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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
New: Trump Says He Would Sign Bill To Release Epstein Files; Cruz Addresses 2028, Doesn't Rule Out White House Run; Judge Scolds DOJ, Hints Comey Indictment Could Be Dismissed; Soon: Trump Hosts McDonald's Owners, Will Talk Affordability. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired November 17, 2025 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: And that can cause serious concerns in terms of landslides.
[16:00:04]
Back to you.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: All right. Our thanks to Derek for that.
Yeah. That's always the concern. Certainly, having grown up in southern California, you're always concerned about the rain after that burn, for sure.
"THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT" 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.
Quote, "We have nothing to hide," says Donald Trump.
The president now saying he wants House Republicans to vote in favor of a bill to compel his own Justice Department to release the Jeffrey Epstein case files. And just moments ago, he indicated he'll sign the bill if it lands on his desk.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm for any -- I don't -- they can do whatever they want. We'll give them everything.
Sure, I would. Let -- let the Senate look at it. Let anybody look at it. But don't talk about it too much.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Whatever. Okay.
All of this is a stark reversal on an issue that, more than any other, has seen Trump's own base refuse to go along with him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): It's all come down to the Epstein files, and that is shocking. And, you know, I stand with these women.
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): My people want to know who else, if anyone did Epstein traffic young women to.
REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): Dogs don't bark at parked cars. And we are winning.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: In a social media post on Sunday, the president said the House Oversight Committee could have any documents that they're legally entitled to and then declared in all caps, quote, "I don't care," end quote.
Just three days prior, he had said that Republicans focused on Epstein were, quote, "soft and foolish."
The House vote is expected to come as soon as tomorrow, even before the president's flip flop on this House, Republican leaders were bracing for many of their members to support the bill. Last night, President Trump seemed to acknowledge just how big a distraction the Epstein story has been throughout his second term.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They're using Jeffrey Epstein as a deflection from the tremendous success that we're having as a party.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right. Let's get off the sidelines and head into THE ARENA. My panel is here.
We're also joined by CNN's senior White House correspondent Kristen Holmes, and CNN chief congressional correspondent Manu Raju.
Kristen, let me start with you. We just heard at some length from the president, what more is he saying ahead of this expected vote?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, a lot of this was blaming Democrats, saying Democrats are the ones with the Epstein problem. At one point, he said he didn't want this to take away from people recognizing how much he had done. But the question persisted multiple times, would you sign this bill if it landed on your desk? It's one thing to put out a Truth Social saying, sure, go ahead, do whatever you want. Republicans should vote for it. It's quite another to affirm that you would sign this on your desk.
And here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: So I'm for any -- I don't -- they can do whatever they want. We'll give them everything. Sure, I would. Let -- let the Senate look at it, let anybody look at it.
But don't talk about it too much because honestly, I don't want to take it away from us. It's really a Democrat problem. The Democrats were Epstein's friends, all of them. And it's a hoax. The whole thing is a hoax, and I don't want to take it away from really the greatness of what the Republican Party has accomplished over the last period of time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Yeah. So, you hear him there saying it's a hoax again. But of course, I will remind you that last week, at the end of the week, President Trump insisted that the Department of Justice, as well as Attorney General Pam Bondi, look into Democrats' ties to Epstein. So, clearly, not a hoax in that case.
And I do want to just quickly note you can hear him. There, really raspy, gravelly voice. He said that over the weekend he was yelling at another country about a trade deal. They wanted to renegotiate terms of the trade deal. He wouldn't say which country that was.
HUNT: Fair enough.
Kristen, thank you for that reporting.
Manu, from your end of Pennsylvania Avenue, you caught up with the House speaker earlier. What are we hearing from Mike Johnson?
MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, we do expect this vote to happen tomorrow, and we expect it to be a significant number of Republicans and Democrats, maybe more than 400 members. We'll see if it's unanimous. That's going to be one of the big questions.
The question is, is the speaker himself. He has, of course, tried to deny this bill from coming for a vote for months. There was an effort to circumvent his opposition that succeeded to force the vote, forced the speakers hand. And when I asked him if he's actually going to support the bill now that Trump has reversed course, he said, my support will be conditioned upon an agreement in the Senate that if they indeed -- if they indeed process it, they fix the terrible provisions in it.
And I also asked him about Trump's very harsh rhetoric against Marjorie Taylor Greene, his longtime ally and supporter of this Epstein bill, whom Trump called a traitor repeatedly over the weekend.
[16:05:04]
Greene herself said that this is causing threats to her family, her security and safety, and I asked him if he would advise Trump not to level that kind of rhetoric.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RAJU: Do you advise the president to stop calling her a traitor? REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I don't -- look, it's
not surprising that the president was frustrated because some of the criticisms that Marjorie had had been out stating that the media and of course, she criticized me all the time. But, look, I work on unity in the party, and my encouragement of everybody is to get together. We've got to do that in order to deliver for the people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RAJU: So, declining to criticize the president's comments there. Now, when it comes to this bill, which will come to the floor tomorrow, the question is going to be how the Senate will deal with it, given that the president is now signaling that he would be okay if the Senate were to act, it remains to be seen how the Senate majority leader pursues this. We are hearing that the Senate majority leader, John Thune, is looking at his options, is going to see how the House vote turns out before making a decision himself.
