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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
Dems Tout Election Wins As Rebuke Of Trump Policies; Justices Express Skepticism Of Trump's Tariff Power; Trump Attacks Dems After Sweeping Wins In Key Elections. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired November 05, 2025 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: -- while investigators search for the missing gems.
[16:00:03]
That's like having your password be password.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Yeah, a lot of people do that. Not recommended.
SANCHEZ: No.
KEILAR: Highly recommended, THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT which starts right now.
SANCHEZ: Indeed.
(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 Wednesday after an election day.
Democrats had their best night last night since that devastating defeat in the 2024 election. Across the country, up and down the ballot, Democrats won big with big margins.
President Trump responded in real time last night, saying, quote, "And so it begins".
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV.-ELECT MIKIE SHERRILL (D), NEW JERSEY: We know that this nation has not ever been, nor will it ever be ruled by kings.
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D), CALIFORNIA: We can de facto end Donald Trump's presidency as we know it the minute Speaker Jeffries gets sworn in as speaker of the House of Representatives.
GOV.-ELECT ABIGAIL SPANBERGER (D), VIRGINIA: We chose our commonwealth over chaos.
MAYOR-ELECT ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), NEW YORK: So, Donald Trump, since I know you're watching, I have four words for you -- turn the volume up! (END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: In New York, New Jersey, Virginia, California, elsewhere, Democrats won big, and they clearly think President Donald Trump and his policies were a big reason for that.
President Trump says that last night's results are the fault of anyone except for him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Last night, it was not expected to be a victory. It was very Democrat area, but I don't think it was good for Republicans. I don't think it was good. I'm not sure it was good for anybody, but we had an interesting evening and we learned a lot.
I think if you read the pollsters, the shutdown was a big factor, negative for the Republicans. And that was a big factor. And they say that I wasn't on the ballot. It's the biggest factor.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Right now, the question what should each party learn from last nights results? What should Democrats messaging be as they look ahead to the midterm election? Should Republicans break with the president? Could they or do they have to stay all in on MAGA?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), MINORITY LEADER: Last night was a shellacking for the Republicans and for Donald Trump.
REP. TOM EMMER (R-MN): Pro-Marxist radicals are now the left's mainstream.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): There was a common theme last night, and that was people all over this country are rejecting Trumpism.
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: No one should read too much into last night's election results. Off-year elections are not indicative of what's to come.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Are they or aren't they?
Let's get off the sidelines and into THE ARENA. We have a great panel to break this all down.
CNN's special correspondent Jamie Gangel, CNN's senior political analyst Ron Brownstein; CNN chief political analyst, the former senior adviser to President Obama, David Axelrod; Republican strategist Brad Todd; and CNN senior political commentator Van Jones also joins us live from New York City.
Thank you all for being here.
David Axelrod, I want to start with you. I mean, you heard what Mike Johnson said there. He's on the record, as in the past, having thought that, you know, actually, what happened in 2022 was a really good sign for Republicans going forward. But what did we learn and what didn't we learn last night?
DAVID AXELROD, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah, the speaker's a guy who has shown himself to be very capable of changing his thinking on a whole range of things. And certainly, this is one of them.
Well, first of all, the president is right. His name wasn't on the ballot, but he certainly was on the ballot. His policies were on the ballot. He campaigned, on a platform that he was going to turn the economy around and deal with pressures that people were facing. And they're still feeling them.
And there is a kind of sense that maybe this isn't really his focus. He kind of acknowledged it today. He said to some Republicans down there, there are things you have to talk about. These are things you have to talk about. Their economic achievements. People don't talk about them. Then you cannot do well in elections.
But that reminded me sort of the whole bionomics debacle. What you can't do is jawbone people into feeling what they don't feel. And to thinking that what they experience at the cash register is just an illusion.
And that's the problem. The problem is the substantive pressures that people face and his lack of connection with that.
HUNT: Yeah.
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: You know, what was striking, I think, about this result was how normal it was. You know, when you have a president whose approval rating is tumbling, his party performs badly in all year, people have been wondering, would the discontent with Democrats that's evident in polls offset the mounting frustration over Trump's record? And the answer turned out to be not very much.
I mean, half of voters or more in both Virginia and New Jersey said they had an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party.
[16:05:02]
It didn't matter nearly as much as their unfavorable view of what they are getting from Donald Trump. Mikie Sherrill won 93 percent of voters who disapproved of Trump. Spanberger won 92 percent of voters who disapproved of Trump. Even Jay Jones won 89 percent of voters who disapproved of Trump.
