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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
CNN Poll: Trump's Approval Falls To 34 Percent, Matching Career Low; Michigan Dems Vote Tuesday In Contentious Senate Primary; CNN Poll: 45 Percent Of Dems Say Their Party Needs "Major Changes"; Michelle Obama & Ketanji Brown Jackson Talk Work-Life Balance. Michelle Obama & Ketanji Brown Jackson Talk Work-Life Balance; 2017: Sen. John McCain Gives Thumbs Down To Obamacare "Skinny Repeal"; New State Ranking Cause Controversy. Aired 12-1p ET
Aired August 01, 2026 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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RAFAEL NADAL, 22-TIME TENNIS GRAND SLAM CHAMPION: -- I think we achieved our dreams. I achieved my dream and I enjoy what I am doing.
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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN ANCHOR: Happiness in our post-World Cup haze as well.
That's all we have time for. Don't forget, you can find all of our shows online as podcasts at CNN.com/audio and on all other major platforms. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London. Thank you for watching and join us again next week.
[12:00:35]
KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: Hi everyone, I'm Kasie Hunt. Welcome to The Arena Saturday. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with us.
How quickly things change. The country that decisively voted to put Donald Trump back in the White House not even two years ago, now offering a stunning rebuke of the President and it's coming with just 94 days to go until the midterm elections.
New CNN polling this week shows that just 34 percent of Americans approve of the way that President Trump is handling his job. That number matches his career low which was in the aftermath of the January 6th insurrection. A record high 73 percent of Americans say that Trump hasn't paid enough attention to the country's most important problems. Just 27 percent say he has the right priorities.
And the message from the White House is everything will get better if you just give them two more years.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I would remind your viewers and the American people of who caused the affordability crisis in this country. It was Joe Biden and it was the Democrats in this city when they were in power. And President Trump took immediate action on day one to fix that. All of these things that he is doing will only get better if given two more years with a Republican Congress.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right. My panel's here in The Arena. CNN Legal Analyst, Former Federal Prosecutor, Elliot Williams, Co-hosted the Interview Podcast from the New York Times and a CNN Contributor, Lulu Garcia- Navarro, Former DNC Communications Director and CNN Political Commentator, Xochitl Hinojosa, and the Former Chief of Staff to Vice President Mike Pence, Marc Short is with us as well.
Thank you all very much for being here.
Marc Short, at a certain point, don't you just have to own it?
MARC SHORT, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF TO VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: Well absolutely you do. And I agree with Karoline's point that I do think the Biden administration caused this but after two years you have to accept responsibility. Your policies are not necessarily improving it.
And I do think for a lot of voters that they -- I think believe and assume that the second Trump administration would look a lot more like the first administration particularly on economic policy. And while they got the extension of tax reliefs, the regulatory policy has not been the same. The trade policy has really not been the same.
And so there's a far more intrusive government policy that this Republican administration is advancing. And I think it's certainly going to be a big weight for a lot of Republicans right in November.
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, the voters don't buy that this was Joe Biden's mess. If they bought it, then his approval rating would not be at 34 percent. They believe that Donald Trump has handed this to the American people.
And so, if you are a congressional Republican in a tough district that is potentially turning blue the hard part for the Republican Party is you don't want Donald Trump coming to your district to campaign with you at 34 percent. And Donald Trump is used to being at the center of attention. And will Republicans actually tell him, hey, don't come to my state?
SHORT: Well he's not.
HINOJOSA: And it's not helpful.
SHORT: He's not really going anywhere.
HINOJOSA: He was in Michigan.
SHORT: He was --
HINOJOSA: Michigan, it is a tough -- Michigan is a tough seat that Republicans will have to win --
SHORT: Yes.
HINOJOSA: -- in order to have the majority --
SHORT: He's not.
HINOJOSA: -- in the Senate.
SHORT: He's not real invested.
HINOJOSA: And he did a rally there.
SHORT: He's not really invested in midterms. Do you think he is?
HINOJOSA: He is -- he's traveling. He's --
SHORT: Come one.
HINOJOSA: -- not invested in the midterms, he is invested in himself.
SHORT: Well, somebody --
HINOJOSA: And his ego.
SHORT: He's not going to (INAUDIBLE) districts.
