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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
New Escalations In Iran War As Trump & Iran Threaten Infrastructure; 18 Days In Minnesota: Chaos & Coverups After Renee Good Killing; 2020 Election Deniers Win Key GOP Primaries In Arizona. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired July 22, 2026 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: -- Angel Rampersad and Michael Emmanuel Swinton, a father of two.
[16:00:05]
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Yeah.
KEILAR: This was quite something to witness at Dover today.
SCIUTTO: They all volunteered to serve their country. They all lost their lives doing so. Our hearts go out to their families.
And THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT --
(MUSIC)
KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone. Welcome to THE ARENA. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's good to have you with us on this Wednesday.
Right now, a solemn day as four American soldiers killed in the Iran war are returned home in a dignified transfer at Dover Air Force Base.
They are First Lieutenant Tyler James Feehan. His parents say he was planning to marry his partner when he returned from deployment. He will be posthumously promoted to captain.
Sergeant Angel Rampersad, she was 28 years old, a native of Ozone Park, New York, who enlisted in 2019.
Private Isabella Gonzales graduated from high school just last year. A friend telling CNN that Gonzalez lived with a confidence that some people spend their whole lives trying to find.
And Sergeant Michael Emanuel Swinton, the Pentagon saying that Swinton served with selfless dedication and will be promoted to staff sergeant. These service members, the first American fatalities in this conflict since March.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They are indeed great heroes, excellent. They said, and all of them said very strongly, we can't let -- we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. They won't have a nuclear weapon.
So, we're going to honor them. And it's one of the hardest things to do. For me, it's one of the hardest things to do as a president. But it has to be done.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: President Donald Trump has already threatened to make the Iranians pay for every American killed. Right now, we're standing by for what could be a 12th straight night of American airstrikes, after the president posted, quote, "Any time the Islamic Republic of Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, whether it be by missile, rocket, drone, or any other device or weapon, the United States will bomb and destroy one bridge or power plant," end quote.
So, we're now almost five months into this war, and it's a war that the administration had predicted would last four to six weeks. Just yesterday, though, the President said we are, quote, not finished at all, that we are not leaving tomorrow. What did he say today?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Americans aren't against the war. A poll just came out. Americans don't want to have gasoline prices, but they're not against the war. That just came out loud and clear in a poll.
Nobody wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Do you want Iran to have a nuclear weapon? Do you think it's good?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right, let's get off the sidelines and head into THE ARENA. My panel's here.
Co-host of the interview podcast from "The New York Times" and a CNN contributor, Lulu Garcia-Navarro, host of "The Off the Cupp" podcast and CNN political commentator S.E. Cupp; CNN chief political analyst and a former senior advisor to President Obama, David Axelrod; former RNC communications director Doug Heye, alongside White House and national security correspondent for "The New York Times", also CNN political analyst David Sanger is here.
Welcome to all of you, thank you so much. for being here.
I want to get to David Sanger on kind of the state of play with the war in just a second. But David Axelrod, I do want to spend a minute with these fallen Americans because you served closely, of course, to a president who also saw dignified transfers of our service members come back to our shores.
And it is a moment that really underscores the stakes of what we're doing.
DAVID AXELROD, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah, I never saw President Obama as somber as he was when he'd come back from Dover, having spent hours with families who had lost their loved ones. And I remember when he ordered more troops to Afghanistan, he announced it at West Point, and he came back and he was somber because he had plunged into this crowd of cadets and he said, I just kept thinking I knew there were kids in that crowd who were going to die on my orders, and some would come back mortally wounded, gravely wounded.
And presidents generally take that very, very hard and very seriously. It's no coincidence that George W. Bush in his post-presidency did a book of paintings of wounded warriors. I thought that said a lot about what was playing on his mind.
HUNT: Yeah, well, and I mean, S.E. Cupp, it's also, you know, scenes like this and the experience that the post-9/11 generation of our warriors has had is in no small part what led to the politics behind the America First movement and foreign policy that the post-9/11 generation of our warriors has had, is in no small part what led to the politics behind the America First movement, foreign policy, which has in some ways splintered the president's base because he's got people looking at what he's doing and saying, hey, like, we've been here, we've done this, we've seen people come home in flag-draped caskets and we don't want to do it anymore.