And that, I think, is why, Mike, you know, the speaker is wrong. What we saw in 2018 was that 90 percent of voters who disapproved of Trump voted Democratic. And I think that the evidence from last night is that Republicans are on track for something like that, again. HUNT: So, I want to really dig into Van Jones. What we learned last
night about Zohran Mamdani and how he does or doesn't define the future for the Democratic Party. Certainly, he has been catapulted to become a national figure. He had the biggest moment yet in his very young political career. It was an opportunity to talk to an audience well beyond New York.
And you pointed out to me that there were some striking differences between the way he sounded in his speech last night and the way he sounded when he declared victory in the Democratic primary. And we cut a little bit of this for our viewers to help you kind of show everyone what you mean by this. I want to play it, and then we'll talk about it the other side. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAMDANI: In the words of Nelson Mandela, it always seems impossible until it is done. I spoke with Andrew Cuomo about the need to bring this city -- about the need to bring this city together.
As Eugene Debs once said, I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity. For as long as we can remember, the working people of New York have been told by the wealthy and the well-connected that power does not belong in their hands.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: And we didn't capture their everything that you had underscored.
But that quote alone, Nelson Mandela, on the one hand, versus Eugene Debs on the other, and he made a series of other choices in ways of presenting himself. Explain what you mean.
VAN JONES, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I just -- look, I have a weird job, which is to observe politicians saying stuff. And so --
HUNT: I share -- I share that with you.
JONES: It's a very -- it's a very strange way to make a living. And so, what I observed was and what I expected was he gave a speech this summer that was a beautiful aspirational, humble talk that really, you know, after he won, he shocked everybody, and he kind of threw himself into the hearts of a lot of people.
I was expecting to see a repeat of that taken to higher heights. But he made a different choice last night, which was to be a little bit more aggressive on the class war side of it, as opposed to bringing everybody together side of it. And I just thought it was a choice that was -- was not in keeping with what he had done before.
Now, you see, today, he's gone back to the warmer mode. He's been on this incredible offensive all day on television, reaching out to the Jewish media, et cetera. But it was just a weird outlier to have, you know, you're talking about Nelson Mandela and FDR in the summer, and then you don't mention Nelson Mandela once you win, and it's Eugene Debs.
This is the kind of stuff that when, you know, he's so powerful communicator, it's his main super weapon. People are going to watch these types of things and try to figure out where is he going, what does he really think is going to bring the city together? I think if you look at what he did up until last night, you look at what he did this morning, it's much more warm, much more unifying. Last night's speech was an outlier, and I just want to point that out.
HUNT: Yeah.
AXELROD: Can I just --
BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Let me jump in, too.
AXELROD: Go ahead. You probably have a topic you'd rather talk about.
(LAUGHTER)
TODD: Yeah. Well, I mean, if we could go to Jeffrey Epstein or the ballroom or something else, that might be better. But I think Van is on to something that he made a real mistake last night. I've written a lot of speeches for candidates, and I was stunned when I watched him do that victory speech. You do your victory speech to try to address the people who didn't vote for you, to try to bring them into your tent. And Zohran gave them a middle finger, and he started his speech with Eugene Debs, a five time socialist president, presidential candidate who lost.
HUNT: Once in prison.
TODD: Right.
BROWNSTEIN: Once from prison.
TODD: One term in prison, no terms in the White House, right?
And so, he -- I don't know what he could have done to make himself a better foil for Republicans than what he did in that speech. When I was a teenager, I knew Ed Koch was the mayor of New York. My teenager today started asking me about this mayor of New York. He's going to be the opposition Donald Trump has wanted and needed.
AXELROD: Yeah, and I'm sure that that -- that he will be -- they'll try and use him. You guys will try and use him that way. I understand that.
I agree with both these guys. I was -- you know, I had met with Mamdani after the election. I talked about that here. I think I'd observed him.
And one of the things that really struck me was his ability to reach out and to approach people with humility and a spirit of connection, or trying to connect. And that was really what was required last night. We have a president right now who is unpopular, in part because he
sees his role as appealing to the 49.7 percent of Americans who elected him, and to basically discard everybody else. And I think people are really troubled by that. New York needs a mayor who reaches out to all New Yorkers, and that should have been an essence of his speech last night. And for whatever reason. Plus, I think nobody told him that.
Don't speak to the hull, speak to the millions who are watching and let the microphone do the work, because it's kind of scary when someone's yelling at you for 20 minutes.
HUNT: Remember Howard Dean learning that the hard way in Iowa, the Dean --
AXELROD: Yes.
HUNT: When you scream into a microphone at an audience and the TV, you know your audience is really on television, in many ways.
JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: I completely agree about last night and tone, but some of us may remember the Robert Redford movie "The Candidate", where he wins. And then there's a scene he gets in the car and he says, what do we do now?
BROWNSTEIN: Great last lines of a movie ever.
GANGEL: So, my -- my thought is on, on tone. Absolutely correct. What everybody is saying. I'm interested in substance. What happens on January 2nd because there's just so much bully pulpit in being the mayor of New York. You have to deliver. Can he manage --
AXELROD: Couldn't agree more. And he set the bar very, very high for himself last night.
