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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
Trump Says There Are "No Limits" To His Power In New Interview; Mamdani: "The Democratic Party Must Change"; U.S.-Iran Talks Delayed After Israel-Hezbollah Clashes Strain Truce. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired June 19, 2026 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:18]
PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone. Welcome to THE ARENA. Kasie Hunt is off. I'm Pamela Brown. It's great to have you with us on this Friday.
And as we come on the air, we're getting an illuminating new look into President Donald Trump's psyche and how he thinks about the immense powers of his office.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARC CAPUTO, AXIOS WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: What is the one big thing you've learned about wielding power?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I think you have to do it judiciously. I think that experience is good. I always say that potential is far more important. In other words, having ability is far more important than experience, but having both is very good.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Those comments coming in a new interview with "Axios" that was released just this afternoon, and it comes at a time when President Trump seems to be thinking quite a lot about his power, its limits, and where he wants to use it. It was just yesterday that he shared a letter from a friend's golf caddy arguing that he was, quote, "By far, the most powerful person that has ever walked this planet," end quote.
It's also a time when the president's power is being tested, both by a defiant Iran at the negotiating table and by fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that threatens a very fragile ceasefire. President Trump points to America's military successes in Iran and the Iran war as a sign that his power is indeed unlimited.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CAPUTO: What have you learned about not just the exercise of power, but the limits on your power as a result of the conflict?
TRUMP: There are no limits.
CAPUTO: No?
TRUMP: No, not. I haven't learned that lesson yet. I know there are, but you know there are no limits.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: All right, let's get off the sidelines and head into THE ARENA. My panel is here.
CNN contributor, host of "The New York Times'", "The Interview", Lulu Garcia-Navarro; senior politics reporter at "Axios", Marc Caputo -- you just saw him doing that interview; former communications director for Vice President Kamala Harris, Jamal Simmons; and Republican strategist Brad Todd. They are both CNN political commentators.
Marc, obviously, I want to start with you here, because you did that interview. It was a really illuminating interview with the president talking about power. I want to hear more from you, what insights you walked away with after talking to him about it.
CAPUTO: Trump doesn't really like to talk about what's going on in his head. And so, it took a little while to sort of tease out from him how he thinks about these things. But he was on very little sleep, he had just come back from Europe.
But despite that level of exhaustion, he was communicating to me that he had this sense of relief, that he had struck this deal with Iran and sort of gotten a monkey off of his back. And that's what sort of really impressed me is that Trump really wants to move away from Iran and feels like he's just sort of done with it.
BROWN: Even though many analysts argue the hardest part is still to come.
CAPUTO: Do you think he recognizes that? I know he said this next phase is going to be easy, but do you think he really believes that?
I think in his mind, which is what matters, is that he's done with it. So when he's done with it, he's ready to move on, period, full stop. That doesn't mean it's not going to be done, but he is. He is leaving a lot of the heavy lifting and messaging to J.D. Vance, his vice president.
He joked the other day that, hey, if things go well, I'll take credit. If things go bad, well, J.D. will get the blame.
BROWN: Right. Debatable whether it was a joke. And before we move on to the panel, just in terms of power, I know you asked him within the context of the Iran War. But what was your overall sense in terms of how he views power, in terms of the no limits?
CAPUTO: He -- I didn't get the opportunity to ask him about his ultimate view in Congress. But Trump generally has a belief that unless he can be thrown out of office with 67 votes in the Senate, he can do it.
And as he had told "The New York Times", the limits on his power are his own morality. Basically, he's going to do what he thinks is right. And if other people don't like it, if courts don't like it, too bad. If he feels he needs to push it, he'll keep pushing and pushing and pushing.
If he feels he needs to drop bombs, he'll drop bombs. If he feels he needs to strike a peace plan that his allies hate, he'll do that, too.
BROWN: Yeah. This might seem like a non-sequitur, but it's not. But in Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's book, there's this anecdote about how he was using superglue to put gold into the Oval Office, and it seems as though he'd used gold as a symbol of -- well --
CAPUTO: There's a funny-- one of my favorite parts of talking to him is he suddenly was praising Macron, the president of France, and normally, he's critical of him, and he talked about how he loved the dinner at the Palace of Versailles, and he said, "That's my weakness."
BROWN: Wow.
CAPUTO: His weakness is the golden palace.
BROWN: Let's actually listen to it. We have it right here.
CAPUTO: Oh.
[16:05:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: He knew my weakness because I think Versailles is one of the great places. I think --
CAPUTO: What's your weakness?
TRUMP: Like places like Versailles, but no, it's incredible. So, and it's not something they do. I understand that they don't do that. They don't do dinners at Versailles, and we had a fantastic dinner.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: So throw me a gold-plated fancy party. That's what it takes, I guess.
JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I know. The Versailles I like is the one in Miami where you can get great Cuban food. Very different places.
(LAUGHTER)
LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Me, too.
BROWN: By the way, in the Kentucky, we call it Versailles.
(LAUGHTER)
SIMMONS: Even better.
Listen, Donald Trump is -- as a person unto himself. The question for us on the Democratic side is whether or not the rules that apply to Trump are going to be the new rules for everybody. And I think as you start to see some of these candidates emerge who are going to have investigations like Gavin Newsom or tough backgrounds like Platner in Maine, will people just factor that into the political noise and listen to them talk about what their agendas are? Or are they still going to have some political gravity that attaches to them?
But right now, Donald Trump is his own. And in this sphere, he really does create his own weather.
BROWN: Right, and you never know what's going to happen. Just today, speaking at the G7, actually, this was previously, and then it led to what happened today, Lulu, Trump had said that, you know, the prime minister of Italy wanted to, or was begging to have a picture with him. She denied that. Let's play the sound of how she's responding to it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GIORGIA MELONI, ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER (through translator): Donald Trump's statements are completely made-up. I am frankly astonished. I don't know why the President of the United States behaves like this toward his allies. It's not the first time, moreover.
I can only say it is disappointing that he does not show the same determination with the enemies of the West and of the United States, whose leaders he instead treats with far greater indulgence. There is one thing he should remember: neither I nor Italy ever beg.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And Italy's foreign minister, as a result, canceled this trip. He was supposed to come here to meet with the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. What do you make of this?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: So, first of all, great interview. I am a huge Marc Caputo fan.
(LAUGHTER)
BROWN: As we all are.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: As we all are.
CAPUTO: Small club, though.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yeah.
SIMMONS: But powerful, but mighty.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: But mighty. Speaking about Giorgia Meloni, listen, this is absolutely asinine what has happened. Giorgia Meloni has been in Europe, one of the strongest allies of Donald Trump. She is of the right. She is anti-immigration.
They have their differences. She's a strong supporter of Ukraine. But she was seen as sort of the Trump whisperer. And to have this happen, it really doesn't benefit Italy. It doesn't benefit Donald Trump.
The real problem that I see is just the language of this. Why would he talk about her begging? And you just hear echoes of this all the time in the new reporting by Maggie Swan -- by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, you know, where he talks all about people begging him and wanting him.
And it's this very, very sexist, predatory language that I think has no place in political discourse.
BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think the prime minister now knows what it's like to be a Republican U.S. senator. She's eligible to run if she could get her citizenship squared away here. It's -- I'm equally flabbergasted by this because Giorgia Meloni is Donald Trump's best ally in Western Europe. And furthermore, they share many of the same populist viewpoints and perspectives.
And so to the extent he's always said he wishes Europe would conform more to what his view of how things should operate, she's the poster child for that. She's exactly the person for it. So it is odd to me.
But partnership does not always come easy to President Trump. And in order to continue to have that relationship with her, it would require being an equal partner, much like he has to be an equal partner with John Thune. And that's just not his favorite paradigm.
SIMMONS: Well, you know, the thing is, you talk about equal partnership. We all know the American president really does not have an equal partner. They all know that. The difference is they don't act like that.
TODD: They have to make the other party --
SIMMONS: Right. They feel like they're the one who can come to the table and you negotiate with them and you treat them equally.
The Oval Office is a spectacular place because it really is a place when people come in, they melt. When you talk to aides who work for presidents, they'll say, oh, we invited this person to come in and talk to the president so they can tell them what they really think. They get in the room and they fall apart. They don't say what it is they believe.
So the president of the United States not treating people like that is actually hurting America's power to be able to persuade them to get the things out.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: And why? And this is the question that, I mean, is the overarching question all the time with Donald Trump, and perhaps your interview answered it, perhaps not, which is, you know, does he just feel like he can do anything? And he says there, I haven't yet met the limits to my power, so he can insult people.
And there is a truth to that. He is the most powerful man in the world. And at the end of the day, perhaps the calculation he knows is, what is Italy going to do about it, really? Well, not much. CAPUTO: I'm not sure how much calculation there is. Donald Trump likes to exercise power because it's fun.
[16:10:01]
BROWN: Do you think he has an insatiable appetite for it? Like, it's never enough.
CAPUTO: There's very few people who wind up in that Oval Office who don't have that appetite for it. Yeah, sure, his is pretty excessive.
One of the things Jamal said that was interesting about whether Trump is going to set the pattern for other politicians to come forward, I think one of his secret sauces is just sitting down with us at "Axios". That president is so available to the media, to social media, and is so omnipresent in everyone's lives that he's able to speak through the press, through social media, through filters, and communicate directly to people in a way that no one else has done. And I think that's really a secret to him exercising his power and his joy in it.
