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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
CNN Poll: Trump Faces Low Ratings Ahead Of State Of The Union; Ex-U.K. Ambassador To U.S. Arrested Amid Epstein Probe; U.S. Urges Citizens To "Shelter In Place" Amid Violence In Mexico. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired February 23, 2026 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:05]
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Manu Raju live for us on Capitol Hill -- very serious claims. Speaker Johnson is saying about this news about Congressman Gonzalez.
And "THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT" starts right now.
KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone. Welcome to THE ARENA. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's good to have you with us on this Monday.
As we come on the air, President Donald Trump facing significant challenges as he prepares to deliver a pivotal State of the Union Address. Right now, the U.S. markets all closing in the red. The Dow down more than 800 points as investors grapple with the president's decision to raise tariffs to 15 percent.
But it's not just Wall Street that's uneasy right now. A new CNN poll released today finding that just 36 percent of Americans approve of the job President Trump is doing. That is a 12-point drop from just one year ago.
And so the question is, what can the president say tomorrow night to possibly turn those numbers around?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have a country that's now doing well. We have the greatest economy we've ever had. We have the most activity we've ever had. I'm making a speech tomorrow night, and you'll be hearing me say that. I mean, it's going to be a long speech because we have so much to talk about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Fortunately, we do know exactly what the American people want the president to talk about. The new CNN poll finds that by an overwhelming margin, the economy, the cost of living, the single biggest issue that Americans want to hear about tomorrow night, 57 percent said so. Huge gap between that and the next issue on the list.
The problem for the president. Voters are not convinced he's got the right priorities. A stunning 68 percent say President Trump has not paid enough attention to the country's most important problems. That is a 16 percent increase from last February.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Polls for the election that showed I was going to get swamped and I won in a landslide. They were fake polls because polls are tough. You know, when you get a fake poll, I get them today. I saw one today that I'm at 40 percent, 40 percent. I'm not at 40 percent. I'm at much higher than that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Okay. Let's get off the sidelines, head into THE ARENA.
My panel is here. CNN's senior political commentator, former Illinois Congressman Adam Kinzinger; CNN legal analyst, Elliot Williams, Democratic strategist; former senior adviser to the Harris and Biden presidential campaigns, Adrienne Elrod; and CNN senior political commentator, former Trump campaign adviser David Urban.
Welcome to all of you. Thank you so much for being here.
David, fake polls.
DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Fake news, Kasie, fake news. I saw that poll. You know what I saw in that poll that I liked? Eighty-two percent of Republicans still love Donald Trump.
HUNT: Yeah, but that is a significant drop from before.
URBAN: I'd say 82 percent still a big number.
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: That's 82 percent of like 28 percent of the country. It's actually a relatively small number.
URBAN: It was -- it was -- it was. Look, to your point, the numbers look as we all know look we do this for a living, right, polls are snapshot in time and at this time, it's not good for the president, right? The -- he -- the second number on that poll thing, right, first was the economy, second was immigration. Kind of the, you know, the wall kind of thing, right? He solved --
HUNT: Is it the wall or is it ICE raids?
URBAN: Well, ICE raids, it depends. Right? It depends. And that's to a large part what happened. Right?
The president was kind of sailing along pretty nicely. And then this immigration, you know, these incidents happened, right? The two people were -- were killed.
HUNT: More than incidents, the two Americans died, yes.
URBAN: Two people were killed, right? So, right, everybody saw that play out real time in their living rooms. And they, you know, the -- those numbers reflect that. And those numbers reflect the fact that the same thing President Biden dealt with, even though objectively, the economy was kind of moving along Americans didn't feel it right when they put their hand in their pocket to go fill up their tank. They were missing a 20, right?
And so that's what they're feeling right now as well. And so, I think you heard the president talk about this. He's going to have to address it at a very long State of the Union tomorrow.
WILLIAMS: One thing to add to that, too, David, it's not just that people weren't -- weren't feeling what the president was saying. It;s that the president was repeatedly telling them that everything was okay and everything was great, not just that they were --
HUNT: Funny. Who did? Who did that before?
WILLIAMS: Joe Biden and a host of other things as well. No, but I think -- no. And I think --
HUNT: It turns out you can't convince people that their lives aren't the way they feel that they are.
WILLIAMS: And the great sin of politicians is trying -- public safety is a big one, immigration is a big one. Telling people that everything's okay when they don't feel something, it's a failure.
HUNT: Congressman, I want to put up some of these key groups and the difference over the course of the year in our polling. So, independents, we're 41 percent approve of the president back in February of 25. Now, that's a 26 percent.
Young people ages 18 to 34, 41 to 25, Latinos, 41 to 22, Black Americans, 28 to 21 percent. The president obviously made some inroads with those two groups that independents number -- I mean, like, you can't win a general election if your numbers are like that.
[16:05:05]
ADAM KINZINGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You can't. And they're always the first to kind of swing whichever way the winds are blowing. And this is the thing.