BROWNSTEIN: I know Trump --
JONES: I think I think one thing --
BROWNSTEIN: Oh, go ahead, go ahead.
HUNT: Yeah, Van. Go ahead.
JONES: Look, I think that, for his supporters I think they felt encouraged by the fire. I think for his supporters, they felt, look, this is he came from nowhere. He got basically terrorist baited all this sort of stuff that he needed to have a moment where he could just roar and that's fine.
The reality is, in order for him to deliver on his promises and his promises are very important because people in New York City are really hurting because of the economy. He's going to have to have that entire base with him and then continue to add. And I think what he what you saw him doing today, he seems like he's trying to add.
If he adds, he's got the ability to actually do some experiments and try to help real people. If he starts subtracting, if he starts giving people on Wall Street and other places a reason to go after him, to put marbles on the stairs, to put banana peels on the sidewalk, it's going to be harder for him.
And so, for people who want to see American leaders do well, the speech he gave in the summer and what he did today, I think, is the right direction. I think what he did last night is the wrong direction.
HUNT: Van, do you get the sense and because I watched that earlier summer speech this morning and of course, I watched the address he gave last night that clearly what happened in the space and time between that is he got really angry at what happened, right? And he seemed to be acting that out. I mean, what does that say about his ability to live in the political environment that we're all living in?
JONES: Look, you have to look at -- today, he's back to his normal self.
Look, he was -- I don't think we talked about this enough. There was a shadow campaign against him that was Islamophobic. If there ever was one. It was terrorist baiting him. They were darkening his face. They were doing all kinds of things to appeal to some of the worst in New York.
And he actually stood up and gave a speech in defense of his Muslim identity and his community. It was one of his most emotional speeches. So, you have a guy that was getting hammered and beat up. He was trying, I think, to keep a warm countenance.
But sometimes, look, he's 34 years old. Sometimes you spike the football, and I think he did that. The thing that I think we've got to call the balls and strikes, this guy's main superpower is his ability to communicate.
When he does it well, you see what happens. People come together. If he's off a little bit. I think we got to call that out because he does have the ability. He has a unique communicator to build the kind of coalition we haven't seen since Barack Obama.
AXELROD: And just want to -- I just want to make one point, which is these guys are doing what you would expect. And I don't say that in a -- I say that hack to hack, okay? But, but -- but if you look across the country at the people who won, if you look at the gubernatorial candidates who were moderate candidates, center left candidates.
If you look at the mayor of Minneapolis who defeated a Democratic socialist, the mayor of Seattle who defeated a Democratic socialist, I understand that you want to tag the caricature of Mamdani on the Democrat for us.
I agree he helped last night. He helped. But the reality is he is not the main of what happened yesterday.
BROWNSTEIN: Plus, I remember all those years when Rudy Giuliani was the undisputed leader and face of the Republican Party because he was mayor of New York. I mean, elevating the mayor of New York, I can understand the goal to do that. But it's another thing.
By the way, it's one thing for Donald Trump to treat him the foil. Perfectly understandable why he wants him to foil. It's another thing to say you are going to cut off federal aid to a city because of who they elected.
That is aberrant. We lose track. We lose track of how the boundaries are shifting. But if Joe Biden had said Texas, if you reelect Greg Abbott in 2022 because I think he is a racist, or you elect Ron DeSantis in Florida because I think he's a homophobe and I'm going to cut off your money because of that -- imagine what the reaction would have been.
We can't lose sight of how aberrant it is for Donald Trump to basically say, because voters made a choice in a city, that he is going to deny them. They declared --
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: -- property owners last night. It's going to be a big deal because he's going to pull the whole Democratic Party left.
HUNT: We could clearly talk all hour, but my ear is lighting up. Our text chain is going to stay with us. Our panel is going to stay with us. Everyone is going to be back on the other side of the break.
But first, coming up in THE ARENA, the Supreme Court appears ready to dial back President Trump's power on a key issue for him. What are Republicans saying and not saying meanwhile, about the election results? Our panel weighs in on whether the party should or will make any changes ahead of the midterms.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHNSON: No one should read too much into last night's election results. Off-year elections are not indicative of what's to come.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:20:42]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHNSON: There's no surprises. What happened last night was blue states and blue cities voted blue. We all saw that coming. And no one should read too much into last night's election results. Off year, elections are not indicative of what's to come. That's what history teaches us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Does it, though?
House Speaker Mike Johnson this morning reacting to last night's election results with -- at least he's trying to convince you that you should have a giant shrug. He downplayed Democratic wins not just in New York, New Jersey and Virginia, but all the down ballot races across the country.