BROWN: And I think one way we saw just this past week of him wielding his power was with Bill Pulte. He pulled the confirmation hearing for Jay Clayton, even though president can't pull the hearing, but ultimately it never ended up happening.
And then Bill Pulte, who is now the acting director of National Intelligence, overseeing 18 agencies, he came in a day early, according to CNN's reporting. He came in, he wants to make a lot of cuts, a lot of firings. We know what he has done as the head of the housing agency, where he has used his access there to go after some of Trump's perceived enemies.
What is your assessment of this, Brad?
TODD: I think this is an outcropping of his ongoing simmering feud with the Republicans in the United States Senate. He's irritated that they will not get rid of the filibuster or fire the parliamentarian or, you know, change the paint or whatever it would take to get the Save America Act done. And so everything that therefore that they want, he is going to hold hostage if he can.
It might seem to be a small procedural thing, but I think it's much bigger than that. He knows that the U.S. senators on the Republican side don't want Bill Pulte in this job. And he knows they care about this job a lot. And so I think because he senses that importance, this was a way he could grab control.
And I'm concerned that this feud between the Senate and the president is really going to cost Republicans in the midterms. You need the team to be together. It's a good map for Republicans, but it's a midterm climate, which would normally be bad.
But Republicans can have a good year still, but they have to work together and the president has to support the Republicans in the Senate. BROWN: Yeah, and you're seeing more Republicans come out, not just with the Bill Pulte situation, where they were pretty outspoken, but also with the memorandum of understanding with Iran. I mean, several Republicans who you normally don't see come out against the president, Senator Cotton, for one, Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Joni Ernst raising some questions.
TODD: Roger Wicker.
BROWN: Roger Wicker, another one, really serious.
TODD: Roger Wicker does not raise his voice or cause a problem ever. So when he does, you know he means it.
BROWN: Yeah. All right.
SIMMONS: Well, the president lost the big three M's here. He lost money to the Iranians, they're going to be able to keep their missiles, and they're going to be able to keep their nuclear material. Those three M's were things the president told us he was going to get out of that deal, and he didn't get it. He folded.
TODD: Yeah.
BROWN: Well, to be fair, we have to wait 60 days. I mean, the president says, look, this is just the beginning. Let's see what -- you know, I'm going to make sure they don't have their nuclear program by the end of this.
But as you said, I mean, a lot of people have said they don't believe it's going to go any further than where it is.
TODD: But there is a carrot. The U.S. military doesn't, under the MOU, does not have to leave the area, the proximity of Iran, until 30 days after a final agreement. So, there's an incentive for the Iranians to help push toward a final agreement. I don't think Donald Trump's beyond keeping the military there indefinitely. So that's -- I think there's still hope for a deal.
BROWN: Well, we'll see. That's one of those big "we'll sees".
All right, coming up in THE ARENA, the president's pet project, the reflecting pool fixer-upper that's turning out to be a downer.
Plus, something Donald Trump pushed for in his first term finally comes through. We're going to show you the newly unveiled Air Force One.
Stay with us.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We have our beautiful American flag, and we put the wave in it. As you know, we've always gone with a straight little noodle, and I never loved that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:18:24]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The workmanship of this plane is, when you see it, you won't believe it, actually. The quality of woods, the quality of the materials, the quality of the engines, these engines are the finest, they're the best in the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: President Trump unveiling a new Air Force One, the $400 million plane the Qataris donated last year. As you may recall, it got a new paint job, out with the light blue color scheme. Now it's dark blue and red.
The unveiling comes as new questions are surfacing about another one of the president's pet projects, and that would be algae that is still causing trouble in the reflecting pool. And now pieces of blue material are peeling off from the bottom of the pool.
My panel is back with us. We're going to get to the pool in just a second, but I want to start with the plane. This is something that caused a lot of controversy, as you'll recall, when the Qataris --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Sounds like a million years ago.
BROWN: Doesn't it? Like so many new cycles ago.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: That is like so many new cycles ago.
This is my question. Leaving aside the optics of this and the practicalities of getting $400 million plane donated by the Qataris, is we are again at a moment when affordability is still an issue. And this president wants to go in front of the American people yet again. It's not the ballroom. If it's not, you know, the gold paint job, it is now this huge, luxurious plane.
Like, why not -- why are you having, like, this massive unveiling about something that will not connect? It is now this huge, luxurious plane. Like, why not? Why are you having, like, this massive unveiling about something that will not connect with regular people's lives?
[16:20:00]
This is the big mystery here.
BROWN: Brad?
TODD: The plane needed to be replaced. The ballroom needs to be replaced. We needed a military bunker underneath the ballroom, and many presidents have known that, and they passed on it because they didn't have the guts. And you do have to give Donald Trump credit for having guts. And we
need a facility on the property, on the campus of the White House that can be secure, that can host international dignitaries and big events. We need it. We've always needed it.