So, obviously, Trump and the Republicans did very well with the groups you just put up and surprisingly well in 2024. The problem is I think they got a little arrogant that like this was the new reality. You can see this in the new maps they drew in Texas, for instance, which were based on -- the new congressional maps, which is based on this idea that Latinos are going to still vote how they did in 2024, which puts a number of those actually in play.
You have to go through a number of cycles winning those groups, or at least doing that better to kind of solidify them. And I think they got a little too arrogant about it and jumped on it. And folks are very uncomfortable I think in reality, with what we saw play out in ICE. I mean, there's just no American I know that is ever comfortable with an American being shot by law enforcement, you know, particularly under questionable circumstances. So, I think that's a big deal. And the other thing is just inflation is a really hard thing to grapple with, right? You can bring inflation down, but the prices still stay high. It's not like prices come down and so people have to adjust to higher prices to feel their lives are getting better. And I think that takes a while.
HUNT: Adrienne, what would your advice be to Democrats who are seeing this happen? Right? And could decide honestly, probably to coast to winning the House of Representatives?
ADRIENNE ELROD, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Yeah, I would -- my advice would be to not coast. You got --you've got to have a -- you've got to have a two track system here. You, number one, have to -- of course, hold Trump to account. He's, you know, every day, he's -- he's doing something to make his own numbers go down. It's self-destructive.
But you also have to have, Kasie, that forward looking vision. What are we going to do for the -- for the American people? Obviously, affordability remains a huge issue.
I was -- even with the ICE raids, I was still struck by the 57 percent of Americans who say the economy is the top issue, and then 13 percent on immigration. That is such a huge drop between number one and number two.
So you've got to focus on what -- what will Democrats do when we got -- get any power back, even if it's just the House of Representatives? And maybe, maybe we flip a couple governors' seats? What are we going to actually do to make the lives of the American people better? It can't just be running a negative message on Trump. Youve got to show the people what you're going to do for them.
URBAN: And I think, Kasie, the messaging -- who's the messenger for the Democrats, right? It's a broad spectrum of messengers, right?
ELROD: It's pretty good ones, I'll say.
URBAN: Well, okay --
HUNT: Well, but if you ask who's the leader of the Democratic Party, we don't really have one right now.
ELROD: Right.
URBAN: There is no -- there is no spokesperson, right, because it's a very diverse big tent on the Democratic side, big tent, big, big tent from the Democratic socialists, kind of Mamdani, AOCs, Summer Lees, to more conservatives like in Virginia with Spanberger and others.
HUNT: Well, that's who they've selected to give the response.
URBAN: And I wonder why, right? Because that's what sells, right? And so, depending on who has that message, I think it's going to -- it's going to play --
ELROD: I do agree with you on that, David. But I do think that Democrats and I think that we've sort of -- we've collectively as a party sort of wrap our heads around this, are wrapping our heads around it, which is we don't always have to have one single unified voice who is the spokesperson of the party. We have a chorus of voices from incredible governors to -- including Eric Swalwell, who I know is about to come on. He's running for governor of California to, you know, some of the other 2028 candidates.
We do have some strong voices. So, we have a chorus of people that are speaking on behalf of the party, as opposed to just that one person. That's not the worst thing in the world, not the worst thing in the world.
URBAN: She's a good -- she's good at this.
KINZINGER: This is a big, difficult --
HUNT: She's a professional communicator for a reason.
KINZINGER: As a guy that was in a party that basically had the House but not the presidency it is a very frustrating experience on the messaging side, though, because you try to enact a version of messaging message discipline, which is like, hey, let's go out and hit just these issues because that's what people care about. And of course, every politician that's elected has their own agenda. So, they may want to go out and talk about something that's not particularly popular.
So, in one -- on the one hand, it's beneficial because you do have a variety of messengers. But I will tell you at least my experience as a Republican in the House was it can get very frustrating when some of our friends in the freedom caucus would go out and talk about what they think the agenda should be.
HUNT: Let's watch. Speaking of what the agenda should be, I do want to underscore the point that we have in our poll in terms of what people actually want to hear about, which is the cost of living. We have some voters we pulled together talking about what they want to hear from President Trump when he goes to congress tomorrow to deliver this first State of the Union of his second term. Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPUBLICAN FROM PENNSYLVANIA: The cost of living, the cost of groceries, the cost of gas. It has come down a little bit, but I don't think its come down enough. I'm retired. My wife is retired. We're on a fixed income.
REPUBLICAN FROM OHIO: I would like to see President Trump talk about the economy and cost of living, because it is so difficult at this time to provide.
DEMOCRAT FROM CONNECTICUT: As a retired public school teacher who worked my entire life, I'm struggling in ways I never expected. At 75 years old, everything has become so expensive.
(END VIDEO CLIP) [16:10:00]
HUNT: I mean, David Urban, it does seem like the president owns this problem.
URBAN: Yeah. You know, like, look so structural. There's a lot of this is structural.
Well, what these people, you could tell them this right. Real wage growth is growing right inflation is being kept down. You know, wages are going up. That gap is closing. People have more money in their pocket.
