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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
Now: Final Full Day Of Campaigning Ahead Of Key Elections; Poll: Trump Approval At Second-Term Low Ahead Of Key Elections; Mamdani Leads NYC Polls In Final Hours Before Election Day; New: DOJ Defends Trump Posts Calling For Comey's Prosecution. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired November 03, 2025 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:00]
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Shout-out to Evan Perez of the CNN family, who ran it as well --
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: That's right.
SANCHEZ: -- in something like four hours. So --
KEILAR: That's pretty good. He did very well.
Have you ever run a marathon? No? It's tough stuff.
SANCHEZ: No.
KEILAR: Me neither.
"THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT," who probably can, starts right now.
(MUSIC)
KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone. Welcome to THE ARENA. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us on this Monday.
Right now, Election Day just hours away, voters across the country are heading to the polls in what will amount to the first referendum on Donald Trump's second term.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JACK CIATTARELLI (R), NEW JERSEY GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: I got a really simple idea. How about we elect a Jersey guy?
ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), NEW YORK CITY MAYORAL CANDIDATE: Are we going to beat Andrew Cuomo?
CROWD: Yeah!
LT. GOV. WINSOME EARLE-SEARS (R), VIRGINIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: Your job is to vote tomorrow. Your job is to vote tomorrow.
(END VIDEO CLIP) HUNT: The energy in New York, New Jersey, Virginia and beyond getting higher. President Trump is not on the ballot, but his agenda most definitely is.
A new CNN poll finds most Americans are not happy with how things are going with Trump. Back in the White House, the president's approval rating now at its lowest point of his second term. It sits at just 37 percent. A full 63 percent of Americans say they're unhappy with the job that he's doing. Those are numbers that we last saw after January 6th, 2021.
And on a number of key issues, from the economy to his handling of the government shutdown, the president finds himself underwater with the American people.
So, the question, will we see that disappointment reflected at the ballot box tomorrow? Democrats are certainly counting on it. One year, almost to the day since their crushing defeat last November. They're hoping the big wins tomorrow can help them finally take the fight to President Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MIKIE SHERRILL (D), NEW JERSEY GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: I think the real problem here isn't who's talking about Trump. The real problem here is who is not taking on Trump and who is not committing to serve the people of new jersey.
ABIGAIL SPANBERGER (D), VIRGINIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: The answer is that we stand up against the chaos and the division that we see coming out of this administration.
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D), CALIFORNIA: They did not expect California. They did not expect all of you. They thought we were going to write an op-ed, have a candlelight vigil, maybe do a rally. They poked the bear, and the bear is poking back, and we're going to get out there and win.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right. Let's get off the sidelines, head into THE ARENA. My panel is here.
CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams, Republican strategist and pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson, CNN chief political analyst, former Obama senior adviser David Axelrod, and former Trump campaign adviser David Urban. It's a great team for this day before election day.
And if it's not enough, on the left side of the screen is the text chain with additional analysis. This today coming from our reporters doing the hard work on the campaign trail, they're going to tell you what they're seeing out there.
David Urban, you were laughing there as we were listening to Gavin Newsom at the end. He says they poked the bear. What's the -- I mean, is what's on the ballot in California, the biggest race tomorrow night?
DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't know. I mean, listen, I think it will be a major accomplishment if Newsom gets the California voters to reverse their previous position on, you know, on this -- on this topic.
But I do think for him, it's a very important race -- excuse me, a very important referendum. Not a race. It will elevate him and give him a lot of credibility and provide a lot of energy behind Gavin Newsom. But look, I think the most important race clearly is going to be the New York mayor race. It's going to have huge, you know, tone. It's going to have overtones.
And it's going to -- you know, you're going to have -- my good friend David Axelrod is going to sit here and agree or disagree. But, you know, you have --
HUNT: I think he's going to disagree.
DAVID AXELROD, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: I think it's going to be one or the other.
HUNT: So you have Spanberger, you have you have this kind of like blue dog Democrat in Virginia, and Spanberger and this Democratic socialist in New York. And so on Wednesday morning, Democrats are going to wake up with a headache in terms of both sides of the party claiming victory.
Both sides energized. And then we're going to see which way the party goes in '20 to '26, right?
AXELROD: First of all, let me say, let's give credit where credit is due. It's not going to be at the end of the day Gavin Newsom, who persuaded Californians to change their mind, it will be Donald Trump. And, but in terms of -- I was saying, Elliot, before the show, what I anticipated for tomorrow was Democrats were going to win all these races and that Republicans who don't want to read it as a negative verdict on the president will start saying, well, they elected a socialist. Now he's the face of the Democratic Party.
What they're missing. And I think what is a through line between these races is that the issue of affordability is one that Democrats have seized on, and it's a great vulnerability for the president. And you see it in this polling. So, to that degree, I think the proposition 50 out there in California has tangible impacts for next year in terms of the midterm elections. But in terms of atmospherics, I think that is a message. The affordability message is the one to take away here.
