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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt

Trump Addresses Conservatives Amid Rifts With Senate GOP; Vance Downplays Watergate, Compares Himself To Nixon; U.S. Strikes Iranian Targets In Response To Attack On Cargo Ship; Pete Buttigieg Says His Family Was A Target Of A "Politically Motivated Hoax". Aired 4-5p ET

Aired June 26, 2026 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:01]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Is that just the way that he looks all the time?

PETER SILVEIRA, DAD TO JONAH, SAD PUP AT MIAMI MARLINS GAME: That's his look. Man, he always is trying to look sad and get people to give him treats and food and --

SANCHEZ: Yeah.

SILVEIRA: He looks that way, like he just sits under my daughter's chair and waits for her to drop food and gets all the --

SANCHEZ: It's a great -- it's a great tactic.

Hey, Peter, Ariana, and most of all, Jonah, thank you so much, and enjoy your day at the ballpark. Of course, Go Marlins is the hottest team in baseball right now.

SILVEIRA: All right. Thank you so much.

SANCHEZ: Thanks for being with us.

THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT starts right now.

(MUSIC)

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

As we come on the air, President Donald Trump making a clear push to hold it all together as his party finds itself more a little divided over his handling of issues like the Iran agreement, his refusal to sign a bipartisan housing bill, and his push for an elections bill.

Tonight, the president will participate in an RNC reception with party leaders just hours after he reconnected with a key faction within his base.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Last administration carried out a reign of persecution and repression against Christians and people of faith like America has never seen before. And while I am in the White House, I will defend Christians and all Americans of faith 100 percent. You have it 100 percent and you've seen it already.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: President Trump speaking there to the Faith and Freedom Coalition earlier today. Christians, and evangelicals in particular, were a major part of the coalition that elected Trump in 2016, and their support remains vital. It will not surprise you to hear the president riled up the crowd by attacking Democrats, but this time he used new language that could be a preview of what we'll hear until Election Day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The Democrats, they are horrible. They want to resume the transgender mutilization of our children. They want to restart the war on Christians and churches. And as you saw with the communists elected in New York City recently, they're communists, they're not social Democrats. They want to completely destroy the traditional American way of life.

These are not social democrats. These are hardcore godless communists. They're godless communists. All communists are godless. They don't believe in God.

This is the most serious threat to our country since its existence, in my opinion, 250 years ago. This is a major threat to our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Okay, on that note, let's get off the sidelines, head into THE ARENA. My panel is here, but we're also joined by CNN senior White House correspondent Kristen Holmes.

Kristen, always good to see you.

So, godless communists are back in the collective lexicon, apparently.

What's going on behind the scenes?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, it certainly felt like old-school political rhetoric, talking about Democrats being communists, but he is obviously trying to pivot off of those New York primary elections in which Mayor Mamdani's selected few, won in those primaries.

And I had been told by a political advisor that now is the time, now that they feel like Iran is at least somewhat, except of course what we've seen in the last 24 hours, in the review mirror, this is the time they were going to start pivoting to those political messages. And that part of that messaging was going to be that, while yes, things might not be great right now. They would be far worse under Democrats. That, of course, is what's going to come from Republicans, President Trump. And I was told at that time that the messaging wasn't going to be

alarmist. However, hearing him today, it seems as though President Trump didn't get that message when, again, he linked these Democrats to communists and said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: It's happening right now in New York and California, but you'll start living in squalor. You'll live in squalor. There will be no food. There will be no housing.

There will be no military. There will be no law and order. There will be no nothing. There will be no nothing. You'll be a third world inhabitant in every way, and everyone will suffer or die. You'll suffer or die. This is what happens.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Everyone will suffer and die certainly sounds somewhat alarmist, but I think this is the messaging that they're going to hone in on. Maybe not everyone saying it just like this, but at least Republicans going in this direction ahead of the midterms.

HUNT: And Kristen, the president was just in the Oval Office, and there was a moment where he seemed frustrated. What -- what did you observe?

HOLMES: He certainly seemed frustrated because he kicked the press out after just about two or three questions. And all those questions were on the same topic, which was Iran, talking about Iran violating the ceasefire. He was asked specific questions, says, will they face any consequences? He kept saying over and over again you're going to find out.