I think the key for this administration is it's got to stick to the knitting on this economy, stick with what they got. Hopefully in this Q1 of 2026, things will start changing.
But those people are the last people to feel it, right, because they don't have -- they're not playing in the equity market, right? So they don't have big portfolios that are swinging up and down. They don't see that. They're living on paycheck to paycheck. That's the tough part.
HUNT: Yeah, the other, of course, piece of this is Democratic plans for they're calling it an alternative State of the Union event. There's some talk about this kind of on the regular when there's a president that's particularly unpopular, the question of should they show up should they not? Usually, the majority of people actually go show up on the House floor to listen to the president talk.
Stephen A. Smith, who's also sort of entered the chat for 2028, weighed in on this question earlier this week. Let's watch what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN A. SMITH, ESPN HOST: Some are talking about walking out in the middle of his speech. Others are talking about boycotting it altogether and essentially finding something else to do. I'm here to tell you that neither is acceptable. At some point in time ladies and gentlemen, there's got to be an adult in the room. If you're going to act as juvenile, as petulant, as petty as you accuse the president of the United States to be, how are you ever going to hold a high moral ground at least high enough to judge him accordingly? This is the kind of stuff that ticks me off.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Well --
URBAN: Front runner for the nomination right there. That's all I got to say.
HUNT: Congressman, what say you?
KINZINGER: Look, I mean, I think you should go to the State of the Union. Be respectful, right, for the office.
I absolutely hated going to the State of the Union every year. I'll be honest with you. Just logistically, it's a pain. It's really hot on the floor, and. And you have all this drama all day of, like, should I stand, should I clap, should I not stand? Are they somebody going to tweet about me?
But I also want to remind people, though, how absolutely disrespectful the Republicans were for Joe Biden. I mean, you remember the Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert with their shirts and their yelling and all that kind of stuff. So I just -- I want to be clear --
HUNT: I remember "you lie" with President Obama.
KINZINGER: Yeah.
HUNT: And that was that far.
KINZINGER: And it took everybody's breath.
URBAN: That was big deal, yeah.
KINZINGER: Yeah, it took everybody's breath away. And now it's not.
So, like my view is go be respectful and then be very aggressive in the messaging afterwards.
WILLIAMS: Yeah. Thank God for the moral political clarity of Stephen A. Smith. But no, but -- you know, it's interesting and I feel like there are echoes of the Republicans after 2012 when there is no standard bearer for the party. It's hard to know how the party should behave for the next couple of years.
And I think there are different approaches that Democrats. There's a big base of the Democratic Party that wants their folks clapping and screaming and going nuts. And there's -- I think and there's other folks that don't. And I just don't think it's clear when you -- this is Kasie's point, when you don't have a clear leader of the party, it's just not clear which --
URBAN: How about we all vote to just get rid of State of the Union?
KINZINGER; I would actually totally --
ELROD: Look, I --
HUNT: Back to a letter.
ELROD: I think -- I think there are a lot of Americans right now who are so disappointed in Trump, including a lot of people who voted for Trump, and they are looking for leadership. And even if we don't have that one singular person who is the head of the Democratic Party, we can show tomorrow night in front of millions of Americans that were not going to be petulant on the floor, that were not going to have these, you know, juvenile tactics. I know that there are some Democratic members who are boycotting the
State of the Union. Fine. But for those who decide to show up I would urge them to just be respectful and just don't stand up. If they're not happy.
KINZINGER: Don't become a story.
ELROD: Yeah, don't become the story. That's not helpful.
KINZINGER: It's going to be a -- I don't think he's going to get a huge bump out of this, just a prediction.
URBAN: Don't rip up the script afterwards?
KINZINGER: Yeah, right.
ELROD: Don't make it, yeah. Don't do anything to help him, right.
HUNT: When -- when Nancy Pelosi did that.
All right. Please do join us right here on CNN tomorrow night for in- depth coverage and analysis. The State of the Union special, live coverage begins Tuesday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.
You can also watch on the CNN app. I will be right here in studio with Jake Tapper.
Coming up next here in THE ARENA, breaking news happening now overseas. A live report from London as British police make another high profile arrest today related to the fallout from the Epstein files. Former ambassador to the U.S. now in custody just days after the arrest of the king's brother, the former Prince Andrew.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In a way, it makes me feel good because it makes me feel yes, we've got some kind of sound basis for rules in this country. The States, oh my goodness, how on earth is that going to end? I don't know.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:19:14]
HUNT: The fallout from the Epstein files release escalating in the U.K. The former U.K. ambassador to the U.S., Lord Peter Mandelson, was arrested earlier today on suspicion of misconduct in public office.
This comes just days after Prince Andrew was arrested on the same charge. Mandelson is accused of passing market sensitive information to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein while he was business secretary in the U.K. government. Mandelson has not publicly commented on these allegations and previously apologized for his association with Epstein.
CNN's Max Foster joins us live now from London. Max, what more are we learning about this arrest and what kind of shockwaves is this sending through things over there?
