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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt

Vance Blames Kirk Death On "Powerful Minority On The Far Left"; WaPo: Kirk Shooting Suspect Appears To Confess In Online Chat; Epstein Estate Gives More Docs To House Oversight; Dem Senator Blasts "Spineless" Dems For Not Backing Mamdani. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired September 15, 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: More than 500 bucks each and expelled from Venice for 48 hours.

[16:00:05]

This unnamed couple is not alone. More than a thousand badly behaved tourists have been sanctioned and expelled by the city so far this year. Only about ten of those have been for swimming.

To be fair, and none of this footage am I seeing "no swimming" signs. You would think that there would be an indication that you can't go in a body of water.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Okay. But the Grand Canal, it's like the 405. Don't go in that.

SANCHEZ: It looks fine.

THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT starts right now.

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KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. Welcome to THE ARENA. It's wonderful to have you with us on this Monday.

Today, the horrific killing of Charlie Kirk igniting right wing calls for a crackdown on the left. And this afternoon, Vice President J.D. Vance, the presumptive future leader of the Republican Party, took the mic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: People on the left are much likelier to defend and celebrate political violence. This is not a "both sides" problem. If both sides have a problem, one side has a much bigger and malignant problem, and that is the truth we must be told.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: That was the vice president guest hosting the late Charlie Kirk's podcast. What you just heard that the left has a problem that the right doesn't have. That was a recurring theme of what he said today. Vance also spoke about his personal experiences with hostility from the left. He told all of us about a family visit he took to an amusement park.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VANCE: There was a loud and very vocal minority that would shout at my children, who were eight, five and three whenever they got the opportunity. "You should disown your dad, you little shit," one middle aged woman yelled at my five-year-old. "Tell the Secret Service to protect the Constitution, not your father," screamed another.

After Charlie died, one of his friends and one of our senior White House staffers had left leaning operatives in his neighborhood, passing out leaflets telling people what he looked like and where he lived, encouraging neighbors to harass him or, God forbid, to do worse. While he was mourning his dead friend, he and his wife had to worry about the political terrorists drawing a big target on the home he shares with his young children.

Are these people violent? I hope not, but are they guilty of encouraging violence? You damn well better believe it. We can thank God that most Democrats don't share these attitudes. And I do, while acknowledging that something has gone very wrong with a lunatic fringe, a minority, but a growing and powerful minority on the far left.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Minority lunatic fringe. The vice president there, acknowledging that it's not most people on the left who are shouting at children or celebrating an assassination.

Still, Vance went on to argue that extremism on the left is, quote, growing and powerful and if you listen to what he says next, it really makes the path out of this wilderness seem all but impossible to find.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VANCE: There is no unity with people who scream at children over their parents' politics. There is no unity with someone who lies about what Charlie Kirk said in order to excuse his murder. There is no unity with someone who harasses an innocent family the day after the father of that family lost a dear friend. There is no unity with the people who celebrate Charlie Kirk's assassination.

And there is no unity with the people who fund these articles, who pay the salaries of these terrorist sympathizers who argue that Charlie Kirk, a loving husband and father, deserved a shot to the neck because he spoke words with which they disagree.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So, of course, there can be no unity with a celebration of Charlie Kirk's assassination. Of course. It does beg the question, though, how can we get to a place where the

voices that we're hearing, the voices that we are listening to, the ones that define our nation, are not the ones that are most extreme of all. Because, as Vance himself said, this is a minority, a lunatic fringe, his words.

How do we all get off our phones back to our real lives, where we can see each other for what we are? We are human beings. We are all human beings. We absolutely have to figure out how to tolerate people that we disagree with, people who see the world differently than we do. How do we see the people that we can have unity with those masses out there that J.D. Vance acknowledged are there the majority of people that disagree with his politics, but don't think any of this celebration he was talking about is right on any day, ever?

[16:05:09]

Instead, we're letting the worst among us define us all. How do we stop doing that?

Our panel is here. "The New York Times" journalist, someone who has had J.D. Vance on her own podcast, Lulu Garcia-Navarro; national political reporter for "The New York Times", Astead Herndon; CNN senior political commentator, a veteran of Trump politics back to the 2016 campaign, David Urban is with us; and the former communications director for the DNC, he's worked on numerous presidential campaigns, Mo Elleithee.