The pool needs to be replaced. We'll talk about that in a minute. But I think there's a little bit of a bad rap. We're also in the 250th birthday of the country. It's appropriate to gussie up your capital. Other countries do that in their 250th birthday.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: But there's so much here, it's like, my plane's bigger than your plane, my ballroom's bigger than your ballroom. I mean, you know, there's something else I think psychologically going on here.
SIMMONS: But this gets back to Marc's interview where the president said he doesn't have anybody checking his power. Because the reality is people wouldn't want to replace the ballroom and fix it. I've talked to former White House social secretaries who said if they'd come to us, we probably would have signed on to a letter agreeing to it.
But he didn't want to have to do a deal that involved other people. He didn't want to have to associate his decision decisions with getting buy-in from other people. I think that's the issue here and when we talk about this airplane then it's he's taking a gift from a foreign country that nobody else in the -- in the government would have signed off on nobody would have but he's doing it anyway because he thinks he can.
CAPUTO: The only thing that surprises me is -- the plane doesn't surprise me because they did need a new plane. It's technically free. Yes, there are emoluments issues but I just don't understand how they messed up the reflecting pool. I just --
BROWN: Yeah, I'm obsessed with the reflecting pool. I have to say.
CAPUTO: I know, I'm like --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Clearly, this is like -- this has been like 15 news cycles on the reflecting pool. We're all now experts on --
BROWN: $13 million later.
CAPUTO: I don't get it.
TODD: Fifteen years ago, Barack Obama replaced the reflecting pool in a similar manner.
CAPUTO: Sure.
TODD: He spent $35 million, and when he was done, it was still leaking 12 million gallons a year, which it does to this day. It's bedeviled every president who's trying it.
CAPUTO: I understand that. I'm just -- I don't understand. I'm not even blaming Trump. I'm just saying, who was this contractor?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: The green water. I mean, that should have been the big tell, green water.
BROWN: That's the giveaway.
CAPUTO: Like they've never heard of like pressure washing.
BROWN: The contractor had a no bid contract and had connections to it.
CAPUTO: Even so, like pressure wash to get the dirt off and put primer down.
BROWN: Beyond my pay grade, how the renovator is reflecting pool.
CAPUTO: I've done a lot of unfortunate weekend warrior stuff. I have a rental home. I've done a lot of --
BROWN: Can you come over to my house, please?
CAPUTO: Sure.
(LAUGHTER)
CAPUTO: And one thing I will tell you, if you're going to paint something, you clean it, and then you put down primer, and then you put down your --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: This is why this story has so much -- so many legs, because everyone has an opinion about renovations. This is like --
BROWN: That is so true.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Actually --
CAPUTO: This is beyond dispute that you --
SIMMONS: It's HGTV --
CAPUTO: So if we'd only had YouTube shorts back in 2012, we might have had the same controversy.
BROWN: Just point out this tweet really quick from the Interior Department that says the reflecting pool water is crystal clear. Like, why would they say that? It's not crystal clear, like, literally.
SIMMONS: Well, he also had the largest inauguration cloud --
TODD: Period.
SIMMONS: Inauguration crowds ever.
TODD: Period.
(LAUGHTER) BROWN: It says, never give an edge.
And then it made a comparison to Iran, saying that the National Park Service team is vacuuming up and the dead algae resting on the bottom of some parts of the reflecting pool, just like the destroyed Iranian navy resting on the bottom of the Persian Gulf.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yeah, the Internet is undefeated on that comparison by the way and basically they're like yes this is exactly like the reflecting pool and the Iran agreement, meaning that we were promised something that cost a lot of money and we didn't get what we were promised.
SIMMONS: Undefeated.
BROWN: Yeah. I mean, and you just look at the cost to our point I wonder what you say about just the optics of there are so many Americans who are struggling right now with affordability. And you look at the price tags of these, right? The reflecting pool started at $1.8 million. Now it's nearly $15 million, according to "The Washington Post".
The ballroom is going to cost at least $600 million, with half being funded by taxpayers. How big of an issue do you think this could be come midterms?
TODD: I think there are so many other problems that are bigger than this. I mean, Joe Biden got a bid for $100 million on the reflecting pool. He didn't do it. So if we can somehow get this fixed for 50, we'll have cut the cost in half. I think --
SIMMONS: Except if it didn't work. He made 50 --
TODD: But he didn't kick the problem down the road.
BROWN: Why is the president so focused on this when there are so many other problems to beat?
TODD: Well, he has a big agenda and he's in a hurry. He doesn't think he has much time. That's why he gives interviews to Marc and everyone else as often as he can. He goes nonstop.
