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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
Now: New Arrests In Minneapolis Protests; CNN Poll: Majority See Trump's First Year Back In Office As Failure; Venezuelan Opposition Leader Gives Her Nobel Medal To Trump. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired January 16, 2026 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:00]
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Hey, can I go on the next mission?
PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Yeah.
SCIUTTO: He's never said yes.
BROWN: Well, there's always hope. There's always time, right?
THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT starts right now.
(MUSIC)
KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Hey, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. Welcome to THE ARENA. It's wonderful to have you with us on this Friday.
Quite a week we've had, and it continues.
Right now, new clashes, new arrests, new threats. As we come on the air, tensions are up in Minneapolis. The president's poll numbers are down.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ILHAN OMAR (D-MN): What he wants to do is wear Minnesota down so that he can tear Minnesota down. The interest here is for there to be intimidation in order for us to submit.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Our CNN team on the ground again today in Minneapolis, witnessing more violent confrontations in what is an expanding federal immigration operation across the Twin Cities. Video from just the past few hours shows ICE officers arresting and some even shoving demonstrators outside the federal building.
President Trump leaving his options open, addressing today his threat to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy U.S. troops to Minnesota.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If I needed it, I'd use it. I don't think there's any reason right now to use it, but if I needed it, I'd use it. It's very powerful.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: The two key words there right now, about two hours before those comments the president posted online, he'd be, quote, forced to act if protests continued. The American people, though, are reacting to what they're seeing, and what they're reacting with is growing disapproval of the president's policies.
A new CNN poll just out today shows that most voters think the first year of his second term has been a failure. That's not the only bad news. We're going to have more on that throughout the hour.
And today, more than two dozen congressional Democrats traveled to Minneapolis. The mayor, Jacob Frey, telling them the ongoing operation has forced businesses and schools to close and is creating what he described as an era of fear in his city.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR JACOB FREY (D), MINNESOTA: People are walking around on the street with their passports. That's not American. That's the furthest thing from it. Please take back to your respective constituencies and your colleagues the message of if you love your own community, do not let this happen in ours.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right. Let's get off the sidelines. Head into THE ARENA. My panel is here.
We're also joined by CNN's senior crime and justice correspondent, Shimon Prokupecz.
Shimon, you are on the ground in a very frigid Minneapolis. What is it like to be in the community?
SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: So, today, I got a chance to go out in the community. For now, we're outside the Whipple Federal Building, which has become the epicenter of where the protests have been happening.
But I think when you go into the community of Minneapolis, you get to really see and really feel what it's like. People are afraid. People are sad. I had to go to the laundromat today. It was completely empty, and a couple of other stores today that you would normally see people.
The hotel where I'm staying, I've been talking to the staff. They are. Everyone is so afraid and its so sad over what is happening.
And everyone you talk to here will tell you a story about a neighbor, someone who lives across the street, who is afraid to leave their home. Someone who was detained by ICE, a 15-year-old. I was being told a story about a 15-year-old boy that was detained here by ICE.
So everywhere you go here, you feel it. And it is so sad to see this community in this way, which, as you know, as we all know, has been through so much over the course of the last few years and they really do feel like there's no end here, and they're all just trying to hang in there. But it's really tough.
And then, you know, when you come out here to the Whipple Federal Building where we've been seeing all these protests the last several nights. You know, it's quite a different scene.
Today, I was talking to a man here. He's older. He told me this. He's like, look, we're older. We're here to protest peacefully, he said.
Then at night, what happens is the younger crowd comes out and that's when the trouble starts. And we saw that last night, because let me show you what happens here, Kasie, if I can. Now, let's turn around here, cars. These are federal officers, ICE officers, other federal agents and officers that are going in.
This is a federal building. This is where their offices are. And what's happening when the vehicles drive in, you start hearing the crowd will start yelling at the cars, will start telling them, "Go home, get out of our town, get out of our city. ICE, get out."
But last night, what I witnessed was that many of the people who were out here and they're not protesters, these are the agitators. They were trying to stop the cars from going in. They were kicking the cars. They were attacking the cars. And this went on for a while.
And for the most part, federal law enforcement stood back, and they said, okay, let's see if this ends. And it didn't. And then finally at around 11:00 Eastern, they had just had it. And that's when we got caught in the middle of the tear gas that was being thrown, the flashbangs that the federal law enforcement was here throwing to disperse the crowd.
It really came as a surprise for because for so -- for most of the time they were allowing the agitators to stay here. And the protesters who were in the street, and then eventually they had enough and they pushed people back.
But that's where the flashpoints, Kasie, occur. It's when the cars go in, folks will come out, they'll start yelling at them, and as long as they stay on the sidewalk. Let me show you right here quickly. As long as they stay on the sidewalk like this. Right. There you go. Like she says, totally peaceful.