HINOJOSA: What he is going? He's campaigning whether or not he is supposed to be talking about affordability and he's not talking about affordability. He's talking about everything else but affordability.
SHORT: Yes.
HUNT: I mean, Lulu, via -- or Elliot, either of you jump in, the reality for Republicans has always been that they can't live with Donald Trump when he's doing things like this but they can't live without him either because the base is so loyal to him.
LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, but it's an ever dwindling base I think. And, you know, what those numbers show is that he's really going to be a weight around the neck of congressional candidates at the midterms. Now, you know, one of the things that is true about the midterms is that every race is sort of an individual race in many ways even though the things are nationalized, you know, every place is very -- has its own set of circumstances.
It depends who people are running against, et cetera, et cetera. And conventional wisdom says that you can't have wave elections anymore just simply because of the way that things are divvied up. But I think this is just very bad news. I mean, take the temperature out there. People are really mad.
[12:05:04]
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: You know, I wanted to pick up on something Xochitl said that he's not focusing on. I can't remember how you finish the sentence but the things that are really important to people --
HINOJOSA: Yes.
WILLIAMS: -- and the most striking number in that polling was the 73 percent of respondents who said that the President isn't focusing on issues that are important to the United States and look back at just this past week. They -- there was a fight throughout the week over confirming an attorney general over a fund that is not popular with the public is on shaky legal footing.
For the last weeks, we've been fighting over the building of an arch or a reflecting pool or a ballroom that sure there might be some support for it in the White House. But the American people actually don't want and some of the polling focused on that.
People care about prices and affordability regardless of who caused it, Marc and Xochitl. But the simple fact is the President is spending so much energy on these pet projects to put his name on that just simply are not popular.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: And the question is in politics, are you better off today than you were two years ago. And the answer is a resounding no. And it's a no across the board. I mean health care is one of the top priorities. When you talk about polling people, they are talking about how unaffordable they're finding their health care.
And we've just seen the numbers of how many people have been kicked off of their insurance because of what's happened to Obamacare under this administration. And so it just -- when you go down the list, foreign policy, prices, health care, housing, you know, it just -- I could rattle it off and you would say, what are you doing for the American people.
WILLIAMS: Yes.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: It makes them better off now. And what could they -- and what could you say?
SHORT: It sounds like we're surprised that President Trump isn't on message, as if this is --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: But it's not a message. It's facts, it's not message.
SHORT: But we're saying the 73 percent number. But the reality -- I agree that it's a big headwind for Republicans. But I don't think that some of the socialist policies Democrats are offering are necessarily things that voters are looking for more.
WILLIAMS: Sure. It's not even this question of socialism that even take immigration. You rattled off the list of priorities of the President. Even immigration the President came in with tailwinds behind him on immigration and ruined it with aggressive policies and whether it was Minneapolis or California or whatever else that simply once again were not popular with the public.
People could get their heads around the idea of securing the southern border. But what they got was something that people were incredibly unhappy with. And I say this is somebody who worked at ICE for five years, like, you know, I come at this from a somewhat surprising position that some might think. So I don't -- every possible avenue where they could have won over the public, they just failed.
HUNT: Well, and it's clear that the President wants immigration to be a focus in the midterm elections. I mean, watch what he said just late this week at Camp David about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well we have the safest border in the world. If we're not in office, our country will be invaded at levels that made Spain look small time. And when I watch it, I said, boy, I said, I'm going to say it because I knew you're going to be at Camp David. I say that's going to be a talking point for the midterms.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: Two things can be true at the same time that our country ought to have a secure border and that we're not going to end up seeing what happened in Spain over the course of this past week. The President has framed this as if we are not doing maximalist immigration enforcement and gunning people down in the streets then ultimately we have failed.
And we have seen, you know, the President --
SHORT: I don't think he's advocating for gunning people down the streets, Elliot.
WILLIAMS: That's what happen.
SHORT: Come on. Let's be a little bit --
WILLIAMS: OK.
SHORT: Let's spare the (INAUDIBLE).
WILLIAMS: Did you live through 2025 and 2026, Marc? I just -- I hear you, right. OK. You know, I take --
SHORT: But you're saying he's advocating that --
WILLIAMS: I'm not -- OK.