Thank you all for being here. Really appreciate it.

David Urban, I would like to start with you because we are -- you know, we -- there is -- there are many Republicans who are saying the problem, you know, yes, there's extremism on both sides. The problem is on the left. This is a very emotional time. What happened to Charlie Kirk? Devastating. And horrible.

That doesn't mean that we don't have an imperative to figure out how to stop it wherever it is found.

DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah, listen, I think that what you heard, there is a lot of anger from a friend of Charlie Kirk's, right? A person who had an incredibly close relationship with years -- over the past years. You know, J.D. Vance acknowledges that Charlie Kirk came to him when he was just a candidate and running and helped him navigate and negotiate his way forward to be a senator and wouldn't be where he is today without Charlie Kirk.

And so, I think there's a lot of anger, a lot of pain still in the Republican Party. But I think we've got to get past the notion that somehow that that pain is a debt, that that has to be repaid in the same currency, right? That's kind of a notion that we have to get pain to pay back the pain. That's just not tenable.

I think what -- you know, the vice president said is exactly correct, right? People have to be given no quarter that want to celebrate these kind of things or that want to bring these things kind of upon people. I think back to when, the press secretary in the first Trump

administration, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, went to a restaurant in the D.C. suburbs and was kind of shouted out and screamed out and chased out. And then we had some leaders in Capitol Hill say, give no quarter to these Trump people. Don't let them go anywhere, chase them out. Shut them out.

We can't have that anymore. We can't have that allowed in the body politic anymore. That's not allowed. Whether it's Democrats or Republicans, we have to turn the temperature down and it has to start with all of us, with everybody that we know, right?

I mean, I get along -- except with Lulu in the green room and we sit in the green room, we chat. We don't get along politically, but we get along personally. And that's something that's very important.

HUNT: Mo, you've been nodding. And then Lulu weigh in.

MO ELLEITHEE, SENIOR SPOKESMAN, 2008 HILLARY CLINTON CAMPAIGN: No. I think everything David said is absolutely right. We have to. And in this era of social media and algorithms, we've stopped putting human faces on our opponents and we just become avatars in caricatures. It's harder to humanize people on the other side when you humanize someone, it's harder to demonize them. That's one of the fundamental challenges here.

It's also important to recognize that this is not a problem on the left. It is not a problem on the right. It is a problem, full stop. It is a problem here in this country where we -- there is radicalization that is infecting our politics. And it is not fueled by ideology as much as it is fueled by a whole host of other dynamics.

Just as we cannot celebrate political violence, I agree with the vice president there. We cannot absolve it. We cannot absolve when it -- when it's perpetrated by one group as opposed to another.

And that's what we need our leaders to step up and do is go after it across the board.

HUNT: Yeah.

ELLEITHEE: And that's what we need to do collectively.

HUNT: It's interesting to me you said that, you know, this isn't a left problem. It's not a right problem. It's a problem.

Lulu, your paper had an op ed from Nathan Taylor Pemberton yesterday where, you know, clearly, the way that we often have conversations here, right? They're left. It's right. One side wants this. The other side wants that.

Obviously, the way J.D. Vance other politicians have been speaking about this, it has been left wing versus right wing. This is what Mr. Pemberton wrote. He says this quote, the Internet's political communities and the open source sleuths currently scrambling to piece -- place Mr. Robinson into a coherent ideological camp certainly won't be content with any of this, nor will they be satisfied with the other likelihood awaiting us that Mr. Robinson, the son of a seemingly content Mormon family -- this, of course, the man who killed Charlie Kirk, allegedly -- probably possesses a mishmash of ideological stances some held dearly, others not so much.

[16:10:02]

We have fully stepped into a different historical moment, the age of brain poisoning meme politics.

He's basically arguing this guy doesn't really fit into this paradigm that we typically use. It is the darkest pieces of the Internet.

How do we grapple with that?

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: You know what I did this weekend? Nothing. I went gardening, I went walking.