MAX FOSTER, CNN ROYAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it wasn't the shock that it would have been before we saw Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor arrested.
[16:20:04]
All we know is that he's there's been quite substantial searches through Mandelson's homes. One in London, one in Wiltshire. So, some sort of evidence may well have come out of that. Weve also seen the whole of Westminster really engulfed by this story. So, lots of people are talking now.
And he had lots of enemies. He had lots of allies. He was one of the most well, people in Westminster, having started off very senior in the labor party back in the 1980s and working very closely with Blair being part of that very successful government. But he was of course, fired when he was U.S. ambassador because it became very aware. We all became very aware that he had a much deeper relationship with Epstein than any of us realized.
So, the period we're talking about is particularly sensitive because it was after the financial crash of 2008 Europe was scrambling to try to sort its financial system out and there are lots of different conversations going on around how they do that. Very sensitive because it was market sensitive information. So, the initial investigation at least, was looking into whether or not he was sharing very sensitive European market information, which should have remained secret, passing it on to Epstein.
That's how the investigation started, at least. And it would be an absolute, you know, in terms of that allegation of misconduct in public office, that would absolutely have undermined the public interest at that time.
HUNT: So, Max, I want to put up some headlines briefly about Keir Starmer, the prime minister.
"The New York Times", the Epstein files are coming for Britain's prime minister. "The Wall Street Journal", "Epstein fallout piles pressure on U.K. prime minister," "Bloomberg", "Starmer never knew Epstein, but he's becoming collateral damage". Here at CNN, "The Epstein storm could topple a world leader." But it's not Donald Trump."
Why is it that Keir Starmer may pay a price for this?
FOSTER: Well, the context is that Keir Starmer's judgment has been called into question multiple times over multiple policy issues then we get on to why he hired Mandelson for the U.S. ambassador job, when he knew that Mandelson had a friendship with Epstein. So that is actually a parliamentary investigation now, because it really exploded as a debate.
And he came very close to losing his job. But he managed to convince his backbench MPs that he should stay. And all of the communications are being handed over to parliament for them to investigate whether or not Starmer did the proper vetting on Mandelson. And you know, any wider conversations that Mandelson might have been involved with.
He managed to get through that and now it's blowing up again. But I have to say, he may be helped politically in the fact that now there's a police investigation, they won't have the same access to information as they would have done. They certainly won't be able to publish it in the way they would have done. Now that there's a police investigation, there are certain rules they have to stick to and there can't be as transparent.
HUNT: Huh. Okay, interesting. Congressman Kinzinger, Mandelson did an interview with "The Times" magazine. It was published before the police began investigating this leak of government information. And Mandelson resigned. It's important to mention that in the context of what Max was just talking about but he told "The New York Times Magazine", Mandelson does on the day that he left the Labour Party, and he talks to this reporter by phone, he describes Mandelson describes Epstein as, quote, "muck you can't get off your shoe. Like dog muck, the smell that never goes away."
Apt in many ways, but also raises the question of why it is that the accountability that were seeing in the U.K. seems to be so different from what we're seeing here in the U.S.?
KINZINGER: This is the bajillion dollar question because I mean, honestly particularly because the party that's in power in the United States of America is the party that ran on this issue. They literally got elected on this issue.
Donald Trump made promises. The Republican Party made promises, but it worked for him when they had this like conspiracy that it was only Democrats in the files. Now we know that's not the case. And we have been absolutely silent now.
I mean, there are a number of American citizens that are now being unmasked as being part of the perpetrators on the Epstein files that are gone in the wind nobody's talking about anything. The FBI says it's over.
The FBI, by the way, said this was over a year ago before we got any of this to said nothing in the files at all. So, it is a huge question of why this coverup and it's a coverup continues when other countries that have kings are acting more like republics than a republic is acting like we have a king right now.
HUNT: I want to correct myself from earlier. I said "New York Times Magazine", it's actually "The Times of London Magazine".
I mean, David Urban, to the point here. I mean, this was something that the MAGA movement was really focused on and that, quite frankly, the people who were the most alarmist about it turns out they were the closest to being right now that we've actually been able to see some of what's in there
URBAN: Well, the MAGA movement is still alarmed about it. If you continue to watch -- if you look at social media, Twitter and other places, they're not going away.
[16:25:01]
This is not going away despite everyone's best. You know, if you know if the administration wants it to go away, it is not going away.
Now, whether there's going to be accountability like there is in Great Britain is another thing. I will point out to Congressman Kinzinger's point, though, you know, the administration did cough up these records. The Biden administration had them for a long time.
HUNT: Only because there was an act of Congress.
URBAN: I understand, but they -- they didn't -- they didn't move with any alacrity, right? There was no hue and cry when the Biden Department of Justice was sitting on these things. And so, you know kind of a pox on everybody's house on that. Look, I think --
HUNT: I'm the first one to say that this is a pox on everybody's, okay?
URBAN: Radical --
HUNT: I've said it many times on this set.
