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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt

Has Trump Gone Too Far?; Trump To Iran Protesters: "Help Is On Its Way"; Dem Senate Candidate: Religious Right Uses Christianity For "Control"; Drudge Publishes First Report On Clinton-Lewinsky Affair; RFK Jr. Says Trump Has Unhealthy Eating Habits. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired January 17, 2026 - 08:00   ET

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

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[08:00:43]

KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. Welcome to The Arena Saturday. It's wonderful to have you with us.

Has President Donald Trump, how many times have we asked this, finally gone too far? On the streets of Minneapolis, we are seeing repeated scenes of clashes between federal agents and protesters. On Capitol Hill, we've seen a rare break with prominent Republicans voicing support for Jerome Powell amid the DOJ's criminal investigation into the Fed chair and criticizing the president for his open desire to annex or potentially invade or at least somehow acquire Greenland. One GOP congressman even saying that if the president were to follow through on his threat to take Greenland by force, it, quote, "would be the end of his presidency," end quote. All of this raising the possibility that something could be changing or is changing, that it's not just a few Republicans but Americans across the country who tell us that they're souring on the president's policies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What's happening in this country is wrong and it has to end.

SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI (R-AK): To use the word, the name Greenland in the context of a war powers resolution to me is absolutely stunning.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): Going through on its provocation would be more disastrous for the president's legacy than withdrawing from Afghanistan was for his predecessor.

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): I know Chairman Powell very well. I will be stunned, I will be shocked if he has done anything wrong.

REP. TOM COLE (R-OK): If there's nothing there, and I would hope and think there is nothing there, then you know, this is destabilizing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, we just want to support Minnesota, support our immigrant community and get ICE out of our streets.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right, my panelists here in The Arena. We're joined by the host of the interview podcast from the New York Times, CNN contributor Lulu Garcia-Navarro, CNN's Washington Bureau Chief and Political Director David Chalian, CNN political commentator, veteran of many a Democratic campaign, Paul Begala, along with former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien. Welcome to all of you. Thank you very much for being here this morning.

David Chalian, we have asked this question over and over and over again about Donald Trump since he stepped onto the stage in 2015, in a very real way, it obviously has never been true that Donald Trump has gone too far. We thought he went too far in January 6th and he was reelected by the American people. But we have new polling data this week at CNN that shows that this time, actually, Americans may be even souring on him in the places where they were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt before. Explain.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes, that's one of the interesting findings from our poll. And I don't know if we'll ever come up with answer to the question of has he gone too far? What we do have is a snapshot of where he is right now, and it's not a good place. Politically for him, to your point, he's at 39 percent overall approval rating in our poll. But what he experienced in his first term was that he had strong suits that where he overperformed his overall approval.

So on the economy, he was always. His ratings on the management of the economy in its first term, always overshot where he was in his overall approval. At the beginning of this term, just less than a year ago, immigration was this category for him. It was a strong suit. It overshot where he went, there's nothing like that.

He is underwater on every single issue we tested. And every issue we tested kind of looks like his dismal approval rating. It's in that low 40, upper 30 area.

HUNT: Well, let's look at just views on the success or failure of President Trump's first term. Fifty-eight percent of Americans telling CNN that the first year of his second term is a failure. I mean, Paul Begala, that's not a number that wins Republicans elections.

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No, no, it's not. And as an American citizen, I hope he sees this as a chance for a course correction. I really do. If he succeeds, we succeed. I tend to doubt it, though.

He seems to not be very interested in changing course and correcting course. And so we'll have an election. It's 11 months away. But right now, my Democrats, not because of anything they're doing, because of what Trump is doing and failing to do, they're going to win a landslide. It's going to be a wave.

[08:05:00] I said this six months ago and I stand by it, more than 40 seats in the House will go to Democrat. And again, it's not, I love my party, it's not that they're doing so much that's so great, it's that people want a brake pedal. You have the House and the Senate and the White House in one party's hands that always leads to a correction. It did for Clinton, Bush, Obama, it will for Trump. But on top of that, these policies on the economy, these border raids, not border raids, these ICE raids in Minnesota, a long way from the border, when you have Joe Rogan, the most popular podcaster in America who's a Trump supporter, he called those ICE raids like the Gestapo.