HUNT: Yeah. Well, let's look at what approval ratings have looked like in heading into past midterm elections.
[16:05:06]
Ronald Reagan back in 1981, sat at 49 percent. You can see -- I don't have to read them all to tell you that Donald Trump, sitting at 37, is pretty significant at -- Kristen Soltis Anderson. You read these kinds of numbers all the time.
If we put up our new CNN polling on Trump's job approval, just 28 percent of independents say that they approve of what the president has been doing. Now, obviously, his numbers a little bit higher among non-college voters, but still just 40 percent.
KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah. And look, this poll is significantly more negative than other polls that are out there, which isn't to say that. It's not right, but it is to say like, let's put it in context. If these numbers are true or even partially true, it ought to be a warning sign to the White House because a lot of those voter groups that you just had up on the screen were critical to Donald Trump's victories, his coalition, the unusual group of people that he put together to remake the Republican Party in a new, more populist direction where they're upset with institutions, they want things to change.
If I'm giving the White House advice, if they if we get to the end of this, off off-year election, Democrats have a great night.
On the one hand, some of that is just how this works, right? Barack Obama wins in 2008. Republicans are lost in the wilderness, and all of a sudden, they win the New Jersey governor's race with Chris Christie in 2009, right? Being the party out of power does sort of give you more momentum in these off off-year elections.
So, it wouldn't surprise me if Democrats don't do pretty well at the same time. Those job approval numbers for Trump are bad enough and have dipped enough where I think this affordability question and this a little bit of like let them eat cake. We're doing a ballroom. We've got members of the administration taking private jets, places like I think that that's the kind of stuff that breaks through in a moment when people go, I have to start thinking about Christmas shopping for my kids, that I think the White House needs to pay a lot more attention to that issue.
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yeah, and it's funny, David mentioned the conversation we had. I'll mention the conversation Kristen and I had right before we came out here, which is that the idea that parties who are in the wilderness often look for different ways and different paths forward. And we were talking about Republicans after Mitt Romney. And there was -- there's always a question of, do we tack to the middle, or do we go to the base?
Now, different people can win in different parts of the country. And the mere fact that both Zohran Mamdani is likely to win and Abigail Spanberger is likely to win doesn't mean that any one of them, I think, is the future face of the Democratic Party. It's just, you know, it's a big country and a lot of different people win different races.
SOLTIS: Yeah. But also remember how that post-Romney identity crisis resolved.
(CROSSTALK)
SOLTIS: Donald Trump saying what if we do both? What if I reach independent voters and I fire up the base?
AXELROD: That's a really important point, because, you know, we tend to sit in this business, we tend to sit on the back of the bus and look at what happened in the past.
HUNT: Which is a huge mistake often.
AXELROD: Yeah, and it could be here as well.
We're sitting here in 2000 and what is it, 25, trying to figure out what's going to happen in 2026 and 2028, 2026 is in view. 2028 is a long way off, and the candidate of the party is going to define the Democratic Party. And I can't tell you, as I'm sitting here now, who that person will be.
HUNT: Well, so I want to show a little bit of the campaigning that Zohran Mamdani did over the weekend, because obviously, there's been all this conversation about his ideology, the way Republicans are going to attack him as a Democratic socialist. But part of why he's taken off is simply the way that he is doing politics. And you could really see that.
I mean, he hit the clubs over the weekend. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAMDANI: Are we going to beat Andrew Cuomo?
CROWD: Yeah!
MAMDANI: Are we ready to win a city we can afford?
CROWD: Yeah!
MAMDANI: Are we ready to make history?
CROWD: Yeah.
(MUSIC)
MAMDANI: Come on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So maybe only in New York City, David, but what do you make of that?
AXELROD: I think people were in high spirits, that's for sure.
(LAUGHTER)
AXELROD: But listen, I think one of the things that people have also missed about Mamdani, who hasn't camp -- who's campaigned on affordability 100 percent, but he's also campaigned with a kind of joy.
And, you know, free spiritedness and -
HUNT: Youth --
AXELROD: -- optimism. Youth? Yes, youth -- at a time when our politics are so angry and grinding. And I think that people have been attracted to that as well. It's good to be a happy warrior when everybody else is grumpy and angry.
URBAN: Yeah. Look, I mean, those are great visuals. You got a question? You've done this. How many people in that room are actually registered to vote and will vote?
You know, they make great videos, but the effect on the electorate may be -- may be minimal. And the tough part for me comes when he -- the day after the election when he has to start getting the keys and has to start running the city.
AXELROD: That's for sure.
URBAN: Right? And he's made -- he's made all these promises.
[16:10:00]
AXELROD: But you know, the early vote, just to answer your question, the early vote reflects the fact that voters under 29 have already cast more votes than they did four years ago. And this is before election day.