You know what I didn't do this weekend? I did not go on social media because I have found the incentive structure there to be bringing out our absolute worst selves. Because what it does is say you who jump first, you who have the hottest take, whether it is wrong or right, you who try and bring out our anger and our the incentive to just be out there saying the most inflammatory thing, whether you know it's true or not, you who point fingers at the other side, you are going to be rewarded with followers, with money, with people who are going to celebrate you.

And this is part of not the full story here, but part of the problem. And so, when that is where people get their fame, where people get their reward system in politics and culture, then you know that this is going to be something that is actually going to feed into what we're experiencing right now.

ASTEAD HERNDON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It's beyond that. I mean, particularly for the age of the alleged perpetrators, we got his information. We're a generation of people have grown up at this point. We're not talking about the future of information. We're talking about the present.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yeah.

HERNDON: And so, increasingly, it's not just the shooter that doesn't fit into a left right paradigm. I think it's voters. I think it's the American electorate who has often been a more mishmash of politics. And I think we don't necessarily have a system that is fully reflected that and sometimes driving, I think, polarization.

But, you know, this instance and this, I think this really highlights what I feel like is a culture that conspiracies have driven where the other side is not just a D versus R, but an invalid member of the political experiment altogether. You don't have to respect them at all because they shouldn't even be here. And I think that has grown in our politics over the years and creates the conditions for violence, which we have seen culminate in such a horrific attack. URBAN: I think Governor Cox coined this phrase, and I think its

appropriate conflict entrepreneurs, right? We need to find the way to the bottom of that, like the people that, as Lulu points out, reward, right conflict.

If you are on the extreme left and say something crazy, boom. Lots of followers, right? Boom, lots of followers. You get more money, you raise more things. Your profiles, you explode on social media and in fundraising.

And in today's world, people who are moderate, your algorithm forces you to the bottom. It doesn't matter. So if you're trying to communicate a moderate message, you're shouting into the wind. You don't get heard.

The people that are heard because the algorithms are those on the furthest extremes. And we've got to do something to end that conflict. Entrepreneurism that rewards these people, both financially for their campaigns and also with the algorithms.

I know section 230 is a big deal and we don't want to take that away because it does provide a lot of things, but I think as citizens, we're all responsible as parents, responsible. We don't allow our children to get absorbed. We don't simply give them an iPad and say, go away, I'll see you in six hours.

We have to be -- we are responsible. There's personal responsibility here, but there's also financial incentives that we need to remove as well.

HUNT: Of course, David's talking about section 230 is the piece of the law that means that you can't hold a social media company accountable in the court when something happens, for example.

I think, Lulu, though, to your point, part of why this feels so hard is because it feels like a totally impossible problem, right? I mean, our government hasn't been able to keep up with any of this.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: It has not. Not only has it not been able to keep up with it, it has actually abdicated. I think it's responsibility. I'm talking about Congress here in particular, to do anything at all, about what happens on social media. I mean --

URBAN: Because they're incentivized. That's the problem, right? The structure incentivizes the Congress. There are 435 members of Congress. There are 20 members that have seats that they have to worry about, 415 members benefit from conflict, entrepreneurism. They benefit from it.

HERNDON: The fact that there are only that few seats that people have to compete is part of a thing that drives polarization. The system itself helps drive that.

I think the second thing that's important here is, you know, you know, conflict entrepreneurs are definitely important. I don't want to put this on just necessarily people. It's the impact of gerontocracy. We have a Congress that is not even in the universe of these technological changes.

And so, I'm saying we don't even have leaders that are often been keeping up themselves with that. So, I don't think its an expected outcome of a government that's frankly aged out of the technological changes that are taking place amongst Americans.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: But there's leaders, and then there's something else. There's also us, right?

URBAN: Yeah.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: If you hear what voters are saying to their leaders, they're saying, fight for me. I want you to fight for me.

[16:15:01]

I want you to break through to people. And so, we have developed a system in which the only way to reach people is to be the loudest voice is to say the harshest things. And we as voters have often wanted that from our leaders.

One of the things that I thought was so interesting, right after Charlie was killed was on this air where you had Senator Markwayne Mullin talking to Dana Bash, talking about how politicians now have to gaslight their own members just to fundraise, just to -- and that is left and right. That is not Republican. That is not Democrat.