HUNT: Yes. Let me pause you, because we can play that. Let's show our audience exactly what Paul was talking about. Watch.

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JOE ROGAN, HOST, "THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE": You don't want militarized people in the streets just roaming around, snatching people up, many of which turn out to actually be U.S. citizens. They just don't have their papers on them. Are we really going to be the Gestapo? Where's your papers? Is that what we've come to?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Pretty remarkable coming from him.

BEGALA: When in the Vietnam War, Lyndon Johnson knew he was through when Walter Cronkite went on television. Back when CBS had a news division, they had this great guy, Walter Cronkite, and he went on and attacked the war in Vietnam, said we can't win. And Johnson told his aides, if I've lost Cronkite, I've lost America. Well, today, if Trump has lost Rogan, he's lost America.

Do you think that's right, Bill?

BILL STEPIEN, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Well, your team back in the '90s talked about the economy, right? I think this goes way back to not just the issue of the moment with Joe Rogan. This is affordability. This is Republicans not talking enough, not vocally enough about the tax bill. You saw disastrous results in Virginia and New Jersey in 2025.

They're now starting to understand it's a midterm election. Let's get on the road. You see Zeldin, Greer Duffy on the road this week, Trump in Detroit. That's what they needed to do more of. Talk about the successes.

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: But the message is all over the place, it's part of the problem. You know, Democrats have had this problem under Biden, and now we're seeing it migrate to the Republican Party. There isn't a message that they're coalescing around because on the one hand, you have health care being a huge advantage for Democrats and even the messaging on this coming from Republicans in is very problematic because what can they say, yes, we didn't give you Obamacare subsidies and we're going to come up with something else that we actually have to vote through Congress. The problem, again, with affordability, you're talking about the tax cuts. Well, you know, tax cuts are something that, you know, happen once a year.

People get happy about them, but then that goes away. It doesn't really help people's bottom line. And so -- and then the president always is moving on to the next thing. There is nothing in this White House that they can just kind of push the ball forward and say, look what we're doing on this, this is great. He's onto Venezuela.

He's on to invading Greenland. He's onto, like ICE and you know, saying that the Insurrection Act is going to come to Minnesota in the center of the country. Like, there is nothing that we can focus on to say, all right, this is what this government is doing.

CHALIAN: Yes, that's to Bill's point, which sounds more hopeful and wishful of what you would like to see the party doing, what is happening, because while those folks may be out on the road and he went to Detroit this week, it was all about Minnesota, Venezuela and Greenland this week. It wasn't about what he said in Detroit --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And also him (ph) flipping off a voter.

CHALIAN: And -- yes. And we heard Susie Wiles, you know, say the chief of staff in the vote, like, we got to turn to the economy. This is like -- what you're saying is obviously true. I mean, the other finding in our poll that I find so astounding is that nearly 2/3 of Americans in our poll say the president doesn't have the right priorities. I mean, so it's -- you -- he is not, to your point, about driving a message.

We're just not seeing him aligned right now with where the American people are. And so even when they in fits and starts do this, there doesn't seem to be a commitment to it.

HUNT: Well, and Bill, I mean, you've been in rooms where people have tried to convince Donald Trump to do something. How easy is that as a task?

STEPIEN: Yes, I mean, he's not an I feel your pain kind of guy. And I think that's a big part of the issue here. He is reacting this week on policies we may not agree with him on the set, health care, credit card rates, mortgage rates, energy, just this week. So he may not be the sympathetic ear or shoulder, if you will. But, but the policy mechanisms, he's trying to get them revved up in this election year.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And a warning to Democrats. Actually, I think, Paul, you're right in the sense that it's not actually something that Democrats are doing. They're benefiting from some of this. But the warning here also is that they get distracted, too, and try and play whack a mole with the president's policies. And we do see that in Minnesota with the issue of immigration. Americans are very clear, I think, they want to have their finances and their pocketbook dealt with.

And that is where the Democrats see the most advantage. And if they start talking about all these other issues, too, they're going to face the same difficulties.

BEGALA: Exactly right.