As long as they stay on the sidewalk. No one, no one will bother them. But it's when they come out.
So, we'll see as the night here progresses, what happens? Much smaller crowd here today. It's probably because it's so cold, and the snow, but we'll see. It's early.
HUNT: Indeed. All right, Shimon, you're going to stand by for us as we continue our panel discussion here.
Panel's here in THE ARENA. CNN contributor, "New York Times" journalist Lulu Garcia-Navarro; CNN political commentator, Republican strategist and pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson; CNN political commentator, former DOJ official Xochitl Hinojosa; and senior advisor to the Trump 2020 campaign, Bryan Lanza.
Welcome to all of you. Thank you so much for being here.
Bryan, I actually want to start with you on this question of the Insurrection Act, because it's kind of looming over, you know, every time were reporting on these clashes, we're seeing what's happening, the question of what the president is going to do. We've seen state officials plead with the president to bring down the temperature, but his rhetoric has been evolving somewhat, right?
He said he might do it yesterday. Then today, he said he might be forced to do it. Now he says he doesn't really need to do it. How do you explain? He's kind of thinking out loud, which he often does. How do you explain where he -- where he really is?
BRYAN LANZA, SENIOR ADVISER, TRUMP 2024 CAMPAIGN: I think that the president I know he keeps all his options open until the very last minute, right? And so, he's thinking, maybe I do this or not. He clearly hasn't passed the threshold that he feels he needs to do something related to the Insurrection Act. I think if you look at the protest four years ago regarding Black Lives Matters, he regrets not instituting the Insurrection Act in some of these cities. And what he's not going to do is he's not going to let it catch fire all over the country, some of these protests.
But I think it's important to see what we see taking place is important. It's critical. But let me tell you where you don't see it. You don't see it in red state governors and red state mayors. This is clearly a blue state conflict, a blue city conflict that's going to be taking place in city after city. Why? Because local law enforcement, state law enforcement doesn't work in concert with ICE as they do in red states where there's mayors in red states and blue states.
So, there is a disparity of what's taking place in America, those who actually follow the law and work with law enforcement. You don't have these huge confrontations, but when you're in blue states who are seeking these confrontations, you get what you see.
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That's not necessarily true. Barack Obama was able to do immigration enforcement with local law enforcement without causing chaos in the streets. And what is happening here with local law enforcement is that ICE is creating more chaos in the streets, making their lives more difficult, and the Trump administration is ramping up in Democratic states for a reason. They're trying to make a political point.
This is not -- this is -- this -- and you've seen this time and time again, and they're not ramping up in places like --
LANZA: They have cooperation.
HINOJOSA: Not just because of cooperation. It is not just because of cooperation is they're not ramping up because that is a red state, and they don't want to do that.
One thing I think we need to be mindful of is in places like Minneapolis and invoking the Insurrection Act causes more chaos. You already heard people in Minneapolis are terrified at the schools. There's local reporting saying that attendance is down and that they are moving to remote learning.
We all know from the pandemic, remote learning doesn't always work. It actually is not great for children. So, there are real impacts for our children when you have ICE creating fear and chaos like we're seeing on our screens every day.
LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Six hundred police in Minneapolis, 3,000 ICE in Minneapolis. The president moved those 3,000 members of ICE incrementally, but ramped it up as a punitive measure because of what he saw as the fraud in the Somali community. And he wanted to target the Somali community.
I mean, it's all there in black and white. So, I think the argument that somehow this is because local police isn't cooperating isn't, I think, fair to local police. At the end of the day, they're not impeding what ICE is doing. Local police is still trying to do local police work, and that is actually normally how these things work.
I mean, when you're talking about working in concert, the complaints are you should allow ICE to go into the prisons, right? You should allow ICE to, you know, have other mechanisms to target the people that they're supposed to target.
But in most places, police and ICE do not work together, even in red states, because why? Police work is different than apprehending, you know, people who are here illegally. And so therefore, I just don't think that argument sticks.
LANZA: They offer support for law enforcement, and red states offer support to ICE crowd control. Some of these things that are taking place that are getting out of hand in blue states. I mean, you don't see these problems happening in red -- in red states or where they're red mayors.
This is a blue state issue because of the policy of the blue states, sanctuary cities, sanctuary states, the desire not to cooperate with ICE is exactly why this is happening, and it's the rhetoric of the politicians, the blue state politicians that are ramping it up just as much as President Trump is.
HUNT: Well, so I will say, Bryan, and I'm going to I want to put this question to you, Chris, because you're a pollster at the table. Whatever is going on here, Americans are seeing it across the country. They don't like what they see.