SHORT: -- and that's not.
WILLIAMS: I edit my statement.
SHORT: Yes.
WILLIAMS: But I will say -- and I think it's not a secret to any of us, the immigration enforcement that we saw over these past two years was not what the American people wanted. The President has framed it as this duel of fates between good and evil and that the only way to get there is what we saw.
HUNT: Yes. All right. Coming up next here in The Arena, three days until we finally find out who will be the Democrats candidate in a critical Senate race and things are getting personal in Michigan. That's our quote of the week.
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REP. HALEY STEVENS (D), MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE: Thank you for clarifying that you didn't call me an ogre.
ABDUL EL-SAYED (D), MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE: No. Yes, and again, for the record, it was Mr. Fetterman that was apparently called an ogre in the call not you.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This week we heard that there was some kind of a Zoom call in which you had referenced an opponent as ogre on a pike, and so many people took offense to that.
EL-SAYED: I was referring to a guy named John Fetterman, who's a senator from Pennsylvania, who has done terrible things, got elected on a set of values, and is now completely throwing those values in the mud.
STEVENS: Well, and thank you for clarifying that you didn't call me an ogre.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[12:14:25]
HUNT: This week, the two Democratic candidates for Michigan's Senate seat faced off in their final debate ahead of Tuesday's primary election, bringing to a close a bitter and critical period widely viewed as a proxy war over the future of the Democratic Party. Not only did Abdul El-Sayed and Haley Stevens split sharply on a number of key issues, they also reckoned with the increasingly combative tone of the campaign.
That brings us to our quote of the week, this comment from El-Sayed, that he clarified was not in reference to his opponent, but rather to the broader progressive movement.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EL-SAYED: Because if I win, you're just like, well, you all came at me, so now I get to come at you. And, you know, primarying people like John Fetterman, I have no problem to do that. Like, I'm looking forward to it. And people are like, 'Oh, we don't primary in the Senate.' And I'm like, 'Watch me do it.' You know what I mean? Like, tell me why I should stop. You know what I mean? You're going to spend $60 million and beat me? OK. Ideally you put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message, and all of a sudden it starts to sound a lot different.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[12:15:29]
HUNT: OK. My panel's back. I mean, Lulu Garcia-Navarro, the imagery there, stark, a little violent, and kind of --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes.
HUNT: -- illustrative of the tone and tenor of the fight right now.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes, it's not exactly Shrek conversations. It's not PG. This sounds a little, R-rated. Yes, I think first of all, that unmasks, El-Sayed. I mean, this is really kind of ruthless talk. Politics is ruthless, but I think what the sort of normie Democrats have said is that the Democratic socialists are really looking to take the Democratic Party over, and that's what that sounds like there.
WILLIAMS: I would be genuinely curious to ask him or, anyone with similar rhetoric, are you OK with losing the United States Senate? And maybe the answer is yes, fine. You know, maybe they actually want to, purge the normie Democrats and create a smaller party
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Fetterman's not a normie Democrat. Let's also say that.
WILLIAMS: OK, sure. But, no, but would they be OK with that? And it's a fair question to ask, because that -- if you want Donald Trump to have, whether it's Supreme Court justices or, his agenda or whatever else, I just -- the shortsightedness that you see in some of these movements, you see it on the right, too, where they just, you know.
SHORT: Look, I think this is a big headache for Democrats. They keep trying to sit here and tell you that, look, the socialist thing is just limited to a few candidates in Manhattan. El-Sayed's going to win Michigan on Tuesday. They've elected a socialist in Colorado.
This is the -- we hear the energy of the party is. Every Democratic leader's lined up behind Haley Stevens. They're all trying to stop him, and he's still going to win decisively. And so --
HUNT: Well, he also doesn't identify as a Democratic socialists, just to be clear.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes.
HUNT: I -- just, seriously, I mean there is --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: He doesn't.
HUNT: -- a distinction. There were -- like, people that actually embrace the mantle as part of the Democratic socialist in New York. Sayed certainly seems to be welcoming their support.
SHORT: Yes. Yes.
HUNT: But is not technically a member. Continue.