URBAN: And so, it'll be interesting to see, because those people expect free buses, groceries. They expect Mamdani to deliver in all these things, and he's going to have to go to Kathy Hochul and say, please, governor, will you help me do these things? And she may say, no. And then he is going to be left saying all those things.
What happened to these people in those clubs are going to say, what happened to all those three things you promised us? And he's going to say --
AXELROD: No, you know --
URBAN: -- I guess I couldn't do it.
AXELROD: I mean, the question is, does he make earnest and substantive efforts to reduce costs, even if it doesn't come in the same form that he's suggested? And does he do the basics of being mayor, competently, and well, or is he consumed by ideological items?
And my read of him is that he wants to be a great mayor. And so, you know, we'll see. We'll see. But I think he's going to get the opportunity.
HUNT: President Obama was on the campaign trail over the weekend. I think this is a little bit of him campaigning in New Jersey, where one of the more moderate Democrats, Mikie Sherrill, of course, is on the ballot. He's not been out campaigning for Mamdani, although we have reported that they have spoken on the phone a number of times. Let's see a little bit of what the former president had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: All of us, all of us are being tested right now. Our convictions are being tested. Donald Trump and the Republicans, they want you to think that change can only come from on high, that that a few people in power make decisions. The rest of us just have to live with the consequences.
But when you look at the history of America, real change has always come from the bottom up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Ax, you obviously worked for President Obama for so many years. What do you make of the message he's got here and the decisions he's making about who to campaign for and who not to?
URBAN: He didn't cross that bridge, I noticed, just wondering.
AXELROD: Well, they probably want to go through that Gateway Project, but the -- but the president canceled it.
Look, I think that the thing that struck me as I was listening to him and I've listened to many Obamas speeches over the years, and I participated in some of them, there's very much was the message. He's coming with a -- the partner that he danced in with. He believes in this. He believes in grassroots-organizing.
He believes in a democracy, in the power of people to change the direction of a country. And I think his big mission, there was to say, at a time when people are feeling, is there anything we can do or should we just walk away? He's saying that people know, don't lean, lean out, lean in because you have the agency and you have the power. And this is the first stop is voting for these candidates.
URBAN: And I think importantly in New Jersey, you got to do it because Ciattarelli could sneak up on you. There's one place --
AXELROD: Ciattarelli almost did with Murphy.
URBAN: There's one place that you know, on election night, if Republicans won, it would not be a huge surprise. It would be in New Jersey.
HUNT: Yeah, of course, we were talking -- when we're discussing the mayor's race, a little bit about the generational change in the Democratic Party. One other thing to watch for heading into the rest of this week is what Nancy Pelosi, the former house speaker, is going to do. She, of course, has been focused on the same thing that the governor, Gavin Newsom, has been focused on that proposition that would let them do California redistricting very close to her heart.
But there's also this question of whether or not she's going to run for reelection. She did an interview right here with CNN that just wrapped up. Let's watch a little bit of that. We'll talk about it. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): I have said I won't do anything until after Proposition 50. So tomorrow night will be very fraught with meaning for all of us. I want to win big. I think we can win big. And I don't want to be spending time on whatever I might be doing. I want to spend my time on what we're doing, working together to get out the vote, own the ground.
You win the election by owning the ground, and you can have all the persuasion in the world. You can have the biggest numbers in the polls, but if you -- if you don't own the ground, you're only having a conversation. You're not having a victory.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Elliott. Part of what she's reflecting, there is a little bit of what you were talking about earlier that in many ways, politics has shifted to being -- instead of being a battle for independence. It's a question of whether you're getting your people out --
WILLIAMS: Yeah.
HUNT: -- in the end.
HUNT: And the Democrats are old. One of the -- it's a fact.
AXELROD: I take that personally.
HUNT: Pelosi is not a --
(LAUGHTER)
WILLIAMS: You are not old, David. Democrats are old. But no, Democrats are old. And, you know, a part of why their hopes imploded in 2024, among many, many things, was the age of the president.
HUNT: Was it many things or was it basically that one thing?
WILLIAMS: I was being charitable, Kasie. But no, but you hear what I'm saying?
[16:15:00]
It is in the water that the Democratic Party is old, and they need new leadership. And I think she, despite her many years of service, I think is reflective.
URBAN: The one guy at clubbing last night didn't exude old, did he?
AXELROD: No, he did not. And she -- she stepped away from the speakership. She recognized that. She said it was time to pass the torch. So, this would be the next step of recognizing.
HUNT: Right. And let's be honest, she is really the person who pushed President Biden out of the race, shall we say.
All right. I want to thank all of our reporters in THE ARENA text chain. We really appreciate them taking a little bit of time, a busy day on the trail.
The rest of our panel is going to stand by.
Coming up, the DOJ on defense. We're awaiting a key filing in the federal cases against James Comey and Letitia James.