Let's put up CNN's new numbers on the president's immigration approval rating. Okay? Here's where it is now. All right, 42 percent approve, 58 percent disapprove.
That's a change from March, when 51 percent approved of what the president was doing, and 48 percent disapproved. And you can see those lines, right? They've crossed here.
And, Kristen, I mean, this is a question I feel like I've been asking, actually, it's been this has been picked up a little bit in the MAGA media ecosphere as well.
Megyn Kelly was talking about this on her show. I want to watch what she said. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MEGYN KELLY, PODCAST HOST: We're starting to get political data in on it and its not great. Not great. The polls were terrible on police and the crackdowns on, you know, bad guys in the streets committing crimes after George Floyd, and then they totally reversed. But it took a couple of years, and we don't have a couple of years until midterms. So, Trump's got an interesting question to ask himself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: What are you seeing in the numbers? Because we know that Americans were with the president on border security, but it seems like they're turning on him when they're seeing this on the streets.
KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah. I think there's two things important to draw out. The first is, you're right. The issue of immigration has consistently been one of Trump's strongest.
That, in fact, when you headed into the last election, one of the issues on which he felt very confident was going out and saying the border has been out of control, the other side doesn't want to acknowledge that there's a problem. I'm the one that wants to do something about it. It was a very successful message, and he had a lot of latitude with what he was going to do as president to implement that agenda.
But I think it's also notable that Megyn Kelly mentioned it. You mentioned it, Bryan. The sort of memories of the summer of 2020, and it was a moment where, you know, a couple of months later, Donald Trump lost reelection.
Americans said, this all feels too hot. This feels too crazy. I don't like what I'm seeing. I want to change to Joe Biden. He's going to be calmer and steadier. But then Americans didn't feel like they got that. And eventually, as Kelly noted, the politics came around.
In this case, I think Donald Trump and Republicans very much feel that scar tissue, a place like Minneapolis, is a place where they remember this was a city that was burning. We have to do something to stop this. And they think that by speaking through strength and that by being in these places, being more aggressive and visible, that that may stop this. It doesn't seem like in Minneapolis that's happening at the moment.
But I really appreciated your reporter on the ground. The reporting that, you know, during the day, it is possible to have peaceful protests. That is a possible thing that is happening there. It is when the agitators show up and decide they're going to start going and kicking, kicking these cars, attacking these agents that things get out of control.
There's a way to protest the government peacefully, and there is a way to not. And it seems as though both of those things are happening in Minneapolis.
HUNT: Well, and there have been times, I mean, one of our shows, as this was first ramping up, we had pepper balls being fired in broad daylight at protesters outside the federal building, as well.
But -- I mean, Bryan, can you speak to this? Because I have to say that especially that the piece about carrying papers and we've been airing video here as well. Right, where officers are asking, where are you born? They're asking for ID.
You know, I think a lot of people can distinguish between having a police officer come up to you and asking, you know who you know, who are you? What's your name? Show me your driver's license. And are you carrying papers that prove that you're American? I mean, is that American to you?
LANZA: No, it absolutely is not. And it's not even that they carry papers and they show their papers. And then I says, these documents are fake, right? You know, those are the extremes. And those are the consequences that Republican Party, Donald Trump will suffer if they let these things continue, right?
The bottom line is, is, you know, most of these arrests, these arrests are done correctly. You have -- you're deporting the right people. You have a limited number that that have targeted American citizens, which is fundamentally wrong.
But you also have some that go too far. The thing is, is you hope that as these things emerge, they get fixed immediately. And that I don't -- I don't know whether an apology is due, but you sort of do an education to the community that that is not how they should behave and that they're going to correct the policy.
Now we'll see whether it whether it works. I mean, but I'm very, I mean, I -- I have my passport ID in my wallet now.
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It's born in the U.S.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I mean, listen --
HUNT: And you're doing that -- hold on one second. Yeah. You're doing that. Why are you doing that?
LANZA: I'm doing that because in Maryland, they deported somebody that's not far from where I live.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: And he's a brown, Hispanic man. LANZA: Yeah.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: And this is, I mean --
HINOJOSA: Hispanic community.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: And this is -- they're targeting Hispanics and they are looking for people who look like Bryan Lanza. And this is part of the problem.
I mean, you know, I have a Hispanic name. My daughter was like, I'm Hispanic, mom, are they going to come and get you? I mean, to have to sit there and have that conversation with my daughter is pretty unbelievable. As someone who has lived all over the world and been in oppressive regimes, and the idea that my daughter would be asking me here in the United States of America, hey, mom, are they going to come and get you because your name is Lulu Garcia-Navarro?
LANZA: Yeah, we had a tremendous amount of progress on the issue at the -- at the end of the election, at the start of Trump's administrations, obviously, a tremendous amount of errors have been made in dealing with these things. And all you can hope is that they fix these errors and they fix them fast.