And so maybe he should do a few fewer things and lock in on a few of them. Might make my life simpler as a Republican.
(LAUGHTER)
TODD: But he's in a hurry. He's got a big agenda.
BROWN: All right, let's actually listen, you bring back -- all roads lead back to Marc's interview with the president. Let's take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CAPUTO: Are you going to miss being in this White House?
TRUMP: Well, it's so early. I don't like to talk about it, because two and a half years is a pretty long time, in all fairness.
[16:25:01]
I love the building. I'm fixing the building. You know, I do that in my little side hobby. You see the granite, which they had stones that's broken, the marble's broken.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Is this what he wants his legacy to be, honestly?
CAPUTO: Oh, I think it's part.
I mean, there is a lot of Donald Trump that is, and I've said it before, I think in this room, is like a Roman emperor. And just like they said of Augustus that he found Rome brick and he left it marble, Donald Trump found the White House white and he left it gold. And that is just part of him and just indelibly who he is.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Is he going to leave, though, in two and a half years?
CAPUTO: I believe he is among them.
BROWN: You do?
CAPUTO: Yeah, I do. And he didn't quite say that. And I did ask him at the end of the interview. I did say, well, every president in their second term, as their final midterm approaches, they start to lose power.
Not me, he said. And I said, and their poll numbers start to go, not me, he said. So he's certainly going to rage against the dying of the light right up to the last moment.
BROWN: All right, Marc Caputo, again, excellent interview. Thank you for joining us.
The rest of my panel, stand by.
Up next in THE ARENA, former President Barack Obama on hand today in Chicago as his presidential center opens to the public. Let's talk about his message.
Plus, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani's new criticism for Democrats. Why he says the party must change.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), NEW YORK: For far too long, our party has seen its job as managing decline instead of delivering material change for working people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [16:30:51]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAMDANI: People often ask me what I think of the state of the Democratic Party. This slate here today is our answer. The Democratic Party must change. They tend to follow that question with another. Who do you want to run in 2028?
Then -- then they ask, when does the race for 2028 begin? It starts now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Well, that there, as you probably know, was New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani with a stark call for change within the Democratic Party. He was speaking last night while rallying for a slate of progressive primary candidates who he says represents the future of the party. Mamdani, whose successful anti-establishment campaign broke new ground for the progressive movement last fall, urged his party to stand for principles over polls, warning that if they don't develop a, quote, "backbone", they simply won't stand a chance in 2028.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAMDANI: For far too long, our party has seen its job as managing decline instead of delivering material change for working people. That old way of thinking will lose on Tuesday. And frankly, it will lose in South Carolina and New Hampshire. It will fall short of 270 electoral votes, because the party of the past will not be what leads us into the future.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Joining our panel in THE ARENA, historian and Princeton University professor Eddie Glaude Jr. He is the author of a "New York Times" selling book, "America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation's Anniversaries," and it's out now.
Congratulations on your book.
Jamal, I want to talk to you first, just to get your take on what we heard from Mamdani about the Democratic Party and the change he thinks needs to happen. Is that how you see it?
SIMMONS: Well, first of all, I think you have to give respect to the people in the DSA movement, the Democratic Socialist Movement. They've been winning elections around the country, you see that happen in New York. We just saw it happen in Washington, D.C. We saw a congressional race in New Jersey where nobody saw that coming.
So you're looking around the country and you're seeing the energy of the Democratic Party coming out of this part of the left. What he's right about is that whoever the Democrats field in 2028, they're not going to just be able to run on, let's go back to the way things were. People are going to have to push forward into something that's brand- new, and it's going to have to be big, bold ideas that are going to make meaningful changes.
I'm not convinced that all those changes have to come from the most progressive or left part of the party. I think centrists ought to be able to come up with some pretty bold ideas, because I don't know if you say to someone, women only get 2 percent of venture capital in America. We need to double that or triple that. Is that a progressive idea or is that a centrist idea? I don't know. It's an idea that makes things better.
Every African-American entrepreneur in the country has raised less money than Donald Trump made off of crypto last year, right? We can fix that if we want to. So -- but I'm not sure where that sits on the ideological spectrum. And so people are going to have to come up with big ideas that affect real people.
BROWN: And you do point out that we're seeing more self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist candidates finding more success across the country. What do you make of that? How are you seeing that?
EDDIE GLAUDE, AUTHOR, "AMERICA, U.S.A.": Well, I just think there's an overall kind of upset in the American political environment. Folk are kind of tired of business as usual, and they're reaching for other sorts of languages, other sorts of solutions, because the way in which we lived our lives so far, the general conclusion is that everything is broken. And so folk are reaching for new languages, new ways, more inspired ways of trying to respond. to the conditions of everyday ordinary folk.