URBAN: Radical transparency is great. You know, internally in the -- in the Republican Party, you have this Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, you know --
HUNT: Steve Bannon is in the Epstein file.
URBAN: I understand. But there's a war when you said like, you know, no one's being held -- there are lots of people being held accountable internally amongst the MAGA loyalists. And we'll see how it plays out eventually in court and other places but if people are being held accountable.
WILLIAMS: I think the problem is that the American -- that's -- and that's exactly. It's -- accountability sure, people are getting some shame thrown their way on social media, but has anyone been charged with a crime? And when the public thinks of accountability, it's crimes. Now, I will note what's interesting about the two in the U.K. is that they're both for public corruption.
URBAN: They're not being charged with a crime.
WILLIAMS: They're not being charged with sex crimes or anything like that. And I think there's this disconnect here. One, there's these horrific sex acts or sex crimes that that are not being prosecuted, maybe can't in the United States because it's been a long time since they allegedly took place. But also this dealing be between the ruling class that Britain is sort of cracking down on in the way the United States just is not.
URBAN: Well, but you know, look, Casey Wasserman go away. Youve had the head of you know -- WILLIAMS: Paul, Weiss, the law firm.
HUNT: He's still running the Olympics.
URBAN: But you've had people leave --
ELROD: At this moment.
URBAN: You've had people leave their positions. The Olympics something I can't speak to obviously, but, you know, he was held accountable by his clients in Hollywood, right? They said, we're not going to work with this guy anymore. And so, people are being held accountable --
KINZINGER: But there's just --
URBAN: Not as many.
KINZINGER: There's a cabinet member that went to lunch on Epstein's island with his family, that said he didn't have any interaction with him. We're not hearing much more about that. And look, I just think this is one of those things had -- so to your point, can people be prosecuted based on an email? Probably not. Right? I'm not a lawyer, but probably not.
But when we have a significant amount of information and the law that was passed in Congress says unless they're a victim, these names need unmasked. I think the DOJ, if they are trying to be radically transparent, has done a self goal here by blacking out half of the stuff they've released. And not to mention there's still like a couple million files supposedly out there and they've said, oh, we're done.
URBAN: Well, again, the big thing that we're not getting to this and DOJ said they're not going to turn over their internal deliberative memos, right? That we're --
HUNT: Why the -- why the sweetheart deal?
URBAN: Why the sweetheart deal in 2000? That -- that's the crux of this all everything else is a sideshow. We need to know -- what the American people need to know, right, why the -- why the lawyers said we're not going to prosecute him to the full extent of the law. Internally at DOJ back then, those are not being made public, despite the fact that the law says they are to be made public.
HUNT: Yeah.
URBAN: So until that happens, there's going to be a lot of question marks and justice --
URBAN: And there should be. There should be.
All right. Max Foster, thank you very much, sir. Always appreciate seeing you. I'm sure we'll see you again soon.
The rest of our panel standby here. Coming up in THE ARENA, what FBI Director Kash Patel is now saying about partying with the U.S. men's hockey team at the Winter Olympics in Italy.
Plus, a live update on the still unfolding violence and growing uncertainty across Mexico after the killing of one of the country's most notorious drug lords.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIM BECK, AMERICAN TOURIST: We saw the people running down the streets, running from the flames and stuff and the fire, and we ran back to the hotel, and then that's when they got the shelter in order place and we've been here all day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:33:23]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: We've been coming down here for almost 20 years, and we've always told people to come down and check it out because you always feel safe here. Weve never ever not felt safe and today was the first day as we left the hotel to go have breakfast and saw all the craziness going on and the violence and the smoke that we were actually terrified.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: That was one of the U.S. citizens now stuck in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, after a military operation killed the country's most wanted cartel boss, suspected gang members, torched busses and businesses while clashing with Mexican security forces yesterday. The U.S. State Department urging American tourists to shelter in place as several airlines canceled flights to and from Puerto Vallarta.
CNN's Valeria Leon joins us live from Mexico City.
Valeria, what is the latest on the ground there?
VALERIA LEON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kasie, Mexican officials say order has been restored after the search of this cartel violence that erupted following this operation targeting Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes better known as El Mencho.
Now, Mexico's defense secretary, is shedding light on how authorities were able to find him. According to officials, the breakthrough came when intelligence teams began tracking the movements of a woman described as being romantically linked to the cartel leader. And that trail led investigators to his inner circle and to the location where he was hiding.
And this operation that followed is being described as one of the most significant blows to organized crime in recent years.
Also, Kasie, video circulating on social media, which appears to have been filmed by reinforcements arriving at the scene of the shootout shows the aftermath of the confrontation.
[16:35:10]
The footage captures chaotic and graphic scenes with bodies lying behind a vehicle and blood visibly on the street, and in the video, the person filming can be heard speaking to a shaken national guard member, and all of this is played in a significant background role, particularly in tracking cartel leadership and movements.