But yeah, I mean, there's -- there's cause concern. You know, I'm not going to tell you that it's a good thing about this administration. No administration is perfect. The opposite is open borders. And I think that's even more dangerous.
HINOJOSA: Well, and I think that there will be a presidential election that comes about, and Democrats will need to figure out how to talk about our border and ensure our border is secure, how to have enforcement that is humane, and how to deal with racial profiling. Because I will tell you that the vast majority of law enforcement, like the FBI and the marshals service and DEA, they are not doing that type of thing.
And I think there's a big conversation about what to do with ICE. And I don't think it is abolish ICE or defund ICE. I think it is probably doing something like moving ICE under DOJ or somewhere that can do interior enforcement, because what they're doing now is unacceptable.
HUNT: All right. Our thanks to Shimon, who is on the ground for us. Really appreciate you sticking with us. Stay warm, my friend. Youve been doing great work out there.
Coming up next here in THE ARENA, Democratic congressman, former Army officer, Jason Crow, will be here with us live.
Plus, the president and his prize. New reaction after Venezuela's opposition leader handed over her Nobel medal to Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: You accepted Maria Machado's Nobel Prize medal. What do you intend to do with it? And why would you want someone else's Nobel Prize?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, she offered it to me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:21:48]
HUNT: All right. Welcome back. We are continuing to keep an eye on Minneapolis, where tensions remain high, especially outside this federal building in the Minneapolis area. President Trump saying today there's no reason to use the Insurrection Act, quote, right now, but that invoking it remains on the table.
Joining us now in THE ARENA to discuss Democratic congressman of Colorado, Jason Crow. He sits on the House Intelligence and Armed Services Committee.
Congressman, thanks so much for being here today. What would it represent if the president were to invoke the Insurrection Act in response to what's going on in Minneapolis?
REP. JASON CROW (D-CO): It would be another drastic escalation by what is a lawless and reckless president. You know, this president has no regard for the constitution or the rule of law, whether its bombing seven countries in less than a first year in office, doing so numerous times without congressional authorization, whether it's sending troops into California or Portland and other cities, which, by the way, was overturned by the Supreme Court or now threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act. This president knows no bounds, which is exactly why the congress needs to step up and start reasserting itself in erecting some guardrails.
HUNT: Congressman, some Republicans have suggested that part of the problem in Minneapolis is that state and local officers are prohibited from helping ICE do their work. They say that this helps create an atmosphere that is more threatening for ICE officers, among other things.
Do you think it would be better? Would the Minneapolis community be better served if their police force could be involved on the streets in the community?
CROW: No. The ultimate problem is that those Republicans and the federal agents that have been abusing these communities actually don't know how to conduct law enforcement. Law enforcement is designed to protect and serve communities. And to do that, you need to have trust with communities. If people don't trust the local police force, if they don't invite them into their homes, if they're not willing to talk to officers, if they're not willing to call 911 because they don't think that those officers have their best interest in mind, they don't.
And then crime increases. Crime runs more rampant. Trust is the single biggest factor in effective law enforcement. Any career law enforcement officer that knows what they're doing will tell you that, right?
So these people are getting it all wrong, right? You're sending in masked agents into communities in unmarked vehicles, abusing people, shooting people. It's actually undermining the ability to build trust and to actually effectively enforce the laws and protect people in those communities.
So I stand with communities that are pushing back on that with police departments, with sheriff's departments that actually understand how to keep their communities safe.
HUNT: Sir, big picture. I want to show you something that the Illinois governor, J.B. Pritzker, said when he was asked about this situation. Obviously, he has dealt with a federal presence in Chicago the way the president has been interacting with his state. And he had a fairly dramatic way of framing what we're experiencing right now.
[16:25:04] Let's take a look. I'll ask you about it on the other side.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. J.B. PRITZKER (D), ILLINOIS: I gave a speech very early, my State of the State speech, in which I likened what Donald Trump was doing in this country to what was happening in the early days of Nazi Germany. And people reacted on the -- certainly on the Republican side, they reacted badly and said I was, you know, overstating things. And I was, you know, it was completely improper. And how dare I? And even people on the Democratic side were like, well, maybe that's just a little too harsh.
But as you know, that is where we are right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Is that where we are right now? In the early days of Nazi Germany?
CROW: This president is in chapter one of the autocrats' playbook. Theres no doubt in my mind. And, you know, I know this because I see what's happening in my community. I see the victimization of immigrants and refugees, how they're otherizing people who are not white. They are targeting communities of color everywhere throughout the country.
