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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
Trump: U.S. Elections "Worse Than Any Third World Country"; Sources: Trump Was Furious Over Pause Of ICE Traffic Stops; Will Congress Actually Make Daylight Saving Time Permanent?; 1979: Carter's "Crisis Of Confidence" Address To Nation; Messi & Lamine Yamal To Face Off In World Cup Final 19 Years After Meeting At A Charity Photoshoot. Aired 12-1p ET
Aired July 18, 2026 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN ANCHOR: Who or someone you know has been affected by the issues that we've covered in this show and needs help. You can call the U.S. Sexual Assault Hotline 24/7 at 1-800-656-4673, provided by RAINN. And internationally, a worldwide list of directories is provided by U.N. Women on Lila.help.
I'm Christiane Amanpour in London, thank you for watching and see you next time.
[12:00:42]
KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt, welcome to The Arena Saturday.
We are less than four months away from the midterms, but what will it mean for the election if the President and his advisers seem intent on sowing doubt that your vote will be counted properly?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The election system we have dangerously exposes and really exposes like levels never thought possible to hacking, exploitation and foreign interference. Just as disturbingly, this vital information has for many years been covered up and hidden from you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: This week, we saw President Trump's pick to leave the Intelligence Community becoming just the latest nominee to repeatedly refuse to acknowledge that Joe Biden won the 2020 election.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JON OSSOFF (D), GEORGIA: Who won the 2020 election?
JAY CLAYTON, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK: You know, I'm not going to do this with you.
OSSOFF: Who won the 2020 election?
CLAYTON: Like I said, I'm not going to get into that with you.
OSSOFF: Who won the 2020 election?
CLAYTON: I think I've answered the question. We can keep doing this.
OSSOFF: Who won the 2020 presidential election?
CLAYTON: I've answered it.
OSSOFF: Answer the question. Who won the 2020 election?
CLAYTON: I have answered the question.
OSSOFF: Answer it. What is your answer?
CLAYTON: I've given you my answer.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Can you tell what his answer was? Anyway, then there was the release of declassified documents that the White House claims show foreign interference and the President himself using a rare primetime White House address to say things like this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: These disclosures reveal an election system so broken and so vulnerable that no one can possibly defend it. It is not defensible. This is worse than any third world country. There's no third world country that has elections like we have.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: On that note, my panel is here in The Arena. CNN Legal Analyst, Former Federal Prosecutor Elliot Williams, Republican Pollster, CNN Political Commentator Kristen Soltis Anderson, Former Biden White House Communications Director and CNN Political Commentator Kate Bedingfield and Former Trump White House Communications Director Mike Dubke. Welcome to all of you. Thank you so much for being here.
Mike, why was it so hard for Jay Clayton to answer that question?
MIKE DUBKE, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Well, I think there's a couple of reasons. One, because he's got a -- about to have a boss if he gets confirmed that really does believe that he did not win or that he won the 2020 election. So, you know, when you're thinking about this, if this is a job interview and you're going in and somebody is asking you, you know, I want you to talk about your boss in such a way that's really going to -- I was going to say piss him off, but make him angry.
HUNT: I think that ship has sailed.
DUBKE: Yes. And so it's -- and this seems to be a game. This seems to be a game of Democrats because Senator Ossoff isn't the only one that asked him that question. There were like four or five other senators that asked him that question. This seems to be a game that keeps getting said.
Now, he did, later on in one of the other clips, say he -- Joe Biden received enough electoral votes to be President. So he did answer the question. But I think that's what's going on here. It's just -- it's just a way to poke at a nominee.
HUNT: But can we not acknowledge that -- the way the President is talking about this, because you're not the first person that I've talked to in the last week, first Republican who said Democrats are playing a game. They're trying to get them to say something that's going to make Donald Trump angry, et cetera, et cetera.
Fine. Acknowledged. It would make Donald Trump angry. But for the country, for the President to use a primetime address to essentially tell Americans that the results of the election should be called into question and then to get to the point where, you know, the politicians representing half the country can't acknowledge that an election was won or lost. I mean, elections are won or lost, right? Like all of this talking around, it has actual consequences in the real world.
DUBKE: No -- yes, but I think to say half of the -- of Congress doesn't acknowledge this, I don't think that's right. I --
HUNT: Slightly more than half because that's what Republicans going to do (ph).