But first, one of the candidates that is set to be on the ballot tomorrow in a key race here in THE ARENA live, Republican Curtis Sliwa and his bid to stave off Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo to try and lead New York City.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CURTIS SLIWA (R), NYC MAYORAL CANDIDATE: I'm the people's mayor. Whether they reject me or they accept me, it seems everyone in this campaign says, we all love Curtis.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:20:33]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why do you want to be mayor?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, I need a job.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to be mayor so I can deliver a better New York, free health care, affordable housing, free Wi-Fi. As mayor, can I make that happen? I'm not sure yet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As soon as you are elected mayor. Everyone in the city immediately hates you. And in that way, I am already one step ahead of the game.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: "Saturday Night Live" getting in on the fun for the New York City mayoral race as the highly anticipated three-way contest between Democrat Zohran Mamdani, independent Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa heads into its final hours. The latest polling shows 34- year-old Mamdani continues to hold a substantial 17-point lead out over the field.
Joining us now to discuss in THE ARENA, the Republican candidate for New York City mayor, Curtis Sliwa.
Sir, thanks very much for being on the program.
Elon Musk, longtime presidential friend, or I should say recent, anyway, presidential friend just wrote this on his X platform, "Remember to vote tomorrow in New York. Bear in mind that a vote for Curtis is really a vote for Mamdani or whatever his name is. Vote Cuomo."
Why is a vote for you not a vote for Mamdani?
CURTIS SLIWA (R), NEW YORK CITY MAYORAL CANDIDATE: Well, first off, let's establish that Andrew Cuomo gave $1 billion to Elon Musk to make solar panels. It was so corrupt that nine of Andrew Cuomo's appointees, led by his chief of staff, went to jail. And we got like 25 solar panels out of Buffalo.
So, I understand why Elon Musk has a friendship for Andrew Cuomo, who obviously was kicking back money to his buddy Elon Musk. This is a battle between three different forces. Your panel mentioned it. It's a generational change. Zohran Mamdani beat Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary decisively.
Andrew Cuomo represents a dystopian view of New York City. It's overcast. It's ugly. He's a grimace. And by the way, he's indicated that if he's somehow lose, he'll escape to Florida with his billionaire friends.
I am a Republican. I'm a populist. I represent blue collar, working class people who cannot just flee like billionaires. We improve. We don't move. We fight for what we know is right.
And I trust the people to vote, not the billionaires, the insiders or the influencers. They're not going to pick the next mayor. The people will. And that's what democracy is about.
HUNT: So, if President Trump, who is, of course, a Republican president, was asked over the weekend about the mayor's race, I want to play that for our audience. And then I'll ask you about it on the other side. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NORAH O'DONNELL, CBS HOST: What if Mamdani becomes mayor?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's going to be hard for me as the president to give a lot of money to New York because if you have a communist running New York, all you're doing is wasting the money you're sending there.
So, I don't know that he's won, and I'm not a fan of Cuomo one way or the other, but if it's going to be between a Democrat and a communist, I'm going to pick the bad Democrat all the time, to be honest with you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So, it seems like President Trump basically is saying that you don't exist. Why? Why not?
SLIWA: Well, I certainly do exist because I am the candidate of the Republican Party.
HUNT: But he doesn't seem to know that, right, or want to mention you.
(CROSSTALK)
SLIWA: -- a primary.
Well, well, obviously he does. And he has the right to pick whatever candidate he chooses. I'm on the ground. I have the people behind me, not just Republicans, conservatives, but independents, moderate Democrats and a new group as an independent line called Protect Animals. First ever in electoral history. No kill shelters. Animal abusers go to jail.
I'm in the subways and streets every day. I go into neighborhoods where the only Republican they've ever seen in New York city is Abraham Lincoln on a $5 bill. And I get where we see (ph).
Do you know, in a recent poll they talked about favorability, which your panel was mentioning. I and Barack Obama rated out the best in New York City in terms of national, local and state figures, 52 percent.
The unfavorable ratings for Andrew Cuomo were miserable. You can't overcome that. Everybody loves Curtis. Like the show "Everybody Loves Raymond", and now I have to translate it into votes tomorrow.
HUNT: Well, so -- all right, there's at least one person who loves you so much, they want to give you millions of dollars to get out of the race, or at least this is what you've said.
[16:25:04]
Who is it that is willing to pay millions to make you not run?
SLIWA: Seven offers, the top being $10 million to drop out. I said no, it's unethical.
(CROSSTALK)
HUNT: All from the same person or from seven different people?
SLIWA: No, no, different people. Different --
(CROSSTALK)
HUNT: Seven different people have offered you money to get out of the race?
SLIWA: -- billionaires play.