That is everybody that everyone has again, this incentive structure to try and make everyone angry. And that is a problem that is really beyond leadership and us voters. It is like we are swimming in these waters now and where we come out the other side -- I have to tell you, I spent this weekend gardening and feeling very, very frightened and very, very worried about where we're headed.

URBAN: The government can't solve it. We need to solve it. America needs to solve it. Neighbors need to solve it. People who sit together, whether you're standing in line at the Safeway, you know that's who need to solve it.

Communities need to solve it. The government. If we wait for the government to solve it, it will never be solved.

ELLEITHEE: Right. The problem is, we're becoming more and more isolated within our communities, and it's harder to even see, acknowledge, experience, interface with those who are not like us, right? We are in an algorithmically calcified era of us versus them, and we actually have to proactively go out there and break that dynamic, break the U.S. versus them dynamic. And that's a hard thing to do.

That's where we have a role and our leaders have a role. They have to bring us back together.

HUNT: Absolutely.

All right. That's a good place to leave it. Coming up next here, we're going to dig into the new details on the

case, including this news just breaking about an apparent confession from the suspect in an online chat.

Plus, what FBI Director Kash Patel is now saying about a critical moment of the investigation as he prepares to testify on Capitol Hill.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KASH PATEL, FBI DIRECTOR: Could I have worded it a little better in the heat of the moment? Sure. But do I regret putting it out? Absolutely not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:21:50]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATEL: The DNA hits from the towel that was wrapped around the firearm. And the DNA on the screwdriver are positively processed for the suspect in custody. The suspect wrote a note saying, "I have the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk, and I'm going to take it." That note was written before the shooting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: The FBI Director Kash Patel on Fox News this morning, revealing new evidence in the investigation into Charlie Kirk assassination. And within the last hour, we're learning more about the suspects online footprint, including an apparent confession in a small group chat on the online platform discord. That's according to "The Washington Post".

Joining our panel now, CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller.

John, what do we know about the suspect's confession at this point?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, we know that there was -- and we've confirmed this through multiple law enforcement sources, that there was an ongoing discussion after the shooting with his Discord chat group, of which he was a member, made up of people that he played games with other gamers, high school friends. It was a small group where they had -- where they played games and had discussions where somebody said, that looks like you. And he said, it's my doppelganger. It's a lookalike.

All of this was pretty lighthearted, as he playfully denied being the gunman in this horrific murder. "Washington Post" reported today that just before he was arrested at home and charged with this crime, he went back on that Discord server and wrote, "Hey guys, I have some bad news for you all. It was me at UVU yesterday. I'm sorry for all of this", which doesn't reference the shooting, but I don't believe there's anything not clear about what he was talking about.

HUNT: Indeed. And, John, can we talk for a second about how Kash Patel has been operating in the public sphere as this has gone on? I mean, normally those kinds of details are very hard to come by. I mean, I've questioned so many public officials for details like that. They all say, sorry, I can't talk about it.

How -- let's look at what Kash Patel said when he defended himself for doing this. And we'll talk about it on the other side. Watch.

MILLER: Sure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATEL: We are looking at the facts, and that is why we are releasing the facts in record fashion. If you go back and look at historical cases like Luigi Mangione and the Boston bombing, how long did it take the bureau to release information to the public? We're not doing that.

Those two manhunts took five days, and they happened in downtown major metropolises. We apprehended our suspect in 33 hours because we were transparent and open with the American public. And we're going to continue to do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: What do you make of this? All of it?

MILLER: Sure. Well, three things. First of all, we're talking about two different subjects. Releasing information -- inside information from the investigation before a suspect is identified or before a suspect is apprehended, is acting within the interests of law enforcement, right? This is within the interest of criminal justice. We're giving you this information to help us catch that guy.

Giving out evidence, specific findings, lab findings after the fact actually may run afoul of Department of Justice guidelines about pretrial statements regarding evidence that could prejudice a jury. That said, I'd also like to point out this is the same set of facts that we go digging for. We attribute it to anonymous sources. We put it on the air all the time.