[16:05:11]
S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah, I came up in a neoconservative movement and then watched the Iraq war fittingly sort of put the death knell in that movement in many ways.
And it felt as if neocon Republicans kind of learned a lesson. Trump, I think, got elected both times because of his opposition to the Iraq war. He talked a lot about that in 2016. It was a huge mark of distinction between him and Hillary Clinton. He exploited that.
And then in 2024, he talked a lot about never getting us into a war with Iran. A vote for Kamala is a vote for war with Iran or a vote for World War III. He conned a lot of people on his side into believing that he was going to be the president that didn't get us into these endless wars. It's hard to imagine what he took into consideration when he went into this, because we seem very ill-prepared, and Iran seems very patient waiting us out.
I can't imagine, among the many things he didn't consider, that he considered the toll, the death toll. The human cost of this that we're seeing in the faces of these fallen soldiers now.
HUNT: Well, and we've seen him, Lulu, actually, you know, if you're the family of one of these people who's been killed in this conflict, when he compares the death toll from the Iran conflict to past conflicts, there is a crassness to that, to put it.
LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yeah, these aren't numbers, they're not numbers, they're people, they're people who are, you know, have served their country honorably. who are there in our name, and that is not the way that commander in chief should talk about them.
HUNT: David Sanger, let's talk a little bit about the way out of this, because it's again, you know, we played with the president had said about we're not leaving and we, you know, he updated those comments today. I -- we know politically gas prices are up.
The popularity of this conflict is down. And yet, the Iranians have a say. What are they saying right now, and what are your sources telling you about the state of play?
DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL & NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, right now, Kasie, I think it's fair to say that if you don't have much of a strategy on the way in, other than an expectation that you're going to win quickly, it's hard to develop much of a strategy for a way out. And I think you've seen that now. The president's in a situation where, while he is expanding this war kind of vertically by stepping up each attack, he said the other day that for every American killed, there would be attacks many times in return. He's going up the classic escalation ladder.
And the Iranians have figured out a very different way to do their escalation. They have spread this war out to the neighboring countries. They now have a proxy group in the Houthis threatening to cut off access to the Red Sea, which is where a lot of oil is flowing in alternative to going through the Strait of Hormuz.
You're seeing the Iranians basically declare that they are uninterested in holding a negotiation. So, for each side to exhaust each other, and the difficulty in doing that is you lose control of the timetable just as the Russians lost control of the timetable with the Ukrainians by simply getting into a war of attrition.
HUNT: Yeah, no, it's a really good point. And, you know, the extended timeline of this, remember, again, the president said four to six weeks, you know, sounds nice. He was coming off that raid in Venezuela, the successful one where they had nabbed Maduro, and now here we are months later, let's play what some Republicans have been saying lately about the war in Iran, including some prominent voices on Fox News. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: The clock is ticking for President Trump to get out of this war before voters head to the polls. It's making a lot of Republicans nervous.
BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS ANALYSTT: He promised to keep us out of endless wars or unsatisfactory wars. And now he's in one.
JOE ROGAN, HOST, "THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE": He might have (EXPLETIVE DELETED) up by going to Iran. I mean, this war is not something anybody that's conservative wanted.
TIM DILLON, HOST, "THE TIM DILLON SHOW": You ran on a platform of no new wars, and you're about to put troops on the ground in Iran. This is a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) summer brought to you by Taco Bell. It's almost like invading Iran. It's almost like it's the only story that wouldn't involve literal human (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
[16:10:01]
So that's the kind of summer we're having in America.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Doug Heye, it's a more colorful writing.
DOUG HEYE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Let it rip, Doug. Yeah, that's my podcast that I listen to every morning, right after NPR.
HUNT: You're obviously seeing Capitol Hill have a mostly less expletive-ridden version of that debate, but it gives you a taste of where Republicans are on this.
HEYE: Yeah, if we go back 13 months ago, we saw the bombs being launched to and from Israel and Iran. I was in Israel at the time when things were going over our heads. And the reality is, because that went for a very short period, there was some dissension among Republicans, but it went well, it was over, we moved on.
