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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt

GOP & Dem Lawmakers Give Conflicting Views Of Boat Strike Video; Man Arrested & Charged In January 2021 DC Pipe Bomb Case; GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik Attacks Leadership Of House Speaker. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired December 04, 2025 - 16:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Pantone has picked a color of the year since 1999, never picked a shade of white before. It says the color is associated with new beginnings, with a fresh start. We could all use one of those.

THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT starts right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Fresh start.

SANCHEZ: There you go.

(MUSIC)

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

Right now, there's a tape

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JIM HIMES (D-CT): What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I've seen in my time in public service.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Top lawmakers today confirming there is video of that now infamous September 2nd strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean. Today, those lawmakers saw it. That was Congressman Jim Himes there. He is, of course, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. He served in Congress for nearly two decades.

And he says that video that shows a follow up strike on survivors of an initial hit, was one of the most troubling things he's seen during his time in Washington.

The admiral, who the White House says ordered the strike, went before a group of lawmakers today, Republicans and Democrats, House and Senate. This was a classified briefing, and the only thing that everyone could agree on is the deep respect and admiration for U.S. service members. Senator Tom Cotton, the chairman of Senate Intelligence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TOM COTTON (R-AR): First strike, the second strike, and the third and the fourth strike on September 2nd were entirely lawful and needful, and they were exactly what we would expect our military commanders to do. I didn't see anything disturbing about it. What's disturbing to me is that millions of Americans have died from drugs being run to America by these cartels

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So, it's worth noting that our Capitol Hill team has been talking to all of the lawmakers and all of the sources they can find today on the hill. Top Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune, are again, not saying if they have confidence in the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and they're saying his future is up to the president.

But back to that video, will we -- will the American public see the tape of that second strike? Just 24 hours ago right here, if you were watching THE ARENA yesterday, you heard the president appear to be unsure the video even existed. To be clear, we now know it does. But the president also said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: You released video of that first strike on September 2nd, but not the second video. Will you release video of that strike so that the American people can see for themselves?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't know what they have, but whatever they have, we'd certainly release. No problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: No problem. So let's see it.

Let's get off the sidelines, head into THE ARENA.

My panel is here. CNN political commentator Jonah Goldberg; the host of "The Chuck Toddcast", Chuck Todd; CNN global affairs commentator, former deputy Pentagon press secretary, Sabrina Singh; CNN political commentator, Republican strategist Brad Todd.

And we are also joined by CNNs senior military analyst, the retired Admiral James Stavridis.

Thank you all for being here.

Admiral, I would like to start with you here because we have heard these lawmakers talk about what they heard from the admiral, who both the defense secretary and the president have said is the one responsible for giving this order. I'm interested first in your takeaways from what we've heard. I mean, very different accounting of what was in that video.

I mean, Jim Himes called it incredibly disturbing. Tom Cotton calls it entirely lawful. How are you understanding the nuances of this?

ADM. JAMES STAVRIDIS (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: We need to see the video. And I do believe, ultimately, it's going to see the light of day and the way to kind of think about this, Kasie -- and at this point, obviously, I haven't seen the video. I don't have a security clearance, I don't have access to all the transcripts, all the testimony that I'm sure is being collected.

But a way to think about it hypothetically, is to put it on a scale that runs from these are shipwrecked survivors literally floating around, grasping at some shards of the boat that clearly does not warrant another strike. At the other end of the spectrum, in our hypothetical scenario, these could be survivors who have found a significant chunk of the boat. They're flipping it over. They have weapons. They have communications means. Potentially, they could continue their mission. I find that all kind of unlikely.

But at that end of this scenario, then yes, a second strike would in fact be warranted. I think we're going to find this falls kind of somewhere in the middle, probably closer to the shipwreck side of the equation. But until we know more, we don't know more.

I'll close with this. You showed us Jim Himes and Tom Cotton. I know them both.

[16:05:01]

I respect them both. I'm really looking to hear from the head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, the ranking member, of course, is Jack Reed, a West Point graduate, the chairman of the SASC is Roger Wicker, a former Air Force JAG officer, lieutenant colonel, retired. Those are two voices I'm waiting to hear from.

HUNT: Really, really good point on that score.