President Trump railing against the results, telling Americans that after Zohran Mamdani's win in New York City, Americans have essentially these two choices.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: If you want to see what congressional Democrats wish to do to America, just look at the result of yesterday's election in New York, where their party installed a communist as the mayor.
After last night's results, the decision facing all Americans could not be more clear. We have a choice between communism and common sense. Does that make sense to you? Common sense. It's common sense or communism.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right. Joining our panel, Mark McKinnon. He's former adviser to President George W. Bush and John McCain. Our ARENA is also back.
Mark, let me start with you on this. What the president had to say there and how Republicans are going to interpret this or should interpret this, because I have to say, I was talking to a lot of folks, you know, on background last night, and a lot of Republicans were starting to say, you know, one person I talked to who's been very high on Trump for the last however many years, said, well, the king might not be dead, but he's starting to have no clothes.
MARK MCKINNON, FORMER ADVISER TO GEORGE W. BUSH & JOHN MCCAIN: Well, first of all, I'd say to Mike Johnson, if you can't read anything into these results, you're illiterate because I was -- I was very prepared to say, don't overreact to these results. And it's so across the board. I mean, it's so compelling in every state and every demographic, every geography. New York, Washington, Virginia, California. You just can't deny that this is -- that there's a real shift going on here.
And I always say that, you know, when a political party is in the desert, you know, they come back when they find water. The Democrats have found water. And they were very last night. They were one thing that was rare for Democrats was unity on message across the board, whether it was New York, Virginia or Washington or Virginia or New Jersey. The message was affordability, and that was clear and consistent.
Number two, they had great candidates. And across the board. And number three, this is a real message to Trump, because affordability is what he was supposed to have been. His what he campaigned on in 2024 and what elected him. And voters are saying he has not delivered. And they're also saying, you know, his whole sort of a lot of people are saying, I just want a guy to go in there and break things. And now they're saying, wait a minute, we didn't mean everything.
HUNT: Leave something standing. Maybe the White House, you know, most of the White House could stay standing.
Ron, go ahead.
BROWNSTEIN: The big reason the speaker is wrong is because the historical relationship clearly applied last night, despite all the doubts voters have about Democrats, as I said, 90 percent plus of people who disapproved of Trump voted Democratic in the key races. In the states where Trump is popular, that's not going to be a problem for Republicans. In purple and blue states, it is going to be a problem, and I'd love to ask Brad.
I mean, what -- what did we -- the most, you know, the most significant thing that was talked about after 24 was Trump's gains among working class nonwhite voters, Black and Hispanic voters.
Last night, Spanberger, according to the voter poll, won 85 percent of nonwhite voters without a college degree. Sherrill won 76 percent of nonwhite voters without a college degree. And we saw it in the geographic results as well, rolling back the Trump gains, what are the implications of that?
I mean, does that -- does that call into question the idea that these voters had lastingly moved into the GOP? And is that a risk going into 26 if they continue to believe Trump has not solved the economic problems they elected him to solve?
TODD: Well, Mike Johnson, of all the six or seven speakers in my lifetime, he's my favorite Republican speaker. And so, but I do disagree with him on this. I think you do have to try to learn something. It was jurisdictions where Democrats were favored to win, but they won by a lot more than we expected them to.
[16:25:01]
And it's always a mistake for a political party to say we don't learn anything from losing. It's always a mistake to say, oh, it was just a messaging problem. Both those things are usually not true, and Republicans would be wise to dig pretty deep here and try to figure out how to make actual substantive corrections.
Your point about the coalition, I think, is right. Republicans now have this working class coalition. Well, guess what's true about working class voters? They don't vote much except in presidential elections.
So, Republicans have got to find a way to motivate more of them to vote, but to compete for the people who do vote in off year elections, that's the key to holding Congress next year.
AXELROD: But his point -- but --
BROWNSTEIN : What do you think went wrong with Black and Hispanic voters in Virginia? Why could Republicans, why did they fall so far back from what Trump had achieved in '24?
TODD: Well, I mean, if you look at Virginia, Jason Miyares did pretty close to what Trump had done in Virginia. And so that's the roadmap. I think Winsome Earle-Sears was a weak candidate altogether at the top.
BROWNSTEIN: Jersey?
TODD: I think in New Jersey, there's a lot of digging to do there. Everybody was surprised on both sides about that margin. The Democrats I talked to the day before thought that was a three to five-point race. I don't think anybody saw the blowout coming.
But 2024 may prove to be the outlier in Jersey. It may have been the one that was too close.
AXELROD: Listen, two things. Is it any wonder that working class voters would be really sensitive to economic issues? I mean, I think it's self-evident. That's part of what happened.