The fact that a leading federal law enforcement official is willing to give out that kind of information, which is very likely to appear in the court papers that are going to be filed tomorrow, and to do it with his name on the record, out of an abundance of transparency. It may upset people at DOJ, but it's what we are always asking for, which is more information.

HUNT: Fair enough. David Urban, what say you?

URBAN: Yeah. Listen, I like John's take on it. I think that put a name on it. It's a lot better than over the transom. And I've got no issues with it whatsoever, not whatsoever. I mean, John is 100 percent correct. You're asking for the things you want to have -- especially in high

profile cases like this. You want as much information reliably transmitted as possible. And I think hearing it from the director is useful. So --

HUNT: John Miller, can I ask you about these dark corners of the Internet and the challenges they present for law enforcement in dealing with these kinds of things? I mean, we're talking about section 230 here.

I mean, Discord is a much less accessible platform than, you know, the ones that most people are on Instagram, TikTok, et cetera. What kind of challenge does that pose?

MILLER: Well, it poses an enormous challenge. And even in this case, Kasie, you've seen some remarkable successes here. One of the other things that Kash Patel, the director of the FBI, revealed in these interviews is that the suspect wrote a note saying, "I have an opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk" and that note was written beforehand. What's really interesting about it was that was deleted from the computer and permanently deleted.

And the CART team or the Computer Analysis and Response Team of the FBI has become very adept at going into these machines and digging through them so that things that are deleted that are now not in files where they're supposed to be, can be found when they go delving deeper into the hard drive where it just hasn't been written over by other data yet, and bringing those things back to life. So that's a key piece of evidence.

But your earlier point these platforms that are built around not being able to retrieve things based on subpoena or not being able to necessarily document things are built that way for a reason. And they do pose challenges.

In this case, Discord has been very out front saying they've been cooperating and that they've turned over everything that they've got a preservation order for.

HUNT: Yeah, fair enough.

Lulu Garcia-Navarro, I want to watch a little bit more of what Kash Patel said about obviously, earlier, as this was just unfolding. You know, he was clearly part of conversations that, you know, some people have criticized him for as being too political. Let's watch what he said about that criticism when he spoke to Fox News today.

Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATEL: Could I have worded it a little better in the heat of the moment? Sure. But do I regret putting it out? Absolutely not. I was telling the world what the FBI was doing as we were doing, and I'm continuing to do that. And I challenge anyone out there to find a director that has been more transparent and more willing to work the media on high profile cases, or any case, the FBI is handling, than we have been.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: What do you make of it?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: You know, I think Kash Patel faces a particular problem, which is that a lot of people don't see him as necessarily the most credible figure to head the FBI. He wasn't viewed necessarily when he was nominated as someone with the right credentials. And there's been a lot of questions from not only the left, but also the right as to how he's handled this case.

And so, I think this was a little bit of damage control on his part. He was really coming out there and deliberately on Fox to sort of try and shore up his base of support, because a lot of people did see him making mistakes in those early, few -- you know, 24 hours and, you know, he's playing catch up a little bit.

HUNT: Astead?

HERNDON: There's such a refusal of -- there's such an unwillingness to apologize generally that we should take Kash Patel apologize as a recognition of some of that criticism, which was also coming from the right. I mean, the downside to transparency is we're also going to see mistakes. And that's what we saw. And I think that was a sense that, you know, this was, you know, developing in a way that some experts didn't like. But I really think it speaks to just the in general, and expertise loss in this administration. They really put in some folks to your point, who people have questioned from the start.

[16:30:01]

And so, when these moments arise, they don't have that trust built that maybe some others would.

HUNT: Well, I mean, Mo, the sort of big picture question also seems to be -- I mean, and this is what this why this job was supposed to be a 10-year term, right? Now, obviously, we have had plenty of moments in our history where there have been difficult times with the FBI.

So, I'm not trying to say that it has always achieved the goal of being nonpolitical, but that is the goal. Is that being lived up to here?

ELLEITHEE: I think -- I don't know if that's the goal of this FBI, right? I don't know if that's the goal of this administration for it to be nonpolitical.

