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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
Source: Disney "Hopeful" For Path To Bring Kimmel Back; Just In: Conan O'Brien Criticizes Decision To Suspend Kimmel; Kamala Harris Reveals Concerns Over Top Running Mate Contenders; Schumer On Shutdown Talks: Trump In "Go To Hell Mode". Aired 4-5p ET
Aired September 19, 2025 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDREW FREEDMAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER, CLIMATE & WEATHER: -- and they're not able to sustain themselves.
[16:00:04]
And also, water temperatures can cause other changes in the ecosystem that actually allow things that are harmful, harmful algal balloons. So, the algae that are toxic to certain species can develop.
I mean, an area of warm water sounds like super welcoming. You'd want to dive into it. But when it's this much warmer than average, it actually poses a threat.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Andrew Freeman, thank you so much.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And 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. Happy Friday to all of you.
We made it to the end of a pretty long week. The question as we come on the air, will Jimmy Kimmel return to late-night? If he does, what might he say? And if he doesn't, what does that say about we are where we are as a nation?
A source telling CNN that ABC is hopeful there's a path to putting Kimmel back on the air, but that no decision has yet been made.
Tonight, in Kimmel's time slot, many ABC local stations are going to air a tribute to the late Charlie Kirk. This ahead of a memorial for the slain conservative activist set for Sunday in Arizona. President Trump is expected to attend that memorial.
He has seized on Kimmel's suspension to escalate his attacks on perceived enemies in the media, including raising the possibility of revoking stations broadcast licenses.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They give me only bad publicity or press. I mean, they're getting a license, I would think. Maybe their license should be taken away. I -- it would be up to Brendan Carr.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Almost two days since his suspension was announced, we still have not heard directly from Kimmel. But last night, all of it was front and center for his colleagues on late night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIMMY FALLON, LATE NIGHT HOST: A lot of people are worried that we won't keep saying what we want to say or that we'll be censored, but I'm going to cover the president's trip to the U.K. just like I normally would.
Well, guys, President Trump just wrapped up his three-day trip to the U.K. and he looked incredibly handsome.
STEPHEN COLBERT, LATE NIGHT HOST: If ABC thinks that this is going to satisfy the regime, they are woefully naive, and clearly, they've never read the children's book if you give a mouse a Kimmel.
ANNOUNCER: From Comedy Central, it's the all-new government approved "Daily Show" with your patriotically obedient host, Jon Stewart.
JON STEWART, TV HOST: Are the -- are the naysayers and the critics right? Is Donald Trump stifling free speech?
CROWD: Of course not, Jon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right, let's get off the sidelines, head into THE ARENA. My panel is here.
We're also joined by CNN entertainment correspondent Elizabeth Wagmeister. She is in Los Angeles.
Elizabeth, we saw there what some of the other late night shows did. This big question, is there any path to reinstatement for Jimmy Kimmel, who honestly occupies a very particular celebrity niche in L.A.?
ELIZABETH WAGMEISTER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: He does. And I actually have some brand-new reporting for you, Kasie. Just hearing from a source that yesterday, Jimmy Kimmel had a meeting with Disney executives in the century city law office here in Los Angeles with his lawyer, his manager, and Disney executives.
I am hearing that there was no resolution. So, we don't know what the path forward is yet. But, as you said, I have heard from my sources that Disney is hopeful. They would like to find a way to bring him back, but obviously a lot of questions there that have to be answered. So, that remains to be seen. But just now, we're not just hearing from the late night host that you just showed. We are also hearing from Conan O'Brien.
Let me read you his tweet, and then I'm going to tell you why this is really significant. He says, quote, "The suspension of Jimmy Kimmel and the promise to silence other late night hosts for criticizing the administration should disturb everyone on the right, left, and center. It's wrong and anyone with a conscience knows it's wrong."
Now, this is not just another comedian speaking out to support Jimmy Kimmel. This is Conan O'Brien who hosts the Oscars for -- well, ABC. He hosted the Oscars last year. He is -- or earlier this year rather. He has already announced to host the Oscars next year in 2026. And part of the reason why Conan was hired to host the Oscars after Jimmy Kimmel had hosted for so many years is because he is a rather apolitical comedian.
When I interviewed the head of the Academy before the Oscars, he told me that that was one of the reasons why they love Conan. He's a great comedian, but he's also apolitical. But what Conan is getting at in his tweet here when he says it should disturb anyone on the right, left, and center.
[16:05:02]
He is saying that this really goes above politics, that free speech is obviously fundamental in this country, and that comedians should be allowed to do that, politics aside.
Now one more tweet that I want to read to you from someone entirely different is former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, who has weighed in on all of this. He says, quote, "Where has all the leadership gone if not for university presidents, law firm managing partners, and corporate chief executives standing up against bullies? Who then will step up for the First Amendment?"