The other part of it, particularly with Hispanic voters, but not limited to them. I think the way the president has approached this deportation issue, not focusing on the worst of the worst, as was promised, not simply cashing in on the things that he's done on the border, which I think are quite popular. But going after willy-nilly people, many of whom are citizens, some of whom almost all of them, you know, very few had criminal records.
I think people look at that. And if you're a Hispanic voter, even if you're conservative on some other things, that's not the way you want to be treated. You don't want your kids to be treated that way.
And I think the combination of the economic and it has implications for 2026, particularly in those Texas districts, that they're counting on to be theirs.
HUNT: Yeah. Brad for candidates in '26, I mean, there are going to inevitably be races where there will be candidates that will benefit from distance with President Trump, right? Republicans.
But the president is kind of well-known for never allowing that to happen, right? This was something Nancy Pelosi did really effectively, right? She would say, go attack me. Say whatever you need to say about me, I don't care. I just want you to win the race.
How are Republicans going to thread that needle?
TODD: Well, I think this this year the president has been very magnanimous in who he endorses in primaries in the House, which is something that he's taken a much broader approach. And some of the people he's endorsed in house primaries very, very early are not perhaps his -- would be his favorite people, but he wants to win the House.
I do believe that the White House and the president have a strong commitment to hold the House and hold the Senate, which shouldn't be too hard. So, I think he may allow some room. AXELROD: Yeah. I mean -- go ahead, Jamie.
GANGEL: I just want to say, I think that we're talking about three legs of a stool here. Affordability. We used to say it's the economy, stupid. So that's happening.
To David's point, Trump has alienated nice word. A lot of people with lots of things. The ICE raids, tearing down the East Wing, Jimmy Kimmel, these things have they've -- they've really cut through.
And I just go back to what you said, Ron, about, you know, when we looked at the exit polls, more than 50 percent in the CNN exit polls in Virginia, New Jersey, California said they were sending a message to Donald Trump.
HUNT: Yeah. Mark McKinnon, I want to give you one of the last words here. I want to get a last word from Van Jones, too. What do you think, big picture takeaway. What's Mark's lesson from last night?
MCKINNON: Well, the big picture, I think, is that the pendulum is swinging back.
And when's the last time you heard Donald Trump talk about affordability?
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.
MCKINNON: And the key part of this election, a few weeks out from election day, he was talking about building a ballroom in the White House. And, and I believe the press secretary said that's where his focus was.
People get that message, say, well, what about me? You know, I thought you promised us something about paying attention to the economy. They just don't feel like he has. So, the Trump slump begins.
HUNT: Van Jones. What are what would you what would you leave us with as we kind of move forward here to see what's next?
JONES: Look, it's not a left-wing period. It's not a right-wing period. It's a turbulent, volatile period. Voters want change and nobody's giving it to them.
They voted for Donald Trump in 2016 for change. Didn't get it. Voted him out in 2020. Didn't get it. Voted him back in 2024. Didn't get it. Didn't vote against him this time. Didn't get it.
Because people are sitting on a white, hot stove of economic pain and frustration. And until we -- whoever can actually do something about it is going to have a big headwind. But you have buyer's remorse right now from Black voters who gave Trump a chance and got nothing out of it.
[16:30:00]
Buyer's remorse from Latinos who gave Trump a chance and got whooped afterwards. Independents gave him a chance.
Buyer's remorse, right now, people want change. They're not getting it. And you're going to see more change election until something happens.
HUNT: Ax, I want to give you the last word I forgot. You have to leave at 4:30.
AXELROD: No, thank you. Geez. Okay.
No. No. I think that this issue of where the president's attention is focused is really, really important, not just ballrooms, raids and so on, but international affairs, which is not where people's -- so all these things go on. And it's not just that they don't like that. I don't think they care that much about the ballroom. I don't think they understand it particularly, but they want him to be focused on the thing. He said he was going to be focused on. And he's not.
HUNT: Yeah, all right.
BROWNSTEIN: All the things that made the biggest gain. He made the biggest gains in 24 young men, black voters, Latino voters moved. Right pretty sharply.
AXELROD: Yeah.
HUNT: All right. David Axelrod, Van Jones, Mark McKinnon, thank you all very much for being with us. The rest of our panel is going to stand by.
Coming up, one Republican on the ballot next year will be here live. Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin live after meeting with the president this morning as the government shutdown becomes the longest in history.