And Thune had thrown cold water. On moving ahead on this just a just a few weeks ago. But because of Trump's shift, expect Republicans in the senate to be under enormous pressure to move ahead on this bill as well, especially if this bill is approved, as we expect tomorrow by an overwhelming vote in the House -- Kasie.
HUNT: Overwhelming, indeed.
All right. Manu Raju, Kristen Holmes, thank you both very much for getting us started.
Our panel is here in THE ARENA. Political reporter and author, Molly Ball.
Get this -- the former host of MSNBC's "Hardball" is here, Chris Matthews.
CHRIS MATTHEWS, FORMER MSNBC HOST: Thanks, Kasie.
HUNT: He's also the author of "Lessons from Bobby: Ten Reasons Robert F. Kennedy Still Matters". We're going to dig into his book just a little bit later on in the show.
We're also joined by CNN political commentator, former communications director for Vice President Kamala Harris, Jamal Simmons, and the former Republican Congressman from Michigan, Peter Meijer.
Welcome to all of you. Thanks for being here.
Chris, I'm thrilled to have you. It's so nice to see you.
MATTHEWS: Your reporter has to be new Aaron Sorkin, to catch up to the speaker of the House. He has to walk along with the begging for the slightest sound of information. He's so afraid of Trump, this guy.
HUNT: Mike Johnson?
MATTHEWS: Yes. HUNT: Yeah. So, I want to replay kind of the piece of sound that we
showed from the president at the top of the show, because it gives you kind of a little bit of a flavor of the degree of flip flop here. Right?
Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I'm for any -- I don't -- they can do whatever they want. We'll give them everything. Sure, I would. Let -- let the Senate look at it, let anybody look at it.
But don't talk about it too much.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: You know, he took his goon -- goons, took Boebert into the Situation Room and work her over. Okay? They threatened the other woman by calling her a traitor over and over again. And he doesn't care?
Minutes ago, he said something else. I think he's got a tactical name here. He's going to act like I'll go along with the discharge petition. But then the Senate gets to look at it. Oh, isn't that great? Isn't that prissy? A little look at it.
That's -- and he'll do a look at it. Is he going to sign it? Is he going to let that information out? Everybody knows --
HUNT: To say that yes --
MATTHEWS: -- there's stuff in there he doesn't want out. Nobody knows what it is, but he knows what it is.
HUNT: Congressman, what do you think? Yeah. What do you think changed here? I mean, because he had this a strategy that I mean, they were dragging Lauren Boebert into the Situation Room to try to convince her not to vote. They were telling people their aides were putting out all kinds of anonymous quotes saying a vote for this is a vote against the president. And then all of a sudden, the story is totally changed.
PETER MEIJER, FORMER U.S. CONGRESSMAN: I mean, I think number one, he's frustrated that he hasn't been able to control the narrative, right? Donald Trump is excellent at controlling the narrative. He grabs that laser pointer, points it at the wall, and everyone goes in like little cat, you know, to try to follow it.
This is something that has escaped containment, not just in the media more broadly, but also more importantly among the MAGA base. That having been said, if there was anything politically toxic to him in all of this, it is -- there is no way on God's green earth that it would have survived not getting into the public realm from 2021 to 2024, ahead of the November elections, right?
I do think there are things that are inconvenient. There's probably some things that are embarrassing, just like we've seen amongst, you know, former treasury secretary who was mentioned in there, the delegate, non-voting delegate, who member of Congress from the Virgin Islands, who was texting with Jeffrey Epstein during the Michael Cohen deposition or hearing in Congress.
There's probably additional things that are out there, some of which may rise up to bump on some national security things that, again, are not criminal in nature but would be embarrassing.
MATTHEWS: Why should he defend Democrats? You just listed the Democrats. Why is he defending Democrats?
MEIJER: I think for many of the same reasons why the Biden administration was reluctant.
MATTHEWS: No, no. You mentioned another Democrat. Why is Trump hiding these papers?
MEIJER: Joe Biden.
MATTHEWS: Said these Democrats. It doesn't make any sense.
MEIJER: No, no, but --
MATTHEWS: This is no sense, has gone from --
MEIJER: Like QAnon to a blue QAnon in a heartbeat.
MATTHEWS: He's not in a business in looking out for Democrats.
MEIJER: No.
MATTHEWS: He's not in the business.
MEIJER: No, but he is -- he is the commander in chief. And there may be some elements that are national security adjacent, right? Again, why did Biden sit on all this?