Chuck Todd, this situation one where clearly the White House felt they had to give this video to the Hill, right? They hadn't to this -- to this point. Jack Reed was actually here yesterday saying, you know what? If they weren't worried about what was in that video, we would have seen it already. But clearly public pressure is now force them to give it to the Hill at least.

CHUCK TODD, HOST OF "THE CHUCK TODDCAST": Look, it is. But you know, they're also on their back heels here because they've done a terrible job of explaining what they were doing in the first place. And you could get more political cover and more political support if you laid out your case for why we're doing this, had sort of like, think about, let's go back to the Iraq war, and you think about everything, the Bush administration, right? We can have this debate about whether we should have done it or not.

But you know what they did? They made the case to the American people. They sent Colin Powell to the United Nations and made the case to the world. They presented the evidence that they had.

So, the point was you built a case for why you're doing this. The president has said a few things about what they're up to, but there's never been this sort of case to the Hill case, to the public of why were there.

And so now you have this situation where, well, what is it that we're doing? Are we at war? Was this -- what is this? Well, because they've never explained what this is. They've never gone to Congress to ask for permission. They just sort of searched for it in stuff that was passed by previous Congresses to say, if we call them terrorists, then I think we can claim legality here.

So, I think that's why they're on their back feet now. And they realize, all right, we better -- we better hurry up and mitigate this because we haven't explained what the hell we're doing anyway.

BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That struck me the other direction as well. The Democrats have mostly opposed this effort. When I think if the public -- the more the public knows about this, the more they're going to support it.

The public is not for drug runners bringing drugs from South America to the United States. They're not for drug runners prospering, period. So, I think the more the administration talks about its objectives, the more public support they're going to have.

I think most of the Democratic criticism today, everyone came out of there pretty much supporting Admiral Bradley. However, they also came out with different views on whether the strikes are justified or not --

HUNT: Right.

B. TODD: -- based on their partisanship.

HUNT: Well, so speaking of that, my colleague Jake Tapper actually just sat down and taped an interview with Congressman Jim Himes, who you heard just a few minutes ago saying, this is one of the worst things he's seen. He elaborated a little bit in this interview about what he saw when he watched the tape of this. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST, "THE LEAD": So you're saying a war crime was committed?

HIMES: Well, you know, I want to be careful with my language here. You know, we didn't get the audio. But that's sure what it looked like to me. And again, I don't want to get into the details, but I want you to imagine two individuals clinging to wreckage in the middle of a vast ocean without any tools, without any weapons.

Look, if this guy had an AK-47 or an RPG or was, you know, calling in air strikes or anything else, it would be a totally different thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So again, the full interview there is going to air right after the show on "THE LEAD".

But, Admiral Stavridis, that seems to speak a little bit to what you were saying, right? He is describing seeing two individuals clinging to wreckage in the middle of a vast ocean without any tools, without any weapons. And he says, to your earlier point, if they had an AK-47 or an RPG, that would be another thing.

It's also interesting, he said. There was no audio. Would we have expected to have audio of something like this?

STAVRIDIS: Yes, and kind of running alongside all of the videoing is going to be audio recordings, particularly of any intercepts.

In some of the reporting, I heard Admiral Bradley talk about they specifically -- they, the survivor, specifically called for assistance. Let's take a look at that. Let's take a look at those transcripts. Not you and me, Kasie, but let's have people with security clearances like the House Armed Services Committee that has oversight here.

One other thought that that you are bringing up here, as a former commander of U.S. Southern Command, I oversaw these drug missions for years. And the first thing that comes to my mind when I see survivors is intelligence. Why not capture them, interrogate them, drop a plumb line back, not only hopefully to Nicolas Maduro, but at least to the mid-level portions of the cartel, because then to Chuck Todd's point about, there's a larger game at play here, there are 15,000, 20,000 troops down there, a dozen major warships.

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You don't need that to blow up a few drug boats. What this is in addition to the counter drug, is a signal to Maduro that his time is up. So, if you could capture these individuals, you could build that case. You could put more pressure on Maduro.

So, not only is it questionable under the laws of war, I think it fails the tactical test that a commander ought to apply to a situation like that. Capture them, don't kill them. Get the intelligence.

HUNT: Nobody better to talk to you than you about this. That's fascinating.

Jonah Goldberg, obviously, one piece of this and part of why the admiral is saying he wants to hear from Roger Wicker, the Republican chairman of the committee, is that a lot of the concern is coming from inside the House, inside the Republican House, about what happened here.

JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: For sure. Look, I mean, just to back up a second, there's a very colorable argument that the first strike was illegal. Forget the second strike, right? I mean, the administration wants to have it both ways. They want to

say we're at war, that there we're war with narco terrorists and that this is a war. But then when -- but war comes with a set of rules, too, as the admiral can attest.

And you can't say, well, we're going to -- we're going to use war like powers. But we're not going to be hindered by the rules of war either. There's a perfectly good case to make. I'm not necessarily endorsing it, but its a serious case for regime change in Venezuela.

The president can make that case. They can make it to Congress. They could give Congress some cover to explain this.

Part of the problem, you've got a lot of congressmen who don't know how to explain this. The administration has a gift for trying to frame issues like sending the National Guard to American cities, where they end up cleaning up parks instead of fighting crime. And then if you have a problem with it, you say, oh, you're against fighting crime.

They're doing the same thing here. It's like they're doing something else other than just fighting drug trafficking. Theres not a lot of boats carrying fentanyl on speedboats from Venezuela to the United States can't be done. And Venezuela doesn't do fentanyl.

What they're trying to do is play this game about regime change or something with Venezuela under the color of this other thing, and their messaging is all over the place on it. I mean, you had the White House spokesperson saying that they had to do the second tap in self defense from a prepared statement. Like, really, this overturned boat -- speed boat is a threat to the largest aircraft carrier in the world? It's nonsense.

SABRINA SINGH, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: Well, can I just say on this point, what we haven't discussed is also in October, there was another strike. There were survivors. They were not only picked up in the -- in the sea, they were repatriated and not prosecuted.

So, what we don't know is who was on these boats. That's something that has not been given. We have no names.

To the point of fentanyl, if this administration was really serious about stopping drugs, fentanyl is not flowing through Venezuela. It's flowing through Mexico.

So I think -- I think there's why did why was this follow up strike needed? And then what was the discrepancy with the October strike? Why was there not a follow-on strike there, assuming the same thing happened, people probably called for help.

And I think also just having been in the building and sort of seen, you know, to Admiral Stavridis of what he was saying, seeing how some of these strikes go down. You also have lawyers in the room. You have a legal team advising you. Yes. The command is delegated authority. But who were some of the people, other people in the room advising the admiral who was in charge of the strike on what could be done? I think that's why Congress is asking for more. And frankly, even

though we saw Senator Tom Cotton doubling down on Hegseth, I think there's a lot of unanswered questions that both.

B. TODD: Chris Coons, though today, the Democrat from Delaware, said he was actually encouraged about what he learned today about the process involved in this, which means the legal part of it. And Tom Cotton also did mention to Chuck's point, they were trying to flip the boat back over. That's -- Cotton said the video shows that. We'll see it when we see it. That would make a difference.

SINGH: But that doesn't mean that you're a threat to the point that you're making to one of the largest aircraft carriers in the world that has so much firepower and capability that two shipwrecked people in the waters posed such a threat that they wouldn't be picked up, repatriated, or for that matter, collected on some intel as well.

C. TODD: By the way, were trying to figure out what changed between the September strike and the October strike. Clearly, a dispute between the commander in SouthCom and the secretary of defense, as we've now learned. We've been trying to figure out, did he resign or did he resign under pressure? If you believe "The Wall Street Journal", it looks like he resigned under pressure.

GOLDBERG: I think the video, it's going to end up being a partisan version of that. Is it a blue dress or a gold dress controversy from a few years ago. The only thing I think because people are going to look at it --

TODD: The Internet.

GOLDBERG: Yeah, I do miss that.

TODD: It was a simpler time.

GOLDBERG: And I think you're going to see, I think the audio, the fact that it's not there, that's sort of the dog that's not barking.

HUNT: Yeah. I mean, Admiral, can I just put a finer point on that before we wrap up here? I mean, who would make that decision? I mean, should we reasonably expect -- you seem to have said before, but just to reconfirm, should we reasonably expect that this video should have had audio and therefore that someone made a decision that Congress shouldn't be able to hear what happened, only see it?

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STAVRIDIS: Yes and no. In other words, yes, you should expect the video. No, I kind of don't think there's a conscious decision at this stage to withhold it. If you look at the pattern of all the kind of strikes we do going back decades, we don't -- we don't have the audio of the pilots. We just show the bomb going down in the big boom. That's kind of the standard video 101 release.