[08:10:00]

HUNT: All right. We got a lot more to talk about this morning. Coming up here in The Arena, new advice from a prominent Democrat prompting a debate within the party. What James Talarico says about winning back a group of voters that haven't supported Democrats in decades. But first, the president wading into another international conflict, telling protesters in Iran that help is on its way.

Is it?

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Who knows, right? Who knows? Crazy world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[08:15:07]

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have they crossed your red line or has the line moved?

TRUMP: I haven't heard about the hanging. If they hang them, you're going to see some things that I don't know what your -- where you come from and what your thought process is, but you'll perhaps be very happy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you mean by that?

TRUMP: We will take very strong action if they do such a thing. We will take very strong action.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: President Trump there facing questions about the red line that he drew for himself amid the deadly crackdown on protesters in Iran. He still insists all options are on the table, even though on Friday he said that for now he's, quote, convinced himself to hold off on military action, perhaps learning from some of his predecessors. It's not all always a great idea to spell out exactly where your red line is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, 44TH U.S. PRESIDENT: We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you have a red line? For instance, would invasion of Rafah, would you have urged him not to do, would that be a red line?

JOE BIDEN, 46TH U.S. PRESIDENT: Is a red line. But I'm never going to leave Israel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So Trump has urged protesters to continue fighting as he weighs his options against Tehran. Brings us to our quote of the week. The president wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday, quote, "help is on the way. MIGA," exclamation point times three. That's make Iran great again for folks back home.

But is it?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You urged protesters in Iran earlier this week to keep fighting in the streets and said that help was on the way. Is help still on the way or has your (inaudible) --

TRUMP: Well, we're going to see. As you know, Iran canceled the hanging of over 800 people. They were going to hang over 800 people yesterday. And I greatly respect the fact that they canceled that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: David Chalian this is, of course, something that felt like it was teetering right on the edge right midweek this past week, it seems to have stepped a little bit away from the brink. But in some ways I'm left feeling unclear about what exactly it is that's driving the president here.

CHALIAN: In many ways, yes, I would say. But I want to separate things out here that the politics of establishing a red line and then backing away from it and being seen as potentially weak or indecisive, that's one thing. I actually want to give the president credit here because I don't think we should always be having somebody walk up, promise military action if facts on the ground change or if they're getting some players in the region to make the case. Having the president be able to adjust his thinking, I think we would want to see that in every kind of president. So we shouldn't be sort of like cheering on, always crossing red lines.

I do think though, you raised the critical question, which is I don't think Donald Trump has made the case at all to the American people yet about what is driving his thinking of why he would want to go in to Iran attack, what kind of support the protesters want. Does he want to build a sort of a new democratic style government in Iran, which seems like a, a fool's errand in many ways. So I think if he's going to move to a place where he is going to take action, he has a lot of explaining to do to bring the country along.

HUNT: Lulu this is obviously not a new conversation. Regime change in Iran, right? It dates back obviously to the revolution. I mean, it's been an issue in presidential campaigns over and over again. I mean, let's look back at 2007 when John McCain was asked about this and had this answer. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I guess my question is how many times do we have to prove that these people are blowing up people. Now, never mind if they get a nuclear weapon, when do we send them an airmail message to Tehran?

JOHN MCCAIN, FORMER SENATOR: In that old -- that old Beach Boy song, "Bomb, Iran," bomb, bomb, bomb, anyway.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Both simpler times and something else, Lulu. But I mean, look, this has been one of the fundamental questions in our foreign policy for decades now. It has been very difficult to resolve. We obviously had the president take decisive action against the nuclear program to, you know, much criticism from Democrats that, you know, in many ways has not borne out in the time since. You've covered the region.

You understand a lot of the complexities here. How do you look at what the president's options are, considering the facts on the ground?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I mean, one of the things that has been so fascinating to me is that the President's hand seems to have been stayed by the regional actors that are our allies in the region, that Israel, and that is some of the emirates and others there, including Saudi Arabia, who don't want to see Iran more destabilized or perhaps take action against them.

[08:20:23]

So this is again, always such a complicated story in the Middle East because whatever you do has massive knock on effects to other regional players in a part of the world that has a lot of problems in it. And so I think there are no easy answers to the Iranian problem. But what you will hear from people in the region is the Iranian regime is the most vulnerable it's ever been. It's ever been. And we know that because of its actions there.