Then he was asked specifically, do you consider the ceasefire to still be in place? And didn't answer the question just said, that I don't like the fact that they took a shot yesterday actually for. We continued down that path a little bit talking about what happened, and then essentially telling everybody to leave, saying that's enough for today.

[16:05:07]

And I will tell you, we sit here and we watch him all the time. That was so brief for the questioning. Usually, he loves to take questions for even 30 minutes, 45 minutes. This was not even three questions, or it was just three questions about Iran, and then he got everybody out of there. So you could tell he's certainly frustrated about what's going on right now.

HUNT: Interesting.

All right, Kristen Holmes for us -- Kristen, thank you very much.

My panel is here in THE ARENA. CNN contributor, host of "The New York Times'" "The Interview", Lulu Garcia-Navarro; CNN political analyst, presidential historian, Leah Wright Rigueur; CNN political commentator, former DNC senior advisor, communications director, Xochitl Hinojosa; and Republican strategist and a former campaign advisor to Mitt Romney, Kevin Madden.

Thank you all very much for being here. Really appreciate it.

Lulu, you have heard and covered a lot of places where communists have perhaps been part of the conversation at one point or another. What does it say to your ear when you hear the president bring back that phrase?

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Let's play the greatest hits. You know, this is something that he brought up during his various elections. It plays very well to my own community in South Florida. I mean, you know, Venezuelans, anyone who has dealt with other communist regimes or socialist regimes in Latin America and other places.

And in many ways, the Republicans are viewing what just happened in New York City as a gift. They're seeing the election of people who are generally quite far outside of the mainstream of Democratic sort of policies. And they're saying, this is great. We're going to basically hang these people around the neck of every single Democrat that's running for election.

So that is going to be the play. And definitely culture war issues are the favorite, favorite thing that Republicans love to run on. That is going to be fertile ground for them, because guess what isn't fertile ground for them? The thing that Americans most care about, which is the economy.

HUNT: Yeah. Kevin Madden, what do you make of the way Republicans are likely to try to use -- I mean, this is going back, of course, to the elections on Tuesday in New York, where you had some Democratic Socialists of America unseat incumbents, frankly, at Mamdani's behest.

KEVIN MADDEN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, first of all, I still marvel at the fact that somebody in the White House tried to preview the president's remarks by saying there wasn't going to be alarmist rhetoric.

(LAUGHTER)

MADDEN: Have they not been paying attention, right? Look, every year the president goes to this event, and every year he uses really stark language that is trying to draw as stark a contrast with the Democrats and the direction that he believes Democrats and his opponents would take the country. So I think that's exactly the type of playbook that you're going to continue to see.

I mean, the president knows, and I think every other Republican down- ballot knows. that this is part of crucial part of a base energy sort of turnout model that you need to win in 2026, and that the culture warriors always show up on election day. And so it's a Lulu's point. I think this is going to be an important part of their message. The frame is going to be when it all comes down to push. These are the type of policies that you have to be worried about.

They're going to essentially try to frame their opponents negatively around you know, on a pursuit of socialist Democratic policies, big taxing, big spending, and then on a lot of the other cultural social issues that the Democrats and the left represent a danger to the country. And you're just going to see a lot more of that.

XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: But it's not only a danger in terms of the issues. I mean, he is saying things like they will kill your people. I mean, like that type of rhetoric ends up leading to violence. We already know that. We've seen what has happened over the last year-plus in our country when it comes to political rhetoric gone too far.

MADDEN: On the left and the right.

HINOJOSA: On the left and the right, you know? But I will say that many on the right have always said it is the left who is the far left who has been responsible for some of the violence that is out there. But we are also seeing the president, the person with the biggest bully pulpit in our country, also going too far on the rhetoric, which is very dangerous.

HUNT: Let's play the moment that you're talking about in the night. I'd be happy to have you weigh in a little bit further. But Trump did say at the Faith and Freedom Coalition today, communists, they will kill your people. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: So I'm saving Christians throughout the world, even though we are not in those various countries where you read about this. But they'd like to make our country just like those countries. That's where they started. They started right where we are right now.

But I'm saving them by hitting these terrorists very violently and very hard. They will close your churches in this country. They go communist and they're trying to. They will kill your people, and that's what they're about.