I think in this case, that video is going to be crucial to whether it's a red dress or a gold dress. We'll find out. HUNT: Chuck, you one quick last word.

C. TODD: No, sorry. I was just trying to stop buzzing. I don't know if --

HUNT: All right. So, my phone was going off. My apologies.

C. TODD: I was trying, sorry.

HUNT: All right. Admiral James Stavridis, thank you so much, sir. Really great to have you, especially today.

The rest of my panel is going to stand by.

Coming up here in THE ARENA. Army vet, current New York Congressman Pat Ryan will be here live to talk about the day's developments around Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and these controversial boat strikes.

Also this hour, what the House Speaker Mike Johnson, is saying about new claims that he's undercutting female lawmakers in his own party.

Plus, an arrest more than five years in the making. New details on the suspect now charged with placing pipe bombs in the nation's capital the night before the January 6th insurrection.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAN BONGINO, FBI DEPUTY DIRECTOR: He said, "Are you sitting down?" He called me on the phone. I said, "Oh boy, why? Is this bad news?" And he said, "I think we got him."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): I think it would be hard to watch the series of videos and not be troubled by it. I have more policy questions than ever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: That was Democratic Senator Chris Coons after he left a briefing with the admiral who oversaw that controversial follow up strike on an alleged drug boat earlier this fall. Coons is one of the few lawmakers who has seen the video of that strike. Coons said he did see survivors of the initial strike attempting to flip the boat. When he was asked if they tried to climb back in, he responded that, quote, "Senator Cotton and I came out with different understandings of what we saw."

One thing, though, that both Republican and Democratic lawmakers were in agreement on that Admiral Bradley made clear Secretary Hegseth did not issue a "kill them all" order. Joining us now in THE ARENA to discuss, Democratic congressman of New

York, Pat Ryan. He sits on the House Armed Services Committee and, of course, has served in uniform.

Congressman, thank you very much for being here.

REP. PAT RYAN (D-NY): Yeah.

HUNT: How do you understand or explain the totally different interpretations of this video that are coming from Democratic and Republican lawmakers?

RYAN: I haven't seen it yet. I imagine I'll see it very soon. I think it's partisanship over patriotism right now. And that with something like this, this serious, this grave, not just for those two individuals that were, I think, unlawfully killed, but for our values as a country, for our men and women in uniform. This has to be a moment where the video is released immediately to the public as much information around it. If there is audio, whatever color and context, because this is -- this is a moment of a moral question for the country. And we just cannot let partisan take come into that.

From everything that I have heard from colleagues I talked to today who saw it, "The Washington Post" reporting has been backed up by the video. I think given the record of deception, lying and cover up from Hegseth and crew, that is the starting place that we should be coming in at this with. And I -- I wish that weren't the case, but that's just the track record of Hegseth for the last year.

HUNT: Would you expect to have audio along with this video or not?

RYAN: There certainly was audio. This is more going back to my army days and my Congress days, but there certainly was audio during the operation. The question is, was it recorded? Where is it? Is it is it accessible now?

That -- that I just don't know the answer to, but that that is a series of -- that is one of a series of questions that all of us on the House Armed Services Committee have already put to the administration to say, we need immediate release and transparency of this, which, by the way, President Trump said he would do yesterday. So let's -- let's get it out there.

I do think it's important to say it was absolutely the right thing. And the patriotic thing for Admiral Bradley and General Keane to come today, and I think they deserve a lot of credit for that. Now, let's see that kind of leadership from Hegseth. But so far, we're just not seeing it.

HUNT: What do you make of the reporting and the accounting from those who were in the room with Admiral Bradley saying that Hegseth did not order him to kill them all? What does that mean here?

RYAN: So, I think it's going to be really easy throughout this to get very in -- in the weeds, which is important to a degree. But the zoom out here over the last year is that culture starts at the top with the secretary of defense, number two, in the chain of command for the United States military.

And even going back to the book that Pete Hegseth wrote, which was almost a joke a few years ago and is now deadly serious now that he's in a position of authority, he has set a culture and a tone and a repeated set of statements, many of which you've reported on, that we no longer need to follow the laws of war manual, for example, or we can ignore what our longstanding values that have helped America maintain the moral high ground throughout time.