And they're now sending the Department of Justice after me and Mark Kelly and my colleagues, because as combat veterans, we stood up and reminded our service members of their obligation to follow the Constitution and their oath, which the president doesn't like, right? So, he's now sending his political hacks and cronies from DOJ after me and others for speaking out.
Well, listen, he's picked the wrong fight with the wrong people. We're going to stand up for the Constitution. We're going to push back, and we will not allow us to slide towards autocracy.
HUNT: Speaking of the investigation, have you responded at all to the Department of Justice? Do you intend to work with them
CROW: Well, I'm not going to talk about my legal strategy. That's between me and my lawyers.
But I can tell you this -- we're going to treat this as the intimidation and bullying campaign that it is. It is meritless. It is baseless. What it is, is an attempt to try to silence the leaders of the opposition, which again, is chapter one of the autocrat's playbook.
We are not going to allow him to do that because its actually not about us. What he's trying to do is make examples of me, of Mark Kelly, of Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, of Jimmy Kimmel, so that other Americans say, wow, if members of Congress can't withstand this, why should I stick my neck out? Why should I go vote? Why should I protest and organize?
Well, guess what? We are not going to allow ourselves to be made an example out of. He's picked the wrong fight with the wrong people. We are going to lead. We are going to continue to uphold our oath of the Constitution. And I am not about to be bullied.
HUNT: So in your role as a member of Congress, there's obviously been this push among Democrats to use funding bills for the government to try to restrict the actions of ICE to potentially reduce their funding. There are now some suggestions that things like body cameras, additional de-escalation training might lead some Democrats to drop those demands.
How far do you think your party should go in these funding fights to try to change how ICE is operating on the ground?
CROW: Well, it's not novel to suggest that we should use funding bills to actually impact policy with the government, that that is literally our job, right? The Congress exists to make sure the laws are followed, and then we use the funding bills to make better policy and to make sure that what the executive branch is doing is consistent with the morals and values of our communities and the places we represent.
So, hell, yes, we should be using the funding bills to make sure that a runaway rogue agency that is abusing our communities acts more responsibly. You know, and I use the example earlier of these masked ICE agents, right? You have masked agents in unmarked vehicles picking up American citizens, deporting people, beating mothers, intimidating little league teams.
I mean, need I go on, the examples around the country? It has to end. It is not just our right as members of Congress to stop it, but it is our duty to stop the abuse.
HUNT: And is shutting down the government something that should be on the table? CROW: It should always be on the table, right? Why should we just say,
no, we're going to -- we're going to just give them whatever they want at the end of the day? Well, you know, why would we tell Donald Trump that? I'm never going to tell him that, right?
I am not going to give money to a government agency that's going to act lawless, reckless in an unconstitutional way. There need to be guardrails put in place. We're negotiating additional guardrails right now.
The Senate is. The House is. And we're going to see what comes out of those negotiations.
HUNT: All right. Congressman Jason Crow, thank you so much for spending some time with us today. I really appreciate it.
CROW: Thank you.
HUNT: All right. Coming up next here in THE ARENA, what Venezuela's opposition leader is saying about her decision to give President Trump her Nobel Peace Prize medal and what the Nobel Committee thinks about the decision.
Plus, the good, the bad and the really bad. Inside our new poll numbers on the president and his policies ahead of his second first year in office.
[16:30:05]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: What we've done in the country in the last year, it's incredible. All of us together. It's incredible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: What we've done in the country in the last year, it's incredible. All of us together. It's incredible. We're right now the hottest country anywhere in the world. And a year and a half ago, we were a dead country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right. We are just days away from officially completing the first full year of President Trump's second term. Now, as you heard there, he seems to feel quite confident about how it's going.
[16:35:02]
But the president does read polls and new CNN polling indicates Americans may not be on that page with him. A year in, public opinion, negative on nearly every core issue. Trump's approval on the economy, on immigration, on health care, on foreign affairs, all dipping below 45 percent. And a majority of Americans, 58 percent are calling this first year a failure.
All of that spells trouble for a president and a Republican Party heading into a critical midterm election year.
Our panel is back.
Bryan Lanza, why are the presidents poll numbers so bad?
LANZA: Yeah. Listen, I think they have a lot of work to do, but I also think they have an argument. I think what's important to realize that if you look at right, you know, wrong direction, right direction. In November, when Biden was president to where it is today, Donald Trump has a 10-point improvement. So, you got the country feeling by 10 points. It's better off than it was under Joe Biden.
Ten is not enough. They need to move it up 10 more points, but they have a year to do it. If you look at, you know, faves on faves, he's in line with every other president, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, in the first year of his first term.
So, none of these things should be a surprise, but it should be a surprise is they need to lean more into the economic message, which is clearly what the voters care about the most.