They want to end religion. They have to end religion because their ideology doesn't work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: I mean, Xochitl, that is -- I mean, they will kill your people.

[16:10:03]

That's what they're about. They want to end religion.

HINOJOSA: Yeah, and part of that speech you also said, everyone will suffer and die. I think you played it at the beginning of the show.

HUNT: Yeah. HINOJOSA: And it is -- I mean, it is -- I mean, it's A, it's just not true, but the fact that the president of the United States is going so far and that this is the message from the midterm elections, sends a message to his entire party that it is okay to talk like this, that it is okay to kind of have this sort of language out there against Democrats, and it is dangerous. Something bad can happen when our leaders are starting to make false allegations like this.

LEAH WRIGHT RIGUEUR, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: It's also a losing message. And I want to be very clear about this. So in addition to being a dangerous message, I think one of the things that the Trump administration is falling into is the very same trap that Democrats fell into during the 2024 election, which is that people care about the economy right now. They care about affordability.

And one of the things that they are missing about all of these elections where these Democratic Socialists or whatever we're calling them have won has been that consistently, the American people, the American public have said, things are too high, the rent is too high. Groceries are too high. Gas is too high. I cannot afford to live.

And so they have responded to politicians who have stayed on message. This is one of the things, you know, post election, Mamdani's election in New York City, consistently people have said, you know, I voted for him because he stayed on message with affordability. Now they're also looking at how is he performing in terms of policies, and they're saying, I like the way that he is performing.

And so Democrats have to get it together in terms of messaging. But one of the things that we've seen is that people on the ground are not ideological. They are not dogmatic. They are not out here saying, Yay, or Danger communism, or things like that. They are saying, how can I afford to live? That's the message that people want to hear.

HUNT: Well, I mean, in some ways, what you're saying explains why he's going where he's going, right? I mean, if affordability is not the place where you can win, right? I mean, he seems to be willing, Kevin, to scrap a huge bill that is affordability policy, kind of wrapped up with a bow and put on his desk at the -- you know, to -- on the alt -- to sacrifice on the altar of his elections bill.

MADDEN: Yeah, that's the view.

HUNT: Right.

MADDEN: One of the other, one of the other interesting things out of Kristen's reporting out of the White House was the term that they see Iran pretty much in the rearview mirror.

HUNT: I mean, they'd love it to be, right?

MADDEN: There is a 0.0 percent chance that that is the case for the next couple of months all the way to Election Day. I think that you have to have a strategy that's much more grounded in reality. And the reality is that what's driving voter sentiment right now, particularly the most sort of migratory sector of the electorate, which is independence, non-ideological, more economically pragmatic group in the middle, it's all about the economy, it's all about affordability.

And so those are the issues that we have to be drawing. But I think the strategy here is where you do need to energize a base, then go out and get those voters, is that these issues, like really framing in the terms of what's dangerous about a Democratic majority, what's dangerous about Democrats, socialists taking the country in the wrong direction in a way to sort of position yourself more effectively as a safer choice with the middle, that's at least the strategy.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Can I also just say, and I really always hate the framing of like, this is a both sides problem, But it is also being framed existentially on the left and Democrats. Democrats see this election, and if you listen to -- I mean, they're not saying Republicans are about to kill people. But what they are saying is that, you know, this is about an essential fight for our country, democracy. All of this is being framed in very Manichaean terms on both sides.

HUNT: Yeah. I think it's also worth noting that one of the themes that we've continued to talk about here is just the president's focus on himself, on his legacy, on all the things that he's been building, sometimes at the expense of these greater policy goals. This moment today, where he talked about -- the president talked about our founders and how -- who they did and didn't invoke in our founding documents as a country. Just watch it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Our founders invoked the Creator four times in the Declaration of Independence, four times. I wasn't mentioned once. I'm very upset. Not once.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: I mean --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: You want to take this one?

RIGUEUR: Ah, you know, I think it's ironic, Trump standing up there and talking about the Constitution when it appears the thing that this country needs most is a reintroduction to a civic lesson. You know, I think that there is a very deliberate attempt, and I agree with the assessments about wanting to bring in the religious space and appealing to the religious space, particularly now.

But I do think that, you know, in a moment where we're reassessing the entire country, where we're going back and we're saying American 250, one of the things that we should be doing is reading the Constitution for what it actually says and what it actually contains, as opposed to the things that --

[16:15:14]

MADDEN: You're an originalist. I'm all for this.