He goes on to call the FCC's threats aggressive yet hollow. And he says, "Just another example of out-of-control intimidation." And then he says, "By the way, for the record, this ex-CEO finds Jimmy Kimmel very talented and funny."
Now, final point, Kasie, I will tell you, I am hearing from my sources across the industry that everyone is really waiting to see what ABC is going to do. They are firmly standing behind Kimmel. When I say that, I'm talking about the overall Hollywood artist community. And the artist creative community wants Disney to take a stand and to defend Jimmy Kimmel.
HUNT: Fair enough. Elizabeth Wagmeister with that reporting. Elizabeth, thank you very much for that.
And our panel joins us now. Congressional correspondent for "The New York Times", Annie Karni, national political reporter for "Axios", Alex Thompson, the former DNC senior adviser, communications director, Xochitl Hinojosa, and the former speaker pro tempore of the House of Representatives, Patrick McHenry.
We also have back with us for the second day our ARENA text chain. You're going to see it on the left side of your screen. It's going to be another conversation that you can watch if you, you know, happen to have us on mute. You will see some additional analysis from some of our top reporters. That conversation already underway. So, feel free to follow along as we dig in here at the table to this top story.
And Patrick McHenry, I actually want to kick us off by playing something that Senator Ted Cruz said today about this on his podcast because there are some very real free speech absolutists in the Republican Party and he seems to be positioning himself as one of them. Let's watch what Cruz said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): What he is saying is Jimmy Kimmel was lying. That's true. He was lying and his lying to the American people is not in the public interest. And so, he threatens explicitly, "We're going to cancel ABC's license. We're going to take him off the air so ABC cannot broadcast anymore."
And I got to say, he threatens it. He says, "We can do this the easy way, but we can do this the hard way."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: yeah.
CRUZ: And I got to say, that's right out of "Goodfellows". That that that's right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, "Nice bar you have here. It'd be a shame if something happened to it."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: It would be a shame if something happened to it.
PATRICK MCHENRY (R), FORMER SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE: Can we start with the accent first of all? I mean, not the best thing.
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah.
MCHENRY: Look, the point here is whether or not the FCC has this authority. They have long had this authority. And if you're a part of the liberal orthodoxy, and the FCC has used it, you like what they're doing because it's a part of the liberal orthodoxy, at least historically.
And they've tried to cancel different things. There have been -- there's been this long debate about this -- about FCC using their powers to police speech with their licences. They have this power. It's not new.
What is new about it is using that very same power by a conservative against a liberal. The way I look at it as a traditional conservative is the FCC should not have these powers. It is a ridiculous thing for a government agency to be policing speech like this.
But as for me as a conservative, Jimmy Kimmel is unwatchable. He is not funny. You will not have a single conservative say, "I watch Jimmy Kimmel and I'm entertained." So, he has his own brand. And I think he -- him being removed from
late night TV was about him being unfunny.
Conan O'Brien, far funnier. As a conservative, I think he's much more balanced. Look, the other Jimmy's better. His ratings are better.
So, I mean, look, this is like you can get into this whole debate, but the fact that the left out of Hollywood is going to come and fight the Trump administration, it's exactly what they want.
HINOJOSA: Well, but in that interview, Ted Cruz also made a very good point that about speech, but then he said if there is a Democratic president, what happens if they start going after conservative podcasts, Fox News, other conservative potentially hosts? And I think that is a very fair point.
And I think this is -- the politics of this is interesting because the FCC doesn't regulate those. They don't regulate them, but I think an administration could potentially try to go after them, file lawsuits, et cetera.
But what I will say about the politics of all of this is this is no longer progressives, the left versus the right.
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This is the left and this is also the right talking about free speech with a small group of conservatives who are trying to make the case that this was a business decision. But there is a divide within MAGA right now about free speech and whether or not the government should be policing speech given their history of really trying to stand up for speech.
So, I find it interesting that this is now a lot larger than conservative and you know and progressive. This is -- there are MAGA -- there's progressives joining with MAGA on this in some ways.
HUNT: Annie Karni, you cover Capitol Hill for "The Times". I mean, this was Senator Cynthia Lummis talking to "Semafor", Burgess Everett, who's, as you know, been up on Capitol Hill for a real long time. She told him this, quote, "Under normal times, and normal circumstances, I tend to think the First Amendment should always be sort of the ultimate right and that there should be almost no checks and balances on it. I don't feel that way anymore."
How common is this viewpoint in the Republican conference and what does it say about where we are?
ANNIE KARNI, CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: That's a stunning statement. Like she's saying, "I don't believe that the First Amendment is the end all be all." I'd say that I agree that there is kind of a divide. Pam Bondi, the attorney general, got in trouble this week for saying there's free speech and there's hate speech. And she got in she got blowback from conservatives who said like, sorry, hate speech is awful, but it's actually free speech. Like, it's not like inciting violence. You don't have to like it, but it's protected. So there is a divide. Some people are on the Bondi had to clean that up. So, some people are on the Bondi-Lummis side. Some people even in the conservative movement are fighting back against that.