Fast forward then to the State of the Union Address, and everybody, Democrats, Republicans, media, wanted to hear from Donald Trump, here's what I want to do, here's how we're going to do it, and here's how I define success. We didn't get that. Why? Because he figured clearly, well, I just knocked over Venezuela. I can do the same with Iran.
And obviously, that has not worked. And Republicans who will be at the polls, none of whom are named Trump, face a real cost on this.
HUNT: David, how do you think the politics are cutting right now?
AXELROD: Well, I don't know what polls he's looking at. But I have a really hard time finding one that would suggest the American people favor this war. And yes, a lot of it has to do with gas prices, but they also don't really understand it. And they don't understand it because he didn't spend a whole lot of time explaining it before he got into it. And once he got into it, he laid out a bunch of objectives, none of which have been achieved.
It wasn't just about nuclear. It was also about destroying their missile program. It was about toppling the regime. It was about liberating the Iranian people. And none of those things have happened.
And now, they were told a month ago, peace was at hand, and we're back at war again. And it's a quagmire. And here's the dilemma politically: if you want to win a war, in Iran, and we knew this back in the day when I was in the White House, that necessarily involved boots on the ground. You can't win a war with Iran from the air.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: You can't win it with boots on the ground either. I'll also say, then you're really going to spend years there.
AXELROD: Of course, and that's what he fears, so he can't do it. So now we're in this sort of netherworld where -- and they are playing it, and they understand the elections are in the fall, they know what higher gas prices mean, and they're putting them in the ringer. CUPP: I'm concerned. I didn't want this war. I think this war was dumb. We shouldn't have gone in. We definitely shouldn't have gone in with no strategy.
I'm concerned, though, that the president is going to give Iran exactly what it's hoping, which is that he'll cave to political pressures because of the upcoming election. We shouldn't be here, but we are. It is up to us to get out responsibly.
We owe that to the Iranian people, who we promised to liberate. We owe this to our allies, who we've involved now. We owe this to the American people and our fallen soldiers. to leave responsibly.
And that means with some things, with some guarantees. So, I understand everyone's impulse to quit Iran five minutes ago yesterday. But --
(CROSSTALK)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I'm also only laughing because I feel like, are we in 2005 again? Like this is, I'm so sorry as someone who covered the Iraq war, the run up to the Iraq war, this is exactly how this gets us to a conflict that never ends because, well, we're committed now, so we better double down. Well, now we're not going to win unless there's boots on the ground.
CUPP: Well, I don't say double down.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: No, no, but --
CUPP: We have to leave with some responsibility for the region.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: But the point about all of this, and this is why this was so ill-advised, which everyone knew --
CUPP: Yes.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: -- except apparently the people in power at the moment, is that what does responsible look like? You have now a regime in Iran that is a new regime. You know, they are there to prove themselves to the world and to the Iranian people because everyone else was killed.
CUPP: Right.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: And so, who are you negotiating with and what do they want? And they don't want the same things that perhaps the previous regime did.
CUPP: Not a lot of good, good answers here.
HUNT: Yeah. David Sanger, let me give you just a quick last word on that point before I let you go.
SANGER: Sure.
HUNT: What would you add?
SANGER: Well, the only thing I'd add to that is part of the difficulty in getting out is that the economic situation, the energy transport situation, is vastly worse now than it was before the war started. And to pick up and leave now is to basically cede Iranian control of the strait. And that doesn't even get to that list that David rightly went through from the president's February 20th speech. dealing with the nuclear program, the missile program, setting the Iranian people up to be able to become free of their leaders.
And so, if he picks up and leaves, he's leaving with a legacy of getting a lot less than he planned and leaving the U.S. in a lot more vulnerable energy situation.
[16:15:10]
HUNT: On that cheerful note, David Sanger, thank you. Very much appreciate your expertise, as always.
Everyone else is going to stick around.
Coming up next here in THE ARENA, we're going to talk more about the escalation in the Iran war with the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, Senator Jack Reed.
But first, Jake Tapper will be here with his new exclusive reporting. He details false claims, chaos, and cover-ups behind the Trump administration's killing of two Americans in Minneapolis.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM CALHOUN-LOPEZ, FORMER ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY, MINNESOTA: I would learn that agents had instigated physical contact, and so they were arresting people not only who had committed no assault, but who had in fact been assaulted by federal agents.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:20:16]
HUNT: Welcome back.