SHORT: And he's been supported strongly by Bernie Sanders and AOC. And if you go down his platform of defunding ICE, defunding the police, being, very condemning of Israel, he kind of lines up pretty closely with a lot of those candidates.
WILLIAMS: Yes, and I think the cat's out of the bag --
SHORT: Yes.
WILLIAMS: -- on having lost control of the term Democratic socialist. It will be weaponized and turned against all --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Absolutely.
WILLIAMS: -- Democrats, right? And so --
SHORT: Well, I mean, there are plenty running proudly on that banner.
WILLIAMS: That's what I mean. No, I --
SHORT: And that's where the energy in the party is.
WILLIAMS: Yes.
SHORT: And so you're going to see all the leaders line up behind Haley Stevens, and they're going to fail.
HINOJOSA: I'm not saying -- that is not where the energy part of the party is --
SHORT: Really?
HINOJOSA: -- across the country. And I will say, like, you have someone like Jon Ossoff, who he was asked point-blank about, "Would you, you know, do you believe we should abolish ICE?" He said, "No." He said, you know, do -- he was asked a number of the questions and a number of the things that are on DSA platform that he doesn't agree with.
He has a lot of energy behind his back. He's going to win that race. There are people like James Talarico, where I am from, who, again, not a socialist. He's actually pretty moderate, Democrat. There are, in red states, there are Democrats who are running as Democrats but are more moderate, are talking about things like, yes, we need a secure border.
I think that if you look at the stance of the Democratic Party when it comes to immigration, they're talking a lot about there are some things that Donald Trump -- when Donald Trump's policies should stay. And you know what, there are some things that should go. GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes, but, you know -- can I -- you know where this doesn't line up? The fact of the matter is, is if you -- if the polling shows, we're going to talk about polling, the Democrats themselves do not like the leadership, quote, unquote, "moderate leadership" of the Democratic Party.
And what I think, you know, is being pointed to here is that Democratic voters are really mad, and they want someone who's going to fight, and they want change. They want something that is coming with new ideas. And those new ideas happen to be come, coming from the progressive farther left of the party. They're not coming from the middle.
And so, you know, Marc is right.
HUNT: I mean, and to play devil's advocate a little bit here, Marc, I mean, Donald Trump was way more of a populist, in many ways, like, big government candidate than the conservative, you know, especially economically conservative wing of the party that he effectively crushed, you know? I mean, you've got Trump accounts where they're, you know, giving money to every baby born during a certain period.
The government's taking stakes in large companies. I mean, in some ways, what we're seeing from the President lines up with some of these.
SHORT: Kasie, look, I agree with that. I think that the second administration, the Trump policy, has been radically big government. Whether or not it's, again, the regulatory agenda, state-owned enterprises are something you see Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders applauding. The trade agenda, likewise with the ubiquitous tariffs across the globe, which are massive tariffs on the American people.
[12:20:14]
I do think a stark contrast, though, to the first administration. His rhetoric was the same on tariffs, but the tariffs really kind of steel, aluminum and China. There was no state-owned enterprises. There was significant tax relief.
And so, yes, he captured that movement, but if you look at the policy of the first administration, they were pretty much pro-growth, free market policies. The second administration's been a wide departure in which he's embraced a lot more of the populist economics of the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: But it's not really popular economics. I mean, when you think about an extremist sort of leadership, you will think about the Trump administration. They have been far to the right on just any number of different issues.
And so, what I think it has opened the door to is, you know, on the left they want that kind of energy. They want their Project 2029 that will kind of push that progressive agenda. And the people with ideas are coming from the left. You might not like government grocery stores, but it is a concrete thing that the -- that Mayor Mamdani has done to say, "Actually, I want to make things more affordable to you." As opposed to --
SHORT: I think what you said before --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: -- others on the right and the left who are sort of saying like, "Yes, prices have to come down," and yet there's nothing that anyone can say that will actually --
HINOJOSA: Well, and the --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: -- help people.
SHORT: I think what you said before, I agree with strongly, which is I think it's less on the ideological spectrum. I think what Trump did is he captured so many Republicans who wanted a leader who's willing to fight, and they feel like he's fighting for them. They felt like the Romney-Bush era was too polite.
I think you're seeing the same thing now in Democratic Party. I think it's less on the ideological spectrum, but it's more on those who wants to have a leader come out and fight.