Oh, yeah. Exactly, on behalf of Andrew Cuomo, drop out for Andrew. I would rather impale myself like Mel Gibson did at the end of "Braveheart", where he told his executioner, impale me. I will not buck him, bow to the crown. Secondarily, then threats against me and my wife took place. I was
shot five times by organized crime. I never had armed security afterwards. Now, everywhere I and my wife go, we have armed security. As a result of the fear, fright and hysteria that has engulfed this race.
Look, I'm a fighter. I believe in certain principles. Law and order, which the other two candidates, Democrats, don't. They believe in no cash bail, raise the age, turn prisoners out of our jail, which is called Rikers Island. I believe in a city where we're best known for locking up toothpaste. We have to start locking up some of our criminals to get us back to a point in which we are not in a crime crisis. We have a quality of life, and people will want to stay, instead of flee.
HUNT: If Mamdani is elected and he doesn't perform the job the way that Andrew Cuomo, the way that President Trump, the way that others are warning if he does run the city as a communist, are you going to have any regrets?
SLIWA: Why should I have regrets? I trust people. People are going to make the choice. I'll live with the choice. I'd like them to choose me.
But if perchance, I lose on November 4th, I will improve, not move. I will lead the opposition. I will organize against any of the initiatives that are not in the best interest of people. I will not flee like Andrew Cuomo told his billionaire friends in the Hamptons. Oh, if Zohran wins, I flee.
No, I stay, I fight. Not in a physical sense, but in what politics is all about. And organizational sense. I'm a community organizer. I've organized Guardian Angels all over the world.
I understand that you don't surrender. You don't retreat. This is democracy in action. This is people power.
Why are we so afraid of letting people make the decisions? Why do we want to leave it in the hands of billionaires, influencers and insiders? I trust people, I don't trust politicians, billionaires, insiders or influencers.
If they should choose someone else, I will reorganize. I will be prepared to stay --
HUNT: All right.
SLIWA: -- and fight. I was born in this city. I was almost killed in this city. I'll die in this city. I'll be buried in this city. I'm the true New Yorker in this race.
HUNT: All right, fair enough, sir.
New York City mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa, thanks very much for your time, sir. Appreciate it.
SLIWA: Pleasure.
HUNT: All right. Our panel is back.
David Axelrod, where should we start?
AXELROD: First of all, let me give you -- I want to I want to commend you for drawing him out the way you did. I think you did an excellent job of dragging him out of his shell.
I think look, Curtis Sliwa is -- he's a show. I mean, he is thoroughly a New Yorker, and he expresses himself in a very colloquial way that every New Yorker understands. And he's making a critique of Cuomo and the -- you know, that is, what is dogging Cuomo in this race, that he's an opportunist and that he's not -- you know, that he -- that he isn't certainly someone who he thinks Republicans should vote for.
He's not going to win tomorrow, but he's basically lit up the end of this race in a way that certainly. And now the question for tomorrow. Let me just finish by saying, if Mamdani gets more than 50 percent, then that robs Cuomo and others of the argument that if Sliwa hadn't been there and I -- you know, I'll defer to the pollster, I'm not at all sure that if Curtis got out of the race that his vote would go all to Cuomo.
HUNT: Cuomo.
ANDERSON: Yeah. I mean, think about there's the crossover between Trump and Bernie Sanders supporters, right? That like for some people, it's just -- I want someone who's plainspoken, someone who's going to fight against the system, someone who seems like they're fighting for me. And Andrew Cuomo may be the third on that list.
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: And Republicans have been -- they've been voting against Cuomos for 40 years.
ANDERSON: I also wonder, it's -- you know, watching that interview, there's some great lines, right? Lock up criminals, not toothpaste. And you start wondering, what would an alternate universe have looked like if Andrew Cuomo, in that Democratic primary had decided he actually had to ask voters for the courtesy of voting for him, and he'd actually pursued a message of Mamdani is too weak on crime.
[16:30:07]
Mamdani is -- instead of we kind of wound up in this place where they're saying he was extreme on, you know, the issue of Gaza and foreign policy, and it just felt like, wow, what a missed opportunity for someone like Cuomo to have tried to hit Mamdani on those kinds of issues in the primary.
URBAN: Curtis Sliwa, look, my hats off to the guy, right?
ANDERSON: Oh, yeah.
URBAN: I mean, improve, not move.
(CROSSTALK)
URBAN: Yeah, exactly. Maybe he'll settle for my shiny noggin, but I mean, I mean, inspirational story. Everybody in America knows Curtis Sliwa story, especially people in New York, right? He's been -- you can't miss the fact that he's been shot by the Gotti family in the back of a cab.
And look, I think that if you live in Staten Island or some of the boroughs, he's going to get big numbers in a lot of those places, you know, that you're going to -- you'd expect that that working class New Yorkers that want to stay there, don't want to have to get like -- they don't -- they want to buy Rolex or they go with the toothpaste, right?
HUNT: Why won't the president -- why does the president not want to be on his team? I mean, considering the story?
