follow us on X and Instagram @TheArenaCNN.

But Jake Tapper is standing by.

And, Jake, you're going to have much more of your exclusive interview, one on one with Senator Thom Tillis.

TAPPER: Yeah. It's fascinating. He almost never does TV interviews, not on a national basis. So, he had a lot to say. Thanks so much, Kasie. We'll see you back tomorrow.

HUNT: Thanks, Jake. See you tomorrow.