(CROSSTALK)
[16:10:04]
MATTHEWS: You think that's logical what you're saying -- you're saying is logical, what you're saying, it's not logical.
MEIJER: Yeah.
HUNT: I mean --
MEIJER: There are actual equities.
HUNT: -- the reality is these -- he controls -- I mean, he is not afraid to tell his Department of Justice to investigate his enemies, but he seems to be afraid to order them to release these files.
JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah. I don't believe that Donald Trump would do anything just to protect Democrats or anyone else. There is something in this refrigerator that is stinky, and the president does not want to open it up. He doesn't want anybody to look at it.
I think the rest of us at some point, are going to find out what's inside of there, because we're going to see the House vote for it. It's going to be very hard for senators to stand up in front of their constituents and say, no, I'm not going to vote to expose people who may be pedophiles. It's going to be very hard for that to happen.
And then we're going to see the president is going to have the ingenuity or the need to veto it. And the imperative that you're trying to use a word that I can say on television, but if he can have the imperative to do this and veto it in front of people, and then we'll see whether or not the House will override that veto. This is very tough terrain for him.
HUNT: Molly, what do you think changed for the president?
MOLLY BALL, POLITICAL REPORTER AND AUTHOR: Well, I think -- look, it's politics 101 that if the train is leaving the station anyway, you might as well get in the conductor's car and seem to be in control of the situation. Right?
I think after his unsuccessful attempts to get -- to stop this from taking hold in the House, when it became clear that was not going to work, the votes were there. They could not be budged. He decided he might as well make it look like this was his idea.
And this is always the cycle with any kind of Trump scandal, right? Is that the first half of the scandal is this didn't happen and I had nothing to do with it. And then the second half of the scandal is, well, it did happen, but I'm proud of it. And it was a good thing, actually.
So whether you're talking about, you know, both impeachments January 6th, this is always the way his sort of cycle goes. So, if he can appear to be in control of the situation and take ownership of it and have it look like his idea, but at the end of the day, what matters is what, if anything, is in those is in those documents.
We don't know and I don't know. And potentially, Trump doesn't even know what is in there.
MATTHEWS: Why did he bring up Larry Summers and why did he bring up Bill Clinton if he didn't want them targeted? Why would he bring them?
MEIJER: They're actively in communication with them. They're actually -- I mean, Larry Summers was asking for dating advice from Jeffrey Epstein with a --
MATTHEWS: But why would Trump bring up their names?
MEIJER: Because they were actively in those documents.
MATTHEWS: So, he's investigating the Epstein files. That's what he's doing.
MEIJER: That's what -- that's what the Democratic House Oversight.
MATTHEWS: Give me a break. Give me a break.
HUNT: Okay. All right. I mean, part of it, too, here, let's remember some of these emails, the ones to the house oversight committee came from the estate of Jeffrey Epstein. Now, Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, Trump's former attorney, claims that the Justice Department didn't have that information when he went down and interviewed Ghislaine Maxwell, who, by the way, is now being treated especially in prison, like she's getting to play with puppies.
Why is that going on, Congressman, if there's nothing that stinks here?
MEIJER: Maybe it's an overcorrection from how Jeffrey Epstein's time in prison went. You know, it's probably better to avoid going down that same road, I don't know. Listen, I can't explain a tremendous amount --
HUNT: But it's like she was in a -- she was in a prison appropriate to the crimes that she committed. And then she was moved to a lesser security prison after she talked to the president's aide like --
MEIJER: I have no explanation for that. All that I know, Occam's razor. If there was something toxic and fatally damaging to Donald Trump, it would not have been buried for all four years of the Biden administration when they pulled out every single stop to try to avoid him from retaking the office that he currently holds.
SIMMONS: Let me give you one more Occam's razor. I've been in communications for a long time, for a lot of politicians. If you got a good answer, you tell it, you tell it fast, you tell it quickly. You get an easy answer. You get it out, try to stop the bleeding.
They don't have good, easy answers and they've been sitting on them for a long time and it's just getting worse.
HUNT: One piece of this story too, that I think is important to underscore. And of course, in the politics of all of it, sometimes the people who are most affected by this are removed from the center of the conversation. They shouldn't be.
There is a new ad that's out from the -- a number of the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein, who have been pushing in public for the release of these files. I want to play a little bit of it, and we'll talk about it on the other side.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This was me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is me when I met Jeffrey Epstein. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is me when I met Jeffrey Epstein.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are about a thousand of us.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's time to bring the secrets out of the shadows. It's time to shine a light into the darkness.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: I mean, Chris, these women are why -- I mean, they are the victims here. And the protection of Jeffrey Epstein, the idea that the rich and powerful play by a different set of rules and can hurt people like that is why this is such an issue for MAGA. No?
MATTHEWS: I think it means a lot to everybody, maybe especially MAGA people. There's always been a sort of a under the water belief among Americans who are good about democracy. We love democracy.