What I saw on the Hill this week was Democrats, they're trying to a group of House and Senate Democrats came together to try and uh introduce a bill this week that would create more protections, more free speech protections. They are trying to make the case that Republicans are trying to tear down the First Amendment and that they are there to protect the First Amendment.
There's no chance that this bill would be brought to the floor in either chamber. But it's a chance to -- for them to look like they're fighting for the Constitution.
HUNT: Well, Alex Thompson, I mean, you've covered Democrats for a long time. Obviously, many Republicans looked at what Democrats did in the years surrounding the first Trump administration and said, you know, it's Democrats that are policing free speech. It's Democrats who are calling the tech companies and getting them to shut down conservative viewpoints, among other things. Now they're trying to capitalize on it.
ALEX THOMPSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah. And but they're not framing it as much of a free speech. They're framing it much more as this is out of the authoritarian playbook. And they are much more focused on Trump using -- yes, the government has these powers, but you haven't had a president use the levers of the executive branch in this way, you know, perhaps, you know, ever, but certainly not in the modern history of the presidency.
HUNT: Are you comfortable with it, with what they're doing?
MCHENRY: Well, no, but my brand of conservatism is not the brand of conservatism out of the White House. The president was one on the comeback trail of this was being cancelled and all significant administration officials from Trump 45 being actively pushed out of corporate America when Ronna McDaniel couldn't get a contributor contract with MSNBC because their talent roared up against it, it showed that, you know, the left is at cancel culture as well.
What you see from this administration is saying we've seen government power used against conservatives. We're going to use that same power against the liberals and liberal orthodoxy. That is it, what's at play.
A conservative like me looks back and says, you know what, I actually don't want the government to have this power at all. Not because it was liberal or conservative, the victim here, but because the government should not have this power.
HUNT: Yeah.
MCHENRY: And I hope eventually we come back to that as a salient point here. HUNT: "The National Review" is with you. They wrote today that the laws governing the Federal Communications Commission broad enough that the agency can police almost any content in broadcast media in the public interest. If we believe that this is not the sort of thing the government should be doing, there is no reason for the FCC to exist. Rather than fantasizing about using government power to punish the left, leaving open the invitation to be punished again when Democrats regain power, Republicans should foreclose the possibility of future suppression by shutting down the FCC.
I mean, it is an interesting statement about where MAGA is that Brendan Carr is sort of this hero.
MCHENRY: Brendan Carr knows what he's doing, knows the law, and has an active remit from the White House to do what he's doing. He is on very safe territory here. And the idea that he's going to be drawn up to hearings and something bad's going to happen to him via the Hill, not possible.
HINOJOSA: Well, I do think that again, back to MAGA not necessarily agreeing with his comments and he was essentially threatening ABC to fire Kimmel. But -- and talking about abuse of power and it's just more than the media at this point. We talked a little bit about or Trump talked a little bit about going after organizations and deeming them terrorist organizations.
[16:15:02]
This is another place where the federal government is using their authority to go after progressive organizations because they don't like what they're doing. Again, shoes on the other foot. If a Democrat wins in 2028, do they really want a Democrat going after the Heritage Foundation and trying to deem them as a terrorist organization? I think it is their -- MAGA and Republicans and the administration are on very sticky ground right now. And if I were Ted Cruz and others, I would be speaking out because you do not want this to happen in an -- in a Democratic administration.
KARNI: I think that's fair, but I think that everyone on the Hill knows that Republicans and Democrats play by two different sets of rules, right about that, and that -- that it's unlikely that they would do this after calling it authoritarianism in real time.
HUNT: Yeah, which is part of why Democrat voters are so angry at their leaders right now.
All right, coming up next, former Senator Joe Manchin will be here live in THE ARENA. What he thinks about the state of the country nine months after he left office. And you know, there's always possibly another run in Joe Manchin's future. We'll ask him about it.
Plus, Kamala Harris not holding back, giving frank and frankly stunning insight into her 2024 campaign, including how her personal identity stopped her from picking the running mate that she says she really wanted.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOY BEHAR, CO-HOST, THE VIEW: I think the problem is female.
SUNNY HOSTIN, CO-HOST, THE VIEW: Is it female? But you're -- it's --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But to be honest --
HOSTIN: Black and female, good luck.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLP)
COLBERT: It is so bizarre to see an American president weighing in so vehemently on TV shows. It reminds me when Reagan said this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Gorbachev, cancel the Golden Girls.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: It has been nearly hours since comedian Jimmy Kimmel was pulled from ABC's airwaves. We have yet to hear publicly from him. We did, of course, though hear from some other late-night hosts making it clear last night they're in Kimmel's corner.
The FCC Chair Brendan Carr, meanwhile, issuing this prediction yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRENDAN CARR, FCC CHAIR: I don't think this is the last shoe to drop. This is a massive shift that's taking place in the media ecosystem. I think the consequences are going to continue to flow.