Friday marks six months since the death of Alex Pretti. He is, of course, the V.A. nurse who was shot and killed by federal immigration officials in Minneapolis. His death came just after Renee Good was fatally shot by an ICE officer.
In a new CNN investigation, Jake Tapper examines the tumultuous 18 days surrounding those two deaths, tracing how the Trump administration's immigration enforcement policies of aggression and cover-ups contributed to those deaths and how those policies still haven't changed.
And CNN anchor Jake Tapper joins us now. Jake, it's wonderful to have you in THE ARENA. Thanks for being here.
This is a remarkable piece of reporting.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST, "THE LEAD": Thank you.
HUNT: And walk us through what you learned, but this key question of when the prosecutors in Minneapolis, who were looking at what was going on, started to ask questions.
TAPPER: So, the prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota actually had a good relationship with the Trump administration and the Justice Department. They had been investigating all these fraud claims, billions of dollars of money stolen, and the Trump administration was very excited about those prosecutions. There had been a couple of horrific crimes where they worked well with their federal partners and the local authorities, having to do with the assassination. of Melissa Hortman and her husband and having to do with the horrible Annunciation Catholic school shooter.
But then came December with Operation Metro Surge. And a bunch of the prosecutors in the US Attorney's Office started wondering what was going on, why it was going on. And there was this disturbing pattern of immigration agents lying about attacks, they said, that had happened to them by protesters.
And by January 13th, five of the prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office, including four of the top prosecutors, resigned because they were so appalled at what the Trump administration was telling them to do. These are prosecutors. These are not commie libs on the left. These are people who believe in law and order.
And I just want to play one thing, because one of the prosecutors did talk to us on camera, a guy named Tom Calhoun-Lopez, who was in charge of the violent crimes prosecutions. And this is what he told us about what it was like in December watching all these prosecutions -- watching all these enforcement agents come into the city.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CALHOUN-LOPEZ: Federal agents do their job very, very well. So, it's important that prosecutors protect them where they can. And that means vindicating their rights if they're victims of assault. But I began to have concerns that agents were not being truthful. Making arrests with very little provocation and then soon enough, no provocation.
And even after that, I would learn that agents had instigated physical contact. And so they were arresting people not only who had committed no assault, but who had, in fact, been assaulted by federal agents.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So essentially, these are people, prosecutors, who normally, if a cop came to them and said, I had this altercation in the street --
TAPPER: Automatically believe them. Automatically -- HUNT: They would believe them. They would side with them.
TAPPER: Yeah.
HUNT: They would attempt to prosecute.
TAPPER: Yeah.
HUNT: And they're saying to you that the pattern of these agents essentially making up stories about that happening was so intense that they had to resign.
TAPPER: No. What happened was that they stopped automatically believing these cops.
HUNT: Got it.
TAPPER: Then what happened was they started hearing from other Trump administration officials, this is going to get really bad because the Border Patrol has now been sent here, and Greg Bovino has been sent here, and things are going to get worse. And in fact, an agent with Homeland Security said someone's going to get killed. That was in early January before Renee Good was killed.
But on January 7th, Renee Good was killed. What happened next is what happened is what caused them to resign. What happened next was, the Trump administration said, no cooperation with local authorities, which is what always happens when there's a situation like this. There's always a joint investigation.
And then the FBI and the Department of Justice started to pressure the prosecutors in the U.S. attorney's office, saying they had filed and obtained a warrant to search Renee Good's car, because they'd open up an investigation, which this is what always happens. to see if the civil rights of Renee Good had been violated by this officer, this ICE agent, Jonathan Ross, who killed her.
HUNT: Right.
TAPPER: There was a question about whether or not he felt like he was in danger because her car swerved towards him. They didn't know. They had different opinions, but they wanted there to be an investigation. This is what always happens.
The Trump administration found out that they had fired -- they had obtained this warrant to search the car.