They are doing things there under the cover of darkness. They have blacked out the country to the Internet. They want to make sure that nobody sees what they're doing. And there is opposition to the regime in a way that we've never seen before.

Now, I think this is an unfolding story. I don't think what Donald Trump is doing now is the last word.

HUNT: Bill, there's been a lot of questions about America First, right? And the way the president campaigned versus his actions here. This seems particular like to be probably the highest stakes of these various decisions that he's made. Would you disagree with that?

STEPIEN: America First is not America only, right? I think he campaigned three times against endless wars, countless lives, countless dollars, countless years. He's being very methodical here, right? He is consulting with allies, diplomats are diplomating. He's issuing -- he's issuing stern warnings.

HUNT: (Inaudible)

STEPIEN: All the while he's strategically deploying resources in the region. So remember back in June, he was accused of being non- committal, wishy washy back and forth and he rained hell on Iran just a couple days later. So I think there's a lot to be -- to be written here.

HUNT: Very quick last word.

BEGALA: First, I'm glad we found a place where Trump thinks shooting peaceful protesters is wrong. I wish he would apply that same standard in Minneapolis. That said, and I can't stand Trump, I want strength and he's showing strength. The only thing that those bandits in Tehran understand is strength. And he's showing that.

I like the ambiguity. But also he has, believe me, he has a national security apparatus below the radar that I hope is affecting things on the ground.

HUNT: All right, fair enough. All right, coming up here in The Arena, into the archives on the anniversary of that bombshell headline, it broke online at a time when the Internet was basically not yet a thing. But first, could Democrats actually loosen the grip that Republicans have on evangelical and Christian voters? One Senate candidate's new advice for his party.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES TALARICO, (D) TEXAS STATE REPRESENTATIVE: Religion is being used to control people and accumulate power and wealth for those at the top. This is a tale as old as time, and it is not unique to Christianity. Powerful people will always see religion as a tool to make more money and be able to keep people in line.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[08:27:32]

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TALARICO: I can't tell you how many, you know, e-mails or messages I get with people telling me to stop all the religious talk because it makes them uncomfortable. And I get that. And I try to be -- I try to be as sensitive as I can be to the religious trauma in this country and I understand where people are coming from when they feel that way. But it is who I am. I can't be anybody else.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: That's James Talarico. He is the Texas state representative, U.S. Senate candidate, doing what arguably put him on the political map, talking openly about his Christian faith and giving his thoughts on how his fellow Democrats can bring religious voters back under their tent. Donald Trump has seen his support only grow among evangelical voters since 2016, winning them by an average of 22 points in the last three presidential elections. Joe Biden did have a rare narrow victory with Catholic voters in 2020. He was elected as only the second Catholic president since John F. Kennedy.

But if Democrats want to start loosening the grip that Republicans have on Protestant and Christian voters, Talarico, who's the grandson of a Baptist preacher and is right now studying to become a minister, has some blunt advice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TALARICO: Our national party is pretty condescending to people. Here's an example, you always hear this, especially if you, you know, are out on the coasts, you know, why do all these people vote against their material interests? You've heard that before, I'm sure. Such a condescending thing to say to somebody. It's acting like they don't know how to make decisions for their own lives.

They don't know what they need. People have cultural interests, they have personal interests, they have material -- they have spiritual interests, and the Democratic Party culturally, in many ways, has become hostile to some of these cultural values in red states.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Paul Begala, this -- James Talarico is in your -- you're a Texan.

BEGALA: I am.

HUNT: You understand the landscape, what he's talking about there. What -- how did you react to that idea when he's saying, well, Democrats are condescending to voters and that's part of why Christian voters are not.

BEGALA: Absolutely. It's completely right. He's -- all my career, why do these people vote against their economic interest? You know what? JB Pritzker votes against his economic interest, and we think he's noble.

He's a billionaire who supports higher taxes on billionaire. Oh, that's noble. But if a poor person decides, OK, I know the Republicans won't raise my minimum wage, but they reflect my values better, I'll vote for them, we condescend to her. I think Talarico is exactly right.

[08:30:00]

He is speaking a language I think Texans will understand as to quote another Texan, George W. Bush, that will resonate with the people of Texas.