We always suspect that the big shots have a different -- way with taxes, lawyers. Everybody knows they got lawyers. They get away with it and not paying taxes.
But this one about young girls, it's the reason that the guy went into the comet pizza up the street from me on Connecticut Avenue.
[16:15:02]
You know where that is. Shooting up the place because he believed he had to shoot that place up because they had trafficking in young women there.
So, they believe it. Before Donald Trump came along, they believed this kind of stuff. I believe it's in their system. It's a serious question about who's going to look out for these girls, the women today, somebody has got to look out for them. Somebody got to bring the story out in all its truth and get it over with.
And that's what MAGA people are right about. I mean, Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene are right. They want the truth out. Since when is getting the truth out a problem with anybody?
HUNT: Well, all right, coming up next here in THE ARENA, the stunning allegation that's coming from the judge in the James Comey case, why he says there's a disturbing pattern on the part of the Justice Department.
But first, Texas Congressman Pete Sessions will be here live ahead of that expected Epstein vote tomorrow in the House. And those new comments from the president about the latest Republican floated as a 2028 candidate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I haven't spoken to him about it. It's a little early. It's three and a quarter years. It's a long time. But he's a very good guy. He's a very good friend of mine. (END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:20:30]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHNSON: President Trump has clean hands. He's not worried about it. I talked to him all the time. He has nothing to do with this. He's frustrated that they're turning it into a political issue. And it's not surprising because the Democrats have nothing else to talk about.
What are they accomplished in 10 months? Epstein is their entire game plan. So we're going to take that that weapon out of their hand this week.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Speaker Johnson over the weekend accusing Democrats of weaponizing the push to release the Epstein files as the House prepares to vote on a bill that would force their release. President Trump announcing this afternoon that he would, in fact, sign the bill if -- if it gets to his desk.
Joining me now, Republican Congressman Pete Sessions of Texas, who sits on the House Oversight Committee.
Congressman, it's wonderful to see you. Thank you so much for making some time to be with us.
How do you explain the president's abrupt reversal? He didn't want -- he was lobbying Lauren Boebert and others to not vote for this bill, to take their names off the discharge petition. Now, he says, put it out there. Although, he adds, don't talk about it.
REP. PETE SESSIONS (R-TX): Well, I think it's not an unsurpriseable -- unsurprising change. As you may know because I've said it on CNN a number of times, my wife and other friends of mine, including my staff members, and what I would call my MAGA supporters, are openly and have been as long as President Trump was when he was candidate Trump. This has been an issue that they deeply believed in. And I completely agree with them.
The question became about the tactics, and once the committee had their hands or beginning to get their hands on it, we tried to make it a bipartisan issue. By making it a bipartisan issue, we can answer huge questions that probably people who will just get this document now will go through the global search for the name Donald Trump. But we need to ask a lot of questions.
Remember, this goes back to 2006, and we need to know who had the information, whether it was correct or not, of what they've done with the tapes, who had the documents as late as a year ago. Where were the frailties in the system of effectively handling this? And we have seen this in our past. We saw this with the Michigan
physician, with the girls, gymnastics team. We've seen where there are mistakes in our system that dealt with women, and it is an incredibly important thing that we get to the bottom of this and answer the big questions. And that is what I have promised.
HUNT: So, you were a yes then?
SESSIONS: Which I would do. And I said, I'm going to get to the bottom of this and be able to answer big questions. We're not there yet.
HUNT: You're not there yet. So, you're not committing yet to voting yes on this bill?
SESSIONS: No. There's no reason why I wouldn't vote for this. The president has already said that he knows over 100 Republicans. Why wouldn't I be one of those hundred Republicans?
HUNT: Okay. So, you -- so you do plan to vote on it? It sounds like the House speaker wants the Senate to make some changes to it. Do you think that the speaker should support it as it is in the House?
SESSIONS: Well, we're going to vote on this. I don't know what the speaker has said. We'll come into a conference tomorrow, and we will be able to hear from the speaker. I've not touched this matter except to be in part of the investigation on the data that we have. So, I would just say to you, the American people and my biggest supporters, including my wife, who I think is a supporter, I've told them were going to get to the bottom of this.
HUNT: All right. Fair enough. One person who has been pressuring the president to make the move that he did to support releasing these files is Marjorie Taylor Greene, who, of course, was a longtime supporter of his. But over this issue, the president is now calling her a traitor. Do you think she's a traitor?
SESSIONS: You know, I'm not privy, and I'm just going to tell you straight up, I don't know their conversations. If he said things to her and got her to use that relationship in a way that he did not like, then maybe he thought she was a traitor. But I don't think Marjorie Taylor Greene is a traitor to America, nor the truth.
But maybe there were things that he said to her that happens in conversations, and that may be privately, where that was.
[16:25:00]
But I think that the American people deserve this answer. And I certainly know these women that were involved deserve more than just an answer. Why did this happen and how can we avoid it in the future? And that's what I promise I'm a part of.