WILLIAMS: No, and what both of those periods you're talking about followed was periods in which the party lost, right? That whole Romney era was a period that many Republicans saw as a period of failure for the party. They needed a leader. They wanted someone who would fight, and that also gave rise to the birth of Trump.
You're sort of seeing the same thing here. Now the question is, does it lead to some Democratic socialist figurehead? And I don't know if that's true, and I don't know --
HINOJOSA: Well --
WILLIAMS: -- if I agree with you, Xochitl, that the energy is with some --
HINOJOSA: There is a -- but there is a -- I mean, Democrats at the end of the day want to win. This is going to come to a head next year when the primaries actually start. You're going to have the Democratic Party try to figure out how do they embrace that energy with new ideas, but yet at the same time there is polling that al- also shows American people don't -- would not vote for a Democratic socialist in a general election.
And the Republican Party is also going to have it. You are going to have JD Vance, who is going to have to appeal to a MAGA base and Donald Trump and his policies in order to secure a nomination. And so both parties are going to have to deal with the extremes, but the extremes will not win them the presidential election.
HUNT: All right. Coming up next here in The Arena, two women who made history get candid about their public and personal lives. What Michelle Obama and Ketanji Brown Jackson are saying about their past, present, and future, and why a college classmate turned A-list actor came up in their conversation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JUSTICE KETANJI BROWN JACKSON, SUPREME COURT: The professor paired me with him, and it was something like Waiting for Godot. It's like --
MICHELLE OBAMA, FORMER FIRST LADY: Oh my gosh.
JACKSON: -- a boring play.
OBAMA: Yes, yes.
JACKSON: But, we did this scene, and at the end the professor was like, "Ketanji, you were so good. Matt, we'll talk."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[12:27:48]
OBAMA: Hi, Craig (ph).
CRAIG ROBINSON, OLDER BROTHER OF MICHELLE OBAMA: Nice suit.
OBAMA: We have a special guest, so I wanted to kind of show up like -- I mean business.
ROBINSON: And make me feel underdressed.
OBAMA: I know. I should have called you.
ROBINSON: You should have let me know.
OBAMA: And been like, "Boy, put on a jacket." But that's cute. That's very, non --
ROBINSON: Yes, that's just what I want to be --
OBAMA: Yes, yes.
ROBINSON: -- in front of a Supreme Court Justice, is cute.
OBAMA: Just very cute. Yes, yes. But, you know, you did your best.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: The special guest, was Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. She joined the First Lady Michelle Obama and her brother Craig Robinson for a wide-ranging interview that touched on a topic that many working women grapple with the stress of co-parenting with an equally ambitious spouse.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JACKSON: We had to have a nanny, obviously, in order to manage childcare during this time. And I remember that because my husband's hours were so unpredictable, he could never relieve the nanny. That meant I was the one who at 5 o'clock every day had to say to whatever partner I was working with --
OBAMA: Your day is over.
JACKSON: -- or whatever, "I'm so sorry, but I need to go." The pressure on me as someone who had really prided myself in being the hardest worker --
OBAMA: Yes.
JACKSON: -- in being available to do whatever my boss wanted me to do, all of those things collided because I couldn't be there. And we're talking about a time where there was not, cell phones and the ability to take work home.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Jackson there retelling the story of having to rush home to relieve the nanny because of her husband's demanding work hours while he was training to be a surgeon. And she was, of course, commiserating with Michelle Obama, who, as we all know, is intimately familiar with the strain of that particular balancing act.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: Building a family with the stresses, the absences that had to occur.
JACKSON: Yes.
OBAMA: I mean, you know, probably like me and Barack, you know, Barack's running for office.
JACKSON: Yes.
OBAMA: He's in state Senate. He's in the U.S. Senate. You know, we're building a family at a time when we're basically commuting. You know, and I've got my career, and he's got his.
JACKSON: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So now we're asking, in the age of work from home, have things changed for working women? Lulu, we have been through an intense period with COVID and the way that our work environment has changed. You know, women really shouldered a lot of that burden. It plays into the conversation we're having about affordability, right?