HUNT: Right? Well, so Republican voters in our poll, okay, this is the GOP, right? The president's party, 48 percent of them said that the president is not going far enough to bring down prices. And then you have people that work for the president like, Brooke Rollins, Secretary Brooke Rollins saying this about how to find a meal in the U.S. for three bucks. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BROOKE ROLLINS, AGRICULTURE SECRETARY: We've run over a thousand simulations. It can cost around $3 a meal for a piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, you know, corn tortilla, and one other thing. And so, there is a way to do this that actually will save the average American consumer money.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So "The Wall Street Journal" went to grocery stores in two cities. This is what they write, Boston, New Orleans. They tried to look for a meal that the Agriculture Secretary Rollins described at that price. They say that it was doable, but you can see in that picture there. And by the way, that is way more than a single piece of broccoli, not necessarily very filling.
I mean, Bryan, I'm sorry to keep coming back to you, but I mean, how is this not out of touch?
LANZA: It is. Right. I think it was an error on her part. Like I said, at the end of the day, the president and his team have a message. Get -- energy is cheaper today than it was in the Joe Biden. You know, milk is cheaper. Some of these core products that the American people use are cheaper. There are some products that need to catch up, but they're not making any message of how actually there has been an improvement from Joe Biden.
The American people want more, though. They don't just want a minimal improvement, they want to see drastic improvement. And that's where I think you see the delay in the support for him.
ANDERSON: One of the things that's holding Donald Trump's numbers up a bit and is why the comparisons to sort of late stage Biden presidency still makes Trump look a little bit good by comparison, is that at that point, Biden had lost even his own party. It was hard for even them to say, we think the economy is good. Everything is fine, la, la, la, la, la.
But for right now, Republicans, many of them, even if they wish Trump would go further, a lot of them still have faith that things will turn around. They haven't yet concluded, oh, this is a failure. This was a mistake. They still believe that there are things that are a lot better than they were a year ago, and that the things that haven't turned around, they still have hope that they will.
The question is, by the time you get to November, is that still the case?
HINOJOSA: Well, I also think that the reason that his own party was also just hesitant is because a lot of them also didn't think that he should run, right? Right now, you don't have -- well, I think the White House wants Donald Trump on the ballot this midterm election and said he's going to campaign everywhere. He needs to be on the road for everybody, which I don't think is probably a good idea.
HUNT: I think Mike Lawler --
HINOJOSA: I don't think he would like that.
The reality is, is that they know that they're going to get a change in a president, and they will be able to vote for J.D. Vance or someone else.
So they're willing to give them the -- him the benefit of the doubt right now. But it doesn't look like the American people will. And how does that translate in November, with votes to the rest of the Republican Party?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I mean, I just stuck on like, that plate of food, which is absolutely disgusting. And also this is like, now this I mean, I don't want to eat that. And I like tortillas, but like, no, thank you, I don't want broccoli with like, chicken, like, what is that?
(CROSSTALK)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: At least get -- at least get -- yeah. Get some beans in there. Get something some salsa like -- gosh, anything but that. That's the first thing. But the second thing is like now part two of this austerity thing that
they have tried to push. I mean, you've heard Donald Trump repeatedly say you don't get a lot of dolls. You only get one pencil.
I mean, you know, this message that somehow the American people who are not known for enjoying austerity, who are not known for trying to kind of pull back on what they want to buy, I don't think is a winning message.
HUNT: Kristen --
[16:40:00]
ANDERSON: Let them eat broccoli.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Let them eat broccoli.
ANDERSON: That's not your campaign slogan.
HUNT: You heard it here first, guys. The new the new slogan.
Kristen, what is your sense of -- you know, when we dug in, when we when we pulled this poll together, I mean, when you see what people's priorities are, right? It is the economy. And then it's everything else way down below.
I mean, how much do you think any of these other issues, whether were talking about, you know, ICE protests on the street, those tactics, what the president is doing overseas, how much does any of that matter?
ANDERSON: I mean, I think it matters insofar as it creates this general sense of, we have a president who's very active, for better or worse. And that's a big difference than we saw maybe a year or two ago. But what -- it also creates a risk of is, on the one hand, voters want you to focus on cost of living any minute you're focused on something else. Is that considered a distraction or is that considered you're an active, vigorous president who can walk and chew gum at the same time?
I think there's a risk if it's not just I'm doing this and this and this, I'm doing maybe my three core priorities, but it is that I am all over the place, everywhere, doing everything. And it's unfocused. Then you can lose what used to be a real advantage for Trump. People thought, oh, he's good at the economy thing. And this poll is, as many others in the last few months have shown, he's lost that advantage.
HUNT: Yeah, really significant change.