HUNT: Are you committed to releasing any additional documents that the committee comes into possession of, regardless of who may be named in those documents? SESSIONS: You know, that -- that's a very sensitive issue. There are
laws that govern the release to a committee. There are agreements of this, and I don't think it does any of us any good if we cannot answer every question that someone asks us. And I don't think that it needs to be a release that breaks the law. You know, this is one of the sensitive parts that's taking place with when the Democrats were in the majority. The release of intelligence information and other things.
HUNT: Right, but in this case, it's emails --
SESSIONS: So, no, I'm not ready to do that.
HUNT: -- from the -- from the Jeffrey Epstein estate, right, are these emails that we've most recently seen from the House Oversight Committee? Should those emails at least be public if you receive more?
SESSIONS: I think that we need to work together. My friends on the committee that are Democrats, I think, want to work together. There will always be people who want to spill the beans. I don't think that does us any good. But I think if we speak about it and come to an agreement, then we can release them. Yes.
HUNT: All right. So, sir, briefly, before I let you go, a fellow Texan, Ted Cruz, the senator, we played what the president had to say. I want to show you what he said. He was asked this morning about a report that he's considering running for president in 2028. Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): You know, reporters are going to write headlines that get clicks and get eyeballs. I got a job. It's representing 31 million Texans, and it's fighting every day for 31 million Texans.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Didn't seem to be a no. Do you want to see your home state senator run for president again?
SESSIONS: Well, I think -- I think it's always an important question. Would I love to see Ted Cruz as being our presidential nominee for the Republican Party? Yes, I would. Are there some circumstances around these things, for instance, that may be someone else's vice president now? Would that mean a run against that person? Yes. Would that mean that Donald Trump would get engaged in that? Yes, probably.
So, I think Ted Cruz is being very wise. If I were he, I would go if I were interested and make this a beauty contest and go out and test the waters and see where that is. And I think Ted has always, since the day I met him, indicated he'd like to run for president.
HUNT: I appreciate your candor and discretion, sir.
And very briefly, are you ready to endorse John Cornyn for Senate in the Texas primary? SESSIONS: I have and I am.
HUNT: You have?
SESSIONS: And I think Senator Cornyn does a great job.
HUNT: All right. Congressman Pete Sessions, thank you. I really appreciate your time today. I hope to see you soon.
SESSIONS: You bet.
HUNT: All right. Coming up next here in THE ARENA, we're following significant developments in the case against James Comey. The judge suggesting the DOJ violated court orders and giving a new hint on the future of the indictment.
Plus, who is coming to the White House tonight as President Trump and his top officials dial up their message on the economy and affordability.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEVIN HASSETT, TRUMP ECONOMIC ADVISER: There's a million things that we're doing to fix this problem, but it's just kind of astonishing to me that the cost problem is somehow being blamed on us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:33:00]
HUNT: All right. Today, a federal judge scorched the Justice Department's handling of evidence in its case against former FBI director James Comey. The judge raised the possibility that his indictment may be, quote, "tainted".
CNN crime and justice correspondent Katelyn Polantz joins us now.
Katelyn, can you explain the judge's issues here?
KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, the judge, this judge in the Eastern District of Virginia, William Fitzpatrick, he's looked at the grand jury record. He's also looked at evidence in the case against James Comey. And he's seeing some issues in it, issues that Comey's team will be able to grab on to and potentially run with, to the point, Kasie, where they can ask and maybe even succeed in having this case dismissed against the former FBI director.
The main issue the judge raises is the possibility that tainted evidence, evidence that the Justice Department shouldn't have been able to use in September when they took this indictment of James Comey to a grand jury, that they shouldn't have been able to use that evidence. It could have spoiled things. That's one possibility.
The other thing that is also potentially a really big issue for the Justice Department, and specifically the prosecutor on this case, Lindsey Halligan, the interim U.S. attorney, is the possibility that the judge says Lindsey Halligan misled the grand jurors about the law that she misstated to grand jurors, that Comey may need to testify at his own trial in order to win the case.
And also, separately, that she appears to have suggested that Justice Department had better evidence than what the grand jury was seeing, that they could show at trial. Both of those things could become fatal flaws for this case, although right now, Comey's team doesn't have access to these grand jury transcripts. It's just this judge that's looked at them.
HUNT: And, Katelyn, what happens next? Is there a hearing on Wednesday?
POLANTZ: There is a hearing on Wednesday that's about Donald Trump's tweets. Has that set up a situation that this case will need to be tossed? Was Comey selectively and vindictively prosecuted in the legal speak here?
But this other issue that is bubbling up today before Judge Fitzpatrick, that is going to be hanging over the next couple days, including this afternoon, I'm curious what's going to happen. Even tonight, it's only 4:30.
There is a situation where the Justice Department is fighting really hard, really fast to try to keep James Comey's team from getting access to these grand jury records. They've already gone back to the court and said, we want to stop this. We don't want him to have them, because once he gets them, then James Comey's team can start picking apart the same things that this magistrate judge has already looked at and then formally asked for the case to be dismissed.