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And that -- that permeates into the force. And so, then you're in an operational moment and someone has to make a hard call. And I firmly believe whether he specifically said those words or not, the buck has to stop with Pete Hegseth. He should be fired immediately. I mean, he should have been fired nine months ago.

But between that and the inspector general report that came out today, also, the walls should be closing in. His days should be numbered. And we have to continue to push for that.

HUNT: To that point, one of your Democratic colleagues in the House announced today he'd be filing articles of impeachment against Secretary Hegseth. Is that the route Democrats should take here?

RYAN: I think it has to be on the table. I don't think we're quite there yet because, for example, there are a lot of important facts -- I think facts matter. Making an actual case to the American people matters.

So, until we see the video, until we see all the facts and information, I think we have to have that before us. And the American people should see it too. But I think that's absolutely on the table because we have been trying and working for nearly a year to have accountability.

Pete Hegseth came in and said, it's a new day at the Pentagon. There's going to be accountability. And at every opportunity he has failed to take accountability for Signalgate, which the report today. This is important, said that the secretary of defense, whose sole job is to accomplish a mission and keep troops safe, did the exact opposite put the mission accomplishment at risk and put pilots lives at risk.

And then that carries over into the series of firings he's done, the purges he's done, the politicization of our military. And now this horrific incident on September 2nd. So that -- that case is out there. But we need to continue to build it.

HUNT: Pete Hegseth served in uniform himself. But to your point, the series of things that he has done, his critics have said, show a pattern of recklessness with the lives of American troops. How do you explain that, considering that he was once one of them? What do you think is driving him?

RYAN: Well, less than 10 years ago, he literally said something to the effect of, we don't follow unlawful orders. Now, all of a sudden, that's being called seditious or problematic when he literally said those words himself eight or nine years ago. Whatever his journey has been, I frankly don't care. He's in a position right now where our most precious resource, our young men and women's lives are in his hand. And whatever his journey of, I think, kind of MAGA-fication and radicalization has been, it doesn't matter. He needs to be out of this position.

There are plenty of capable, credible Republicans who could be secretary of defense. Pete Hegseth is not one of them. And I think you've got to attribute it to just him being more hungry for power than doing the right thing. But again, it really doesn't matter. The troops on the front lines right now who are seeing a lack of leadership, both moral and otherwise.

HUNT: All right. Congressman Pat Ryan, thanks very much for taking some time with us today. I appreciate it.

All right. Coming up next here in THE ARENA, new details on what led to the arrest in the 2021 D.C. pipe bomb case and why the FBI says the investigation isn't over yet.

Plus, the friendly fire among House Republicans. Speaker Mike Johnson trying to deescalate attacks from his own party amid reported threats that some Republican lawmakers are ready to call it quits.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: You know, people get frustrated, people say things, and there's a lot of people trying to stir division and dissension here, and we're just not playing along with that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BONGINO: Folks, you're not going to walk into our capital city, put down two explosive devices and walk off into the sunset. Not going to happen. We were going to track this person to the end of the earth. There was no way he was getting away. Well, we didn't have to track him at the end of the earth. It wound up in Woodbridge, Virginia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Almost five years after a man planted pipe bombs near the Republican and Democratic National Committee headquarters here in Washington, D.C., the night before the January 6th Capitol riot, the FBI has made an arrest.

The attorney general says the man seen in this grainy surveillance video is Brian Cole, Jr. He was arrested this morning at his home in Woodbridge, Virginia. That is just outside of D.C. Joining us now in THE ARENA, CNN's senior justice correspondent Evan

Perez, and CNN senior law enforcement analyst, the former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe.

Evan, you've been covering this case since the very first day. How is it that this suspect was tracked down after all this time?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kasie, this name, this suspect did not even show up on the radar for the FBI until very recently. Until, like recent weeks. It's a matter of fact.

And that was done after the -- this new team was brought in, essentially a fresh set of eyes to look at some of the evidence that had been looked at and relooked at and relooked at over the last few years. And what I'm told happened is, you know, they did some new analysis of the evidence and a bunch of new possible suspects, a bunch of new leads were developed from that.

[16:35:02]

And so, that's what lead us, leads us to today and this arrest. Now, if you listen to the people at that press conference, including the attorney general, Pam Bondi, you know, they're describing how essentially no work was done over the last few years.