So I think if we don't get caught up in labels, if we don't get caught up with short hands, it's not progressive or centrist or conservative to say that working people should make money -- enough money to provide for their households and send their kids to college. It's not progressive to say that folks shouldn't go broke because they're sick. It's not progressive to say, right, that basic, basic education should be -- every human being deserves it, no matter the color of your skin or where your zip code is, right?
[16:35:04]
So I think let's get beyond the labels and just get to what everyday ordinary folk are experiencing on the ground. Maybe we can actually address some of the issues that American people are facing.
BROWN: I want to go to the sound from another prominent voice in the Democratic Party, former President Barack Obama. And he had a similar message about the need for our politics to look toward the future. Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: The exhibits in the center are not meant to evoke nostalgia for some gauzy, bygone era, some unattainable past that we can dream about and say, "Oh, we miss you, Barack." They're meant -- they're meant to remind us of who we can be. (END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And your book does a lot of soul-searching about this quest, right, to be a more perfect union in America. And I'm wondering how you view the president's comments.
GLAUDE: Well, I thought it was a breath of fresh air. We heard complete sentences for-- I shouldn't say that, right? I thought it was a breath of fresh air.
Look, America, in my view, suffers from what I call a divided soul. We imagine ourselves at once as a beacon of freedom and as a white republic. We can't hold those two things together without contradiction, without depositing a kind of madness at the heart of the country.
And what I think, what I hope, what I pray, is that in this moment when we are so divided that we can actually make the choice to be a beacon of freedom, we can debate what that is, but we cannot hold the view that some people ought to play minor bit parts in the nation's history, in the nation's present and future, while others sit at center stage. that I'm not an object of charity, that racial justice isn't a philanthropic enterprise, that the country doesn't belong to a specific set of folk, that we have to ignore the history so that we can be who we think we are without judgment.
Now, I think if we're going to get to where President Obama just described, we're going to have to tell the truth about who we are, what we've done, so that we can release ourselves into a better future.
BROWN: How do you see it, Lulu?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: That's a lot. I know.
(LAUGHTER)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I mean, there's an entire world in that statement.
BROWN: And I think it does hold special meaning today, we should note, on Juneteenth.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes, it does indeed.
This is at the heart of actually what we're experiencing now. I agree with you that what people are looking for is radical change. I think Donald Trump was an expression of that, actually, on the right. You know, I think the debate on the left about moderates versus progressive, I agree with you, I think that those labels have ceased to have meaning.
If you asked a regular person, even though we live in a highly partisan world, right, where it's red hat, blue hat, but if you ask a regular people, they hold so many contradicting opinions that could fall on all sorts of different spectrums. At the heart of this, though, we are a country that I believe many people think how it's lost its way, that we are a country at the moment that doesn't know what it should be in the world and inside the United States.
Do we want to be a country that stands for democracy, that stands for freedom? And what does that mean? What does freedom of speech mean? Republicans have a certain view of that, and Democrats have a different view.
These are fundamental differences that I think labels don't necessarily address, but I do think our next leader, whether they be from the right or from the left, is going to have to find a new language that includes more people in that debate. I think the very narrow lanes that both parties have driven down is not going to satisfy this electorate.
TODD: You know, as I watched Barack Obama at his library the other day, I couldn't help but be struck that, you know, he ran from the leftmost side of the Democratic Party in 2008 when he won. He ran to Hillary Clinton's left decidedly. He would have strong opponents to his left if that Barack Obama ran today.
The Democratic Party is moving so far left. And I disagree with Eddie that the label does matter because the public knows that I think they're smart enough to know, are you a conservative or a liberal?
And now we have Democratic socialists being mayors in almost every large city in the country. They're not where the American people are on crime. They're not where the American people are on taxes. They're not where the American people are on our role in the world.
And while we have our product --
BROWN: They're winning. So, fairly, some Americans --
TODD: Well, in urban areas. They're winning in urban areas.
(CROSSTALK)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: But is the Republican Party so far to the right of where they used to be? And so this I s--
TODD: Wait a minute. Donald Trump ran as the leftmost Republican in 2016. He ran as -- he's been moderate on the minimum wage, on union activity. I mean, he's literally was the leftmost of 15 candidates.
GLAUDE: You think Donald Trump is conservative?
TODD: No, I don't think Donald Trump is near as conservative as most Republicans are.
[16:40:00]
BROWN: Do you think he's authoritarian?
TODD: I think Donald Trump maybe doesn't love the checks and balances that a president has to deal with.
BROWN: That would be authoritarian. TODD: But other presidents have been frustrated, too, you know? I mean, Harry Truman smacked the White House -- South Balcony on the White House because he didn't like the checks and balances.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: But that's what I'm saying, not that, you know, there are parts of his agenda that are far right, parts of his coalition that are far right, positions that he takes that are far right. And some positions are not that. And that's what I'm saying that these labels have ceased to have meaning.