Some of those filings, if they do get access to these grand jury materials, some of these filings from the defense team would be due next week, right before Thanksgiving.
HUNT: All right. Katelyn Polantz, thanks very much for that reporting. Really appreciate it.
All right. Let's turn now to this story. It was a campaign stop. You may remember it produced some unforgettable scenes. This was Donald Trump working a shift at McDonald's.
Well, tonight, he is bringing the Golden Arches to the White House to host what's being called the McDonald's impact summit. It is basically what it sounds like. Owners of various McDonald's stores are going to come to the White House, and a White House official now tells CNN that "affordability", quote/unquote, will be a focus.
Over the past two weeks, the president has called the issue a Republican stronghold, said it is a, quote, con job by Democrats. And last night posted, he's winning big on the economy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: All I want is I want for people to recognize a great job that I've done on pricing, on affordability, because we brought prices way down, but they're going way lower.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Tonight's speech by the president follows CNN reporting from last week that the White House is weighing stepped up travel and events to try to improve the president's standing on the economy.
My panel is back.
Chris Matthews, I got to tell you, I was really struck at the other day watching kind of the contrast, right, between President Trump giving Laura Ingraham a tour of the gold adorning the Oval Office and saying it's not Home Depot with the images of him from the end of the campaign that won him the White House again and the garbage truck, and at the McDonald's.
MATTHEWS: Right. Well, look, all I can tell you is whatever economic advice he's getting, it's wrong because when you spend more money than the Democrats, when you spend $3.2 trillion, when you add $2,000, you give me to everybody who's a voter out there, and then you increase the prices by tariffs and then you threaten -- well, you're going to do it. Find a Fed director who's going to reduce the interest rates.
Everything you're doing is a step towards affordability problems. Everything you're doing is raising prices. And to say that I'm going to reduce them, I've already done it. That's not true. He's going to do it.
I think he's putting himself into a -- I think it's 30-seats plus for the Democrats next election, 30-seats plus. It's either a hold election or a change election. I'm betting on it being a change election. That's why it's going to be 30-plus seats.
This nickel and diming from Texas, five or six seats, five or six seats from California. That's not what it's going to look like. It will either be a bold change election, which I think it will be, or it's going to be a hold election.
Does anybody think that 37 percent approval that Trump is a hold election? I don't think so. I -- 37 percent, hang on that number.
MEIJER: So, 30 seats I mean, granted, you know, the president's favorability is not worried like it to be. You know, this is a little bit of the relative doldrums.
MATTHEWS: But 37 percent.
MEIJER: But Democratic Party's favorability is not gaining. Yes.
HUNT: Sure.
MEIJER: At the same time. So, what -- what is the -- what is the argument going to be from Dems in midterms that Zohran Mamdani is free busing strategy in New York should be nationalized?
MATTHEWS: No, no, I think it's Mikie Sherrill. And I think if you look at the Texas -- I'm sorry, if you look at Virginia, look at New Jersey, if you look at Pennsylvania, Bucks County, for the first time since the 19th century, they swept the row house seats, all of them, including D.A., things are happening in the air.
MEIJER: But they need to go through their primaries first. They need to get through their primaries and the primaries -- like the DSA component, the success of Zohran Mamdani, you do not hear folks across the country.
MATTHEWS: You guys are hanging on this.
MEIJER: Oh, this is not my problem.
MATTHEWS: No. You're hanging on it. But Mamdani is not running anywhere else.
MEIJER: It's a reality. It's -- this is the -- I mean, even my goodness.
MATTEHWS: Okay.
HUNT: I would help you if I could, but I have no idea where you're going.
(LAUGHTER)
HUNT: So I might let Jamal Simmons jump in.
MEIJER: Democrats are talking about they're voting for Zohran Mamdani.
MATTHEWS: Well, they did.
SIMMONS: You know, Zohran Mamdani does have the benefit of winning a big election, getting a lot of young people excited. And one way Democrats win is when young people get really excited.
Listen, in the generic polls that we're talking about, the Democrats are eight points ahead of Republicans. You talk to experts like Amy Walter from "The Cook Political Report", and Amy will say, Democrats have to be at least five points ahead of the Republicans in the generic in order to have a chance of taking the House back. Right now, they're at eight.
So that trend line, if it continues, is going to be very helpful to the Democrats going into the election. And I think Donald Trump is hurting himself.
[16:40:00]
One with the Epstein and then two with tariffs. Steak is up a dollar more a pound than it was six months ago. And we're now seeing coffee is up $2 more a pound than it was in.
MATTHEWS: Don't you think he knows --
SIMMONS: It's a big deal.
MATTHEWS: Trump knows everything we know and he's talking like he's Captain Queeg here today. He's acting weird. I mean, all this tactical moves, he used to be strategic in everything he did. He got votes every time he did something. It was the deep states no good. Those people on the inside are bad guys.