Take a listen to what she had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAM BONDI, ATTORNEY GENERAL: This cold case languished for four years until Director Patel and Deputy Director Bongino came to the FBI. The FBI, along with U.S. Attorney Pirro and all of our prosecutors, have worked tirelessly for months, sifting through evidence that had been sitting at the FBI with the Biden administration for four long years.

Let me be clear, there was no new tip. There was no new witness

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREZ: She's right. There is no new tip. There is no new real evidence. What the team did is take a look at some of the evidence that had been gathered. But it's also not really fair to say that it was gathering dust. I mean, you know, I've spoken to investigators, people who have been working on this case right up until the last few months.

And, you know, this affidavit that was unsealed today in federal court against a suspect really describes a lot of that work. There were -- there were -- they did an analysis of every component of these pipe bombs.

For instance, they found that Home Depot sold 233,000 of these end caps. They analyzed the batteries. A lot of this work that the new team took a look at was gathered over the last few years, and it does happen that a fresh set of eyes, a new analysis is done on evidence, and new leads do pop up. That does happen from time to time in these cases.

And so, that's -- it appears that is what explains how this arrest was made today, Kasie.

And Director McCabe. I mean, can you help us understand a little bit more of how this might be possible? Because it had felt like a pretty stunning cold case for quite some time. Is there any truth, do you think, to what the attorney general and those were saying, that it was ignored? Or how do you understand the facts at hand?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yeah, it's really hard for me to believe, Kasie, that that it was ignored over the last many years. Right. I think Evan's characterized it. Well, you bring in a new team to look at the evidence you have in a different way to maybe see things that your investigators have been beating their heads on this stuff for years haven't seen. But ultimately, what you have here is an incredibly detailed data collection. And I'm sure a lot of that data was collected before this new -- you know, refresh took place.

But what they've done is they've taken every single piece of the bomb from the end cap to the pipe to the battery connectors to the wires. Every little piece they've identified where those things are sold. And they looked at the populations of people that bought each one.

As you layer that information on top of each other, you cross correlate all that data, a smaller and smaller population of people begins to emerge, and some of the people in that population will be electricians or plumbers or people who buy those things normally in the course of their work, but eventually, your bomber or a small group of potential bombers rises to the top, and then you can do the very localized surveillance sort of work that's required to kind of take that next step. I'm sure some version of that was happening for the entire time they've been working this case.

Let's remember, it took the FBI 18 years to find the Unabomber, right after his first bomb in 1978. So, these are tough cases and sometimes take a long time.

HUNT: Really interesting.

All right. Evan Perez, Andrew McCabe, thank you both so much. Really appreciate it.

All right. I do want to turn now to this ongoing simmering story on Capitol Hill. The House speaker, Mike Johnson, today defending himself following several reports that a group of female Republican lawmakers are in open revolt over his leadership style

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNSON: I think it's a spurious claim. I think there's no foundation in it whatsoever. You know, people get frustrated, people say things. There's no gender division here at all in our conference. It's a meritocracy. And we've got great women doing great things. I'm their biggest champion, and that's what the record shows. (END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So that was the speaker today. In a "Wall Street Journal" interview this week, the New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik slammed Johnson as an ineffective leader, while Nancy Mace, according to "The New York Times", is so frustrated with the way Johnson has run the House, particularly with how he treats women, that she has considered retiring early from Congress.

Unfortunately for Johnson, it does not seem to end there, as he stares down the 2026 midterms. There does seem to be a broader, growing discontent within his conference, beyond his female members.

[16:40:08]

Here was one explanation from Republican Kevin Kiley

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN KILEY (R-CA): It stems from the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of the House in recent months that we literally were not here for two months. We've been missing in action in a lot of ways. The House has not been the driver's seat when it comes to key policy areas. The House has even explicitly ceded its authority on certain issues.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right. Our panel has returned. So, I would like to dig in on this. The women here who are upset.

Annie Karni, a friend of the show over at "The New York Times", wrote a story about why the women are upset, Chuck. And she writes this, quote, "Stefanik is not alone among Republican women in feeling aggrieved by Mr. Johnson. Some of them said privately that the speaker had failed to listen to them or engage in direct conversations on major political and policy issues, suggesting that doing so was a cultural challenge for Mr. Johnson, an evangelical Christian who has often voiced firm views about the distinct roles that men and women should play in society. And then there were these comments that the speaker made in the podcast that he did with Katie miller, the wife of Stephen Miller, where he said that women -- well, men can compartmentalize and women can't.