I think he's terrific. Democrats haven't won a statewide race in 31 years in my beloved home state. I think Rico can be the first. HUNT: Bill Stepien, I mean, when you see candidates like that, I mean, how do you think about whether, I mean, is he the right kind of voice to make Republicans nervous in a place like Texas?

STEPIEN: I hope Democrats spend a lot of money behind his candidacy. 1994, to your point, last statewide one for a Democrat. I think Democrats do a great job every six years or eight years of finding that next big thing in Texas, like Betty O'Rourke.

He's right. Right. I think the number you didn't show is since '08 to 2024, Trump picked up 42 points among Hispanic Catholics over John McCain. He's smart to put his finger on the pulse here. It's not going to matter in November if he makes it through the primary, but he's smart.

HUNT: David Chalian, I want to play a little bit more of what Talarico said about basically Christianity and our politics, how it -- it does or doesn't play into things. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TALARICO: These politicians want a Christian nation unless it means providing health care to the sick or funding food assistance for the hungry or raising the minimum wage for the poor. And so it seems like they want to base our laws on the Bible until they read the words of Jesus.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: There is -- there is something to the idea of Donald Trump being an Old Testament guy versus being a New Testament guy.

CHALIAN: You know, I think when Talarico first appeared on the scene nationally and could do long podcasts and talk so authentically about his faith, there was this Democratic conversation about, oh, this is the playbook of how Democrats should talk about faith.

But you can't do that unless it's authentically who you are, which it is for him. So this particular candidate being able to try and reframe what Christianity means in terms of policies and politics, it works for him. I don't think that you're going to see a whole bunch of Democratic candidates go out and try to sing from this songbook if it's not authentic to who they are. But this is a wise thing, a wise space for him to be in because it's so part of his entire being.

HUNT: Lulu, what is your sense of how the challenges that Democrats have experienced in recent years can basically be summed up as you can't really be culturally conservative and vote Democrat anymore in a way that you may perhaps have felt more welcome in the past.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes, I think the divisions have become too deep. And, you know, I think there's a big progressive Christian tradition in this country, and especially among Catholicism. I mean, I don't know if you've just noticed that the Council of Bishops came out with a very strong message against Donald Trump's immigration policy. So there are places where faith traditions in this country definitely

skew perhaps what would be considered left, although you would just say that they are New Testament, you know, and very much in the vein of Jesus.

Now, in terms of what the Democratic Party needs to do to reach out to those voters, I think there has been just a huge vein of condescension in this country. And part of that has to do with where the Democratic Party has found its base now. And those are educated, those tend to be atheists, and those tend to be people who live on the coasts.

And so the Republican Party has found a rich vein in patriotism, in faith, in all of these, what would be called traditional American values that the Democratic Party seems to have sort of pushed away from. And I think Talarico raising that up again is only to the good of the Democratic Party. But I do think that it's a very complicated issue in this country because of the word he used, religious trauma.

Right. Because religion has been used in this country as a cudgel. And so I think a lot of voters find themselves maybe on the left running away from it.

HUNT: All right, coming up next here in The Arena, how a little known website at that time opened the floodgates for one of the biggest presidential scandals of the 20th century.

Plus, you want to hear this? What the Health and Human Services secretary is saying about the president's health.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., HHS SECRETARY: He eats really bad food, which is McDonald's, and then, you know, candy and Diet Coke, but he drinks a Diet Coke at all times. He has a constitution of a deity. I don't know how he's alive, but he is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[08:39:13]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL CLINTON, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again. I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie. Not a single time. Never. These allegations are false and I need to go back to work for the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: The most consequential sex scandal basically in U.S. history took off 28 years ago today when a 30-year-old former CBS gift shop clerk turned journalist, Matt Drudge published the following headline on his website, the Drudge Report. Quote, Newsweek Kills Story on White House intern: 23-year-old sex Relationship with President.

[08:40:05]

That simple banner, that page looks like that today launched us firmly into a digital era in which any man with a modem could break international news. It caused the second ever impeachment of United States president. But it also transformed lives, none more so than that of then 23-year-old Monica Lewinsky, who of course then endured a lifetime of infamy and ridicule.