DUBKE: Well, I have seen on your program earlier in the week there was Senator Kennedy who came out and said, look, Joe Biden won the election. So there are politicians who will come out and say --
HUNT: Well, he didn't quite say that. In fact, let's play a match of the people that I talked to this week pushing on this particular topic. The last of which in this line, I believe, is Senator Kennedy. Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[12:05:11]
HUNT: Is every member of Congress duly, freely and fairly elected? Did they win their seats fair and square?
REP. DON BACON (R), NEBRASKA: I believe they did. I don't think we go backwards and second guess that.
HUNT: Congressman, do you think that Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff are duly elected?
GARRET GRAVES (R), FORMER LOUISIANA CONGRESSMAN: I haven't gone in and studied the elections, but I haven't -- let me be clear on this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's simply easy.
GRAVES: I have not seen --
HUNT: Who won the 2024 election? SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R), LOUISIANA: I think President Trump is the President of the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So, of course, that's how --
DUBKE: That's right (ph).
HUNT: -- the 2024 election. He had said the same thing about the 2020 election.
DUBKE: Exactly. But I think he was making fun there of the -- of answering your question on the 2024 election --
HUNT: Well --
DUBKE: -- the same way in --
HUNT: -- he understood that I was setting up a very obvious trap for him and he didn't wish to step in it.
DUBKE: Right. But, look, the guy's got a sense of humor and I think he showed it on that program.
HUNT: He does. Kate?
KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, hard to call this a game when the President of the United States is using a primetime address to sow doubt about the validity of our elections which, by the way, Thomas Massie had the best quote on this, which was like Republicans control the House, Republicans control the Senate, Republicans control the White House.
So tell me what our issues with election integrity are. I mean, it's just -- it's asinine. But it goes to how concerned Donald Trump is about the state of play for the midterms, right? He is sowing doubt to try to discourage people from coming out to vote, because right now it looks like he and his party are going to get their clock cleaned in November.
And part of the reason for that -- but part of the reason for that is because he's focused on garbage like this rather than talking about what he's doing to try to bring prices down, to try to strengthen the economy. So, you know, there's a part of me -- I was happy to see that the networks didn't take President Trump's speech completely unfettered.
But there was a part of me as a partisan Democrat who sort of wanted them to, because there is nothing about what Donald Trump is saying right now when he's making this argument about election integrity that is persuasive to swing voters. You see time and again swing voters say this is a personal grievance for him. This isn't about my life. This isn't what I elected him to do.
DUBKE: Yes. BEDINGFIELD: So, you know, he's just -- he's digging the hole further for himself. And by the way, yes, of course, of course, it is dangerous to have a President of the United States suggesting that there is voter fraud or that there was foreign interference in the election in a way that his own Intelligence Community, his own CIA director now, who was DNI at the time in March of '20 or, you know, finished a report in March of 2021 --
HUNT: Right.
BEDINGFIELD: -- saying that there was no interference.
HUNT: Yes.
BEDINGFIELD: So --
HUNT: Well, and let's also make clear that interference, which is, you know, messing around with actual votes or counting, et cetera, distinct from influence. We have all kinds of foreign actors trying to influence our elections. But that report on interference is exactly what Kate was outlining here.
Let's watch --
KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I would add, that distinction you just made is not one that Democrats made during Donald Trump's first term as president, which I think has also been a real thorn in his side.
HUNT: You're talking about the Russia --
ANDERSON: Yes, exactly. That during Donald Trump's first term as president, there was a lot of evidence that Russia would have liked to have seen a certain outcome. And that led to a lot of Democrats saying Donald Trump was unfairly handed the election and using that term election interference. It means a lot of different things in a lot of different contexts.
I agree with you. I think it is very irresponsible to suggest that you have foreign countries coming in and like actually changing the votes. And not only do we have very secure elections in this country, but we need even more -- we do actually need more resources to make our elections more secure in a world where technology is making it easier --
HUNT: Right.
ANDERSON: -- and easier for hacks to happen. But I think it is notable that there was a lot of talk about foreign election interference during Trump's first term coming from the other side. And this is just one of those things that ping pong.
DUBKE: At the same time, they were saying he didn't win the popular vote, which is another thorn in his side from 2016.