I mean, it's worth noting, like Ketanji Brown Jackson was talking there, two very privileged, you know, well-paying jobs, not something that most Americans grapple with. Tons of their -- a huge portion of their salary may be going to child care as they struggle to make ends meet. I appreciated hearing two women talk candidly about it in a high-profile way, but have things really changed, do you think?
LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: No, no, no. And not only have things not changed, I mean, it has been studied the whole period of COVID when there was a big movement for white-collar workers to work from home, that it really did help women in terms of juggling child care and work. And then with the whole push to get everyone back in the office, it has equally had a very difficult effect on women. I mean, you know, from being a mother and having to work as well, it is a really, really hard thing to balance.
And there is no institutional support in this country for that. And I have to say, no one learned any of the lessons of COVID, right? Nobody said, let's make things more flexible. I think it opened a window into the problem. I think now if you go to your boss and say, hey, I've got to do this, you don't hide it as much anymore. But I don't think it's really fundamentally changed things in the way that it should have.
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I agree. The story comes to mind is after COVID. And if you're working in the federal government, there is no really work from home, especially if you are a senior official. And I was a senior official at the Justice Department for the Attorney General. And I have a vivid memory of, because we were all in politics and a little bit crazy, I decided to take this job with a three-month-old and flying to Ukraine.
And, you know, this is maybe TMI, but having to pump on the plane on the way to Ukraine and having to tell the Attorney General, I can't brief you right now because I need to go to the bathroom and like, you know, do some of those things. But those are things like that child care situation, all of those things. I remember asking Jen Psaki, who was the former White House press secretary, how did you do it with kids?
And she said, you just have to find a village, whether it is your parents, whether it is paying for a nanny, you probably can't afford in a government job. You have to figure it out because in the long run, I promise you it will pay off at the end. And those are the kind of sacrifices that women are just are generally making. And I don't think it has changed.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: And I think that's one of the, you know, more broadly, I think on the right, there is this push for more traditional family, you know, talking about women having more traditional roles in the home. But again, I think that that doesn't take into account not only women's ambition and their interest in being in the workforce, but affording that.
I mean, you know, we no longer live in an economy where you can really live off one salary. And so it's affecting all sorts of things. It's affecting how many children women choose to have or families, you know, family planning, how many, you know, children, partners choose to have. And so, you know, we have a real problem in this country in terms of how we support working women. And I was very happy to see this conversation. ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, no, I'd agree with all that. I would actually say that the work from home, there's been a dark side to the work from home era that we've entered is that yes, people, mothers, everybody are home more hours in the day typically, but often on more. And I think we've created a dynamic in this country where before it was, OK, you work, let's say 9:00 to 5:00, many people did not. But you know what I mean? The workday ended, people came home and did what they did.
Now there's this bizarre 24-hour world in which, you know, we're all guilty here of being with our children, but texting or dealing with e- mails or editing a document or whatever in the evening. And yes, I know we could say, OK, we'll just get better at finding the separation. But it's actually gotten much more complicated, I think, since in a weird way. I mean, yes, there is a value to being the parent who can pick up at 3 o'clock now in a way that we could not many years ago. But there's a bizarre dynamic in homes across the country with this work from home.
HUNT: Yes, I mean, I think, you know, it's always this push and pull, right? I mean, I both want my children to see that I go to work every day, do something that I feel like is mission driven, that I'm passionate about. But also, I want nothing more than to be their mom all the time. And that, you know, back and forth can be a struggle. We did tease, though, earlier in the show, if you saw Ketanji Brown Jackson talking about a classmate that she had, who is a famous actor. I think you could probably guess who it was, but let's hear it from her. And we'll talk about it on the other side.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[12:35:11]
KETANJI BROWN JACKSON, ASSOCIATE JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT: I was in a class with Matt Damon. So he at that point, he was already into community theater. He was kind of known on campus as someone who wanted to be an actor. So I took a class, just a regular, you know, credit class, and he happened to be in it. And then for one scene, the professor paired me with him. And it was something like "Waiting for Godot," it's like a boring play.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my gosh. Yes, yes.
JACKSON: But we did this scene. And at the end, the professor was like, Ketanji, you were so good. Matt, we'll talk.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: And of course, Marc Short, Matt Damon currently stars as Odysseus. Talking about traditional roles.