[16:25:00]
They told them, claw back that warrant and change it so the predicate is not that her civil rights were violated, but that we're investigating her for assaulting federal officers and for being a domestic terrorist. The prosecutors were stunned. What are you talking about? She's dead. We can't charge her with anything.
Not only did they continue pushing them to do that. They also suggested that there be an investigation into Renee Good and some investigatory steps to look into the behavior and actions of Becca Good, the widow. And the pushing and pulling happened, and the pushing and pulling happened.
On Monday -- I'm sorry, on Tuesday, the 12th, Greg Bovino called because he was mad that these assault on federal officer charges against protesters weren't being filed to the rate he wanted because of that early concern. Because they were like, these guys are lying.
And he was on the call with them. And he was saying things like, these people are wackos, talking about the protesters. We're going to put them down, and basically just having this mindset that shocked them all.
They didn't know him. And he was talking to them in a very candid way that suggested he thought that he needed to put down the city. He needed to control the city.
And then he said something anti-Semitic. They thought it was anti- Semitic about the U.S. attorney, Danny Rosen, who was not on the call, sneeringly calling him one of the chosen people. They got off that phone call, and one of the prosecutors said, they're going to kill someone else.
And it was a few days later -- and the next day, they resigned, and it was a few days later that Alex Pretti was killed. And about the Alex Pretti killing, while people can disagree about the Renee Good killing about that officer, And still, there's been no investigation, or at least a result of that investigation, we don't know.
The Alex Pretti killing, one of the prosecutors told me, that was an execution. That was a summary execution. It's that simple. And other prosecutors, they thought, like, that case would have been a slam dunk. That was obviously prosecutable. And here we are six months later. no results of any investigation.
HUNT: Right. And again, worth underscoring that these are prosecutors, people who are devoting their lives to upholding the law, saying these things.
AXELROD: Jake, can I ask you a question? Before Minnesota, there was Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago.
TAPPER: Yep, in your hometown Chicago, yeah.
AXELROD: And a federal judge issued a 233-page ruling finding that Greg Bovino had lied to the court.
TAPPER: Yeah, over and over.
AXELROD: And some of the circumstances were similar, where he said that he had been -- he personally had been attacked, so he threw tear gas, and so on. That turned out not to be the case.
Did that not register with anybody before they sent him into this next -- TAPPER: Oh, it registered with the authorities at the U.S. Attorney's
Office in Minnesota. They did everything they could to try to make it so Bovino would not come.
They appealed to the Justice Department. Don't send Bovino. Don't send Border Patrol, because they were hearing all these horrible things from his own colleagues with the Department of Homeland Security.
But that didn't work. But you're right. He's an adjudicated liar.
But if you look at that, what he did in Operation Midway Blitz and that judge calling him out, and then look at how the immigration agents under him, and with his leadership, and under the Trump administration behaved, and how they continue to behave, where they are criticized for being overly aggressive, criticized for unnecessarily beating or killing people who pose no threat to them.
We've seen this in Texas, and we've seen this in Maine, where these agents claim one thing, and witnesses or video tells a very different story.
You can't help but conclude -- and this is with the conclusion of a bunch of these prosecutors -- that lying was part of the policy.
HUNT: Yeah.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: What was the reason? Why? Why were they sending Bovino? Why were they sending someone who they knew was going to inflame the population?
TAPPER: Well, I think the question answers itself. They wanted to inflame the population. They wanted to make a demonstration of brute force.
They're not going -- I mean, if you look at what they were doing in Operation Metro Surge, so it starts on December 1st. On December 4th, they're announcing some of the worst of the worst that they have arrested. They did that. They got a bunch of them December 4th.
Why were they going after Renee Good? Why were they arresting the five-year-old boy and taking him to this detention center in Texas?
There's an incident the day after all these prosecutors resigned, on January 14th, where an ICE agent chases two Venezuelans, in this country illegally, not violent criminals or anything, but in this country illegally, and then he fires upon them. They get charged, and then video comes out, and the ICE agent was shown to have been lying.
And U.S. Attorney Danny Rosen -- this is in February now, I think -- you know, who does what the Trump administration wants him to do, U.S. Attorney Rosen.
[16:30:05]
But he -- the video is so contradictory to what the ICE agent claimed, he had to dismiss the charges against the Venezuelans. with prejudice. And now that ICE agent has been charged with crimes, including assault, and accusing to lying to law enforcement.