HUNT: So bothersome. I do want to play -- and Elliot, I'll give this one to you. This is what Gavin Newsom, the current governor of California, likely 2028 presidential candidate, had to say in response to the President's speech. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D), CALIFORNIA: Well, the only thing missing tonight, Donald Trump's speech was tinfoil. This was a legitimate 25th Amendment moment. The ramblings of a mad king. Don't get me wrong. A foreign interference in our elections, that's a real thing.
Nothing about what you watch tonight, though, was real. It's make believe he wants to rig the election in 2026. He knows he's going to lose.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Elliot?
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: You know, the interesting thing is, I think whatever legitimacy Donald Trump had on this issue, you know, this is to Kristen's point earlier, we want safe elections in the United States. We want to secure them. We want to make sure that where there are vulnerabilities, we want to patch them up.
And Donald Trump had and has a great opportunity to speak out on that. And he's a bully pulpit. Whatever goodwill he has in this issue, he's burned with some of the things that Gavin Newsom's talking about. Gavin Newsom went pretty far here talking about the 25th Amendment, which is just not accurate.
This is not a 25th Amendment moment, no matter what you think of Donald Trump. That's removal of the President for unfitness to serve, and that's nonsense.
It's just it. I mean, it's this. But I --
DUBKE: He's starting to sound like Matthew McConaughey, by the way.
[12:10:11]
WILLIAMS: Whatever -- all right, all right, all right (INAUDIBLE). But the point is, but the point is -- I don't know what the point, but --
BEDINGFIELD (?): The point is, "Dazed and Confused" is a great movie.
WILLIAMS: All this to say --
DUBKE: We all are --
WILLIAMS: All this to say all of the nonsense from the President has really undermined him. And he had an opportunity here. It's just impossible to take anything he says seriously on this issue.
HUNT: All right. Coming up next here in The Arena, they call it the Sunshine Protection Act, and it's got rare bipartisan support. But not everyone is on board with making Daylight Savings Time be all the time. We'll discuss.
Plus, prominent MAGA voices fuming at the Trump administration after a temporary change in policy following more deadly shootings by ICE agents. That's our quote of the week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE DAVIS, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, ARTICLE III PROJECT: This guy needs to stop being a wimp. He needs to stop being weak. He needs to stop being stupid. If he's not up to doing the job, get the hell out of the job and we'll put someone there who can.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, speaking of Minneapolis, what did you learn?
TRUMP: I learned that maybe we can use a little bit of a softer touch, but you still have to be tough.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[12:16:01]
HUNT: Earlier this year, President Trump admitted his administration might need to change its approach to their immigration enforcement policies. The comments you just saw there came in the wake of the killings of two American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, at the hands of federal agents in Minnesota.
This week, two more deadly shootings by ICE officers, one in Texas and one in Maine, have renewed questions about tactics by Homeland Security. In the wake of these incidents, the DHS Secretary, Markwayne Mullin, put a pause on traffic stops by ICE. Sources tell CNN that the decision, which Trump quickly stepped in to overturn, had infuriated the President. Not only because his DHS team did not give him a heads up about it, but also because of the way it was perceived on the right.
This brings us to our quote of the week, the MAGA sphere backlash to the President's new Secretary of Homeland Security.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVIS: Markwayne Mullin instructed ICE to stop doing traffic stops because these left-wing activists, these Democrat senators, Susan Collins, is in his ear. This guy needs to stop being a wimp. He needs to stop being weak. He needs to stop being stupid. If he's not up to doing the job, get the hell out of the job and we'll put someone there who can.
(END VIDEO CLIP) HUNT: The only thing I would say, Mike Dubke, is that Markwayne Mullin, part of why he's in the job is because President Trump has previously perceived him to not be a wimp.
DUBKE: Yes.
HUNT: He's a mixed martial arts fighter, among other.
DUBKE: I'd like to see him thrown down with this gentleman. Look, the only thing stupid here is not taking a temporary break of this. If you're looking at the President's numbers on immigration, part of why he was elected in 2024 was because he was tough on immigration.
The border is effectively cut down -- or is shut down. And these temporary stops are -- or not temporary stops, I'm sorry, these traffic stops are exactly what the American people are reacting against. So take a pause. Take a breath. Figure out the best pathway forward. That's smart politics.
I don't know what this guy is talking about. Markwayne Mullin is making the right choice here.