In the wake of the affair, Lewinsky was parodied on Saturday Night Live. She was all over the tabloids. By her count, she was eventually mentioned in over 125 rap songs. Two decades later, Lewinsky is working to reclaim her narrative and helping others who have faced the same public scrutiny.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MONICA LEWINSKY, ACTIVIST: There was a creation of a version of me that I didn't recognize and my friends and family didn't recognize. And that's what happens when you have a power imbalance in a story. I think there was so much collateral damage for women of my generation to watch a young woman to be pilloried on the world stage, to be torn apart from my sexuality, for my mistakes, for my everything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Paul Begala, we've of course resurrected a chapter of your life that was before my time. Can you take us back to that period? Because I mean, history has kind of evolved and how it looks at Monica Lewinsky, but it was really a time.

BEGALA: Well, there was a time when it was a consensual affair and a scandal. Today we have a man who was elected president after a court of law found him liable for sexually abusing, not a consensual sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll and then defaming her. So times have really changed.

Here's the thing. At the height of the impeachment, Bill Clinton's favor was 73. Why? Did people approve of an affair with a much younger woman and then lying about it? Not at all. Not at all. Two things are what pushed him up to 73. And it was first the sense that he was on their side, that he was in there working for them. And he would say this every day. He would say, if I make this about their problems instead of mine, we will both better off. Right?

He'd say that in private, he'd say it in public.

HUNT: In case anyone had wondered how much time you spent talking to Bill Clinton.

BEGALA: Even in that bite, when he's not telling the truth, he is telling the truth at the end where he says, I got to get back to work for the American people. This is something that all of y'all were Talking about earlier, about Mr. Trump, the sense that voters now have that he's in it for himself and not for you. Voters thought Clinton was fighting for them despite his problems.

The second thing, though, was his opponents overreached. They impeached him for something that should have been punished with shame. They impeached him, and they destroyed Monica Lewinsky's life. And people did not like that. And I think that's, to me, the lesson I took out of this.

CHALIAN: I'm so glad, Kasie, that you showed Monica today. I think it's, like, one of the greatest. I'm a big fan of her podcast called Reclaiming. I listen to it often. She and I are exactly the same age.

This scandal of the story is what, like, birthed my career in terms of, like, wanting to do this work of political journalism.

HUNT: We can explore that in therapy later.

CHALIAN: But I'm just -- because it was -- it was all consuming and. And there are few things that when history sort of goes this way and somebody's reputation gets so tarnished like this that they're able to revive it in today's world.

And Monica Lewinsky has done so brilliantly, starting 10 years ago, whenever her TED Talk was, when she started doing this work about online bullying and kept at it to make sure that she reclaimed her story beyond anything that people associated with her. And I just think you don't see that often. And I give her a ton of credit.

HUNT: Yes, no, you know, I'm glad that you -- you outline it that way because, you know, as were thinking through what this moment, this historical moment means now, that's such a big part of it, and I think you can really see it in these two different clips of Monica Lewinsky.

The first that I want to show you is from -- it's a very famous interview. I'm sure Paul remembers it well that she did with Barbara Walters. Let's watch that first, and then we can take a look at the way that she's reclaiming herself on that TED Talk stage. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEWINSKY: There have been some nights where I have just stayed awake crying, thinking about how -- how am I ever going to have any sense of normalcy again in my life? There's some days that I regret that the relationship ever started, and there's some days that I just regret that I ever confided in Linda Tripp.

BARBARA WALTERS, TV HOST: Monica, are you still in love with Bill Clinton?

LEWINSKY: No.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:45:05]

HUNT: That really takes you back to that moment. Let's fast forward in time. OK. Years later, here's Monica Lewinsky in more modern recent times.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEWINSKY: Anyone who is suffering from shame and public humiliation needs to know one thing. You can survive it. I know it's hard. It may not be painless, quick or easy. But you can insist on a different ending to your story. Have compassion for yourself. We all deserve compassion. And to live both online and off in a more compassionate world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: It's a pretty remarkable arc.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: It is. All hail Monica Lewinsky. And I'll say we live in an era not of 15 minutes of fame, but 15 minutes of shame. We will go through being pilloried and she has showed us the way out of that.