But first, what it would mean if the Supreme Court does, in fact, throw out the centerpiece of the president's economic agenda.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): The conservative justices may finally be willing to put the brakes on Donald Trump's utterly runaway arguments that he can do whatever he wants.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:35:54]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Tariff to me is the most beautiful word in the dictionary. I love the word so much. I've always loved it. For 40 years, I've loved it. For 40 years, I didn't understand why people weren't in this country using tariff. (END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Everything you need to know about how the president feels about the centerpiece of his economic agenda, and that agenda does appear to be in jeopardy. After top conservatives on the Supreme Court questioned the president]s authority to use emergency tariffs during oral arguments today.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
JOHN ROBERTS, SUPREME COURT CHIEF JUSTICE: The vehicle is imposition of taxes on Americans, and that has always been the core power of Congress. So, to have the president's foreign affairs power trump that that basic power for Congress, seems to me to kind of at least neutralize between the two powers, the executive power and the legislative power.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
HUNT: Pretty noteworthy that John Roberts, the chief justice, uses the word taxes to refer to tariffs. Now, in case you wonder what the president thinks that the stakes are here, in a post on Truth Social yesterday, he called the case, quote, literally life and death for our country, end quote.
Joining the panel, former communications director for the DNC, Mo Elleithee. And we've also got a new set of folks joining us in this ARENA text chain.
And, Mo, I actually want to start. We had a version of our show text chain going last night. As we were all watching these election results come in, and I think we may have learned from that chain that there's a group of Republicans that are hoping and praying that the Supreme Court takes an ax to the presidents tariff policy. Why?
MO ELLEITHEE, FORMER DNC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Well, I think there are a lot of Republican congressional candidates who sure feel that way.
HUNT: Yeah.
ELLEITHEE: Look, we saw last night that right now, the nation feels like everything in politics is a referendum on affordability, tariffs don't make your life more affordable. And so, for a lot of Republicans, it may actually be the best thing for them politically to have the president lose this case, to have the Supreme Court bail them out.
I don't know that it helps the president, though, right? The president himself is out there saying this is life or death for the country. He's out there saying, this is the most important cornerstone of my economic agenda. Either way, it feels like he's going to lose.
HUNT: Brad, where do you think do you agree that Republican candidates would prefer the Supreme Court throw these tariffs out? TODD: I think some are. And I think I think it actually could help
the president if some of the authority is curtailed because while I agree with him that the future of trade policy is dueling tariffs, it's not big conferences in three-year agreements that we used to have with 40 different nations at a time. But the speed at which he's changed tariffs, I think has been detrimental.
And I think voters in many ways, when they have a check and balance on the president because he's doing too much, too fast. And if the court curtails some of his tariff power, it may allow him to do it, but slow him down.
BROWNSTEIN: You know, first of all, if the Republican appointed majority in the Supreme Court is going to rebuke Trump or separate from Trump, this is a pretty easy one on which to do it. I mean, this is not standing up for Latino immigrants who are being racially profiled. This is doing something that most of the Republican Party probably wants them to do. To your point, and most have kind of the donors, the big donors in the Republican Party want them to do.
So, I think they will find this a very attractive way to put one on the ledger, where they're not simply conceding to Trump. But I think it's a mistake to assume that if he loses this, he takes his marbles and goes home. I mean, one thing they've been pretty clear about is trying to use any possible executive authority they have, and I don't think they just give up on the tariffs.
GANGEL: So to the point of the court, I think every headline today was either that the justices were skeptical or very skeptical including the conservatives.
I just -- you talked about President Trump's speed, Brad, on the tariffs. I would add the word chaos to what he's done. And one day it's 100 percent, you know, if someone insults him, if he doesn't like the way they look at him, you know, these tariffs have been going up and down, up and down, only it seems by his whim.
[16:40:04]
And for, you know, hardworking, middle -- lower middle class Americans for a lot of his voters, life has already become more expensive and will get worse.
ELLEITHEE: Tariffs have gone up and down. Prices have not. Prices are going --
GANGEL: Up.
GANGEL: Yeah.
ELLEITHEE: Life is more expensive today than it was before Donald Trump came back into office and started imposing this chaos.
TODD: But the American public, by and large, especially the Republican coalition, but even many Democrats agree with him that we have a problem with China and with trade barriers with Europe. The Canada, some of the other things. Brazil, perhaps they don't find that agreement, and they also would prefer something that's predictable and that they could count on for several months.
BROWNSTEIN: But they do worry about costs.
HUNT: Yeah, for sure they do. All right. My thanks again to THE ARENA text chain. Our panel is going to stand by.
I do want to bring in CNN anchor Erin Burnett because she just sat down exclusively with the CEO of America's largest bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, and CNN anchor Erin Burnett joins us now.
So, Amy -- Jamie Dimon talked to you about the future of New York City after Zohran Mamdani historic win?
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST, OUTFRONT: Yeah, he did. So, you know, we're actually in Detroit and he was sitting side by side briefly for a mayor here that he's worked with for 12 years to rebuild Detroit. So, in that context, right, big business tax incentives as opposed to increase in corporate taxes like Zohran Mamdani, of course, is adamant about in New York, a stark contrast.