WILLIAMS: It's --
ANDERSON: One of the things that I think the -- there are many things that are heartbreaking about hearing that somebody's been shot. You have, you know, one of the reports, there's a three-year-old blue pajamas. I have a daughter who wears blue pajamas. Like, it's very hard to hear about these.
And you think, well, I wish I knew what the truth was of what happened on the ground there, right. The reports from the law enforcement don't seem to match up with what you hear from others. And that there are these body cameras that everyone's supposed to be wearing, that there's funding for them. And they have not yet been distributed.
At a minimum, making a pause until everyone can get those body cameras on feels to me like an unbelievably -- prudent is an understatement for what they need to be doing right now.
DUBKE: Yes --
WILLIAMS: I would just say traffic stops -- stopping traffic stops is not just good polling and good for the American people. Just ask law enforcement. You know, folks at the Department of Homeland Security recognize that when stopping a vehicle, they put themselves into an inherently adversarial situation that is likely to lead to a car chase or likely to end up with someone getting ran by a car.
Which is why it has been the policy of DHS for, I think, 15 years prior to this to surveil someone, follow them, keep eyes on them and then get them when they're out of their vehicle and apprehend them. This idea that somehow we need to be doing traffic stops to be tough and manly, because that's the way to do it, is just simply doesn't comport with law enforcement and what's best for them. BEDINGFIELD: Well, it's interesting here, too, in this clip, you really hear the tension between kind of the MAGA base and, again, the swing voters that Republicans need to persuade in order to win in November. You had this gentleman dismissing Susan Collins' opinion about this when, in fact, it is Susan Collins who is a Republican who needs to get reelected in November.
And she is presumably has a finger on the pulse of her voters in Maine, more so than this gentleman on his podcast. So it's -- but it is interesting to see the tension between -- because as Mike says, obviously, it goes without saying, I think, at this point, that part of what Trump was elected to do in 2024 was to close down the border.
[12:20:09]
These interior enforcement stops, like we saw in Minneapolis and the violence that flowed from them, has eroded his support on immigration. And that fundamental tension is going to play out in November for Republicans like Susan Collins.
HUNT: Well, and what you just outlined there is part of why Markwayne Mullin is in the job in the first place, because you'll remember he replaced Kristi Noem. And as part of that, he said he told members of Congress this, that he thinks, honestly, that ICE should not necessarily be the first line on all this. Let's watch that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARKWAYNE MULLIN, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: But I do believe there is a better approach. And I think working with municipalities, I would love to see ICE become a transport more than the front line. If we get back into just simply working with law enforcement, we're going to them and we're picking up these criminals from their jail, one, we're going to reimburse them for having the person there. And partnership is vitally important.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Now, of course, some of what he's talking about there are places where local law enforcement works with ICE. And one of the main complaints that Republicans have is that there are sanctuary cities that essentially refuse to do that.
DUBKE: And that's a legit complaint. I mean, I think when you create this situation where the local law enforcement isn't participating with federal law enforcement, you create these situations. So that is a -- that's a legit concern that he's got.
HUNT: When you were with ICE, Elliot --
WILLIAMS: Absolutely.
HUNT: -- how did it work?
WILLIAMS: That was absolutely -- it was the same fight. It was ICE. So when we -- and I think the term sanctuary city gets blown out of proportion. A lot of people think that every left-leaning jurisdiction is a sanctuary city if the mayor says something mean about immigration.
The fact is when someone is in custody in a state or local jurisdiction and at the expiration of their sentence, do they get handed over to ICE or just -- or released to the public or just -- or let go, and that's a fight. It was a fight certainly when I was there. It continues to be a fight now.
Now it's a much bigger sort of PR battle that the administration is waging now. But certainly with the Obama administration, it was a big thing. And it's something that ICE -- you know, there's a middle ground. And this is what Mike was talking about. There is a way to work this out where people who are unlawfully present in the country and particularly are a threat to other people can be removed and, frankly, ought to be removed from the country. But, yes, it's a long- running fight predating all this.
ANDERSON: The politics of this issue are where Republicans have for a long time had an advantage. Which party do you trust more to handle the issue of immigration? And that was especially the case during the latter portion of the Biden presidency. There was a perception that the border was open. And this was just an issue that was a home run for Republicans.