HUNT: Well, and of course --
CUPP: Has anyone told you that anything has changed now that Homan has come in?
TAPPER: Well, I mean, stylistically, I think it's fair to say that we're not seeing the same kind of images that we saw in Chicago and that we saw in Minnesota. So, you can't say nothing has changed. But you still have to ask, why are people who do not have weapons being shot and killed? Why are ICE agents or immigration agents still saying and doing things that are contradicted by witnesses and video?
And why do these people still not have body cameras? Why don't they have body cameras?
Think about that for a second. Is there a reason that they don't have body cameras? Is it tough to get body cameras to law enforcement these days?
HUNT: Well, we'll see. Jake Tapper, thank you very much. Great reporting.
TAPPER: Thank you.
HUNT: Really appreciate all of your time.
There's going to be much more of Jake's reporting at the top of the hour on THE LEAD.
But coming up next here in THE ARENA, the 2026 election that looks like a repeat of 2022 that was about 2020, we'll explain.
Plus, what Mayor Zohran Mamdani is now saying about his campaign pledge to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu should the Israeli prime minister visit New York.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), NEW YORK: We are talking about someone who has been charged with crimes against humanity, someone who has visited this city on many an occasion and who has been welcomed by previous mayors. And I want to make it very clear that that welcome ends with me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:36:05]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ANDY BIGGS (R-AZ): Let's make this the year that we turn Arizona red again. And build the red wall as we set the stage for 2028 as well. (END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: The hardline conservative Trump-allied Congressman Andy Biggs, now set to face off against Arizona's Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs, in what's widely considered one of the most competitive gubernatorial races of 2026.
Biggs, who was a central figure in Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 election, notably is not the only election denier that won their primary last night. Two other men involved in Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election will also appear on the ballot this November.
Governor Hobbs is already pitching voters on what that could mean for Arizona in 2028 and beyond.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. KATIE HOBBS (D), ARIZONA: Arizona is one of seven swing states that will decide the presidential election. And as you described, in 2020, we had a free and fair election because, as secretary of state, I defended the will of the voters. If Andy Biggs is governor, Arizona is the first swing state with an election denier in charge, and the time to stop that is not 2028.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right, my panel is back.
Where to even begin with this?
David Axelrod, I will say that, for all that we have heard from Donald Trump on this and for all of the support that you can see in the polling among some of Trump's base for the things that he has said about elections, voters, when they have been asked to take an up or down vote on a candidate who has undermined faith in elections, And Arizona is probably one of the best test cases for this. They by and large have said, no, we want to put people in charge of our elections. We want to have candidates who believe that the system is working, right?
When you've seen this in like some of these secretary of state races and in other instances. Now, clearly that's not the case with the Republican primary electorate in Arizona.
AXELROD: Right.
HUNT: What does this say big picture about where this you know, this it's I mean, it's a mess that the president created, right? Where does it stand?
AXELROD: Well, it's an ongoing saga. There you go. Obviously. You know, we should point out that the state senate, you'll remember this, the state senate in Arizona was they were the ones who hired the famous Cyber Ninjas to come in and examine the election of 2020 and with great ballyhoo, they were going to plunge into this and there were legal battles about what they had access to.
And so -- and they ultimately had to disband having reaffirmed Biden's reelection but these candidates still deny the findings of that -- of the ninjas who were brought in presumably to find the wrongdoing so as a political -- I mean, what it means is that Donald Trump still holds sway over the Republican Party, and this is important to him.
Therefore, he selects people like Andy Biggs, who was not the guy who most Republicans there, regular Republicans wanted, because they don't think he'll be a strong candidate in the general election. But this is a big credential with Donald Trump, and Donald Trump is a party of one.
CUPP: But, okay, I have a lot of affection for Arizona voters. I spent my childhood in Arizona. Still have family there. Friends with the McCains.
Man, have they wanted to get a Republican elected since John McCain, and they haven't figured out that Arizona Republicans are not the same as MAGA Republicans, and they keep putting up these weirdos. You know, Kari Lake, this election denier.