From what we know so far, this has not us boots on the ground mission, but one where intelligence sharing help inform Mexican planning. And that distinction matters politically, especially for the administration of Claudia Sheinbaum, which has framed this as a sovereign Mexican operation carried out by national forces -- Kasie.
HUNT: All right. Valeria Leon in Mexico City -- Valeria, thank you very much for that report.
Joining us now in THE ARENA to discuss, Democratic congressman from California, Eric Swalwell. He sits on the House Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees.
Congressman, I do want to touch briefly on do you have constituents who may be in Mexico having trouble getting back? What's your advice to them?
REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA): I do, and we put out our office number and we've been in touch with constituents, making sure they're contacting the State Department. But this is a serious situation. A lot of Californians go to Mexico, Puerto Vallarta, Cancun, Cabo. And, you know, we're just trying to serve them as best as possible on our social media account. You can find our office number if we can help you and connect you to the State Department.
HUNT: All right. Fair enough.
Let's talk a little bit about what is about to play out here in Washington this week, of course.
SWALWELL: Yeah.
HUNT: The president set to deliver his State of the Union Address to Congress tomorrow night. There has been a push by some Democrats to boycott the speech to hold an alternative event. Is that something you're planning on participating in? Would you urge your colleagues to do so?
SWALWELL: I'm going to the speech. I'm bringing Teresa Helm. She's an Epstein survivor. She's been waiting for 23 plus years to find justice. So I'm going to be in the chamber with her.
I respect why somebody would not want to go. That's an individual member decision. But I want the president to see me but most importantly, to see her and know that she's there and that, you know, she's not going away. Accountability is not going away but also, we want to hear him and his remarks talk about lowering costs. That is the number one issue that I hear from Californians. And that seems to be the issue that he doesn't want to focus on.
HUNT: Your guest tomorrow, what do you think she's hoping to hear from President Trump?
SWALWELL: Well, she wants to be in the room with somebody who has, you know that this monster, Jeffrey Epstein, has called his best friend, and the president will be in that room. The attorney general, I presume, the FBI director, if he's back from Italy, will be in that room. And she wants them to know when other Epstein survivors will be there.
This is led by Pramila Jayapal, by the way. They want people to know that they're not going away. They want justice. You have power. They don't want to be helpless, and they want to see everyone connected to that case. How do you account?
HUNT: One other story that has popped up in the last couple of days is Congressman Tony Gonzales, who is, of course, a colleague of yours. He's denying he had an affair with a staffer of his who died last year by suicide. The House Speaker Mike Johnson told CNN that he doesn't think that Gonzales should resign until this investigation has concluded.
What say you?
SWALWELL: Well, I'm not -- you know, I'm not going to take lightly that we're talking about somebody who died here, somebody who worked for Congress, a public servant, and that's a serious matter. And if he did something wrong, he should resign. If he can't serve his constituents, he should resign, and certainly open himself up and his office, you know, to a full and complete investigation.
What Democrats are trying to show, though, is a seriousness and that we're not going to be distracted by Republicans, by the president. Our focus is lowering the costs -- literally, the cost of gas, groceries, but also figuratively, what this administration has cost us as far as rights that people are losing and lives that are on the line as immigrants run through the fields and factories where they work.
So Republicans have brought a lot of distractions this Congress, and we're trying to bring a level of seriousness that reflects what people care about.
HUNT: Well, speaking of costs, the FBI director flew the bureau's plane to Italy. Turns out attended the Winter Olympics, was seen with the U.S. men's hockey team. Do you think what he did was appropriate?
SWALWELL: No. Where I come from, you do your chores and your homework before you go off to the Olympics. And I think it's great that somebody from the administration is celebrating with the team. Congratulations to the men's and women's hockey teams who won.
But he hasn't demonstrated that he values public safety first. We have record high political violence in this country. We have what happened in Mexico. And I think most Americans would have preferred to see the FBI director on camera talking about how he's going to protect them abroad and what he's doing to work with our liaison services abroad, rather than on camera, you know celebrating in the way that he did.
[16:40:08]
And of course, his office lying about his presence there. So again, it's okay to celebrate with the Olympians that represent our country, but do your chores and homework first.
HUNT: All right. Congressman, Gavin Newsom, the current governor of California, and we should of course, note that you are a candidate --
SWALWELL: Yeah.
HUNT: -- for governor of California as well. He sat down with my colleague dana bash over the weekend. He's got a new book out and he had this to say about the Democratic Party. I want to play it for you. We'll talk about it on the other side.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D), CALIFORNIA: From the prism of purely politics, there's no doubt that the Democratic Party needs to be, dare I say, more culturally normal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: More culturally normal. Is he right?
SWALWELL: He's right. Yes. I mean --
HUNT: What does it mean?
SWALWELL: Well, it means that we have to be a party of addition, and we can't tell everyone that they have to go to every parade that I may go to and celebrate, that if people share our values, but they may not, you know, want to celebrate them the same way that we do. That parade attendance is not mandatory.
And I think too often, we want you to be perfect, to be in the party. You have to agree on all 10 of our values or priorities. And if you have any question on any issue, then you feel like you're not a part of the party.