And then Donald Trump comes into office. The border does get secure. And two things happen. The salience of the issue goes down. So the percentage of voters who say this is, like, their top issue is much, much, much lower than it was two years ago.
But Republicans are also not winning on it by as much because the threat at the border feels less, now there's more of this focus on interior enforcement. And that's where people look at what was happening on Kristi Noem's watch and they were saying, well, I don't think that makes me feel more safe.
The switch up there and the appointment of Markwayne Mullin to take that place, I was hopeful, would be a good moment of reset. Where smart policy could mean that Republicans were doing smart border enforcement, smart interior enforcement, and maintaining, if not growing, their advantage on this issue that had been key for Republicans. And it seems as though if the base gets Donald Trump spun up, this could be another moment where it's getting thrown away.
HUNT: All right. Coming up next here in The Arena, it's the anniversary of what's come to be known by historians as one of the more politically tone deaf speeches in modern history. But, first, something else that happened in the 70s might soon be coming back. The bill passed by the House last week. Will it ever see the light of day in the Senate?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Speaker, Daylight Saving -- not plural -- Time has never saved us from anything. Certainly not the higher energy costs it promised to lower. Statistically, there is proof that the twice yearly time change leads to increased accidents. And furthermore, the mishmash of time zones and time changes is just another example of the government overextending its reach.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[12:29:03]
HUNT: Well, that might be a scene from "Veep," but we could very well see some senators make a similar argument after the House overwhelmingly passed what they called the Sunshine Protection Act earlier this week. The path for the bill is unclear in the Senate, but if it were to become law, we would see a switch to permanent Daylight Saving -, Saving, Time.
No more changing the clocks, later sunsets in the summer, but it also means later sunrises in the winter. Parts of more than half a dozen states would see at least five months without a sunrise before 8:00 a.m. The latest sunrises in Indianapolis and Seattle, yes, they'd be about 9 o'clock in the morning.
It is worth noting that we have tried this before here in the U.S. In the 70s, they switched to permanent Daylight Saving Time only to decide it was actually a terrible plan and reverse it after experiencing a dark winter. And, I mean, I think it's already clear where I stand on this. This is one of these issues where I feel like I actually don't have to pretend that I don't have an opinion. So, December of 1973, OK, 79 percent of people supported daylight saving.
By February of 1974, only 42 percent of people were like, yes, this was a great idea. Why? Like, I mean, actually, I have some understanding of politically why they want to do it. There's actually quite a few people that are interested in this from a financial perspective. Businesses like it because it's, you know, people are out spending money later in the day. But it seems like we've, why are we doing this again?
WILLIAMS: Yes, the question we ought to ask ourselves is what is it about? Is it about the early sunrise or early sunset? Is it about just the annoyance of having to switch the clocks? And I get the sense that for most people, it's actually just the hassle of having to do this twice a year and not really thinking through, well, what does it really mean to have the sun rising at 9:00 a.m.? That's pretty late. And just, you know, for those, look, I remember doing the morning show with you when you used to host --
HUNT: This is why I have an opinion about it.
WILLIAMS: And you wake up --
HUNT: It's a decade of hosting morning television.
WILLIAMS: And folks who don't wake up that early may not know, you wake up and it's pitch blackout. It takes something out of your soul to do that morning after morning. And that could be your life. BEDINGFIELD: But you don't even have to wake up at 5:00 a.m. for that to be the case. If we're in permanent daylight saving, the sun's not rising until 8 o'clock -- 7:30, 8 o'clock. It's so much harder to get up when it's dark. And if you have kids, I mean, forget it. We were talking about this in the break. Like, forget it.
It's so much more natural for your body to get up in the morning when the sun rises. And if it's darker a little earlier in the evening, well, that's OK. You can, you know, you can turn on the lights. You can hang out with your friends by candlelight if you want.
HUNT: But have a light of fire. Toast some marshmallows.
WILLIAMS: The kids think, just real quick, it becomes a safety issue. A lot of parents --
BEDINGFIELD: Yes. That's true.
WILLIAMS: -- just don't like it because you would have children walking to school at 8:30 or 9:00 in the morning when it's pitch blackout.
ANDERSON: Well, the other thing with kids, though, and the argument for getting rid of the time change, which is not necessarily the same thing as permanent daylight saving time.