[16:40:00]
And it's not working for them. I talked to a friend yesterday who's involved in Arizona politics who said, if they just put up someone normal, this would be so easy. And Arizona voters are dying to vote Republican. They want to be a red state. They just don't want to be a MAGA Trump election-denying red state.
And it's like Trump can't learn the lesson of this. I don't think Andy Biggs is going into a general election as a really strong candidate. frankly, because he carries the same baggage that got every other MAGA Republican unelected.
AXELROD: There was a candidate, Karrin Taylor Robson, who was a businesswoman. She had run last time. Kari Lake beat her in the primary. She came back.
And I think Democrats were very concerned about her as a potential opponent. She ended up dropping out because Congressman Schweikert got in, she saw no path for herself. But this was a great result for Democrats there. I'm not sure it's great for the republic, but it was good for them.
HEYE: Or Republicans. And, you know, the reality is, in case of, you know, this predates Donald Trump. How many times did we see, whether in the halls of Congress or on the campaign trail because they didn't make it to Congress, all these cartoon character Republican candidates who cost us Senate races in Missouri, in Indiana, the North Carolina governor's race in the last cycle. This happened time and time again. Delaware.
It predates Trump. Trump was a symptom of this that really now defines it all, and everything gets viewed through that lens. But this has been a long time coming. Republicans should have 57 seats in the Senate now if they would nominate normal. We should have more governorships if we would nominate normal people.
But this happens time and time again, and every time we see a shutdown, or, as you know very well, Kasie, are we going to be able to pass the vote on the rule, which is real legislative nerd talk? It comes down to those same --
(CROSSTALK)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Can I just push back on this narrative, though, which is this, and I know that this has just been the subject of debate in Republican circles, which is -- everyone's like, oh, if just Trump would get out of the way, then, you know, we could have normal Republicans. Trump is the Republican Party, and he is the person who brings out the votes in the Republican Party. And Republicans win when he's on the ballot, and they don't when he's not.
And so, what he wants, that is the Republican Party. And what you're actually -- what everyone's upset about is the idea of, obviously, the big lie, the election-denying. That is the issue. And I'm not endorsing it.
HEYE: Christine O'Donnell said, I'm not a witch. Mike Castle never would have said that. He would have won his race. Sharron Angle --
CUPP: Herschel Walker, Roy Moore, he doesn't always get a --
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: Can I just defend the honor of the state that you've fled?
CUPP: Yes.
AXELROD: I spent a lot of time -- I lived there part of the year.
CUPP: That's right.
AXELROD: They did have a Republican governor for two terms, Doug Ducey, who was highly regarded. And he ran afoul of Donald Trump because he allowed the certification of the 2020 election to go forward. And he's taken a hiatus from politics since then because people like him are not invited anymore.
HUNT Yeah, right. No, it's a good point.
All right. Ahead here in THE ARENA, the U.S. launching an 11th straight night of strikes in Iran. Senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, will be here live.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JACK REED (D-RI): Obviously, obviously, sinking their ships has not affected their ability to effectively close the straits. Did you --
PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: We had U.S. boats that surrendered to Iranian ships under the Biden administration. So, their Navy was effective in --
REED: We're talking about the war you started.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:48:08]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And the stock market has set -- and that's with this skirmish we have going on. I call it a skirmish. This is with this skirmish we have with the Islamic Republic of Iran. And I call it that because, let me tell you, they're getting hit so hard. And they want to make a deal. But I say they're not ready to make a deal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Moments ago, at a rally in Georgia, President Trump characterizing the Iran war as a skirmish. Now, this was just hours after he attended the dignified transfer of the four American soldiers who lost their lives in the conflict over the weekend. And one day after his secretary of defense came to the Capitol with a request for an extra $87 billion in Pentagon funding, mostly for the Iran War.
Joining me now in THE ARENA, one of the lawmakers who questioned Hegseth yesterday. He's the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island.
Senator Reed, always grateful to have you here in THE ARENA.
REED: Thank you.
HUNT: I just want to start with what the president just said. Do you think that the conflict that the U.S. is currently engaged with with Iran can be characterized accurately as a skirmish?
REED: Absolutely not. This is a war. It's an unauthorized war because the president did not come to Congress for the authority which is required under the Constitution.