WILL CAIN, FOX NEWS HOST: What are you talking about when you say not the last shoe to drop?
CARR: Look, we're going to continue to hold these broadcasters accountable to the public interest. And if broadcasters don't like that, simple solution, they can turn their license into the FCC.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right, joining us now to discuss, former West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin. He, of course, was a Democrat when he served in the Senate. He's the author of the new book "Dead Center: In Defense of Common Sense".
Senator, thank you very much for being here. It's wonderful to see you again. I see you have a copy of your book. I'm sorry I don't have one on this table.
JOE MANCHIN, FORMER U.S. SENATOR: I have a copy, Kasie.
HUNT: You got to sign one for me.
MANCHIN: You're going to have a signed one.
HUNT: Thank you. So, can I ask you as the person who, you know, you spent your career here arguing that sure. This place needs to be more in the center.
What is the way to look at what happened with Jimmy Kimmel that is in the center of this debate? I mean, do you think this is the right way to handle it?
MANCHIN: Absolutely not. But the thing Jimmy Kimmel was on the network, okay, ABC network, you know, CBS, NBC, and they are held to a little different standard. But if the -- if the administration is defending and they're going to go after people to hold them accountable, why don't you hold where all the news is coming to most people today, especially the young people, hold the platforms, the social platforms. That's where they're getting the news from.
President Trump said three days ago, Kasie, that the young man who's been charged with this assassination was radicalized on the Internet. When rather than just fighting back and forth with the political fodder that's going on, go where the root of the problem.
Freedom of speech, the First Amendment does not allow us to say anything to anything we want and anywhere we want without some consequences. But you can get on somebody's social platform, and you can do anything you want to, and no one's held accountable. They have total immunity.
That's what we call Section 230. My friends on both the Democrat and Republican side has to change that. You've got to stop this horrific, horrific language. And it's horrific basically transferring this language to other people and getting their news in the horrible way they do. And that's what's got to change.
HUNT: Senator, when you were here and as you are promoting your book, you've always talked a lot about how the dialogue that we get from our leaders should push us into a place that's closer together and not farther apart.
Do you think that the president of the United States and the MAGA supporters that he has have been doing that in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk or have they not?
MANCHIN: Well, let me tell you, uh, both sides, this -- this bantering back and forth, and I mean the horrific language going back and forth and accusing people and calling them just every name in the book, that's got to stop. And truly, the leader of our country right now is the president of the United States, Donald Trump. You should, whether you like him or not, whether you voted for him or not, he's our president. We should do everything we can to make him successful, but able be able to speak truth to power. So, I'm asking my president, Donald Trump, to please, Mr. President,
help us heal the country. Tom, calm down the rhetoric. Don't -- don't engage in that. Don't throw any more fire on it. It's enough. Bring people back together.
This is the United States, not the divided states, and we all belong to one big, beautiful party called the American party. You might have the Republican wing and the Democrat wing, but we should be working to strengthen the American party and the American way of life.
[16:25:07]
And we're not doing it by tearing it down.
And this is -- this has got to stop. And this horrific -- any type of violence into the political arena, it pretty much dampens and almost destroys the whole promise and the process of no -- the noblest of all professions, public service. People don't want to get involved when they think that their lives might be in danger. And we cannot let that rise to that level.
And anyone that doesn't have sympathy, and I mean, true sympathy for Charlie Kirk's family and the two little children and his wife and everybody that loved him and was part of his family structure, that was that's wrong. I am so sorry. My deepest apologies, my deepest heartfelt sorrow for them and their family.
Whether you like Charlie or not, whether you support him or not, he was willing to talk. You can disagree with him, but violence cannot enter this process. And it did horribly.
HUNT: Senator, there was a vote on the House floor to, quote, honor the life and legacy of the conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. And Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was among one of the -- some of the Democrats who voted no. Quite a few voted yes.
But she said in a statement condemning the depravity of Kirk's brutal murder is a straightforward matter, one that's especially important. But she does say that we should be clear about who Charlie Kirk was, a man who believed that the civil rights act that granted Black Americans the right to vote was a mistake. She goes on to name some of the other things that he believes in.
What was your reaction to her vote and her statement afterward?
MANCHIN: First of all, I just saw it a little while ago and I was stunned, Kasie. I really was. This is not -- this is not the place and the time for that at all.
If the Democrats, if AOC and the far left, the extreme left, I'm going to say, believe that's where the party, the Democratic Party is today, then that'll tell you why you lost people like me and an awful lot.
And let me tell you what you've lost since the last election. They've been doing their national tour and thinking, boy, that's something. We're really -- we're really getting into something. The Democratic Party has lost more than 160,000 Democrats that have basically left the party since November election.
So, if that's the way the Democratic Party is going, it's getting worse, not better. You're not curing anything. People want some common sense. They want some empathy. They want compassion from us, but also, they want the ability to have a secured border, crimefree streets.