HUNT: Because we could have permanent standard time, right?
BEDINGFIELD: Permanent standard time.
ANDERSON: That it is, briefly, for a day or two each year, a little bit annoying because you, in the fall, theoretically get this day where you get this extra hour to sleep, except you don't if you have little kids who still then wake up and come in like an hour before your alarm's going to go off.
WILLIAMS: And asking for stuff. They want things.
ANDERSON: How dare they? How dare they? But the thing that's also very different than in the 70s is now our clocks reset themselves.
BEDINGFIELD: Exactly.
ANDERSON: Like, we have the technology.
HUNT: Unless you have an oven.
ANDERSON: You can do this.
BEDINGFIELD: My oven clock is always wrong. It also isn't that hard. It takes two seconds.
DUBKE: But a lot of us are going analog now. And so when you have a wristwatch or an oven clock, it's still a problem.
BEDINGFIELD: It takes a second. DUBKE: But I think the entire panel wants to lock the clock.
HUNT: Yes.
DUBKE: And I think the entire panel for health benefits, for children, for everything else want to go to standard time.
WILLIAMS: But this is T.V.
HUNT: So why is Congress trying to put it on daily? OK. Just listen --
DUBKE: Retailers and restauranters because they want people coming out later in the night.
HUNT: So it's the lobbyists.
DUBKE: It's the lobbyists. Blame the lobbyists.
HUNT: So the lobbyists want us to put us all on permanent daylight saving time, even though it's worse for all of our health.
DUBKE: Yes. Yes, that's basically right.
HUNT: I feel like we should just go to break at that. But no, but seriously, actually, when I was hosting in the morning, Elliot, to your point, one of the other things, too, is in the summer, it gets to be light so late. I would have trouble going to sleep when I needed to go to sleep. And same thing with the kids, right? I mean, obviously, we have more hours of daylight in the summer. But it's like if they're staying up, you know, later and you can't get them to go to bed as early. And then, you know, if it's still dark in the morning, good luck.
WILLIAMS: So there's the practical aspect of kids. It's also and we were talking about this in the break, too. I think you might have mentioned it. Just the circadian rhythm question that standard time. And I think we're all coalescing around thinking the time we're in now, standard time would actually --
DUBKE: We're actually in daylight time.
WILLIAMS: OK, whatever, man. I don't know. You know what? Because I have kids I don't even know what month it is, dude. Like, it's all blur trying --
(CROSSTALK)
WILLIAMS: -- standard time in the winter. But the point is, it's actually better for our bodies. Now, we'd have to grapple with do you want the sun setting at 5 o'clock every day? And how would you feel about that? But it's --
HUNT: OK, so we may not be the lobbyists that have the ears of the members of Congress that decided they should vote for this. However, we do have a television show here. So let's remind said members of Congress in the Senate still has to vote on this. What previously members of Congress who had voted to pass this ultimately decided about what they had done because then they had to undo it. It made people so unhappy. Here was Senator Dick Clark, Democrat of Iowa. "It's time to recognize that we may well have made a mistake." Governor William Milliken of Michigan, "Unless the rest of the nation has experienced a significantly greater energy saving than we have experienced so far, I seriously doubt whether year round daylight saving time is worth the serious disruption it has caused." Or as Mrs. Jim Barber of Dallas put it, "All the lights are on when my children get to school. How much energy is saved?"
[12:35:12]
And then we also have this. "The Washington Post," "Standard time is better for health." Why standard time is better for your health than daylight saving times? "Research suggests that daylight saving time is worse for your body than standard time. That early morning sunlight during standard time is key to maintaining our circadian rhythms, sleep wake cycles and overall health. Taking it away permanently could lead to chronic circadian misalignment, which has been associated with the following, sleep loss, increased risk of obesity, type two diabetes, cardiovascular disease, mood disorders, and in some studies, certain types of cancer."
Now, in the break, we were talking about our kids. Mike was saying he's getting old, you know, and is worried about those things.
DUBKE: So I'm now thinking GLP-1s might solve for this as well.
HUNT: You're going to get the farm a lot.
DUBKE: You know, yes, exactly.
WILLIAMS: I would say heart disease, obesity, diabetes, America is just fine right now without daylight savings time.
DUBKE: And we're going to ruin it all.
BEDINGFIELD: I need to go back to Ben Franklin, early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.