And I do think that the lack of credibility on that issue alone is going to be a hard one to shake, no matter what he does here, unless he stops being political. And so, look, I don't have a problem with his transparency. I do appreciate transparency, but he's also not an expert to your point, which increases the likelihood of carelessness.

And in a situation like this where we're all living in this tinderbox, right, we need to be well sure that when we go out there in the name of transparency, that were mitigating any potential carelessness. And that's where I think he's had some challenges up until now.

HUNT: John Miller, we've got a quick last word on this.

MILLER: You know, I think that Kash Patel, as has been pointed out on the merits, is the least experienced and most political person ever to hold the job of director of the FBI. And I think that lack of experience is shown in some of these gaffes. This is part of the learning curve. It's just -- I'm not sure, as the FBI director, you want to do it in front of the whole world.

If he had a number two or number three who was an old hand and experienced and could guide and advise him, that would be great. But they got rid of all those people.

URBAN: Let me just throw that out there. We had many, many experienced FBI directors, John who and I just put this out there for the group in general, and you may remember two specific instances, one at Ruby Ridge, where Lon Horiuchi from the HRT killed Randy Weaver and his family. And then the second being, of course, his at Waco. I mean, so you had incredibly experienced leaders of the FBI then, and I would say with far, far less than stellar results.

So, I still stick with Kash and the group right now.

HUNT: All right. Well, we are out of time. John Miller, I appreciate your expertise on this matter very much. Thank you very much for being with us. Our panel is going to stand by.

Coming up, the big name Democrat now formally endorsing Zohran Mamdani for New York mayor. But first, new documents being handed over to the House Oversight Committee from the estate of Jeffrey Epstein, including more pages from that so-called birthday book. We'll talk live with an oversight member, Ro Khanna, about all of that, as well as how to get to a place of national unity after the killing of Charlie Kirk.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:36:24]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I think the president has been very clear in condemning violence and he's not only spoken about it, he's acted. I mean, look at what he's done in the District of Columbia by allowing federal action to take care of that problem. I think that it is decried universally across the board.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: That was the House Speaker Mike Johnson responding today when he was asked about whether President Trump should condemn political violence across the political spectrum. The president telling NBC News over the weekend, this quote, I'd like to see it, the nation, heal, but we're dealing with a radical left group of lunatics, and they don't play fair. And they never did. Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California. He's

the vice chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He sits on the House Oversight and Armed Services Committee.

Congressman, thank you so much for being here.

Can I just ask you what is your reaction to how the president is talking about political violence in the wake of this assassination?

REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): Well, first of all, every Democrat was horrified by the assassination of Charlie Kirk, particularly horrified that it happened at a university setting where you're supposed to have the free exchange of ideas. And that has been what every elected Democrat has said.

I'm just saddened. I was hoping that the president would use this moment for reflection. He could talk about the assassination attempt on his own life. He could have talked about how we have violence that transcends party. The Governor Shapiro was targeted in Pennsylvania. We had the Minnesota state senator who was assassinated, and now Charlie Kirk and then Americans.

We all have to do better. We have to think about how we elevate the debate, how we respect each other, how this country comes together.

And I still hope he would do that. He's the president of the United States. He's going to be the president of United States for another three years. We can't keep going down the road we're on.

HUNT: Do you think that there are Democrats? Any of you know, I'm not asking you to name the name of a colleague or anything like that, but a lot of Republicans have said the rhetoric coming from Democrats about how bad things are under Republicans is incentivizing violence.

Do you think that that's a fair criticism or not?

KHANNA: I think we all have to be careful with our words. We need to focus on the issues. You can talk about why militarizing the streets is wrong. You can talk about why the president having lawless action and not dismantling agencies is wrong.

But make it about the specific points and the ideas. I don't think we need to be hurling insults with insult.

And then there's some of my people who say, well, fight fire with fire rhetorically. But Emanuel Cleaver says, when you fight fire with fire, rhetorically, all that's left is ashes. And there's a different way. There's the way of Dr. King. There's the way of John Lewis, which is to say that you're strong and you fight on conviction, but you fight to appeal to the bigger natures of the American people, to appeal to our spirit of respecting each other and to coming together as a nation.