(LAUGHTER) RIGUEUR: Well, apparently, our president is not an originalist.

He put himself in there --

HUNT: Right next to God.

RIGUEUR: Right next to God. And so I think that there is a, you know, there's a moment where it is, you know, there is a moment where we're having a problem with our understanding of the Constitution and the civics of the Constitution.

So for Trump to then insert religion in a way that is particularly flattering to him is one that I think we should all be cautious of.

HUNT: All right. Coming up next here in THE ARENA, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee is vowing to force a vote on permanently blocking the president's so-called anti-weaponization fund. Congressman Jamie Raskin will be here live.

Also this hour, Richard Nixon and Watergate are back. Yep, really. Just -- just along with the godless communists. We'll explain.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD NIXON, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: We don't have a good word for it in English. The best is au revoir. We'll see you again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:20:39]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN DEAN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: I began by telling the president there was a cancer growing on the presidency. And if the cancer was not removed, the president himself would be killed by it. I also told him that it was important that this cancer be removed immediately because it was growing more deadly every day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: There was a cancer growing on the presidency. That infamous warning from John Dean, the star witness of the Watergate hearings, would ultimately accelerate the dramatic unraveling of Richard Nixon's presidency.

Nixon then resigned one year later in disgraced, rebuked by his own party, his legacy defined by the corruption of the Watergate scandal. But now, over 50 years later, Nixon's image going through a full-scale rehabilitation, in no small part due to viral videos like these, produced and circulated online by the Nixon Foundation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kennedy, I see a silver spoon. Nixon? I see myself.

(MUSIC)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Now, the vice president, J.D. Vance, weighing in as well, making this comparison to Nixon's legacy last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think that his historical legacy is enjoying a bit of a renaissance, but I think deservedly so. As I joked with Robert backstage, if Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story. The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy.

And by the way, if you look at the story of how the Deep State took down Richard Nixon, It's not all that different from what the same groups of people, the same institutions tried to do to Donald Trump in the first Trump administration. There is a parallel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: My panel is back.

Leah --

(LAUGHTER)

HUNT: Could you just take us back and give us the history of this and what your reaction is to the way it's being written there?

RIGUEUR: I have to start with the fact that Richard Nixon was the deep state, so I don't -- I'm not quite sure where J.D. Vance is coming from with this idea that the state took him down and that there was this kind of --

HUNT: He had enlisted many of these organizations to help him, no?

RIGUEUR: He had -- he had enlisted all kinds of organizations. He had worked closely with the FBI. He had employed illegally, unethically, all kinds of people. He went up against the Supreme Court.

I mean, the reason -- part of the reason that he resigns is that a group of Republicans get together and they're like, look, if this gets -- you're going to get impeached, and if you get impeached, we are going to convict you because you were wrong.

So the idea that, you know, this is some vast conspiracy in that, you know, Richard Nixon did nothing wrong is one that is completely ahistorical, but it's also one that's deeply confusing, because I'm not quite sure why J.D. Vance would want to compare himself to Nixon in that regard.

Just one more thing, too. I think the fact that we are moving beyond the question of whether what Richard Nixon did was right or wrong, or, you know, where he falls, and into the, Well, it's not a big deal, shows how far we have strayed from the idea of ethics and politics and actually what is right and what is wrong, and how corruption has become normalized in a way that, you know, 50 years ago, simply just wouldn't stand. Um, that's very alarming.

Let's watch the moment where, because you saw J.D. Vance talk sort of big picture about Nixon, and where he should or shouldn't sit in history, here's what he said about himself and the parallels he sees between himself and Richard Nixon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VANCE: I also just, at a personal level, you know, okay, young senator, vice president, writes some best-selling books, is hated by the media. It kind of sounds like J.D. Vance. So I'm a little -- you know, I've always liked Richard Nixon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Kevin?

MADDEN: I was like, man, I hope she doesn't --

(LAUGHTER)

MADDEN: I -- look, I don't. I don't have a whole lot of historical context on Watergate, but what I would say on this is -- to put context to what J.D. Vance was saying.