TODD: I disagree. If you look at longitudinally, Republicans are basically as conservative on issues as they said they were 20 years ago. It's Democrats who have moved, Democrat voters within their own coalition, Democrat politicians have followed.
If Bill Clinton ran today as a Democrat with his platform, that he had in 1996, he'd clean up. He'd be far better electorally than any Democrat who's running now. Now, some liberals would have to hold their nose, but that would be the best thing for the Democratic Party is if the far left had to hold its nose and take a centrist --
GLAUDE: Oh, no.
BROWN: Really quickly, as we look ahead to America's 250th anniversary and the fact that it's Juneteenth, I want to look at this poll that came in from CNN. It shows that 60 percent of Black Americans believe their race has been a disadvantage to them, compared to 37 percent of Latinos and 8 percent of whites.
Your book, Eddie, looks at previous anniversaries through the race -- the lens of race. How has that history of racial disparity been told through some of the past celebrations, and how do you see --
GLAUDE: It's been disappeared in past celebrations. So the milestone celebrations give us a sense of how this country tells itself a story. 1876, the centennial. It's happening at the moment in which Reconstruction, radical Reconstruction, is collapsing. You have the violence of Colfax, Louisiana, the violence of Vicksburg, Mississippi, the violence of Hamburg, South Carolina.
Literal coups are happening in the South as people are disappearing, the very reason why the country went to civil war in the first place. 1926. We usually think of the 1920s as the Roaring Twenties. This is the decade of the Klan. The Klan claims as its seminal piece of legislation, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1924, the very immigration regime that the Republican Party today wants to return to. It was basically written by the Klan.
1926, the Klan was approved to hold its annual convention on the grounds of the Philadelphia Exposition, where we're going to celebrate the flag and burn a cross at the same time.
BROWN: I want to get you to respond, just his comment about what the Republican Party wants to return to.
TODD: It's not true at all. The Republican Party wants everyone to have equal rights and equal ability to grow in the current economy.
I am glad to hear you cite the Klan, though. Those were all Southern Democrats you're talking about.
GLAUDE: Oh, no.
TODD: The Democratic Party embraced the Klan in the 1920s.
GLAUDE: Oh, no.
TODD: It was built on the Klan in the Deep South.
GLAUDE: The whole the -- did you know, Senator Reed represented the state of Pennsylvania. The state of Pennsylvania had over 250,000 members of the Klan.
TODD: For sure.
GLAUDE: And most of the people who marched in that 1925 Klan march came from the Midwest and the North, not the South. Don't exceptionalize the South.
TODD: I'm from the South. Malcolm, I'm from the South.
GLAUDE: I'm from Mississippi. As long as you're in the South of the Canadian order, you in the South.
TODD: Robert Byrd was the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan as a Democrat leader of the United States Senate throughout my childhood. I mean, like, this is -- that's --
GLAUDE: But I wanted to say this really quickly. What we're finding -- what we see in this current moment is an all-out assault on two pieces of legislation in 1965 that fundamentally transformed the country. One was the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the other was the Hart-Seller Immigration Act of 1965.
The Hart-Seller Immigration Act of 1965 overturned, undid the quota system of the Immigration Act of 1924. Those two pieces of legislation fundamentally transformed the country, the current iteration of MAGA- ism, they are in the crosshairs.
BROWN: And what do you say to conservatives, like Brad, maybe you share this opinion, that say the Voting Rights Act isn't needed like it was then because of all the progress a country has made. What do you say to that? Even the Supreme Court justices are --
GLAUDE: Right, I would say to them immediately, let's look at what has happened since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. We're redrawing districts, we're disenfranchising black voters, we can't vote for who we want.
We have to-- how can I put this, Pamela? If we don't name the devil that has us by the throat, we will never get to the other side of this. If we don't be honest with how deeply racist the country has been, if we don't be honest with the fact that racism occupies the throne of this nation today, we can't get to the other side of this. We will find ourselves in this cycle repeatedly.
And what I try to do in my book is to show, in those moments when we have to tell ourselves a story about who we are, That contradiction confounds us every single time.
BROWN: All right. Eddie Glaude, thank you so much for joining us, and congrats again on your book, "America U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation's Anniversaries." It's out now.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:49:23]
BROWN: A formal in-person summit to kick off more technical negotiations between the U.S. and Iran was set for today, only to be derailed at the last minute by renewed fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed military group Hezbollah. Now, Israel and Hezbollah, though, eventually agreed to renew a ceasefire this afternoon.
A lot going on. Joining us now to further discuss is former supreme allied commander of NATO and vice chair of the Carlyle Group, retired Admiral James Stavridis.
Nice to see you, Admiral.