At our best, this country has responded to that type of leadership. I think they're desperate and hungry for that kind of leadership. HUNT: I think someone at a -- at a young age taught me the phrase, an

eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, which sounds similar to what you say there.

Sir, one thing I want to ask you about, as somebody who represents much of Silicon Valley, is the role that the algorithms play in all of our lives and in creating real world violence. This was the governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, speaking over the weekend about this.

Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. SPENCER COX (R), UTAH: I believe that social media has played a direct role in every single assassination and assassination attempt that we have seen over the last five or six years. There is no question in my mind the conflict entrepreneurs are taking advantage of us and we are losing our agency.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Is he right?

KHANNA: Governor Cox is absolutely right. And by the way, he's been a shining example of someone who is calling for the nation to come together and heal.

But Tim Berners-Lee and I -- Tim Berners-Lee was the founder of the World Wide Web -- and I introduced an Internet Bill of Rights in 2017. I represent Silicon Valley. No one paid attention. They said, oh, that's a guy who represents tech. He's talking about an Internet Bill of Rights.

But the reality is we need to rein in these tech companies. We need a kids online safety act to protect our children. They cannot be feeding junk to young kids.

We need to have algorithmic transparency. We need Americans to control and own their own data, not to give their data to these big companies that use it. Then to have algorithms that feed, rage and hate. And some of us have been saying, this is not just a tech issue. This is a democracy issue.

I hope now that congress can actually come together and pass an actual social media bill, an internet bill of rights. We desperately need it.

HUNT: Sir, speaking of what happens on the Internet, I did want to put up something that one of your colleagues posted on the platform X. And again, you know, thinking about how these platforms we've seen a spike in the mention of the phrase "civil war".

And then, Marjorie Taylor Greene, she wrote this today, quote, "There's nothing left to talk about with the left. They hate us. To be honest, I want a peaceful national divorce. Our country is too far gone and too far divided, and it's no longer safe for any of us."

What is she saying with this? What does it say about us?

KHANNA: Well, she just gave me a hug a few days ago when we were both moved by the survivors of the Epstein abuse. And I had a very thoughtful conversation with Marjorie Taylor Greene where she talked about two Americas and one set of justice for the rich and powerful and other forgotten Americans.

And I will talk to her again because we're on the same side on the Epstein issue. We need more dialogue, but we can't. Look, this is not the civil war that the division is in. Red states and blue states. It's within states. You have Ohio division between Cleveland and cities and more rural areas.

So, this idea of splitting the union is not feasible. And of course, would be a total betrayal of our inheritance as Americans. We need to have folks who are going to think about how we find common ground, how we bring this country together. And I give actually Marjorie Taylor Greene credit for doing that on the Epstein file. Let's find other issues like that.

HUNT: So speaking of the Epstein files, the estate gave more documents to House Oversight on Friday. What can you tell us? What's in them?

KHANNA: Well, there's more evidence of, just degrading women. The just offensive, terrible jokes, crude information. But the reality is, we still have a lot of the files that remain to be released. At least 99 percent of them.

And the information that we really need is information about witness interviews, information that goes to how other individuals covered up for what Epstein did.

Now, we've already had accountability. The British ambassador to the United States resigned based on the release of the birthday book. It turned out he was advocating for Epstein to get a more lenient sentence.

[16:45:01]

And the first casualty politically, of this whole release has been someone on the left.

So, this is not political. If more Democrats and left people are implicated, so be it. This is about standing with survivors. It is about protecting our children. And it's about saying rich and powerful men don't get a pass if they commit horrific acts.

HUNT: All right. Congressman Ro Khanna, thank you very much for your time today, sir. Really appreciate the conversation.

KHANNA: Thank you. Appreciate it.

HUNT: All right. Coming up next, the somewhat terse, may be dismissive reaction. We'll let you decide from a top Democrat after a new push from one of his own to publicly back Zohran Mamdani in the race for New York mayor. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-MD): Many Democratic members of the Senate and House representing New York have stayed on the sidelines that kind of spineless politics is what people are sick of.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[16:50:21]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VAN HOLLEN: Many Democratic members of the Senate and House representing New York have stayed on the sidelines. That kind of spineless politics is what people are sick of. They need to get behind him and get behind him now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: That was Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen in the early caucus state of Iowa, urging Democrats to get in line behind Zohran Mamdani, Democratic nominee for mayor of New York.