HUNT: Healthy and wise.
BEDINGFIELD: The wisdom of the founding father.
HUNT: All right. Ahead here in The Arena, the presidential diagnosis given to the country nearly 50 years ago this week and whether it's still true today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIMMY CARTER, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation. (END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[12:41:27]
CARTER: After listening to the American people, I have been reminded again that all the legislation in the world can't fix what's wrong with America. So I want to speak to you first tonight about a subject even more serious than energy or inflation. I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy.
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HUNT: Forty-seven years ago this week, President Jimmy Carter delivered his famous crisis of confidence speech, or the malaise speech, as it came to be widely known. At the time, Americans were experiencing high unemployment and inflation, extreme gas shortages caused in part by the Iranian Revolution, and the lingering distrust in government after Watergate and the Vietnam War. Historians generally agree it's one of the more tone-deaf political speeches, and it certainly didn't help Carter with his re-election.
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CARTER: The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation. The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.
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HUNT: So that, of course, was Carter in the summer of 1979, so about a year and a couple months before the election of 1980. Before we dig in and talk about what that speech meant, I want to play what Ronald Reagan said the night before the election in 1980, which, of course, we all know how that turned out. But it's worth noting that the Carter speech is such a touchstone in no small part because it's what Reagan was talking about right before voters went to the polls on Election Day. Let's watch that moment.
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RONALD REAGAN, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: During this last year, I've had a chance to meet and talk on the campaign trail with Americans in every corner of the United States. I find no national malaise. I find nothing wrong with the American people. Oh, they're frustrated, even angry at what has been done to this blessed land. But more than anything, they're sturdy and robust as they've always been.
(END VIDEO CLIP) HUNT: Mike, what does that say to you?
DUBKE: Brilliance from a campaign standpoint. You take your opponent's weakness and you turn it into your strength. That's exactly what Ronald Reagan did. Now, the part of this that people forget is that Carter, two days after his confidence, malaise speech, whatever you want to call it, asked every single member of his Cabinet for the resignation letter. So if you imagine Donald Trump doing that right now and asking everybody to resign.
WILLIAMS: Actually he can.
DUBKE: He can. Well, I can too. And his senior staff. And he only took five of them up on it, but they all turned in their resignation letter. So at the time, the speech was bad enough. But when you really want to throw the government into chaos and a crisis of confidence, ask everybody to resign that you've got there because you obviously don't have confidence in your own people. So this all built upon itself, and Reagan took advantage.
[12:45:04]
HUNT: Yes, we can actually, one second, just let's put this up on the screen for people to see for a second what Mike was talking about, "The New York Times" front page from July 18th of 1979, where the headline is that Carter has offered these resignations. It also notes the speech lifted his approval rating to 37 percent. If you have to lift your approval rate at 37 percent, things are not great, but sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.
BEDINGFIELD: No, no, no, no. I just, I mean, the effect of the speech is essentially, he seemed like he was passing the buck and blaming the American people for their frustration. That is probably the number one no-no in all of electoral politics.
DUBKE: That and Nazi tattoos.
BEDINGFIELD: Well, that and Nazi tattoos. Absolutely. I agree with that.
HUNT: But the Nazi tattoo wasn't actually --
(CROSSTALK)
WILLIAMS: I had a Kalshi bet on how long it would be before somebody said Nazi tattoo in the shows. You made it 42 minutes.
BEDINGFIELD: I think the other -- and then the other kind of obviously big piece of historical context, the United States is in the midst of the Cold War at this time. We're sort of in this, you know, both, you know, geopolitical, but also sort of cultural battle with the Soviet Union. And Carter sort of effectively saying, we're losing. We're not up to the task. We're not, you know, we're not looking to the future with optimism. And the combination of those two things, just as a matter of political communications. ANDERSON: But what I think is interesting is that nowadays, if you look at polls of how Americans feel, a lot of Americans do not feel confidence in the future. They do feel gravely concerned about the direction that the nation is headed on. And it's not hard to imagine a politician giving a speech today where you point out those facts and you say everything that's wrong and that people go, yes, he's right. I do feel that way.
That nowadays, it's almost as though negativity sells in a way that it certainly didn't back in that 1980 election when Ronald Reagan, an optimistic voice, came on and said, it doesn't have to be that way.