But we are in a full-fledged war with Iran, and we have suffered casualties, as you pointed out. So dismisses as a skirmish is disrespectful to those men and women who have given their lives to their country.
HUNT: We, of course, saw yesterday the Secretary of Defense coming to Congress looking for billions of dollars for this war.
[16:50:02]
What are you hearing privately about the willingness of your colleagues, especially on the other side of the aisle? I know you have good relationships with your colleagues on the other side of the aisle on especially defense-related issues, about their willingness to fund this war.
REED: Well, I think they're very skeptical, as they should be, of -- first of all, the true cost of the war. I think they're vastly underestimated by the Department of Defense, by Secretary Hegseth.
And also, they're very concerned because this war is so unpopular across the country. And I doubt very seriously if they're able or willing to go ahead and take this issue up before the election.
HUNT: One other place where Democrats have pushed back against the president ahead, or in part because of this war with Iran, is the NDAA, the annual funding. Now, I know that it was bipartisan coming out of your Senate Armed Services Committee, but you stood with other Democrats in blocking it on the Senate floor. How long do you think it makes sense to continue to do that?
REED: Well, I think just the mechanics of getting the bill on the floor and all those things is that I would hopefully by September we'll be able to finish negotiations with the House. In the past, we've done that without actually voting the floor, the bill off the floor of the Senate.
And so, we'll be in a position to pass the NDA. It's a must pass bill, and we will pass it. And again, there's this, the election is causing so much turmoil that that could be another impediment to getting it done quickly.
HUNT: Understood. Sir, in the last 24 hours, we've learned that the U.S. has struck a nuclear deal for civilian technology with Saudi Arabia to provide civilian nuclear technology to that country. Do you think that's a wise decision?
REED: Well, I don't. So far, they've indicated that this deal will not encompass the same tight controls that we insisted upon when we help the United Arab Emirates develop their civilian nuclear power. There'll be no international supervision, and there are holes, gaping holes in terms of the overall enforcement of the international rules.
So, I think unless they can put this into the same position, that we did with the UAE, then we should be very skeptical going forward with it.
HUNT: Do you see any upside to working with the Saudis, having them work with us instead of, say, China on similar technology?
REED: Well, I think working with us is more positive at any time than working with China. But we have to be very concerned about nuclear proliferation. I mean, one of the factors in this whole debate that the President has started regarding NATO is the point at which the NATO nations are now talking about, some of them, do they need their own nuclear weapons?
We do not want to see any other countries in the world get nuclear weapons. And if this arrangement with the Saudis leaves a door open for them to get nuclear weapons, we would regret it, I think, very much. HUNT: As we wrap up here, just to circle back to something you mentioned earlier, you and other lawmakers have said, essentially, that the president launched this war as an unauthorized war without Congress's approval. It has now, of course, been continuing for months.
Do you think at this point the president has violated his oath of office?
Well, I think at this point, the president continues to operate without a plan, without a real goal. He talks one day about eliminating their nuclear capacities, then the other day it's a regime change.
He started a war without a goal, and he did it without a really appropriate understanding of the enemy. And as a result, we're in a terribly expensive, particularly in terms of human life, a stalemate with the Iranians. And that's not a position we want to stay in.
HUNT: All right. The top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Jack Reed, always grateful, sir, to have you. I hope you'll come back soon.
REED: Thanks, Kasie. Bye-bye.
HUNT: All right. On that note, we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:59:25]
HUNT: We have about a minute left here.
David Axelrod, I was just struck by the president's language there, calling the Iran War a skirmish, especially after his administration was asking for billions of dollars.
AXELROD: Oh, yeah, like $67 billion more for the skirmish. Imagine what a war would cost. I mean, this is ridiculous. It is disrespectful, as you said, to the families of the fathers. But it's also disrespectful to the intelligence of the American people.
HUNT: Right, and it's taxpayer dollars, after all.
All right. Thank you all very much for being here. Really appreciate having you.
Thanks to all of you at home for watching as well. Don't forget, you can now stream THE ARENA live or catch up whenever you want to. It's all in the CNN app.
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But don't go anywhere. Jake Tapper is going to have much more of his great reporting on immigration coming up next.
