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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
El-Sayed Clinches Michigan Primary In Key Win For Progressives; Now: Key GOP Senators Bill Cassidy, Lisa Murkowski Meeting With Blanche; Just In: GOP Rep. Max Miller Tells CNN "I'm Not Going Anywhere"; Blanche Defends Pirro, But Says Trump Can Fire Her At Any Time. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired August 05, 2026 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:00]
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: They really make you tired now, right, Tom?
(LAUGHTER)
KEILAR: All right. I'll tell you what I think of that helipad.
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN HOST: Yeah.
KEILAR: I just think that it'll save a lot of high heels.
JIMENEZ: Oh, I like that. There you go.
KEILAR: That's really what I thought about it.
THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT starts right now.
(MUSIC)
KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. Welcome to THE ARENA. It's great to have you with us on this Wednesday.
Right now, one of the biggest Senate races of the year is set as progressives notch their most significant win yet and Republicans prepare their attacks. Abdul El-Sayed celebrating today shortly after CNN projected his victory in Michigan's Democratic Senate primary.
The 41-year-old former public health official narrowly defeating the more moderate Haley Stevens. The margin, as the final few votes trickle in, just about 15,000 votes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABDUL EL-SAYED (D), MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE: What we showed is that if you're willing to build a movement brick by brick, if you're willing to go and travel your state and have the conversations in rooms big and small, starting in moments when people aren't even paying attention to an election but are paying attention to the price of gas and the price of groceries and the price of housing and the price of health care, that you can build a conversation that builds into a movement that defeats Goliath. This is what you all showed. And my hope is that our democracy will never be the same.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: El-Sayed now faces off against the Republican nominee, former Congressman Mike Rogers, likely to be one of the year's biggest, most expensive, and most closely watched races. Already, the Republican line of attack coming into focus. In a statement this morning, Rogers said this, quote, "Abdul isn't just another liberal, he's an extremist," end quote.
President Donald Trump echoing that message, calling the results, quote, "great news for the Republican Party," and describing El-Sayed as a, quote, "communist loser."
The NRSC really running with that theme as it releases its first attack ad going after El Sayed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AD NARRATOR: Abdulrahman Mohamed El Sayed, the most radical Senate candidate in America.
EL-SAYED: I'm pretty (EXPLETIVE DELETED) dangerous.
AD NARRATOR: Abdul El Syed, too radical, too dangerous, wrong for Michigan.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Using El Sayed's full name there, a not so subtle reference to President Trump's own racially charged attacks using President Barack Obama's middle name, which is Hussein. And of course, it did not go unnoticed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EL-SAYED: You know, they think that you want to use my whole name against me. Mike, listen, man, if you can't say the name, it's Abdulrahman, keep the name out your damn mouth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right, let's get off the sidelines, head into THE ARENA.
My panel is going to be here. And in just a moment, we're going to speak with former Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Mallory McMorrow about what's happening in her home state.
But first, let's go to CNN correspondent Arlette Saenz. She is live for us in Detroit, Michigan.
So, Arlette, what are you hearing from El Sayed as he looks to the fall?
ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kasie Abdul El-Sayed issued a call for unity within the Democratic Party as he now has to focus on stitching together a coalition that can win here in a swing state of Michigan in November. El Sayed did see success in this Democratic primary, a big moment for the progressive movement as they were able to bat down the establishment backed candidate in Congresswoman Haley Stevens.
But the harder test perhaps comes in November when he will have to deal with a general electorate that is far different in these Democratic primaries. Michigan, of course, being one of these key battleground states that has flipped between Democrats and Republicans in recent presidential contests. But El Sayed really used his remarks and moments with reporters earlier today to talk about and stress that need for unity.
Now this is still an incredibly close place. The difference between El Sayed and Stevens is about 1 percent and I asked El Sayed whether he's concerned that could make it more difficult for Democrats to unite, but he said that these intra family party squabbles are part of the process, and now he is hoping that they will all be able to rally around his candidacy to defeat the Republican candidate, Mike Rogers, in November.
HUNT: Control of the Senate could be on the line there, so for sure.
Arlette Saenz in Michigan, thank you very much for that.
Now joining me now is someone who was a candidate in this race for quite some time, herself, Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow.
Mallory, thank you so much for coming. It's great to see you.
The sort of conventional wisdom heading into last night was that Abdul El-Sayed might actually run away with this by a bigger margin than he ended up doing. Haley Stevens is very close in the vote count.
How would you explain, how do you understand last night's result?
MALLORY MCMORROW (D), FORMER MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE: Look, Michigan is always going to Michigan. Whatever you think you know about Michigan, we're about to surprise you. And last night was no different.