BEDINGFIELD: I would just I would argue negativity now. It's channeled toward when it's effectively channeled. It's channeled toward big corporations. It's channeled toward the government. It's not people who are effectively making this argument as elected officials. They're not blaming the voters.
ANDERSON: That's right. And I think to the extent that you're saying we have a crisis of confidence, you all, why aren't you being more confident?
BEDINGFIELD: Yes, yes.
ANDERSON: That is obviously not the message that you want to say. But the other thing that I think is so interesting about this is this idea that, like, yes, the economy is bad. Inflation is bad. Energy prices are bad. But what's really bad is there's something rotten going on with the core of our -- with our souls. And that's actually an interesting divide right now on the right where you have some who are very, you know, economic conservatives. We need to grow the economy. That's our number one idea.
And there are a lot of social conservatives who have said, you know, I think our movement has been too wrongly focused on just the economy and not enough on the crisis of young men in this country, the rise of sort of social ills, the lack of character, the lack of values, the lack of family formation and those sorts of things. That's not what Carter was saying exactly.
But the idea that there are deeper problems than just what's going on with the economy is something that you do here. It's as interesting sort of debate within the right.
[12:48:07]
HUNT: Yes, interesting. All right. Coming up next here, something totally different, a matchup almost 20 years in the making.
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HUNT: All right, the World Cup Final is set. Argentina versus Spain, the defending World Cup champions versus the reigning European champs. Lionel Messi versus this baby. I'm sorry. What? Actually, yes. OK. Tomorrow is going to be the second meeting, at least, between Messi and Spain's young star, Lamine Yamal. So the now 19-year-old Yamal first met Messi when he was just five months old. That is him in that picture. It was back in 2007 when Yamal's family won a raffle to take part in a charity calendar photo shoot with Barcelona football players. And it was a random pairing.
At the time, Messi was 20 years old and he had just begun his legendary career. And Lamine was, well, five months old. Hundreds of families took part in the photo shoot and it was mostly forgotten about, even by the photographer. That is until Lamine Yamal's dad posted the photos on social media after his son won the European championship in 2024.
And now, ahead of tomorrow's big matchup, the photos have resurfaced. And of course, obviously, the internet and we cannot get enough of this full circle moment. I don't know, Elliot, I was so touched to see this. It's just so much fun.
WILLIAMS: It's so touching. And you know, and I don't know if people, people who aren't soccer fans realize this is like the equivalent of 20-year-old Tom Brady at University of Michigan holding baby Patrick Mahomes. Like, it's just, these are literally the two titans of the sport that randomly had come together. It's also a reminder of the fact that the United States just can't compete at that level because these are all academy players from youth. We don't have that in this country. It's pay to play. And it's just a reminder of how soccer works around the world. That kid from the womb was sort of raised to be a soccer superstar. We don't have that here.
DUBKE: Most of, most of the folks that are on my text chain thought this was A.I. though. I mean, it's like, is this A.I.? Is this real? Is it? I mean, so there's a lot of questions.
[12:55:01]
HUNT: Our standards, people approved it.
DUBKE: OK. It's absolutely real. I'm going to believe you, but.
ANDERSON: No, but why would you even have to A.I. it? I mean, that is a very, very cute baby, but to what extent does that very, very cute baby, you could say that that cute baby is a lot of different people. It's funny. It's fascinating to me that A.I., I mean, I'm not --
WILLIAMS: But, you know, why?
ANDERSON: I'm not doubting the credibility of the photo. I'm saying you don't need A.I. if you want to like.
WILLIAMS: You know what, Mike?
DUBKE: I'm sorry.
WILLIAMS: Jimmy Carter, you have a crisis of confidence in the American people to believe what they're saying.
HUNT: I also want to say it also underscores Messi's longevity in the sport. OK. To still be on the field, to still be playing the way that he did in the semifinal, you know, having started his career at 20 years ago, as you can see there.
All right, guys. Thank you. I really appreciate all of you being here. Thanks to all of you at home for watching as well. Don't forget, you can see The Arena every weekday. We are right here on CNN at 4:00 p.m. Eastern time. You can also catch up Eastern daylight and standard time, depending on where we are. You can also catch up by listening to our podcast. You can follow along on X and Instagram. We're at TheArenaCNN. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. The news continues next right here on CNN.
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