All right. Coming up next here, after years of campaigning for one, President Trump finally got his hands on a Nobel Peace Prize, or at least he got his hands on someone else's. Why Venezuela's opposition leader says she gifted the president her prestigious award.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIMMY KIMMEL, COMEDIAN: Trump loves awards. He -- really giving him an award? It's the only way to get him to do anything.
And with that said, Mr. President, I have an offer I think you're going to find difficult to refuse if you and only if you agree to pull ICE out of Minneapolis and put them back at the borders where they belong, I am prepared to offer you one of the following trophies that I have been honored with over the years. First off --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:46:31]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KIMMEL: Rarely does a president yank a Nobel prize off of someone's neck. He's -- you know, he's back in the oval office sucking on it like a pacifier right now.
JIMMY FALLON, COMEDIAN: Trump met with Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado. We actually got our hands on audio from their meeting. Oh, yeah. Check this out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, Machado, give me the Nobel Prize.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: First, I'd like to discuss the ramifications of --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Give it to me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But first, we should --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gimme, gimme.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, sir --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Me wanting --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sir --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In my handy. Give it away, give it away, give it away now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If we could just you --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got what I need. The Nobel Prize.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: First, I'm hoping.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gimme, gimme, gimme a prize from your pocket.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Okay, fine. Here you go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yay
(END VIDEO CLIP) HUNT: Late night hosts poking fun at the fact that President Trump finally got his hands on a Nobel Peace Prize. Except, of course, it wasn't directly awarded to him by the Nobel Committee. Instead, it was the Venezuelan opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, who gifted her prize to the president yesterday, hoping to curry favor with him as he weighs Venezuela's future.
Now, if you are wondering if the prize is in fact transferable, it is not. That is according to the Nobel Committee. They put out a statement today saying this, quote, "even if the medal or diploma later comes into someone else's possession, this does not alter who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize."
It seems obvious, no? President, however, doesn't seem fazed by the formality at all. He was asked today why he would accept someone else's award. And here's what he said
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Yesterday, you accepted Maria Machado's Nobel Prize medal. What do you intend to do with it, and why would you want someone else's Nobel Prize?
TRUMP: Well, she offered it to me. I thought it was very nice. She said, you know, you've added eight wars and nobody deserves this prize more than in history than you do. And I thought it was a very nice gesture. And by the way, I think she's a very fine woman. And we'll be talking again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Brian, this to you again? I mean, I'm reminded of all the -- all the people who said, like, we were, you know, giving little kids too many soccer trophies just for participating and how this is going to make all of our children weaker.
LANZA: Yeah. I would say, first of all, it's a very generous gift and a gesture. But also, keep in mind, like Donald Trump has, you know, World Series rings that Yankees players have gifted to him. You know, a gift is a gift. He clearly takes --
HUNT: But that doesn't mean that Trump played on the team that won the world, like he didn't win a World Series.
LANZA: I don't think he's walking around saying, I won a Nobel Peace Prize. I think he's very appreciative of the gift he received.
She clearly Machado sees value in handing it to them. Very smart play on her part. She knows that, you know, these types of things need to take place when Donald Trump traveled to the Middle East, it was a big extravaganza. During Trump won, he was in China.
So world leaders and she hopefully becomes a world leader knows some of these things take place. And by the way, it happens with all countries. You know, other president's receive gifts. Biden received gifts. It's just -- it's a normal thing. HUNT: Yeah.
HINOJOSA: I would say I -- he did not receive a gift like this, but also I just -- I also just want to point out that it is now the norm. If you are -- it's not only just foreign leaders, it is also CEOs have to come with some sort of gold plated gift in order to get something from Donald Trump, because that is the man that he is. He is someone who wants to see someone. He wants someone to kiss the ring. That's what he wants.
LANZA: I've been to plenty of presidential libraries where there's gifts from world leaders and CEOs. That's what they do. Everybody comes in to endear themselves in the Oval Office.
[16:50:02]
It's just that we cover it a little bit differently.
HINOJOSA: Donald Trump expects it every time, if you want to get.
LANZA: I've never bought him a gift.
HUNT: Let's watch a little bit more of Jimmy Kimmel from last night because he, too, had an offering of a gift to the president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KIMMEL: Trump loves awards. He really -- he giving him an award? It's the only way to get him to do anything. And with that said, Mr. President, I have an offer I think you're going to find difficult to refuse. If you and only if you agreed to pull ICE out of Minneapolis and put them back at the borders where they belong, I am prepared to offer you one of the following trophies that I have been honored with over the years. First off --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: An Emmy on the right.