And so, what I want to do is grow the party, be a party where we can have hard conversations about issues that, you know some Americans have questions about, but it has to be a party of addition. And we can't, you know, throw the flag anytime somebody has an honest question.
HUNT: Speaking of your gubernatorial run, at one significant issue that's emerged here is the question of taxing wealth in California, which, of course, is home to many a tech billionaire. Do you support a one-time tax on wealth in California?
SWALWELL: No. What I support is a corporate accountability tax, where companies that have the longest distance between what the heart and soul of the company make people like my mom and dad when they worked, and with CEOs and the C-suite make, you're going to pay the most in taxes, and we're going to have a surcharge for those who practice corporate welfare.
So, if your employees don't have health care, if they're on state assistance, we're going to have a surcharge for that. That's not one time. That's all the time until you lift wages and benefits.
HUNT: All right. Congressman Eric Swalwell, also gubernatorial candidate in California -- thank you so much for your time.
SWALWELL: My pleasure.
HUNT: Appreciate you having you.
All right ahead here in THE ARENA, the mixing of politics and the puck. The speaker of the house inviting both the men's and women's U.S. Olympic hockey teams to tomorrow night's State of the Union Address. One team said yes, one said no.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:47:00]
(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)
HUNT: That there is the FBI director, Kash Patel, chugging beers with the U.S. men's hockey team after they won Olympic gold. According to the FBI, Patel was in Italy for multiple official engagements.
After the video went viral, Patel posted this on X, quote, "For the very concerned media. Yes, I love America and was extremely humbled when my friends, the newly minted gold medal winners on Team USA, invited me into the locker room to celebrate this historic moment with the boys."
During the celebrations, Patel called President Trump, who invited the team to tomorrow's State of the Union.
Today, the House speaker said he's expecting the men's team to be in attendance. The women's team declined the invitation, citing scheduling conflicts, but a spokesperson for the team said they were, quote, sincerely grateful.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (via telephone): I can send the military plane or something but if you would like to, it's a -- it's the coolest night. It's the biggest. I must tell you, we're going to have to bring the women's team. You do know that.
(CHEERS)
TRUMP: I do believe I probably would be impeached. Okay.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right, well, the panel is back.
First of all, go USA. It's awesome that the men's and women's team took gold home. We'll just -- you know, you love to see it. My son certainly was super excited.
But, Congressman, this has like turned -- like is anything ever not politics anymore?
KINZINGER: No. Let me just say this. If this was a different administration, there would be another news channel that this would be the story for three weeks and there would be impeachment resolutions brought to the floor of the House and everything else.
Let's be happy that Team USA won. It really is amazing. Honestly, I think what bothers me about this story is less that Kash Patel went and is partying. It's more like I remember being a member of the Republican Party for 12 years as a congressman, and every appropriations bill we were defunding some jet somewhere or attacking some Democrat somewhere for using a jet.
I remember being elected in 2010 -- during the elections in 2010, the whole thing was Nancy Pelosi's airplane because she was able to use an Air Force airplane. So, it's not -- this isn't the thing I'm going to lose sleep on but the chugging of beer on the taxpayer dime when obviously being in Italy could have been an email or a zoom, is, to me just like -- it's just par for the hypocrisy course.
URBAN: Okay, okay, let me -- let me take the pro-Kash defense.
HUNT: Okay.
URBAN: Let me take the pro Kash --
KINZINGER: Somebody's got it.
URBAN: So, Congressman knows this. There are CODELs, congressional delegations every year, many CODELs.
HUNT: Sure.
URBAN: That go Democrats and Republicans to the Paris Air Show. What do you think they're doing at the Paris Air Show? Do you think they're looking at airplanes in the Paris Air Show? The most popular congressional delegation.
HUNT: So listen, not to take anything away from the congressman and the job that he did, but like the FBI director -- I mean, it is a very important job.
URBAN: Okay --
HUNT: Why is he not doing his job?
[16:50:00] URBAN: Let me continue on. He was there beforehand doing his job. We have the Olympics coming to the United States. We have the World Cup coming in the United States.
He was there. He met with people. We have -- we have U.S. contingency there.
The vice president went to the went to went to the Olympics.
KINZINGER: But the vice president is a diplomat.
HUNT: Hold on a second. I want to put this the Olympics aside because this is not --
URBAN: I am pro-Kash Patel on this.
HUNT: This is not the first problem that Kash Patel has had with his airplane.
URBAN: And by the way, Kash Patel is a hockey player.
HUNT: Fair enough, fair enough.
But look, this was his -- there was a hearing in September of 2025, and he was pressed on this by Senator Welch. Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. PETER WELCH (D-VT): You attended a hockey game in New York City with Wayne Gretzky and Flight Tracker says the FBI jet took you to and from New York City where you don't live, right?
KASH PATEL, FBI DIRECTOR: That's correct.
WELCH: And on April 12th, on the following weekend, you attended a UFC flight -- fight in Miami. Also on the FBI jet, right?