And you have a perfect segue. Democrat, my Democratic friends say, "Mr. President, we support you. We made a mistake, but please work with us on having legal immigration. Let's fix the problems we have. You're just exasperating him by attacking, attacking, attacking.
And we should be all asking President Trump, please lead us. Be the comforter we need. We -- this country needs someone to wrap their arms around him and say, "Come on, we're all Americans. We're brothers and sisters. We're in this together. We've got to get through it." And that's what's happening.
HUNT: Has the president not have that chance, though?
MANCHIN: Always had plenty of chances.
HUNT: Do you think he's taking all of those chances?
MANCHIN: I'm just still, you know, I always said this, Kasie -- well, I just say this. Every one of us have a better angel in us. I'm just praying to God his better angel and all of our better angels, all the Democrats, all elected officials. This is a representative form of government. This does not represent the American people that we all represent or in your state you represent if you're a senator or in your district if you're a congressperson.
I'll tell you that if you talk to them, they want this country to work. They want our politics to calm down. Don't just play to the raw -- throw the raw meat to the -- to the one side or the other.
And the president's the person that can lead us. I'm praying to the Good Lord. He does it, Kasie. I really am.
HUNT: All right. Former Senator Joe Manchin, always great to see you. The book of course is "Dead Center".
MANCHIN: Yeah.
HUNT: I will look out for my copy. Thank you very much for coming up.
MANCHIN: Okay, you're going to get it. You're going to get it.
HUNT: All right. Coming up next here, Kamala Harris reveals a nagging concern, her words, that she had about one potential 2024 running mate and why it led her to go with someone else.
Plus, the developing standoff on Capitol Hill. The government now headed for a shutdown with no answers in sight after lawmakers today failed to pass any kind of funding bill.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Donald Trump says he doesn't want to talk. He's still in the "go to hell" mode. His marching orders are to rep to Republicans or don't even bother with Democrats. That is not governing. That's a recipe for a shutdown.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:34:07]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOSTIN: If anything, would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years?
KAMALA HARRIS, FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of -- and I've been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Every campaign has a sound bite like that one. A sound bite that basically lives forever. Every time you go back to that campaign, you'll hear it.
And we've got a little bit of new insight today on that 70-second bite from the 2024 trail. Kamla Harris compared that moment to pulling the pin on a hand grenade, calling those comments a, quote, gift to the Trump campaign, one that they wasted no time in unwrapping.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: She say she would not do one thing differently from Joe Biden, which is totally disqualifying.
J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But Kamala Harris's economic policy, you heard her say on "The View" today. It's to do exactly what Joe Biden did.
[16:35:02]
And it's going to lead to the exact same place. Higher inflation, fewer Americans with good jobs and a manufacturing sector that we're shipping to China instead of building right here in the great city of Detroit.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: That hand grenade revelation just one of the new behind the- scenes moment from her campaign that are detailed in the new book. There's also some new and very frank insight into her search for a running mate, why she didn't select some that were considered top contenders. She feared Pete Buttigieg was too risky, worried the country wasn't ready for both a black woman and a gay man on the ticket.
And she wrote she had a, quote, nagging concern that Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro wouldn't be comfortable being number two. She wrote that she worried, quote, that he would be unable to settle for a role as number two and that it would wear on our partnership. She told him that every day she was president, she'd have 99 problems and my VP can't be one.
All right, our panel is back and our text chain is also -- is also with us. And this time, David Axelrod and Van Jones have entered the chat along with Isaac Dovere. So, you all are going to have an easier time reading this on the air, which I'm jealous of because that is a really great group.
But Alex Thompson, let me bring you in on this because, this book "107 Days", I mean, the score settling in this, were you surprised? And I mean, it seems to me like maybe she thought this was going to be something she needed to do in order to set herself up to run next. But I'm not sure that's how it's being received.
THOMPSON: I mean, it's a shotgun of a book and that everyone is get -- catching shrapnel in here. So, she says basically Mark Kelly was not ready for prime time when -- and basically had not been in politics long enough and so she didn't trust him to go through what she called like the national grinder of the media environment. She says that Pete Buttigieg couldn't win because he's gay which he responded to.
The Josh Shapiro stuff is actually probably the lengthiest section where she sort of, you know, knocks him for being presumptuous asking about what art he could get from the Smithsonian.
HUNT: I mean, that is fairly presumptuous if that is indeed the case.
THOMPSON: Sure. But I mean, but she's in choosing to include it in the book and also it's -- should be noted that all these people are potential rivals in 2028 if she wants to run. She is trying to sort of knock them down a peg if she ends up getting on the debate stage with all of them.