MARC SHORT, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF TO VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: Which I've not seen yet, but my kids laugh at how many times I've watched the Jason Bourne movies. So as a big Matt Damon fan, I'm probably glad he pursued acting. And I probably wish she had pursued acting too and not become a Supreme Court justice. HINOJOSA: She's an amazing Supreme Court justice, so.
HUNT: She's a very, very accomplished person on a different ideological wavelength from you, Marc Short.
All right, ahead here in The Arena, the 19 seconds of drama on Capitol Hill that we're still talking about nearly a decade later.
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DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: He has made his career out of being a maverick. That's how he ran in 2008. It's certainly how he ran in 2000. And this is a moment that he understands is going to help cement that.
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[12:41:47]
BASH: He came in here even he asked his doctors, despite the fact that he has aggressive brain cancer, he asked his doctors to let him come back in the arena this week at this very important momentous occasion.
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HUNT: It was nine years ago this week that Senator John McCain showed us all why he was known as the Maverick. This week in 2017, Senate Republicans attempted to pass the so-called skinny repeal of Obamacare. The vote was one of the most dramatic in modern history, mostly because the outcome was uncertain until the very last minute. That was the moment when the Arizona Republican gave his famous thumbs down on the Senate floor in a very public rebuke of his own party's attempt to roll back the Affordable Care Act.
So let's walk through how these critical seconds played out. It was 1:29 in the morning. Senator McCain, having already missed his name the first time around, enters the chamber. You see him there. The majority leader, Mitch McConnell, is standing there at the front with his arms crossed. Senator Bernie Sanders gives a nudge to Senator Jeanne Shaheen, appearing to say, Watch this. McCain waves his hand to get the clerk's attention and then gives that dramatic thumbs down. Wait for it. There it is.
There was audible reaction on the floor. Gasps, applause, cheers, some groans. Here was McCain on the Senate floor in the moments after the fateful vote.
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JOHN MCCAIN (R), FORMER U.S. SENATOR: I hope we can again rely on humility, on our need to cooperate, on our dependence on each other, to learn how to trust each other again, and by so doing, better serve the people who elected us. We've been spinning our wheels on too many important issues because we keep trying to find a way to win without help from across the aisle. That's an approach that's been employed by both sides, mandating legislation from the top down without any support from the other side, with all the parliamentary maneuvers that requires. We're getting nothing done.
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HUNT: Wow. Blast from the past in so many ways, Lulu. I mean, it feels, there have been these, you know, series of moments. And most recently, Lindsey Graham's passing in some ways also marked, was one of the markers of an end of an era that McCain was talking about right there.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Absolutely.
HUNT: Because we don't live in the world. I mean, this was nearly 10 years ago now.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: No, that was so funny. It sort of marked, I think, a very clear end to the world that he inhabited. And what we've seen, I think, ever since then has been exactly what he talked about and feared, which is top down legislation, not working across the aisle, everyone just passing things in the way that they can. There's been a few exceptions to that. I mean, they just passed the housing bill, for example. And so there are, of course, exceptions to that. But I think by and large, we live in an incredibly partisan and acrimonious era.
WILLIAMS: Wait, they passed a housing bill? Has the president been out campaigning on it?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: It is a law. But it was a bipartisan thing. He didn't, though.
[12:45:00]
HUNT: It was.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I know.
HUNT: But he did not sign it.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: He did not sign it, but they passed it.
HUNT: Yes.
HINOJOSA: To your earlier point, it was Elizabeth Warren's bill.
HUNT: Marc Short, take us on to the Senate floor, because you were on the Senate floor that night as President Trump's legislative affairs director, which is, for those of you who might not know, every president usually has someone whose job it is to get their bills across the finish line. So we probably are bringing back some tough memories for you.
SHORT: Yes, I don't celebrate that night, perhaps, like you all do.
HUNT: But take us kind of behind the scenes and, you know, to what it felt like in that moment and what it meant.
SHORT: Well, look, I think that John McCain's American hero is an amazing statesman, and he has incredible public service. At that point, he had a terminal diagnosis, and everybody knew it, and his vote was the final vote that would be the tiebreaker on this bill. This was the first big legislative policy of the administration. There'd been some high-profile confirmations, like Neil Gorsuch was confirmed in the spring, but this was the one bill that had been working its way through the process since inauguration.