URBAN: I don't know -- I don't know why. I have no idea. Maybe --
AXELROD: You know why, because he doesn't think he can win.
URBAN: But I don't think that Andrew Cuomo stands an ice cubes chance in hell of winning tomorrow. I think Curtis Sliwa has got a much better chance if Republicans got behind him, I think he'd be much better off.
WILLIAMS: No. You know, it's interesting.
HUNT: Last word.
WILLIAMS: Real quick, I interviewed him for my book. About 1980s New York. And it's the same thing you're getting there.
What I find so fascinating about him is this whole idea. And he said largely the same stuff Al Sharpton said about safety in New York, which is that we all want to be safe. He's a public safety guy, but the fat cats and the elites are failing us and not keeping us safe. It's kind of a thread that runs through --
URBAN: Republicans saying that --
WILLIAMS: I know. It's remarkable, and he's just a one of a kind candidate.
URBAN: Yeah.
HUNT: One of a kind, indeed.
All right. Tune in tomorrow night. CNN's live election coverage starts at 5:00 p.m. Eastern, right here on CNN. You can watch live on the CNN at all access app. I'm going to be with my colleagues Dana Bash and Jake Tapper all night tomorrow night. I think David Axelrod and David Urban will be joining us as well. Coming up next here in THE ARENA, what the White House is saying about
court orders to use emergency money to fund the critical food assistance program during the ongoing government shutdown.
Plus, Democrats upping their criticism of the president for what they say is his being out of touch during this time of economic uncertainty.
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REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY), MINORITY LEADER: What's Donald Trump been doing this weekend? He was on the golf course. Spitting in the face of the American people.
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[16:36:58]
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JEFFRIES: All Republicans care about is the opinion of one man, the puppet master of the Republican Party, Donald J. Trump. They don't care about anything else. How else can you explain the fact that they are weaponizing hunger?
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HUNT: With the government shutdown barreling towards becoming the longest in history? There's a little bit of relief in sight for the roughly 42 million Americans who receive food stamps. The Trump administration will send partial payments after a federal judge ruled they were required to use the program's contingency funds. New CNN polling finds 61 percent of people disapprove of President Trump's handling of the government shutdown.
This all comes just days after the president hosted a great Gatsby- inspired Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago. According to the White House, the theme of that party, "A little party, never killed nobody."
All right, our panel and our ARENA text chain both back here.
And, you know, Kristen Soltis Anderson, you mentioned the kind of optics a little bit earlier, right? And why all of this is particularly bad considering the economic pain that a lot of Americans are feeling. I want to play a little bit more of what President Obama said, because he kind of lined it all up when he was campaigning for Spanberger in Virginia.
So take a look at this.
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BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: He has been focused on critical issues like paving over the Rose Garden so folks don't get mud on their shoes, and gold plating the Oval Office and building a $300 million ballroom. So -- so, Virginia, here's the good news.
If you can't visit a doctor, don't worry. He will save you a dance. And if you don't get an invitation to the next White House shindig, you can always watch the festivities and all the beautiful people on Truth Social.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Kristen?
ANDERSON: Yeah. Look, things like he paved over the Rose Garden. Like, I think those things in isolation are not the sort of thing that rise to the level of voters getting upset. I think it is a collection of a lot of little things that give the impression. Is the president focused on the right issue, the best thing Donald Trump has going for him right now? One is his base is still very largely behind him.
That clip you showed earlier with speaker with -- with Hakeem Jeffries saying, you know, I think that there are only afraid of one man. The reason Republican members of Congress are still loyal to Donald Trump is that his Donald Trump's voters are still loyal to Donald Trump.
HUNT: Right.
ANDERSON: But that's not enough. In a midterm election or a low, low, low, low turnout off year election, like we're going to see tomorrow, where for many voters, they've got to feel like somebody is fighting for me. If I'm going to get up off my couch and vote for them.
HUNT: Yeah, there's -- go ahead. Elliot.
WILLIAMS: No, I was just going to say we were just talking about New York City's mayoral race and the idea, this question of fat cats and people, elites not looking out for everyone's interests when millions of Americans are struggling to get SNAP benefits right now, those kinds of images do not work.
[16:40:10]
AXELROD: Yeah, the juxtaposition is terrible.
I agree that in isolation, the ballroom, the Rose Garden, the remodeling, the Lincoln bathroom and gold and all of that, that stuff doesn't matter. But when it comes in the midst of a shutdown in which you're saying were not going to give people who are hungry, one in eight Americans, many of whom live in the districts that voted for the president were not going to give them.
ANDERSON: No. I do need to push back. Republicans have passed, have -- put forward legislation to keep the government funded and open. And it is Democrats who filibuster the Senate. So, you know?
AXELROD: Yeah, but okay, we can go into that. That's a -- that's a fair argument. But what Democrats are saying is, well, let's sit down and negotiate this one issue. We want to negotiate, which is the ACA crisis, where premiums are going to go up momentarily. And 20 million people are going to be paying higher premiums.