Watch

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNSON: You know, men and women are different in this way, is that men can compartmentalize things.

KELLY JOHNSON, WIFE OF SPEAKER JOHNSON: And men's brains are like waffles.

M. JOHNSON: Yes. K. JOHNSON: They have little compartments. In fact, our brains are like spaghetti because it's the meatballs, the pasta, the sauce, the oregano. And we're thinking --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: I can't imagine why women members of the Republican conference are concerned.

C. TODD: I want to go back to what Kevin Kiley said, because I had an interview with Mike Turner, about a week ago. And I said, and I'm like, we were talking about the Venezuela situation.

He goes, did you see what happened to us? When we finally came back? They almost had it was like a reverse COVID effect. He said, Johnson, by keeping them away for 40-plus days, they came back. Everybody was loaded for bear.

He goes, did you see what we did? He goes, it was Democrats on Democrats, right? You had Marie Gluesenkamp Perez ticked off at the Chuy Garcia thing. Then they had a censure vote on that. Then there was a censure vote on Cory Mills.

Johnson's management of the House is unpopular with everybody, with Republican women, Democratic women, Republican men, Democrat. This is a guy that's in deep trouble. I'm not weighing in on the gender wars here, on that one.

GOLDBERG: But noticed. Yeah. Because --

(CROSSTALK)

C. TODD: There's no winning there. But I want to go back to also Elise Stefanik who, who she has every right to have no -- basically no patience for Mike Johnson. She has taken how many for the team with the U.N. ambassadorship? He, you know, he sort of said he was going to put her in leadership. He did and never treated her like very well.

(CROSSTALK)

B. TODD: And she has an office, the title --

HUNT: But that relationship fell apart.

C. TODD: He is -- between he and Trump, the rug has been pulled out from under Elise Stefanik, left and right and center. So, I understand her anger, I think, has to do with a lot of -- a lot of those things as well.

HUNT: Sabrina, how would you characterize what -- as the other woman at the table --

SINGH: Yeah.

HUNT: -- the conversation that the speaker and his wife engaged in? SINGH: If I'm a Democrat running in the midterms, I would take that

clip. I would take what Trump said about affordability at that three- hour cabinet meeting, and I would just splice it on through, because I think, I think it really shows what how they treat women. I mean, if you're a woman running, why not amplify that?

But I also think, I mean, Mike Johnson does not have control of his conference. And there's a really big leadership void that's very clear on the Republican side. And the fact that they were out of session for so many, you know, days, weeks, nothing got accomplished. And you're, you know, don't come to me now and say Dems in disarray because I think we can just retire that phrase.

I think mike Johnson has taken up a new mantle of chaos --

HUNT: And that phrase is never being retired. I'm so sorry.

But, Brad, I mean, there's not a -- there's not a -- there's a non- zero chance that Mike Johnson loses this majority before November 2026.

B. TODD: There's always a non-zero chance that any Republican speaker might not be around tomorrow.

C. TODD: That's something we've learned.

B. TODD: To say that its Republicans are like herding cats as an insult to cats. But let's go back. Virginia Foxx, the chairman of the workforce committee, says that this critique of Mike Johnson is as brainless as it is ignorant. She is, in fact, the person who might have the most input, most right idea about this. Lisa McClain, who you mentioned earlier says that mike Johnson takes her input and respects her as a colleague every day.

So, like --

HUNT: We were talking about her off air, I believe. She's the one that Mike Johnson said would cook the best Thanksgiving dinner in that podcast.

B. TODD: Nancy Mace is complaining at all times about all speakers. Okay? Like that's going to happen as part of her personality. Some of it's good, some of it's not good.

A three-seat majority is really hard to run.

HUNT: What about Stefanik?

GOLDBERG: So I kind of disagree with everybody.

C. TODD: Go get him.

GOLDBERG: I'll do -- I'll defend Mike Johnson to a certain extent here, but for different reasons. You brought up how Trump is really screwed over Elise Stefanik, and he has, right?