[16:25:03]

He started off by saying, hey, I was joking to somebody in the back about this and then he continued to keep talking about it. But look, I think one of -- one of the things that I found interesting over the last two weeks is that there's been an omnipresence to J.D. Vance that I don't think is necessarily good for him. He's in a position here of holding a mic and holding forth and talking --

(CROSSTALK)

MADDEN: I know, but he's put in a position of being like chief pundit from the White House. And I don't think that's necessarily good for him. And you just see a lot of that where it's kind of opining on the sort of issues of the day, historical context to past presidents, instead of really focusing on the message that should be coming out of the White House about the broader vision that they have on the issues that people care about. I just think it's a bit of a dilution of the position.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I mean, I think what Democrats would say, if they looked at that, is they say that every statement is a confession. Because what he's implying there is that Watergate, so scandalous back then, brought down the presidency, something terrible, nowadays because the amount of scandal that's coming out of his administration, J.D. Vance's and the president's, it wouldn't even be a blip.

I mean, that is the way, certainly, that it is being understood by the president and J.D. Vance's political opponents.

HUNT: Lulu, one other, you know, as I was sort of listening to this play out this morning, thing that struck me, I mean, this administration has also rewritten recent history, mostly around January 6th. And to go back and sort of pull this into the rewriting of it -- I mean, look, the Nixon Foundation is doing it too. They sell Nixon maxing hats.

You can put up a picture of that, which, you know, obviously this is look maxing -- maxing apparently can max everything. I'm a little too old for this trend, but that's apparently that's what my younger on the Internet friends tell me is the case. But I mean, it strikes me that this is part and parcel of that.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I mean, I think there's always been actually a cadre of people who have loved Richard Nixon and think about Richard Nixon in the context of his overtures toward China. And, you know, sort of other signature measures that he was a part of and feel like that he might have gotten a raw deal. That said, the thing that he's most famous for is paying someone to break into the DNC, steal stuff, and then tape himself in incriminating ways so that everyone could hear about it in hearings that the entire country was, you know, kind of riveted by. So, I don't know.

HINOJOSA: Well, and the whole reason why J.D. Vance feels like this is, well, only one, he wants to run for president and he knows, they think he was speaking to one person when he was talking about Nixon and potentially the targeting, I guess, that the current president has faced, that's falsely saying the targeting. And so he needs his endorsement eventually.

But I do think that at the end of the day, it is the Supreme Court that put us here. And it is the reason why this administration believes that it would be a 12-hour news cycle and that they can do whatever they want moving forward is because the Supreme Court was very clear that the president cannot be prosecuted when they're sitting in office. And so now, not only this presidency, but moving forward, we are in very dangerous territory if this is where it looks like, where the president of the United States cannot be held accountable unless it is through impeachment, which is crazy because we know Congress never does anything to hold anybody accountable. So --

HUNT: Well, we've seen, yeah, impeachment become quite a different tool than the one that was perhaps imagined when it was written into our founding documents.

All right. Coming up next here in THE ARENA, Congressman Jamie Raskin will be here live. He's one lawmaker expected to lead the charge for Democrats should they win the House, as the House speaker gives a new warning to conservatives should they lose control of Congress in November.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: If we were to lose the midterms, Heaven forbid, these Democrats, y'all, impeachment's not even the big concern. They will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body, and they'll go after the president's family, the cabinet, his donors and friends. Half of you in this room will be targeted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:33:32]

HUNT: All right, welcome back.

As Democrats look to regain their majority in Congress this November, the party's candidates across the country have been campaigning on the promise to hold the Trump administration accountable if voters elect them. House Speaker Mike Johnson today now offering this message to Republicans if that does, in fact, happen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNSON: If we were to lose the midterms, heaven forbid, these Democrats, y'all, impeachment's not even the big concern. They will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body, and they'll go after the president's family, the cabinet, his donors, and friends. Half of you in this room will be targeted.

I run the protection program. I'll take care of you, okay?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Joining me now, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland.

Congressman, very good to see you. Thank you so much for being here.

Do you have a sense of what Mike Johnson meant, the speaker meant, by what he said there?

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Well, like everything else with these guys, it's a massive projection. We just had our third hearing on the Southern Poverty Law Center, as they falsely claimed that the Southern Poverty Law Center defrauds its donors because it sends people undercover into extremist groups to try to find out what they're doing and where their next bombing or assassination is going to go.