I mean, I don't know, Lulu, I guess if this is enough, you know, there's that meeting with the CIA director as well. If this is enough to earn Machado the support of the administration, to the point that she then -- is in charge of her country, perhaps that's a gift worth giving.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Let me. This has been fun, but let me actually say the serious thing, which is this is a woman who now has to go back. She was in hiding for most of the time that she was there. If this gets her actually the protection of the United States, she's not targeted and that she can actually walk freely. And, you know, lead her country even while she's not the leader of her country. I think it is a gift worth giving. And she clearly made that calculation. I'll also say that, you know, it's made of gold, like real gold. So, it's kind of valuable.
HUNT: Gold is very expensive. GARCIA-NAVARRO: Gold is very expensive. So, it's a nice gift.
HUNT: Kristen Soltis Anderson, how do you look at this, considering the lens through which you often view the world? I mean, this in some ways, you know, I think the question I keep turning over in my head, and we touched on it a little bit earlier in the show, this question of the president being out of touch, right? Being interested in gold objects and awards and putting gold on the White House walls and building the ballroom, et cetera. While Americans are struggling economically.
ANDERSON: But I think there is a difference. That's not to say that I think it's great that this woman felt that she needed to give this up in order to be protected in her own country. I don't think that's a very healthy dynamic.
But at the same time, I think there are other things like, I'm going to put my name on this building that is a living memorial to a beloved deceased president that are, like, more distasteful in the eyes of the average person because they're just completely disconnected from real achievements. I mean, it is an achievement that right now Maduro is not in charge of Venezuela.
And so, you know, there's an element of which, yes, I think the whole thing that she feels she even needs to give this is, is an unhealthy dynamic. But it is a focus on an issue where a good thing has happened and that we're even having a conversation.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: The Venezuelan people are grateful to Donald Trump.
ANDERSON: So I do think its of a different category than some of these other things that are the egocentric eye rolling, I can't believe this is happening kind of thing.
HUNT: Well, let's watch a little bit of Machado on Fox, because she did talk about this moment. She called it emotional. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARIA CORINA MACHADO, VENEZUELAN OPPOSITION LEADER: He deserves it. And, it was a very emotional moment. I decided to present the Nobel Peace Prize medal on behalf of the people of Venezuela.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: I mean, Xochitl, that speaks to a little bit of what Lulu was saying, right? That her country is materially different because of an action the president took, and that was why she did it.
HINOJOSA: Yeah. I mean, that's absolutely right. The Venezuelan people are thrilled about this. Either there -- either people here in the United States, Venezuelans in the United States, or there, that's absolutely the case. I mean, there's also a backdrop where he's also pardoned an insurrectionist. There's ICE chaos. He hasn't necessarily solved the wars in our country.
And so, it's a complicated picture when it comes to Donald Trump. And he whether he's the peace president.
HUNT: All right. Coming up next here, we've got something totally different. We're throwing it back to, I guess, the good old days, 2016. You might be seeing it in your social feeds, too. We'll explain.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:58:52]
HUNT: All right, thanks to my panel. Really appreciate you guys being here. You and thanks to you at home for watching as well. Don't forget, you can now watch much more of THE ARENA tomorrow. THE ARENA Saturday airs 8:00 a.m. and again at Noon Eastern right here on CNN. I would love to have you join us.
And finally, if you've been on social media lately, you might have noticed things are a little nostalgic. It's not the '80s. It's not the '90s. People have been reminiscing about what are apparently the actual good old days, #2016. Yes, it was 10 years ago. This trend has people posting old pictures of themselves, Snapchat filters and all.
Jake Tapper, these were simpler times. I interviewed libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson at the time. This is what happened in the mile of the interview. Again, simpler times, I guess.
I don't know, I got to -- I got to swing on the swings. When I was covering Bernie Sanders, I mostly worked all of 2016. Your kids were so little.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST, "THE LEAD": Yeah. 2016. My kids are now 18 and 16. So ten years ago they were eight and six. See how good I am at math? And there we are at the movies. I think we want to see a movie that was like a knockoff of cars called "Planes". But that's --
HUNT: You have no idea how many times I've seen that movie. Dusty Crophopper, you can go see him at the Air and Space Museum.
TAPPER: Yeah, it's not a very -- it's not a very good movie, but that was -- that was one of the many. I say, oh, here I am with at the CNN grill at the -- I think I forget if this is the Democratic or the Republican convention, but you see a Robert Smigel there with Triumph, and here's Stephen Colbert doing some sort of Hunger Games thing.
Again, I forget if this is the Democratic or the Republican convention, but that's how long ago it was. Is it Stephen Colbert could have been at either convention and, you know, whatever, but --
HUNT: I have no idea. I know Triumph, the comic dog would come chase me around on Capitol Hill after Trump won that election.
TAPPER: So funny.
HUNT: Here we are.
TAPPER: All right, Kasie.
HUNT: Anyway, have a great show.
TAPPER: Thanks so much.