C. TODD: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

GOLDBERG: Elise Stefanik cannot go around campaigning against Donald Trump. But she's got to campaign against Washington and the establishment, which is run entirely by Republicans. And Trump screwed her over again by embracing Mamdani, who was the centerpiece of her entire campaign.

And so they're trying to do like, like something about negative partizans in Republican side. Remember the grief they used to give Mitch McConnell? They love running against the Republican establishment. You cannot run against the Republican establishment when Trump runs it. So he's becoming the scapegoat for him.

C. TODD: Well, it's like what's happening with Democrats and Schumer.

GOLDBERG: Yeah.

C. TODD: Right. Youve got to run against you -- you've got to show your -- you're not part of the team. So you pick somebody.

I take your point. The problem for Johnson is don't forget he is a SPINO, a speaker in name only. It is Donald Trump's the speaker.

HUNT: Fair enough. Yeah. Well and Trump has basically said as much. Right?

We have to leave it there.

Ahead here in THE ARENA, why RFK, Jr.'s new slate of CDC advisors delayed a vote on a potentially enormous change to the childhood vaccine schedule.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:50:45]

HUNT: All right. Welcome back.

Today, vaccine advisers to the CDC delayed an important vote on a key childhood vaccine. These advisers, who were handpicked by HHS secretary and vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., are now expected to vote tomorrow on changes to the hepatitis B vaccine schedule. They were supposed to make a decision today, but the advisers were confused about what exactly they were voting on after the language changed multiple times.

According to current CDC guidance, the hep B vaccine should be given to babies within 24 hours of birth. The virus infects the liver and it can lead to organ failure. Infants and children who are infected are more likely to develop chronic disease. There is no cure for hepatitis B, and doctors say the best way to prevent infection is early vaccination.

We're joined now by the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Dr. Sue Kressley. Dr. Kressley, I'm so grateful to have you here today. I'd like to ask

you, big picture, how significant would a change to this be? What would it really mean for Americans and all of our children?

DR. SUE KRESSLY, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS: So let's first start by acknowledging that American families really deserve and need fact based, expert informed, clear, consistent, confident guidance. They are getting exactly the opposite from this current ACIP and recommendations. And so, regardless of the vote and when it happens and what it says, it has already sowed unneeded anxiety, confusion, questioning and concerns in American families who are trying to make the best decision for their children, and it's unnecessary.

And the confusion and chaos that you mentioned today will add to people questioning what is proven and effective and preventative ways that we can keep our children healthy. I worked in a time where hepatitis B was not universally applied and given to children, and we had breakthrough and missing cases and misidentified risk-based strategies that did not work. We've been down this road before in medicine, and children got infected and were harmed and died because of a risk-based strategy does not work.

Universal strategies with firm, consistent recommendations are what keep all of our children as safe as possible in every community.

HUNT: I want to put up the statistics that show the number of hepatitis B cases that we had back in 1991 versus what they were this year. There were 18,000 cases back in 1991. Now, what also happened in 1991 was the universal hepatitis B vaccine for infants that was put on the vaccine schedule.

My question for you here, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the health and human services secretary appointed by Donald Trump. He is the one who cleared out this panel and renamed all of these new people. If that number grows, jumps, if more Americans get sick or potentially die because of this, is he to blame for it?

KRESSLY: The policy makers who are making the decision and sowing distrust collectively will have to be accountable for all of the children that are harmed because they didn't do everything within their power to follow the facts and give clear guidance to protect every American

HUNT: What do you make of the delay from today to tomorrow of this vote? What is your understanding of what that confusion is about and what may be at play?

KRESSLY: This is really because you don't have the expertise and expert processes in play. We had a very functional ACIP with very clear stepwise guidance of conversations and presentations and clear language that was understood by the experts in the room.

We now have people whose expertise is not vaccines.

[16:55:02] Their expertise is not in -- and they have no experience. Many of them in ACIP and the functioning. And what we have is chaos because they don't have the expertise, they don't understand the process, and they can't figure out together what they're voting on.

I, for one, don't want my grandchildren to be entrusted to health care decisions that are made from people who can't even understand the language of what they're voting on. Our children deserve better.

HUNT: All right. Dr. Sue Kressly, president of the American of Pediatrics, thank you very much. I really appreciate it.

KRESSLY: Thank you.

HUNT: All right. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUNT: All right. Thanks for being with us today.

Jake Tapper is standing by for "THE LEAD".

Hi, Jake.