But we know that they've been attacking law firms, they've been attacking colleges, universities. So that's a projection of their own style. We want to move the country forward.

Of course, they have saturated us in corruption, authoritarianism, government violence against U.S. citizens.

[16:35:05]

And of course, we have to investigate all of those things in order to prevent them from happening again in the future.

HUNT: Congressman, we were just discussing here, and you probably have seen by now what the vice president had to say about Richard Nixon and comparing himself to Nixon, as well as saying that Nixon was pursued by the deep state. What would you say to Vance about that?

RASKIN: Well, Nixon, of course, organized deep state activities against the civil rights movement, against the peace movement, and so on. But essentially, I read the vice president to be saying that the Watergate break-in is like a Cub Scout prank compared to the massive corruption and criminality that the Trump administration has brought to America.

We know that they don't have any positive program or policy for the country. Their only real policies have been illegal, unconstitutional, and disastrous, like their tariffs, which cost Americans hundreds of billions of dollars, the war in Iran, which has cost us more than $100 billion, as well as the lives of American soldiers and thousands of people in Iran.

But they've got no other program for the country other than self- enrichment and corruption through crypto, through the collection of foreign government emoluments, like the $400 million jet that was pocketed from Qatar, like the billions in deals with the Saudis that Jared Kushner has been able to engage in, and so on. Like, that's the real program that they've got.

So, you know, we're in a situation where we have to do everything we can to move the country forward out of this abyss of corruption and authoritarianism that they've sunk us into.

HUNT: So, speaking of moving forward, we saw a number of elections this week, particularly in New York, where, of course, three candidates that were backed by the mayor won their elections, including two who defeated incumbent Democratic members.

And the senator from Michigan, Elissa Slotkin, did an interview with Stephen A. Smith, actually, saying that those wins by Mamdani candidates says that it's evidence that the party does not have the right people in charge, does not have the right leadership.

Do you agree with that?

RASKIN: Gee, I didn't hear Elissa Slotkin say that. I'm really going to have to go back and examine that one because that seems puzzling to me, at least the way that you're relaying it, Kasie.

You know, I'm close with Elissa Slotkin. I went and I campaigned for her to win in Michigan. And I think everybody who wants to defeat authoritarianism and corruption in America understands that we need to keep all the elements of the Democratic coalition together of every generation and of every particular, you know, political commitment and value.

All of us believe that the government has got to be an instrument for the common good, as opposed to an instrument for the private self- enrichment and whims and games of a president who, you know, wants a billion dollar golden ballroom and, you know, has been draining the reflecting pool and filling the swamp up with all of his corrupt deals.

HUNT: Yeah, forgive me. I didn't realize we have the sound bite of what Slotkin said. So let me just play it for you.

RASKIN: Please?

HUNT: And we'll continue our conversation on the other side. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELISSA SLOTKIN (D-MI): I think we have literally found ourselves in a situation where we just don't have people who understand the moment and understand what leadership means.

STEPHEN A. SMITH, HOST: When you talk about new leadership, that would mean they're out in favor of somebody else. Is that what you're saying?

SLOTKIN: I'm saying if people can't understand that the game has changed -- I mean, this is you. This is -- you're the sports guy. If people can't understand that the game has fundamentally changed and they can't adapt, then they need to let others lead.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: What do you make of that?

RASKIN: I mean, I suppose on its narrow terms, I agree with that. If people can't lead, they shouldn't lead. I -- again, I don't know who she's referring to there were no names being named.

But look, if there are people who believe that the job of a representative or senator is to go and push a green button or a red button and that's it, those people are obviously in the wrong job during this period when everything that we believe in is under attack. We're in the fight of our lives right now, and we need to maintain unity and focus, solidarity in the Democratic forces. We've got to be welcoming people.

I hear from Republicans, I hear from veterans, I hear from people in the armed services all the time saying they can't take it anymore, and they want to be able to join a robust, big tent Democratic Party.

[16:40:07]

And I'm there for that. I'm there to be organizing people all over the country to join us. So I think that's the spirit of what she's saying, and if it is, then I agree with her.