HUNT: All right, coming up next here, something totally different. RFK Jr. giving us the skinny on Donald Trump's diet. What he says surprises him. It might surprise you. We'll explain.

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[08:50:52]

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KATIE MILLER, KATIE MILLER PODCAST HOST: Who has the most unhinged eating habits?

KENNEDY: The president. Oh, you know, the interesting thing about the president is that he eats really bad food, which is McDonald's, and then, you know, candy and a Diet Coke. But he drinks the Diet Coke all times. He is the constitution of a deity.

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HUNT: Constitution of a deity. I am sorry, what? Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. there dishing on President Trump's diet. RFK Jr. says that when the president is at the White House or at Mar- a-Lago, he eats, quote, really good food. But when he's traveling, it's a whole different story.

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KENNEDY: He says -- he says that the only time that he eats the junk food is when he's on the road and he wants to eat food from big corporations because he trusts it. If you travel with him, you get this idea that he's just pumping himself full of poison all day long and you don't know how he's walking around, much less being the most energetic person, you know, any of us have ever met.

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HUNT: Pumping himself full of poison. Bill Stepien, is that your experience OF President Trump?

STEPIEN: Man of the people. Man of the people, indeed. What is RFK doing here?

CHALIAN: I don't know what RFK is doing here. I mean, listen, he is trying both to pump up the president and praise him, bizarrely, just because he's trying to do the audience of one thing, but he's actually completely degrading him for his eating habits. So I'm not quite sure what RFK Jr's goal was in that interview, but I certainly am sure he --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: But he's right. But he's right. I mean, I don't know that I ever say these words about a lot of what RFK believes, but in this, I have to say he is right. I mean, you've seen what he eats. It's like burgers and fries and Diet Coke and all this stuff that you're not supposed to be ingesting, especially not as a 79-year-old man.

BEGALA: But he does. So did Bill Clinton. I mean he's a man of the people. I'm more with Bill. It's like -- his problem is not first off, honestly, again, I can't stand the guy. I wish him good health. I wish him safety and security. We all want our President to be healthy, but the fact that he eats McDonald's is like he's got 99 problems. McDonald's is not one of them.

Hamburger. When he took office, hamburger was 554 a pound. It's 668 today. So most folks can't even afford that McDonald's hamburger.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I like the way you did that, Paul. You see were talking about his diet and you brought it right back to the cost of living. Democrats take note.

BEGALA: That's it.

STEPIEN: May have a future in this whole political messaging thing.

HUNT: I was surprised by the cost of a Happy Meal actually, which I do very, very occasionally purchase for my children. But I mean, you know, honestly, the food piece of MAHA. The MAHA movement --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes.

HUNT: -- is onto something.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes. No, I mean, listen. There is not a person in this country that does not believe that there is too much ultra-processed food, you know, in our diet. That a lot of the stuff that's made up, made from is not healthy for us and good for us. Hence why, he was taking the President to task for his dabbling in that kind of cuisine. And that is all I'll say about that.

HUNT: We're near you --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: As a mom, I'm just saying. Donald Trump, fix your diet. HUNT: We're nearing the end of our conversation here, so I'll just

leave you with this. This is a -- this is an AI video that RFK Jr. posted himself -- of himself. There was a raw milk event at the White House. Let's watch a little bit of this.

OK, whatever.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Nice. I said I take it back. What is that? What is that?

[08:55:00]

HUNT: Again, it's -- the trust issue is in some ways undermined by things like this.

CHALIAN: In some ways there's no doubt. And by lots -- lots of other, other things, I mean this is true though. The agenda that RFK Jr. has put forth, there are pieces of it that are really, really popular --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes.

CHALIAN: -- and have real currency. And there are other pieces that I don't think he's ever going to find majority consensus around.

BEGALA: Yes, there's no vaccine against stupid or we give it to Bobby Kennedy tomorrow.

HUNT: Guys, thank you very much for participating in this particular conversation and for the rest of the show. Thanks to all of you at home for watching. You can see The Arena every weekday right here on CNN at 4:00 p.m. Eastern. You can also catching up -- catch up by listening to our podcast follow the show on X and Instagram. We are at The Arena CNN. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. The news continues right here on CNN.

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