So do you see the ceasefire last seen? If not, how crucial do you think it is to Trump's deal?
ADMIRAL JAMES STAVRIDIS (RET.), CNN SENIOR MILITARY ANALYST: I think the ceasefire will last for some number of months, probably not years, Pamela, because the fundamentals are just very bad.
[16:50:07]
And let's all be honest here, this deal is going to bring a shower of funding onto the Islamic Republic, $300 billion potentially, certainly $25 billion in unfrozen assets. And here's a newsflash. They're not going to use it to build schools and clinics and wells and educate their population. They're going to rebuild the military capability we took away from them in this fight, and they'll go right on funding their proxy warriors, notably Hezbollah to the north.
So I think we probably will get to a period of open straight, no blockade against Iran for some number of months, but it's all unfinished business at this point.
BROWN: And it is notable that in the memorandum of understanding, there's nothing about the Iranian proxies. And you heard the Vice President, J.D. Vance, in the White House briefing yesterday talk about that money, and he said Iran will not get assent unless it behaves and basically said actions speak louder than words.
What do you think about that? STAVRIDIS: I hope that's true, and I think it is fair to say before we permanently decry this deal as a terrible, bad, horrible, worst ever deal, which you can kind of make that case right now. But before we do, let's give it a little bit of time.
There are three things that have to happen for the deal to get back in the center lane, if you will. The first is you've got to get the mines out of the strait, open the strait and dissuade the Iranians from charging tolls. So, open straight.
Number two, you've got to finish the business to the north of Israel with Hezbollah. You can't perpetually go along with Hezbollah raining missiles down on Israel.
And then third and most obviously, you have got to address the Iranian nuclear issue. That is what has been brooded about as the reason for the war. They've still got 1,000 pounds of highly enriched and, oh, by the way, 20,000 pounds of somewhat enriched uranium. That's got to be dealt with.
Until those three things happen, the deal is kind of not impossible to judge. Doesn't look good from where we sit. But if the administration wants to get this thing back, they're going to have to address those three things.
BROWN: I want to talk more about the Hezbollah piece of this, because as you know in this memorandum, one of the first parts of it is that the war in Lebanon has to end. And Israel says that overnight, Hezbollah killed four of its soldiers, and therefore Israel retaliated, and that's what caused the back-and-forth, which upended the talks.
Things seem to be back on track, but it's very tenuous. And "The Washington Post" is still reporting that U.S. intelligence agencies have warned the Trump administration that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is likely to take steps that will undermine the peace deal, that he doesn't want this to happen.
What's your reaction to that?
STAVRIDIS: Two points. One, Iran is using Hezbollah to try and drive a wedge between the United States and Israel, and they've been doing that quite successfully here.
And then number two, your question, which is a good one, is why would Benjamin Netanyahu try to undo this deal? And the answer is, A, he regards Iran as an existential threat to Israel and wants to keep pounding it and wants the U.S. to participate.
And then, B, as the saying goes, all politics are local. Bibi Netanyahu, who has been the cat with nine lives for 20 years in power, I think he's right at the edge with the elections coming up in October. And to simply leave Hezbollah, a creature of Iran, with the capability to pound away at Israelis in northern Israel, untenable for the election.
So, U.S. and Israel are on different courses in steering their ships at the moment.
BROWN: All right, Admiral James Stavridis, always great to have you on. Thank you so much.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:58:58]
BROWN: For Father's Day this Sunday, CNN's Jake Tapper is hosting a special hour of "STATE OF THE UNION", and here's a preview of Jake's conversation with Senator Mark Kelly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MARK KELLY (D-AZ): No, I'd remember to come -- to have my grandfather come and get my -- this only happened one time that I remember. to get my mom and my brother. Yeah, she would send -- I don't know, maybe I was -- because I was six minutes older, I was assigned the duty to run to my grandparents' house.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST, STATE OF THE UNION: Do you remember running? Do you remember --
KELLY: I remember running with no shirt and shorts and no shoes at 3:00 in the morning down Pleasant Valley Way all the way to my -- where my grandparents live, which felt like, to me, to be -- it might as well have been 10 miles away. You know, I think I took a look at it once. I think it was two or three miles away.
TAPPER: And you were running to save your brother and your mom?
KELLY: Yeah, to get help.
TAPPER: Because he might hurt them?
KELLY: Yeah, I mean, he was a violent --
TAPPER: He was violent. Yeah.
KELLY: He was a violent guy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: "A Look at Fatherhood" airs Sunday at 9:00 a.m. and again at noon right here on CNN.
And you can watch more of THE ARENA tomorrow. THE ARENA Saturday airs at noon and again at 4:00 p.m. Eastern.
Thank you to my panel.
Thank you all for joining us. Happy early Father's Day.
"THE LEAD" starts right now.