And now he's taking the inside guy saying, I'm going to defend the way things are being kept secret. I think he's acting tactically, and I think he's Captain Queeg. I think he's playing with or playing with raw berries.
SIMMONS: Strawberries.
HUNT: Molly, I want to -- I want to play --
MATTHEWS: Strawberries.
HUNT: I want to play something that Kevin Hassett had to say because again, the big question is always, and you've seen the White House try to blame President Biden, to blame their predecessors at some point it becomes, you know, your economy, stupid voters say, well, you had some chance to fix it. Maybe you haven't yet.
Here's what Hassett said, though, about where this kind blame game stands right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEVIN HASSETT, WHITE HOUSE ECONOMIC ADVISER: There's a million things that we're doing to fix this problem, but it's just kind of astonishing to me that the cost problem is somehow being blamed on us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: I mean, Molly, the president has now made a litany of decisions, several of which Chris just laid out, that could cause them to actually earn blame, right, in this scenario, no?
BALL: Yes. And while the rate of inflation has come down from its peak in 2019 or 21 or whenever it was, it is still over the Fed's target rate. And as Chris said, Trump is still pushing numerous policies that, at least according to conventional economics, would tend to make prices continue to increase.
And I think the problem is that there is not you know, they're talking about removing some of the tariffs which would be quite a walk back of the president's economic philosophy. They're not talking about unwinding the entire trade war. And that's sort of the original sin here.
The tariffs are the -- are the most unpopular part of the Trump agenda by far. People don't like them. People see that they are pushing prices up. And unless and until the administration is willing to completely abandon this idea that they can inspire a re- industrialization of America and bring manufacturing home in the long term through these tariffs, then it seems quite likely that the economy is going to get worse, not better, going into next year, which I think, you know, you can say all you want about the unpopularity of the Democratic Party. And of course, you are right.
But in a midterm election, people tend to look at what -- who is in power and vote on a yes or no, on an up or down basis. Am I for continuing this or for something else?
HUNT: If I were to call my cousins in Traverse City not to put you on the spot, sir, but would they tell? Would they tell me that their Thanksgiving dinner that they're buying at Myer is cheaper this year than it was last year?
MEIJER: I think it will be cheaper this year than it was last year.
HUNT: Really? Because we can put up Walmart. Okay. Walmart.
MEIJER: You're talking about Walmart. Okay. If I want to get down --
(LAUGHTER)
MEIJER: No, but there's a very real short-term/long-term mismatch on this effort to reindustrialize. And I -- this is what I spend every day doing the way. The Trump administration has used these tariffs is as part of a broader suite of economic and national security incentives to try to argue for a better status quo for the American worker, for the American public.
Obviously, when it comes to tariffs, that's going to have some short term knock on effects in the form of higher prices. The question is going to be what is that over the long term? That's why I think you're seeing that shift back instead of the more tailored approach. It was, we're going to throw everything under the sun, even things that are trading partners never thought we would because it will have negative consequences at home.
Now that's the opportunity to roll back the ones that have had those negative consequences at home. While you have folks who are not building those factories overseas, they're choosing to invest here in the U.S. and you have foreign partners who are saying, all right, you know what? This is not an administration we're going to try to --
HUNT: I take on that --
SIMMONS: We have the Michigan caucus over here. And I will say auto parts suppliers who, you know very well, do not feel like this is a positive for their business.
HUNT: Everybody -- everything is still really too expensive, right, is the bottom line. And the president has now been the president for nine months. And at some point, people are going to blame him.
All right. Ahead in THE ARENA, the member of the president's cabinet the Democrats reportedly want to make a major focus in the midterms. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I'm going to let him go wild on health. I'm going to let him go wild on the food. I'm going to let him go wild on medicines.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:48:51]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Robert F. Kennedy cares more about human beings and health, and the environment than anybody.
I'm going to let him go wild on health. I'm going to let him go wild on the food. I'm going to let him go wild on medicines.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: After promising on the campaign trail to let Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., quote, go wild, President Trump has given his health secretary unprecedented leeway in his ability to shape American health care, from remaking the health agencies to rewriting U.S. vaccine policy, 11 months in, the American public is here, 41 percent approve of Kennedy, 37 percent approve of his vaccine policy, according to recent polling. While Republicans continue to see Kennedy as a winning part of their coalition.
Democrats, on the other hand, according to politico, are betting Kennedy will drag down the GOP as they approach the 2026 midterms with one former Democratic official telling the outlet, quote, I mean, you can't eat if you're dead.
Our panel is back.
And Chris Matthews, you, of course, have this new book out, "Lessons From Bobby Sr." very specifically.
[16:50:00]
But R.F. Kennedy Jr. has become this figure that is very --
MATTHEWS: You wanted me to talk about the kid?