URBAN: I just submit this. And I think we've had this discussion before. I think Democrats have been much better position if they had said, we're going to pass a clean C.R. and then America on November 1st when everything goes to the roof, you can blame Republicans.
AXELROD: And you give you political advise --
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: Nobody in America knows. A clean C.R., they think is some sort of windshield.
URBAN: The only person -- the only person that blinked on that was Chuck Schumer, because he was punished before for doing that. And listen, I do agree on the affordability thing.
AXELROD: Just sit down and negotiate. I mean, I think it's a pretty powerful --
URBAN: Schumer could just vote and then negotiate. So, it's a chicken and egg thing. I do agree that you look at those numbers and you talk about New York again, this president was strongest and best when he was going to the bodegas, when he was serving fries at McDonald's, when he was driving a garbage truck, right when he was going to black barbershops. Those are the people that elected him, right? That's what -- that's what he was strongest, the coalition together.
WILLIAMS: Black and brown men.
URBAN: Those are not the scenes you see.
AXELROD: You look at these polls, this polling and I think Kristen can confirm this part of the erosion is among particularly Hispanic voters, younger voters. But Hispanic voters, probably some element of young black voters.
URBAN: I just say Republicans at their own peril, right, we need to be able to rebuild that coalition to bring it back together again. If J.D. Vance or any other Republican wants to be president in the future, that's the coalition we need to hold together and moving forward. And how do you do that?
AXELROD: Not ballrooms.
URBAN: Well, not by ignoring their economic needs.
AXELROD: Yes.
HUNT: Yeah. I mean, David, I was going to say, like people have always been willing to allow Donald Trump his kind of lavish, over the top, right, they've seen themselves sometimes in him, right? Like his ability to have success.
AXELROD: Or their aspirations.
HUNT: Right. Like, oh, I could become that, right?
I guess my question, I mean, he throws this great Gatsby party, right? I mean, if you want to read from the great Gatsby, the quote is they were careless people. They smashed up things and creatures, and they retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together. And they let other people clean up the mess that they had made.
I mean, has Trump gone too far here?
URBAN: Well, listen, it's what -- it's one party. I do think again, though, to my point, I just made, if you ignore the if you ignore the coalition that got you to where you are, then you've gone too far. If you don't pay attention to the people in the barbershops, the bodegas, the McDonald's, the garbage truck drivers. If you ignore those people, you do so at your own peril.
AXELROD: How about being just being president of the United States and not just the leader of your own party or your place?
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: This is a national -- this is a national crisis. This SNAP thing is a national crisis. The airports are a national crisis.
We have a common humanity here. And I think part of the thing people want is for the president to think broadly and not just about his base.
URBAN: As you say, well, we'll see after the election tomorrow if that has any impetus on getting this resolved quickly or the Democrats feel a little more emboldened to drag it out.
AXELROD: I guess we will find out.
All right. My thanks to THE ARENA text chain and our panel will stick with us.
Ahead in THE ARENA, a new court filing just in from the Justice Department in a key case against one of the president's perceived enemies. We will explain what it says.
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NORAH O'DONNELL, CBS NEWS HOST: James Comey, John Bolton, Letitia James were all recently indicted. There is a pattern to these names. They're all public figures who have publicly denounced you. Is it political retribution?
TRUMP: You know who got indicted? The man you're looking at.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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[16:48:57] HUNT: All right. Welcome back.
We have breaking news in the DOJ's case against the former FBI Director James Comey,
CNN crime and justice correspondent Katelyn Polantz joins us now.
Katelyn, what are we learning here?
KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kasie, this is a pretty across the board defense of everything the Justice Department is doing in bringing this case against James Comey in the eastern district of Virginia. There's one argument that landed saying that Lindsey Halligan, the prosecutor there, sent into EDVA by Donald Trump himself just days before Comey was indicted, taking it through the grand jury by herself that she has all of the authority to do that. That's an argument that is going to get argued pretty soon before a judge.
But then the other thing that's happening here is the Justice Department is fully defending what Trump has been saying for years and years and years about James Comey, that he wants to see him prosecuted and he wants to see him indicted, up to and including the defense of that September post from Donald Trump saying to the attorney general that he wanted to see Comey and two others face justice.
The arguments here, the Justice Department int is saying that, well, it's possible Trump believes that Comey should be prosecuted because he lied to Congress. That's something that Comey is pleading not guilty to, and he wants to fight at trial.
But they say there's no -- nothing wrong here. Donald Trump isn't necessarily directing the Justice Department to do something wrong. He may believe that Comey deserves to be prosecuted. The other thing is, they're saying that Trump hasn't singled him out. Justice Department hasn't singled James Comey out because they want to silence him for being a critic of the president.