HUNT: Fair enough. Were you surprised to see your fellow Marylander, the Senator Chris Van Hollen, endorse Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Senate primary? RASKIN: Not really. I mean, he's an excellent candidate. That's a field of excellent candidates. And, look, the Republican Party right now operates like a monarchical royal court or a religious cult, really, where the cult member can wake up and say, today, we love China, tomorrow, we hate China. Today, we love tariffs. Tomorrow, we, you know, hate tariffs, and then they all follow along.

We've got a real political party here where we are engaged in serious debate and contest about the issues of the day, and we have got to defeat authoritarianism so we can address the overarching crises of our time related to climate change and environmental devastation, related to artificial intelligence. We've got real issues that we need to confront.

In the meantime, Trump and Mike Johnson are immersing us in controversies over the millions of dollars they're spending on the reflecting pool or the hundreds of millions they want to spend on the golden ballroom and all of their pet fancy projects and corruption.

HUNT: Yeah, I mean, I think that certainly the Democrats that I talked to in Michigan, I think the concern, if the goal is to take on authoritarianism and winning back the Senate is part of that goal from the Democratic perspective, that El-Sayed might put the seat in Michigan Senate at risk in a way that one of the other candidates might not. Do you not see it that way?

RASKIN: Again, you know, I'm not watching that race too closely because I'm not out in Michigan. I've been out to support some people on the House side.

But look, I think any of those three candidates can, should, and will win the election, and I will be 1,000 percent whichever one of those people comes out of the primary. I mean, that's our responsibility. You know, whether a more, quote, "progressive" or a more moderate person wins, we have got to get together to make sure we take the Senate back and we take the House back.

And remember, you know, there's 535 members of Congress, so you don't have to agree with every single thing that somebody on your team says. You just have to want our team to win. And, you know, at this point, we have got to be as unified -- actually, we've got to be much more unified than Republicans as they begin to fracture and lose people.

I see, you know, Tucker Carlson is gone, Marjorie Taylor Greene is gone. They're losing people every day, and we need to be building our forces. So I'm not so much interested in the division and the polarization. I want to keep us together.

HUNT: One place I know that you've been working on trying to do that is focusing in on this anti-weaponization fund and a bill to try and permanently prevent that. What is the status of your effort to try to force a vote on that?

RASKIN: Yeah, well, you know, the acting attorney general here says that they're, quote, "not moving" forward at this point. You know, when my car comes to a stop sign, I'm not moving forward. But five seconds later, I am moving forward.

So we don't need a stop sign. We need a Denver boot on this terrible idea. The whole country understands how dangerous it is to allow Donald Trump to take $1.776 billion of taxpayer money and then use it as a political slush fund for the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and the convicted felons who beat up our police officers on January 6th. It violates about 10 different provisions in the Constitution.

So we are moving forward on a discharge petition to say, no, we're going to put this into law. So the president can't just order the Attorney General, Todd Blanche, to go ahead with this plan. And we have two different federal judges who are complaining about the fact that he refuses to commit to paper his verbal assurances that it's, quote, not moving forward. That's not enough.

HUNT: All right, Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin, very grateful to have you, sir. Thanks very much for being here.

RASKIN: Thank you, Kasie.

HUNT: All right. This just in, breaking news, U.S. Central Command says that it's launched new strikes on Iran just one day after Iran struck a tanker ship.

CNN's Kristen Holmes is live for us at the White House.

Kristen, what did you learn?

HOLMES: So this is all coming from Central Command right now. The White House is pointing to Central Command. All of the U.S. officials we've spoken to pointing to this tweet that was put out by U.S. Central Command, confirming what we had heard from Iranian media were strikes -- the sound of strikes in southern Iran.

Now you have this statement from U.S. Central Command that says that this is a direct response to the attack on that ship yesterday.

[16:45:07]

Now here is part of it. It says the U.S. aircraft struck Iranian missile and drone storage locations and coastal radar sites. Then it says in response to what happened yesterday about that, it says the unwarranted aggression commercial shipping by Iranian forces clearly violated the ceasefire. Furthermore, Iran's dangerous behavior undermined freedom of navigation as commerce increasingly flows through the vital international trade corridor.

I just want to remind you of what happened at the beginning of your show when President Trump was in the Oval Office and he was asked specifically if the United States was going to respond. Take a listen to this exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Like the fact that they took a shot yesterday -- actually, four. We knocked down three -- at a ship. Not an allied ship, but a ship, a very expensive ship. And it was fine, but it took a little beating. They shouldn't be doing that. So you'll find out.