And so this was a pretty penultimate moment that we were all witnessing. At that point, that night, about midnight, I was in the vice president's ceremonial office right off the Senate floor when John McCain was present for a phone call with President Trump, which he told the president he'd be voting with him. And so that was really about an hour and a half before the vote. So we all, at that point, thought that we had this vote. We thought it was done. And about an hour and a half later, he went on the Senate floor and gave his thumbs down. And so there were a lot of people surprised, because we certainly thought that we had had his confirmation that he'd be voting with us that night.
HUNT: Did he ever explain why he changed his mind?
SHORT: He did not. As you probably know, that Senator McCain and the president didn't really have a particularly close relationship, so I'm not sure he felt he owed him an explanation for the change. I think that, you know, that vote happened, the final vote was 1:32 a.m. in the morning. It was pretty late. And I think he quickly, after his speech, went back to get treatment. And so there weren't a lot of conversations after that.
WILLIAMS: Was there ever a point at which you got a heads up, though? Or was it literally was the moment --
SHORT: No, I mean, our heads up is that we knew this was the final vote. And so we'd been going back and forth with his office and with him. And as you can imagine, Lindsey Graham was very much in the middle of that. And so Lindsey was the one who brought it to us to say, look, I've talked to him and he's now with us. And so he confirmed that on his phone call that night.
HUNT: Wow. Remarkable.
All right, coming up next here, something totally different. The Battle of the States.
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[12:52:19]
HUNT: All right, welcome back. So "U.S. News" and "World Report" is out with a new ranking of our United States. They used thousands of data points, they say, to measure how well states are performing for their citizens. The top five, Utah, South Dakota, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Nebraska. OK, no beef. However, my home state of Michigan, it's the Great Lakes state, OK? It was ranked 46th, 46th out of 50th, OK, 50 states. I'm sorry, what is this? The bottom of the list, the states that are ranked below Michigan include New Mexico, Mississippi, Alaska, and Louisiana. I find many things to question about this, but like, I'm sorry, the Great Lakes? If you've never been swimming in the Great Lakes, OK? You're missing out. It's ruined every other lake in America for me, basically for life.
And also, Vernors? I mean, come on. And they call it pop. They don't call it soda. Like, how could that be ranked 46th? Where's, like, where's your home state ranked on this list?
WILLIAMS: New Jersey is a proud number 20.
HUNT: I'm sorry, New Jersey ranked higher than Michigan?
WILLIAMS: OK, OK, stop.
HUNT: Give me an effing break.
WILLIAMS: Kasie, Kasie, Kasie. So here's the thing. Look, I'm from New Jersey. We hate you too. All of you.
HUNT: I spent a lot of my time growing up in Pennsylvania as well, so I have that Jersey thing going for me. But I'm from Michigan.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: But this is all untrue.
WILLIAMS: No, no, listen. I will say this. Everybody hates on New Jersey, and when they come to me, oh, your state sucks, I'll say, where are you from? And they'll say, I'm from Wichita, Kansas. And it's like, OK, whatever.
HUNT: All right, we have 25 seconds.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I'm from Florida. It did pretty well on this list. But I think this whole list is bupkis. I think it's all invented.
HINOJOSA: I agree with you because Texans believe that they are the best state. We believe Texans have Texas pride, and we're like, we are for sure the best. And I can't imagine anyone in that state being like, we're not great.
SHORT: Advanced American Freedom released its independence index last week, and Utah was ranked number one. So this is a thing. This is a thing going on with Utah.
HINOJOSA: I'm fine with Utah.
HUNT: All right. We're way out of time, unfortunately. We clearly could talk about this for quite a bit longer.
[12:54:32]
Thank you all very much for being here. Thank you at home for watching. Don't forget, you can see The Arena every weekday, right here on CNN at 4:00 p.m. Eastern. You can also catch up by listening to our podcast. You can follow the show on X and Instagram. We're at TheArenaCNN. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. The news continues next on CNN.
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MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN HOST: You have the right to remain silent and the Senate has the power to change that. I'm Michael Smerconish in the Philly burbs.