HUNT: So let's watch what Buttigieg had to say because he did as Alex notes respond to Harris's book. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETE BUTTIGIEG, FORMER TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: I was surprised when I read that. I just believe in giving Americans more credit than that. You know, my experience in politics has been that the way that you earn trust with voters is based mostly on what they think you're going to do for their lives, not on categories. And I wouldn't have run for president if I didn't believe that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Xochitl, what do you make of all this? I think the look on your face actually says it all. HINOJOSA: Not excited about any of it. I will say that I agree with
Pete Buttiegi and he is -- would have he would have made a very a great VP candidate. I mean, he is dynamic. He knows how to talk to voters about what they care about.
I think he is someone who's going to probably run and will do well. I mean, people forget, but he did win Iowa. And so, there obviously is a message.
(CROSSTALK)
HUNT: Not that Iowa would count fast enough to tell anybody that, but that's a separate issue.
HINOJOSA: No, exactly. But he -- you know, he did resonate with voters there. You know, at the end of the day, I think that airing out dirty laundry on VP candidates is probably not the best. These folks are people who are going through vetting it when you are not picked, it breaks your heart. It is like -- it is not a good situation overall.
And so, to kind of air all this dirty laundry out about your family, right, about the Democratic Party family is not a great one. And I think that if a man would have done this about a woman or a woman of color and said in a book that I didn't pick her as my vice presidential nominee because she was a black woman or a Latina or anything else -- I mean, that person would have been torched.
So, I am not a fan of all of that. I think she should have talked about the struggles that a woman and I haven't read it, but a struggles that a -- the struggles that a black woman faces when running for president, which I think are real struggles. Being a woman is hard enough. Being a black woman is even harder.
The struggles that she've had with the president, obviously she named some of them, but bringing down the whole Democratic Party, not a fan.
HUNT: Congressman, look, you've been in -- not to steal the phrase from the walls here, but you've been in the arena, right? You are -- you know, you've been ambitious out front yourself. You know, so many people who have wanted to be president.
What do you think her approach here, her willingness to do this says about her readiness to be president of the United States?
MCHENRY: I think it's what everybody figured out in the campaign and in really vivid terms.
[16:40:00]
She's not prepared. She's not serious from the get-go of her emergence with her presidential campaign. It was a joke, and it got worse. And her pick was viewed by Biden and Biden's team is saying, "Well, we set a standard. We want an African American woman, and we went through the list and you're available."
And that was not a reassuring thing to build her case as an independent being with the Biden White House. Go to Luke's book about the Biden presidency. Go to Annie's book about the Congress.
We see in living and very vivid, more vivid terms than what she's written about, about the incompetence of her and her team and the turnover in her team and a lack of capacity there.
Now, having said that, I'm not her audience. But when I look at this as a -- as a lover of the political process, I think this is just an endcap for a very incompetent Harris team and Kamala Harris's dabbling in politics. This will be a footnote, not a launch.
HUNT: Annie Karni, one of the other things that she reveals is that the President Biden called her before she was about to take the debate stage against Donald Trump and that she was -- that he was talking about -- worried about how she was talking about members of his family.
She writes this, quote, "I couldn't understand why he would call me right now and make it all about himself", Ms. Harris wrote. "Distracting me with worry about hostile power brokers in the biggest city of the most important swing state." She was talking there about Philadelphia.
I mean, look, it seems surprising to me that President Biden would do this, you know, in a big moment. He's been in big moments like that. You know, anything can kind of throw you off your game. But also, the decision to write about it is notable, too.
KARNI: Yeah. I mean, I think like if that if that's true, there's not a great interpretation for Biden. It's -- it's a terrible thing to get in someone's head ahead of going on a national stage in a critical moment in the race.
The explanations are he is not being supportive to her or he doesn't realize it's what the timing of what he's doing. Neither one of those reflects very well on him when there's questions about his mental capacity at that stage. The writing about it, she's -- it sounds a little whiny.
HUNT: So I was going to pick up what Van Jones was saying here in the chat. We're mostly letting the "chat" chat by itself just -- as I'm sure you can tell. But Van Jones saying there the book landed as whiny, self-serving, backward-looking.
KARNI: Right. I mean, the backward-looking is the most.
I mean, and this is also just confirms -- the worst maybe your worst instincts about what's really going on behind the scenes that you don't know in campaigns. It sounds petty on everyone's part. If he's trying to undermine her, that's terrible. If she's writing about it and this is what she remembers as crit -- you know, it's -- it's not making anyone look good. I don't think any Democrats want to -- really, they need to move on. This whole chapter was a disaster for them.
And I don't -- I mean, I think it's interesting as a historical record that she's putting this down. As a political reporter, I find these details delicious --
HUNT: Yeah, fascinating.
KARNI: -- and fascinating and you realize this is just -- these people are as petty and human as the rest of us. They're not some gods on a Hill who like are our leaders. But in terms of like what is this book? I'm not -- I haven't read it, but I'm here, I'm trying to figure that out.
MCHENRY: I think it's a representation of an unpopular vice president in an unpopular administration. And now, we see the evidence of why, like the internal strife, and you all, you've covered that very, very well.