HUNT: Let's start with the kid. And then I would like --
MATTHEWS: Well, I'll start with the father, first of all.
HUNT: Okay.
MATTHEWS: I called up Bobby Jr. when I wrote the book, finished it, and I said -- I knew about I learned about how he cried when he was 14 years old. His dad died. He was killed. He was assassinated. Of course, he felt for his father. When I called him up, I said, I've
written a book about your father. It's very positive. Nothing about, you know, controversy.
So here we are.
HUNT: So here we are.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: Okay, I -- all I can offer is what the attorney, the surgeon generals, as a group, all the nonpartisan, all agreed he shouldn't be there.
HUNT: Well, I think --
MATTHEWS: And that is the key -- the key question. It's not polling on him. It's whether he should be there or not, and whether you think he should be in charge of health care. And that's a question.
HUNT: The question I have for you, as someone who has studied and thought about and sat with the Kennedy family for so many years, is how he's different from all of them, because it's not just health establishment people that didn't want RFK in this job. It was his own family.
MATTHEWS: Well, the family that I've talked to isn't happy with this. This performance. Whatever it is, I don't want to get into all the details. But the problem is what he's doing is, is not logical. My doctor, other doctors you talk to believe in vaccine. They believe it fights measles. They think it fights polio. They believe in it.
Why don't we go ahead and start dealing with sicknesses like cancer we haven't dealt with? Why are we going backwards? I think that's the big question.
And I would much rather talk about Bobby Kennedy himself I grew up with. And Bobby Kennedy when he died and his body was taken from Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York down to Arlington Cemetery to be with his assassinated brother, all along the road, all along that trail, rides were Black people singing 20,000 people in Philadelphia, my hometown, "Battle Hymn of the Republic", spontaneously. All in between, between Philadelphia and Trenton and Newark, white people, working white people were out there saluting with their family in birth order. There's never been anything like this guy.
He appealed to both communities in different ways because he went and campaigned that way. He would campaign in open cars with Richard Hatcher, the first mayor of, black mayor of Gary, Indiana, and Tony Zale, the former middleweight champ who beat Rocky Graziano a couple of times, had him on the other side of him. This is how he campaigned.
Everybody who knew him said he was for white working people and black people as well. He wasn't discriminating. He was trying to bring people together. And that's the first chapter of this book. Bring people together. And the other bigger notion of this book, before we get back on the
kid now, we'll get back there. I'm telling you the big message if you want America to be great, try your best to make it good. When America tries to be good, whether its civil rights or anything else, the things we done ending the civil rights, the Vietnam War, avoiding a nuclear war over the Cuban missile crisis, Bobby did those things.
Those were good things. America is a great country because it's a good country. And we stop being a good country. You got to worry about it.
And that's what we're living in right now. My thoughts.
HUNT: How do you think the -- that Bobby Kennedy would have understood the resurgence of political violence we've seen in our country the attempted assassination of --
MATTHEWS: Well, he wrestled with it when his brother was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald. He thought the Warren Commission was correct.
Now, Ted Kennedy, the youngest brother, thought the same thing about Bobby, about what happened with him. You know, people will always argue about who did it. There'll always be people that question it.
But I've written books about the Kennedys that always when I get to that question of who did it, I go, let's go to the next page, because I can't deal with that question because there's always a possibility of somebody else involved. There's always a possibility. The question is, we lost him. We lost this guy.
HUNT: Right. Well, and we can also put up pictures of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy together, because in this era, you know, of course, of questions about the independence of, you know, the Department of Justice and others. I mean, this was a unique familial relationship at a very critically important time in the country.
MATTHEWS: And the Justice Department building is named after Robert Kennedy. And he was criticized, Jack, for naming his brother, attorney general. But, you know, he did he -- look, if you look at SEC football games, the Southern schools are integrated.
This guy -- it's so ironic. Bobby Kennedy made this school integrated. Ole Miss, he did it. The University of Alabama, he did it. He's the guy that pushed the civil rights bill and opened up America to African Americans. He did it.
And I think it's so ironic, a liberal Democrat on the -- on the Kansas. What is it? The University of Mississippi campus is James Meredith, the first African American to go to school there because they're proud of him.
HUNT: All right.
MATTHEWS: They weren't then, but they're proud of him now.
HUNT: Chris Matthews, the new book is "Lessons from Bobby" --
MATTHEWS: It's about Robert F. Kennedy Sr.
HUNT: Bobby Sr., "Ten Reasons Robert F. Kennedy Still Matters".
[16:55:02]
It's available right now.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HUNT: All right, thanks very much to my panel.
Chris, thank you for coming by. It's been a blast from the past, a real treat. Yes.
Thanks to all of you at home for watching as well.
Don't forget, you can now stream THE ARENA live. You can also catch up with our show whenever you want in the CNN app. We are on demand. You can scan that QR code on your screen to find it.
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Jake Tapper is standing by for "THE LEAD".
Hi, Jake.