They're saying that Trump has long been a critic of Comey, and Comey has long been a critic of Donald Trump. Now, there is just this charge of James Comey lying to Congress, and there's been plenty of other people in history, including in Watergate and the Iran-Contra scandals, where high ranking officials, despite what they would say about the president, have faced criminal charges.
So, this, too, is going to go before a judge who's going to have to look at whether James Comey has been singled out for prosecution unfairly, whether it's infringing on his rights and whether or not this case should be tossed, as James Comey says, it should be -- Kasie.
HUNT: All right. Katelyn Polantz -- Katelyn, thanks very much for hopping up for us on this breaking news. Really appreciate it.
Elliot Williams, this has been a hobby horse for you on this show. What the president had to say about prosecuting Comey. And we put the Truth Social post up on the screen before we since have reported that this post was intended to be private. That is, reporting from, you know, White House sources.
WILLIAMS: Yeah.
HUNT: Do you think this is -- are they going to win this argument?
WILLIAMS: It's hard to say because it's really, really hard to get a case thrown out for selective or vindictive prosecution like Jim Comey is trying to do here. Most people don't.
HUNT: Even when the president --
WILLIAMS: Except when a president of the United States is calling for your prosecution. That's what makes this case novel.
It's interesting because, as Katelyn noted, they are critics of each other, and the president has sort of said, well, I say bad things about Jim Comey. Jim Comey says bad things about me. Therefore, this is kind of okay.
Well, you're not on equal footing when one of you can -- is the president of the United States and the Justice Department reports to you, and it really does raise at least a legal question as to whether this is the one case that gets tossed out because of a political leader putting a thumb on the scale when the Justice Department is weighing charges. So, it's an interesting case.
AXELROD: When you -- when you hear the president talk about all of this, it always comes back to the fact that he was -- that he feels personally injured, that he was. But this indictment has nothing to do with the investigation of Trump, as I understand it. It has to do with Hillary Clinton and a leak about whether the Clinton foundation was going to be investigated and so on.
WILLIAMS: An important point, he might feel aggrieved. He might feel that the Justice Department targeted him and singled him out, but merely -- the mere statement of I am going after them because they went after me --
AXELROD: Yes.
WILLIAMS: -- is itself evidence of selective prosecution.
If you want to raise, if he wants to raise the case that the that the case is against him were selective as well, he's free to file a motion to say that, but there just isn't the same level of evidence there because you don't have a president of the United States weighing in, and it's just not the same, regardless of how bad the president feels or how he felt he was treated by the Justice Department, it's just not the same.
URBAN: Listen, I'll just say this, Jim -- I think Jim Comey is despicable human being from firsthand experience, right? I was on the 2016 campaign, friends of mine, everybody, I woke up every day fearing getting a subpoena from the FBI for doing nothing wrong. People I know were bankrupted by Jim Comey, for an investigation. It was based on facts that he knew or should have known were completely made up.
You saw his kind of flippant laughing ness when he talked about screwing Mike Flynn's life up, saying, like, you know, I sent agents into the White House to talk to Mike Flynn. I should have never gotten away with that any other administration, bankrupt Mike Flynn, an honorable guy, served 30-plus years in the military, put him in financial ruin over something that was -- there was nothing on a 302 sheet.
So, Jim Comey is a bad guy. Go back. You don't have to look at -- go back to the anthrax investigation where he went after the wrong man, ruined his life. The FBI had to pay a big judgment there.
Go look back at the Bush administration when he bounded up the stairs in Jim Comey's word to stave democracy on waterboarding. Jim Comey has been on the wrong side of so many things. I have no -- I cry no tears for Jim Comey.
WILLIAMS: Right. And that's fine. That may be true -- but in the terms of this case --
URBAN: I feel no -- I feel no regret for anything.
WILLIAMS: Sympathy is one thing. And if you think he's a rotten guy, okay, fine.
AXELROD: Based on the law.
WILLIAMS: Right.
URBAN: And just hard for me to say anything.
WILLIAMS: Abundantly clear.
HUNT: I will say Democrats don't necessarily feel a lot of love for Jim Comey either.
WILLIAMS: He unites Americans.
AXELROD: Yeah, I would suggest that what he did probably elected Hillary Clinton.
[16:55:02]
So, you should be saying okay.
URBAN: Yeah.
HUNT: Last time I went four seconds over, Jake Tapper took me to task. Okay. So, we'll be right.
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HUNT: All right. Thanks to my panel for being here. Really appreciate you guys. Thanks to all of you at home for watching as well. Don't forget, you
can now stream THE ARENA live. You can catch up whenever you want. We're in the CNN app. Go ahead, scan that QR code below.
You can also catch up by listening to THE ARENA's podcast. Theres another QR code for that. You can also follow the show on X and on Instagram @TheArenaCNN.
Jake Tapper is standing by for THE LEAD. It is 04:59:50.
Jake, I'm so excited to be part of your election night panel tomorrow night.