A day later, perhaps coincidentally, New York Governor Kathy Hochul did just that in an op-ed in "The New York Times".

Now, President Trump quick to weigh in to criticize Hochul's endorsement of the, quote, little communist. That's what he called Mamdani. As of now, the Democratic leaders of the Senate and the House, they are both New Yorkers. Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries still have yet to give public support to Mamdani.

Our panel is back. And in fact, excuse me, Mo, Leader Hakeem Jeffries went so far as to put out a statement that's -- that called Chris Van Hollen. Chris van, who?

Explain.

URBAN: Good luck with that.

ELLEITHEE: Like, what are we doing? Like, what is this whole thing that, like. Yeah, I was talking to a group of young Democratic campaign operatives saying one of them had been a big supporter of Mamdani's and campaign for him and organized for him, and was just beside herself over the fact that these people haven't endorsed yet.

And, you know, my comment to her was like, he seems to be doing okay. He seems to be doing okay without the endorsements. I don't think they're going to be a lot of voters in New York, especially with his two to one advantage right now that are saying, gosh, I don't know what I'm going to do about this. Mamdani guy, because I haven't heard from so and so political leader.

If anything, I think so and so political leaders, you know, going to have to answer to this young operative. And many like her and now this public spat, like this whole thing over endorsements is ridiculous. Here's -- my personal politics don't necessarily align with Mamdani's, but he's doing something that's very special right now. He's authentically talking to people about the things they care about, primarily the high cost of living.

And so, to all those who are, like, worried about him and freaking out about him in the Democratic Party, like there's an answer. Go do that to go out there and talk to people authentically about the about the things that matter to them, whether it's Mamdani in New York, who does it well, or Abigail Spanberger in Virginia, who does it very well from a very different place on the ideological spectrum. That's what we ought to be talking about.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: That sounds lovely.

(LAUGHTER)

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So, kudos to you for trying.

(CROSSTALK)

URBAN: A good job. Good job, Mo. Good job, Mo. They need your back.

ELLEITHEE: I called the pig for what it was.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I understand, but still made it pretty. I'm just saying.

And -- I mean, the reality is that the Democratic Party is very frightened of Mamdani because he is -- you're right -- doing something that the Democratic Party truly wants, which is connecting with people, connecting with working class voters over issues that they care about. All of that is true.

However, the other problem that he has, and you've seen that with what President Trump is trying to do, is he is seen as extreme for them, right? And they are worried that the Republicans are going to tar them with the with the brush of Mamdani. Just the word socialist gives all of the Republicans little, you know, glee, you know, they kind of get very excited by that because for most Americans, they don't understand the difference between communists and socialists and all of that, because it's not really part of the political spectrum here until very recently, when you had the rise of AOC, et cetera., in 2018.

So, you know, what I would say about this is that it does present a problem for the Democrats. But I think, you know, Governor Hochul has probably done the right thing here.

HUNT: I said, you're a New Yorker that probably knows who Chris Van Hollen is.

HERNDON: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER) HERNDON: You know, I think and this is a hypothetical, so we don't know. But, you know, I think if Zohran Mamdani had the same stances on affordability, on busing or whatever, Democrats would get behind. I think the core of the reason is the reason he hasn't been supported is one, you know, David Axelrod said on this network, it's because his stance on Palestinian rights offends a lot of Democrats.

[16:55:08]

And I think that's particularly overpopulated among a certain group. And voters know that. And so the brand issue for Democrats is a real one, particularly because the people Zohran has risen with, be it first generation Americans or young people, are specifically at odds with the party over that issue. Last Gallup poll puts Democrats at 8 percent of support for support of Israel's actions in Palestine. The party is a misaligned with the base on that issue.

URBAN: I don't know. The tax the white stuff. I mean, he's got -- he's got a long list. The DSA like I can give --

(CXROSSTALK)

HUNT: Guys, we got to stop talking because Jake is next. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUNT: All right. Thanks to all of you for watching.

Jake Tapper standing by for "THE LEAD".

Hi, Jake.