PATEL: That's correct.
WELCH: So what's the cost to the taxpayer for those three flights?
PATEL: I pay the commercial equivalent per the regs and the law.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Is this what the FBI jet is for?
URBAN: Again, Kasie, U.S. senators, Congressman, that's the -- those are the rules.
KINZINGER: Yeah, but we don't take the hockey fights, man. We don't.
URBAN: Yeah, but Congress -- here's my point again. If you're the CIA director, the FBI, you know, you can't. What are you going to get on Amtrak? There's a thousand people get on the train sweeps. It doesn't work that way. Okay, individuals that are --
WILLIAMS: No doubt and no question, and he can't fly commercial, right? That's true right now.
Here's the question. Does anyone in America actually think Kash Patel is a competent serious leader of the FBI? And the answer is no. Even people who support Kash Patel or support the president will say, well, Joe Biden or, well, Jim Comey used to run the agency and those guys were all incompetent.
No one actually thinks this is a serious individual. And with that framework -- with that framework in mind, it's totally easy and makes sense to understand that he's chugging beers and crushing beer cans on his head while on official business. Like it just -- I think we're trying to impose --
(CROSSTALK)
URBAN: Like -- I'm here. I'm -- I'll support Kash all day. I think he does a good job. I mean, I throw stones at certain people in the administration. Kash Patel gets my vote.
ELROD: David, it is the optics. And I think that's what we're talking about here.
Yes. CODELs are run of the mill. They happen every time. I was the chief of staff on the Hill for five and a half years. I did a lot of myself or staff does myself.
URBAN: Go to Paris air show?
ELROD: I did not. But --
URBAN: OK --
ELROD: -- I'm sure it was great. But the bottom line is, I mean, we just, you know, talked about the A block, Trump's low approval numbers and the fact that the American people, including a lot of people who voted for him, don't think he's doing anything about the economy because he hasn't. And then you see his FBI director pounding beers when we've got Americans who are at risk in Mexico right now. We still have Nancy Guthrie, who's missing.
We have a number of national security considerations happening around the country and our FBI director, who as you pointed out no one respects, but he's still the FBI director is over there checking.
(CROSSTALK)
WILLIAMS: I want to add one thing to that. No, no, as this was playing out, there was an armed individual on the grounds of Mar-a-Lago --
ELROD: Yes.
WILLIAMS: -- while the FBI director. Now, again I love beer. If I weren't wearing contact lenses, I'd be throwing it up in the air and getting it on my face.
URBAN: By the way, that's a Secret Service, letting you in a little joke on that one.
WILLIAMS: Okay, fine. But the simple fact is, the optics of the FBI director being out there when there was a serious investigation happening in the United States is just silly.
KINZINGER: Nobody's suggesting he did anything illegal here.
WILLIAMS: Right.
KINZINGER: Right? It's the -- it's the fact that you put this on top of all the other trips the. He had his girlfriend's friend got escorted home by his detail. They run errands for him. He takes his airplane everywhere. UFC fights every couple of weeks. That's what gets old.
And again, I'm old enough to remember when I was in Congress and we used to make a huge five month deal. Every time one of these stories came out. What drives me nuts personally, is the hypocrisy of the Republican Party, because I was part of fighting these fights, and now they embrace them because it's a celebrity culture now and they all think they're cool by being celebrities and flying around in these jets.
URBAN: So --
KINZINGER: It's not illegal.
URBAN: But again, if the Congress wants to change it, they should change it.
KINZINGER: Sure.
URBAN: You can't do it, he's reimbursing the first class airfare. That's what's required.
KINZINGER: Three hundred bucks, 500 bucks, like that.
HUNT: When the taxpayers (INAUDIBLE) tens of thousands of dollars.
URBAN: Or otherwise, or otherwise, he can't go anywhere because there are credible threats on his life because he's the director of the FBI, similar to the director of the CIA.
If you're in these national security positions where you're asked to put your life on the line and people want to kill you --
(CROSSTALK)
HUNT: When we talk about public service, okay? The idea and the reason you get credit for public service is that you are sacrificing some of your own happiness, freedom, whatever, in order to serve. And anyone that's been in these positions knows.
I mean, should it not require that maybe like the years or the FBI director, like you don't take in as many UFC fights in a given year.
[16:55:01]
WILLIAMS: But I also think, you know, it's -- you know, I think we're losing the thread here and I think, frankly, every one of us has worked in government -- of the guests.
HUNT: Not me.
WILLIAMS: Working in government -- of all of us have worked in government in some way and no one disputes the serious threats on the lives of people in high positions in government, how serious the work is, how we should embrace public service. And so, I don't dispute any of that. But do you look at that image and think, that is a serious individual running literally the most important law enforcement agency on the planet?
URBAN: I look at it, I look at that guy and I say, he's patriotic and caught up in the moment. The America just won the gold medal since 1980. Good for Kash.
HUNT: And again, go USA. But thank you. We're out of time for this conversation.
"THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER" is going to get started right after a quick break.