THOMPSON: Well, to be clear, I think by this book, the rest of the party does want to move on, but she's making it very clear. You're not moving on without me. Like I still have a future in this party.
And I think she is trying with this book to declare that she is still in many polls the leading Democrat in the party and that you're not going to be able to just, you know, memory hole her.
KARNI: One thing I will say, all we ever talk about as is wanting authenticity from our politicians. You said she should have written about what it's like to be a woman and a black woman running. Maybe this is authentic Harris and she's just really mad and annoyed and she's being her authentic self.
Maybe -- if I were advising her, I would have told her to write something different along what I said, but right.
HUNT: Well, thank you guys and thanks to our text chain as well.
Coming up next, congress gearing up for a fight. Chuck Schumer says this time will be different. Will it?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN FETTERMAN (D-PA): I would not ever risk the kind of chaos to shut our government down.
REPORTER: If it does shut down, do Democrats and Republicans both share blame?
FETTERMAN: Well, I mean --it -- I guess -- I guess -- I guess we'll see.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:49:12]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCHUMER: Donald Trump says he doesn't want to talk. He's still in the "go to hell" mode. His marching orders are to Rep -- to Republicans or don't even bother with Democrats. That is not governing. That's a recipe for a shutdown.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: The government shutdown looming. Senator Chuck Schumer saying this time will be different, saying that he will not give in to Republicans or indicating that anyway after he came under significant criticism after he publicly, you know, had a major issue with his leadership when he did just that six months ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Have you lost confidence in him? The fact that you guys see this so differently?
REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): Next question.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Schumer defended his position in interviews then that were set to promote his new book, but he had to cancel some of that book tour over mounting backlash at the time.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCHUMER: It would be devastation like we have never seen.
WHOOPI GOLDBERG, CO-HOST, "THE VIEW": Worse than we're seeing now?
SCHUMER: Much -- here's why. That's why I did it. I wasn't going to take this flack just for having a lot of fun.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right. Congressman, what are Democrats going to do here? Because I mean, Schumer took incredible heat from his base over this, but at the same time, you know, the fear from people like John Fetterman and others was well if Democrats let the government shut down, Republicans just wouldn't open it again.
MCHENRY: Yeah, and he's probably smart on that, right? So what I would say is that Schumer's -- Schumer raised the stakes in March, the political stakes, looked highly inept at a basic thing that he should have seen coming across his plate. Very easy to handle it in March. It's a short-term continuation of keeping the government open, get out of the way, right?
And eventually, he got to that, but not before looking feckless and weak. So, this time around he is looking at Jeffries whose dynamics in the House are completely different than his in the Senate and the equities on winning House races are different than Senate races. They should be in different spots, and they are linked. They are linked because Schumer is weak.
So, he is going into a fight asking for effectively $50 billion to keep the government open for six weeks on a partisan subject matter. And he's voting against -- and he's raising the stakes to keep the government open on a clean shutdown that -- a clean vote at the same spending levels, same policies from March. He looks stupid, okay?
And having said this, having been through multiple government shutdowns as a Republican and Republicans pushing shutdowns, you look stupid when you're going for a shutdown. And when you get out of it, you look even worse. There is no exit plan for this. And inevitably once, Russ Vought and OMB have their way with it, the Democratic senators will regret having pulled the shutdown.
HINOJOSA: So, Republicans control everything. And I found it interesting that the Democratic alternative got more votes than the House CR and the Senate. And so -- and Murkowski even voted against the Republican bill --
KARNI: And Rand Paul.
HINOJOSA: And Rand Paul. And so, this is not just about Democrats here. It's Republicans are the ones in power. Why is the Democratic bill getting more votes than the House Republican bill? And that is an embarrassment.
Not only that, but I also think Johnson miscalculated or did something, but now this is his shutdown. He said, "We're leaving unless there is a shutdown." He did not wait to see what was going to happen in the Senate. He did not wait to be like figure out like, "Oh, let's try to find a way to keep the government open, work with Democrats."
No, he's like, "We're out of here, D.C., and now we're heading to a shutdown."
HUNT: Annie, what is your reporting on this?
KARNI: I mean, I think that the same voices that backed Schumer in March --
HUNT: Actually, hold on, Annie. I'm sorry. I'm being told that the president is speaking live, taking questions in the oval office. We need to listen.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: -- about a lot of things. We talked about Russia, Ukraine, obviously, and Gaza. Talked about a lot of subjects.
It was long call. It was a good call. We have a very good relationship. But the TikTok deal is well on its way as you know, and the investors are getting ready. And I think China wanted to see it stay open too. They wanted to see it.
And I can tell you, the young people in our country wanted to see it stay open very badly because, and if you take a look at my numbers, no Republican has ever done anything like we had -- we got massive numbers of youth vote, and by the way helped very much by Charlie Kirk. So, Charlie was very much in favor of TikTok. He liked TikTok and he said, you know, you should use it.