But, you know, it was interesting, Kasie, he was saying that he had voted absentee in New York, talking about his conversation. It was a brief one, he said, with Zohran Mamdani. He said he actually called him because he had to miss a meeting because he was out of the country that Mamdani was going to be at. So, he had called him. It had been a very brief conversation, and then he left him a message today.
But all that's important because J.P. Morgan Chase just built a $3 billion skyscraper in New York City. When you talk about whether big business is going to flee, and people that work for big businesses is going to flee, or whether they're going to stay put, that is really the case. And that's the case in point right there.
So, I asked him about whether any of J.P. Morgan's 24,000 employees are going to actually up and leave New York City because of Zohran Mamdani being the mayor elect. And here is part of what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMIE DIMON, CEO, JPMORGAN CHASE: So first of all, people have left New York City. Youve seen hedge funds and certain banks and Ken Griffin and I think it's a bad idea. I mean, you want to have a very competitive city, and I don't want to use labels. You know, the important thing to me is policies that actually work. Do you make crime better? Do you make the schools better? Do you make the health system better?
I want to lift up all citizens, too. I've seen a lot of mayors and governors say things like that, and they fail to do it because their policies may not be so bad, but the implementation stinks. So, it just to me is get this stuff right, you know, learn. He's a young man, you know, will he get good at it?
I see a lot of people in big jobs, including political jobs. They grow into it. They're learning. They're trusting people. They're figuring out they make mistakes. They adjust.
I've seen a lot of people. They kind of swell into the job. They get worse. They, you know, all becomes about them or something like that.
I'm hoping he's the good one and that will be important for the future of New York.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: It will be important for the future. It's interesting to see, though, how he said that. And, you know, when it was -- what's your relationship going to be? Is it possible that even amidst the way that this election was run and the fact that Zohran Mamdani has explicitly said he's a Democratic socialist, right, he does not like capitalism? Could a bank that really is the definition of capitalism -- could they ever have a partnership? He said, well, it's way too soon to say.
And interestingly, Kasie, I was asking about, well, whether they would meet. And he said, well, yes, if it's productive. And I think maybe that that really sets the stage for what is going to be one of the most fascinating and important experiments in American history. And really, we'll make a decision as to whether New York remains right. The greatest city financial capital in the world.
HUNT: Real -- I mean, fascinating on all levels, Erin. Thank you very much for bringing us that. I really appreciate it.
And you can watch all of Erin's exclusive sit-down on "ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT". It's tonight at 7:00 p.m. Eastern. Don't miss it.
All right. Coming up next here in THE ARENA, Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin will be here live after a meeting at the White House where the president had a tough message after last night's midterm elections and is pushing senators again to get rid of the filibuster.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JIM BANKS (R-IN): He knows that the senate rules prevent us from getting things done that we could otherwise do. So that -- that's all I have to say. But it was a -- it was a good conversation. The president was compelling and I appreciated his case. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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[16:48:59]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A steel --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sweet chin music to the boss and the battling boss of the WWE. Just got his pedigree checked.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Check in on the referee. Make sure he's okay.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And look at this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right, that's where we are. This is a video posted by California Governor Gavin Newsom, who was able to claim victory last night in passing his states redistricting measure, of course, wants to be a top leader in the Democratic Party. Newsom, using Trumpian social media tactics to send the message that Democrats have their fight back.
Contrast that with the president, who by his own standards, sounded pretty subdued this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Last night, it was a, you know, not expected to be a victory. It was very Democrat area. But I don't think it was good for Republicans. I don't think it was good. I'm not sure it was good for anybody. But we had an interesting evening, and we learned a lot.
I think if you read the pollsters, the shutdown was a big factor, negative for the Republicans. And that was a big factor. And they say that I wasn't on the ballot. It was the biggest factor.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right. Joining me now, Republican senator from Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin, who knows a lot about fighting in THE ARENA on many different levels.
SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OK): Right.
HUNT: Senator, the president said there that you learned a lot last night, right? And I know, I'm sure from your time in the ring that you know that if you don't learn from the times that you lose, you're not going to go on to win more in the future. What did you learn from the losses last night?
MULLIN: Well, I say, first of all, I don't know if we really lost. I mean that sincerely because you start looking -- well, you think of it --
HUNT: It's a little implausible on its face.
MULLIN: Okay. But if you look at it, we. Virginia was a blue state. Kamala won it by five points. We didn't win New Jersey. We didn't win New York. And we sure the heck didn't win California.
So, it wasn't a state that the president lost. It was just like the issue was if you start looking like Jay Jones, the attorney general in Virginia, you know, how did the Republicans lose that race? I mean, here you have Jay Jones, who wanted to, you know, kill one of his colleagues and hoped his kids died.
And you go, how did a candidate like that beat a Republican? That's a question that you got to ask. Okay?
So, the lessons that I looked at is --
HUNT: Well, it was because the Republican candidate was so weak that the --
MULLIN: Right.