REPORTER: Will the U.S. --

TRUMP: I mean, you'll find out.

REPORTER: Will the U.S. respond? What is your message to Iran?

TRUMP: If I respond, you're going to find out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: That you're going to find out. Well, obviously this had already been planned. It happened just moments after the first reports of the sound of strikes.

And I do want to note, we've seen some back-and-forth between Iran and the U.S. since the ceasefire took place, with U.S. saying the ceasefire was still intact despite the trading of strikes. It appears, and I'm using the word appears here because it is not 100 percent clear, that the United States is still indicating that this was just a response and that this is not the end of the ceasefire.

And the reason I'm saying that is because this is part of the statement from the U.S. Central Command. It says, CENTCOM forces continue to provide safe passage coordination and support to commercial vessels transiting the strait. The U.S. military remains present and vigilant to ensure all aspects of the agreement with Iran are adhered to, obeyed, and in full force effect.

So essentially saying the military is still there and they're doing their job to make sure that the deal stays in full effect, not saying that this is an end the ceasefire, but of course we're reaching out to sources to see what exactly this means and what it means for those negotiations which we know have just been so tenuous and so fragile.

HUNT: All right, Kristen Holmes for us -- Kristen, thank you for that breaking news.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:51:51]

HUNT: All right, breaking news just in. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says that he and his family were victims of a swatting-like attack. But this one involves a false allegation that he had committed violent crimes and that his children were at risk. Buttigieg saying he was forced to be separated from his children overnight while the anonymous tip was investigated.

In a statement, Michigan State Police say that Child Protective Services determined the allegation was false. Buttigieg describing the incident as the ugliest thing to happen to him in his public career and saying, quote, "So help me God. If there is any way to press civil or criminal charges over this, we will," end quote. I'm joined now by CNN senior national security analyst Juliette

Kayyem.

Juliette, thank you very much for being here. This lengthy Substack post from Pete Buttigieg's headlined, "A terrible thing happened to my family" and I -- he wrote in this after, of course, CPS comes to his house tells him he needs to spend the night away from his children. His children have to be interviewed by the government essentially to see what's gone on. The grandparents have to take the kids to the interview while they're separated overnight.

He writes this, quote, "I'm a reasonable man. I try to keep as calm and low key as possible but can -- I cannot describe the mix of rage and sadness that I feel at the idea that someone brought our children into this. They are four years old, four, and they do not know or care what a Democrat or Republican is."

Now, he also goes on to point out that a false accusation of this kind is a crime. Still, this is a new -- this is something new that we're seeing in our politics.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes. Yes. Most wadding is -- is that the person is in trouble and therefore the police come rushing to it. The perversity of this, we don't have to read in between the lines. Someone called in to Family Services and said he is doing something or something is happening with his children that makes him not able to be with his own children.

I don't care what his family is like. I don't care -- and this is the most horrific thing that you can imagine would happen. It's perversity, it's violence, it's every -- and it's sort of, you know, bringing the children into it is something we is a level we have not seen before. At most, you know, you sometimes you get politicians criticizing their children and often it's their adult children, but you don't see this kind of action against someone who is clearly running for president.

So, a couple things. One is I cannot blame social services. They don't know what the call is about --

HUNT: He doesn't either. Juliette, I'll just say we only have 30 seconds.

KAYYEM: Yeah.

HUNT: But yes, he is very clear that they were doing their jobs and that this was a diversion of their resources.

KAYYEM: Exactly. And then others sort of coming, look, this is -- this is the impact of the personalization and the violence that is emanating from -- at the top, from the White House, but throughout politics.

[16:55:10]

And I keep thinking there's going to be a line, and there's no line. We just crossed another line.

HUNT: It's a stunning escalation of the ugliness. Julia Kayyem, thanks very much for hopping in front of a camera for us. I really appreciate it.

All right, we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUNT: Thanks very much, my panel. Really appreciate you.

Thanks to you for watching as well. Don't forget, you can watch much more of THE ARENA tomorrow. THE ARENA SATURDAY airs at noon and again at 4:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN. Would love to have you join us.

But don't go anywhere. Jake Tapper is standing by for the lead.

Hi, Jake. Happy Friday.