And other people said that too. And I used it. And I don't know if I have the all -- I think I set records. I looked at numbers that are phenomenal. We'll pass them out to you. And it had a -- you know, probably a pretty big effect on the election because we won the election by a lot.
So, we are at a situation where in a little while, meaning a number of days, we'll probably -- I don't know if you can make a deal with these people. I think these people are crazy. You know, again, anybody wants open borders and don't want to fight. They don't want to fight crime. They hate to fight crime.
And in Chicago, last weekend, you had 11 people killed, murdered, and yet 28 shot. And those numbers have been pretty consistent all throughout that period of time, whether it was four people, five people, six people, people, people killed, murdered, and they don't want to spend money to fight crime. And it's not even much money, relatively speaking. It's very little.
But we're going there anyway. It doesn't make any difference. We're going to Chicago. We're going to Memphis next. And we're going to clean up the crime in the cities because we have to do that. Okay?
(CROSSTALK)
[16:55:01]
REPORTER: Mr. President, with this deal today, are you confident that the CCP won't be exerting control?
TRUMP: Yeah, we're going to -- we're going to have a very, very tight control. And look, it's an amazing thing that's been created. There's tremendous value with TikTok. And I'm a little prejudiced because I frankly did so well on it, you know? It got me numbers that nobody's ever even heard of before. So, a lot of people want it.
The young people of this country want it badly. The parents of those young people want it badly. And so, we were able to work out a deal with China. And it's a very good deal for us. It's a very I hope it's a good deal for them.
REPORTER: Are you confident in a -- or would you accept a deal where China controls the algorithm of TikTok?
TRUMP: Well, it's all being worked out. We're going to have very good control. We have American -- these are American investors, all of them, and they all love our country. They're all very well-known people, very famous people actually financially, and they'll have -- they'll have control of it.
REPORTER: Mr. President --
TRUMP: I just -- I want to say I want to thank President Xi because he was a gentleman and we've just had a good relationship and we wanted people -- a lot of people in this country wanted to be open. REPORTER: Is there --
TRUMP: If it weren't open, if it weren't open, maybe, I don't know. I think we won by so much, it wouldn't have mattered. But we got a lot of votes. We got a lot of Republican votes from very young people.
You go ahead, Jeff.
REPORTER: Thank you, sir. Russian jets entered Estonia's airspace today for 12 minutes. Do you see that as a threat to NATO?
TRUMP: Well, I'm going to have to look at it. They're going to be briefing me in a short while, so I'll let you know about it tonight or tomorrow.
REPORTER: What's your take in general? Just being --
TRUMP: Well, I don't love it. I don't love it. I don't know when that happens. It could be big trouble, but I'll let you know later. They're going to brief me in about an hour.
REPORTER: And a follow up on Charlie Kirk. There's been a lot of talk about free speech this week. Do you see a difference between cancel culture and consequence culture?
TRUMP: Well, I mean, your question is a little trick question.
REPORTER: It's not a --
TRUMP: I'm a very strong person for free speech. At the same time when you have networks that where -- I won an election like in counties I guess it's 2,600 to 525, that's called landside -- a landslide times two. When you have that kind of that level of popularity or voter support as I did in the last election.
And yet 97 and 94 percent, different numbers, you see different numbers with different stats but 97, 94, 95, 96 percent of the people are against me in the sense of the newscasts are against me. The stories are 90 -- they said 97 percent bad. So, they gave me 97 -- they'll take a great story, and they'll make it bad.
See, I think that's really illegal personally. You can't take -- you can't have a free airwaves, you're getting free airwaves from the United States government, and you can't have that and say -- and somebody that just won an election and I had to go through this during the election.
I think it's a miracle that I can win, when 97 percent of the stories on the networks are bad or whatever it may be. Whether it's 89 -- it doesn't matter. It's a tremendous number. You know it. You report it all the time and it changes.
But when you have that kind of a negative reporting, fake negative reporting, when they take a great story and they make it into a bad story constantly, that's what they do. Look, "60 Minutes" took Kamala's answer and they threw it out and they gave her a different answer so that she sounded competent. When things like that happened, George Slapadopoulos from your network, right? George Slapadopoulos had to pay $16 million to me because of what he said. And that's ABC.
You had to pay more than that, your network, had to pay more than that.
So I think it's very sad. But I think that reporting has to be at least accurate. At least accurate to an extent. Again, when somebody is given 97 percent of the stories are bad about a person, that's no longer free speech. That's no longer -- just cheating and they cheat.
And they become really members of the Democrat National Committee. That's what they are, the networks in my opinion. They're just offshoots of the Democrat National Committee.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Go ahead.
REPORTER: Liam Cosgrove with ZeroHedge.
People are still anticipating who your pick for national security adviser will be. They're worried Marco Rubio is a little overworked and one of the reported front runners is Michael Anton from the State Department.
TRUMP: He's good.
REPORTER: He's just authored the national security strategy.