HUNT: -- Republican attorney general simply could not outstrip the weakness of that particular.
MULLIN: I don't know the candidate personally, but that goes that says, well, maybe we should do a better job in recruiting. But if you start looking at it, saying that, like Gavin Newsom's stupid video by saying it was a smackdown, what state was we supposed to win? Which state? What state went for President Trump a year ago --
HUNT: But let's dig into the numbers --
MULLIN: -- that he lost today.
HUNT: -- let's really dig into the numbers because the point -- look, yes, blue states are fine. But the margin, the changes, the changes in how the electorate went in places like New Jersey and Virginia, the gains that the president made. I mean, look at new jersey, right? That was a close race. Kamala Harris only won New Jersey by six points.
The margin in that governor's race surprised everyone, Democrats and Republicans. How well Mikie Sherrill did. And your president is standing up here and saying like we lost. Like the shutdown was bad for us, right?
MULLIN: No, I'm not -- now, if you want to talk about the shutdown, I think the shutdown is bad for everybody. That's why its so frustrating that the Democrats want to continue to use it as leverage. And I'm not -- I'm not saying --
HUNT: You seem to imply that Republicans need to end the shutdown to make it better for --
MULLIN: Well, we're trying to. I don't know where we negotiate, though, because we've offered a clean C.R. that Chuck Schumer wrote a year ago. This isn't -- this isn't any legislation that has Republican policies on it.
I don't know how you negotiate when it's already clean. Well, maybe what we should have done, and this is what we talked about is, well, maybe we instead of offering a clean C.R. because we thought that the Democrats would play ball with it, maybe we should have put a whole bunch of Republican policies on it. They put a whole bunch of Democrat policies on their C.R. and then we negotiate back to the clean C.R.
Maybe that's what we should have done. Maybe there was a negotiating tactic that we that we didn't do, but there's no place to negotiate. When you have a clean C.R. because what policy do you take off of a clean C.R.?
HUNT: Are there any people in your party who are looking at what happened last night and thinking like maybe, maybe what? The president, maybe the president needs to talk more about how expensive things are because, you know, he did that interview with "60 Minutes".
MULLIN: Right.
HUNT: In some ways, he sounded like former President Biden trying to tell people that things actually aren't as expensive as they know them to be.
MULLIN: Well, think about that. If you want to really break that down, Biden was handed an inflation rate of 1.4 percent. He ran it up to 9.1 percent. He averaged 5 percent. Inflation is down now by two- point -- to 2.5 percent. So, prices have came down.
HUNT: Prices are still going up, though, at about 3 percent.
MULLIN: Eggs have gone down.
Well, but if inflation is at 2.5 percent, you look at gas prices, you look at egg prices. Remember a year ago egg prices were a big issue.
HUNT: But the point is, prices are not going down.
MULLIN: But prices have gone down. What are you saying the prices haven't --
HUNT: Well, the rate of inflation has gone down. But that is not the same as prices going down.
MULLIN: Prices have come down. What metric are you looking at when you start looking at -- what's the backbone of any product being made is energy. Energy costs have come down. You can't make a product. You can't -- and you can't deliver a product without factoring the cost of energy in it.
That has come down. So, prices have come down because that's why inflation was able to come down. Prices go up when inflation is up. So, prices are at the highest at 9.1 percent. They're at their lowest at 2.5 percent in four and a half years.
HUNT: We're talking about the rate of inflation versus the actual price of goods. You're right that energy is a particular gullible secret.
MULLIN: Groceries have come down.
HUNT: Some grocery prices have come down.
MULLIN: Walmart -- Walmart just said -- Walmart CEO, I met with last week, said the average table in for Thanksgiving is going to be down over $20. That's down. It sure isn't up because we saw it go up over -- we saw it go up over four years straight.
So, if you start looking at Christmas, you start -- you talk to Amazon. Amazon, they're saying their prices on the products that were selling last year versus now have also dropped two because it's cheaper to ship stuff.
[16:55:02]
So that is prices coming down.
HUNT: All right. Senator Markwayne Mullin, we are unfortunately out of time. We could have a much longer conversation about all this. So I hope you'll come back soon.
MULLIN: Absolutely.
HUNT: All right, Senator, we appreciate it.
We'll be right back.
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HUNT: All right. Thanks very much to my panel. Really appreciate you guys being here, the day after the election. It's always a great -- it's always a great time.
And to those of you at home, thank you for watching as well. You can now stream THE ARENA live. Catch up whenever you want in the CNN app. This is the QR code for that right there on your screen.
We also have another QR code. You can catch up by listening to THE ARENA's podcast. We are also on X and Instagram @TheArenaCNN.
Jake Tapper is standing by for "THE LEAD".
Jake, I feel like I just saw you in the middle of the night last night for our election coverage. Welcome back.