What I take away from the results last night, not only in this race, but in races all the way down the ballot is actually really exciting. It's what I take away from the results last night, not only in this race, but in races all the way down the ballot. is actually really exciting. It's that the Democratic Party in Michigan is a big tent party.
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It is not this binary choice of going one direction or another. It is that we are actually expanding. We saw record turnout in this primary, trouncing the turnout in the Republican primary on the other side of the aisle. We elected Jocelyn Benson as our gubernatorial nominee, Abdul El Syed for the Senate race. We've got the most diverse ticket, and it gives everybody in Michigan a chance to see themselves in the Democratic Party, a party that is getting bigger and bringing in more ideas.
Now, when you are growing, there are some growing pains. We are going through that. We are figuring out how we all work together. But the contrast couldn't be clearer between Democrats in Michigan and what's on the line in November.
And we have seen a coalescing today, everybody coming together with a real sense of unity. And I am really excited as we move forward.
HUNT: So, Abdul El-Sayed, of course, aggressively criticized the Democratic establishment. And he's not the only one. You're seeing these kinds of criticisms across the country from outsider and insurgent candidates.
And you, of course, had to grapple with the establishment yourself. I mean, you ultimately dropped out in no small part because the establishment coalesced behind Haley Stevens.
Do you think -- do you have criticism of the way the establishment does its work? I mean, did they pick the wrong horse when they backed Stevens?
MCMORROW: Yeah, you know, something that I said on day one of my campaign when I announced was that it is time for new leadership in the Democratic Party, that people were tired of business as usual. And we heard that across the state. We heard that not only from Democrats, but from independents, Republicans, the people that we will need to pick up to win in November.
I think two that Abdul was running on, which I don't necessarily know were his priorities at first, but money out of politics and money in your pocket, that, I think, is what this cycle became about. People are tired of the amount of money. This will go down as, I believe, the most expensive Senate Democratic primary in U.S. history. And when I'm talking to voters, they say, I don't think we are better off for that.
And we heard that. And that is a message that can resonate not only in the Democratic Party, but with independents, but with Republicans who see the price of gas, who see costs going up, who feel like the government is rigged against them while you've got Trump building a billion-dollar ballroom and becoming a billionaire while he's president again.
And I think we've really tapped into something here. There is deep frustration with a broken system. And Michigan Democrats are cut from a different cloth out here. And I think we're going to be the ones that show we can build a big tent party, we can rally around ending corruption, and we can win.
HUNT: Do you think today it's more likely that Republican -- that Republicans -- that Michiganders send a Republican to the Senate in the fall than it was yesterday?
MCMORROW: No, I don't. You know, Mike Rogers stood on stage with Donald Trump here in Michigan just a few days ago, and he said that Michigan needs a senator who will not stand in the way of President Trump's agenda. This is a guy who was cheering on Donald Trump when he was keeping the Gordie Howe Bridge closed, the bridge between Detroit and Canada. This is a guy who laughed off Michiganders who are concerned about tariffs impacting the cost of everything that we buy.
And it's not just Mike Rogers. We see this with John James, who is the gubernatorial nominee who stood on that same stage with President Trump and inherited the lie. He actually introduced Donald Trump by saying the three-time winner here in Michigan, Donald Trump, which is a flat-out lie. You know, he's promoting conspiracy theories and election fraud in a way that's really damaging to Michiganders.
So, for me, I think the choice is really clear in November. The Republican Party has been taken over by Donald Trump. It is the MAGA party right now. So, November in Michigan is Michigan versus Trump, and I'm going to take Michigan every day of the week.
HUNT: So, one of Michigan's top leaders, your attorney general, Dana Nessel, she's a Democrat. She also is Jewish.
She had this to say recently about whether she would feel welcome attending the top Democratic gathering in your state. Let's watch and we'll talk about it.
Oh, it's a full screen, excuse me.
"I feel like my presence isn't going to be welcome," she said. "I don't want to get chased around, I don't want to get harassed. I don't want to get yelled and screamed at. I don't want to get booed off the stage, irrespective of what I'm saying. And I believe that if I go, that's what will happen, because it's been happening to me."
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This is her talking about the convention. And I saw a clip where she said she doesn't feel like it's because people care that she's a woman or care that she's gay, but they care that she's Jewish.
Are Jews no longer welcome in the Democratic Party in Michigan?
MCMORROW: We have seen rising anti-Semitism. And I even said at our last convention, my husband, who is Jewish -- I'm in an interfaith marriage -- an anti-Semitic slur was screamed in his face when he was with my five-year-old daughter.
We have some healing to do here. And on a personal note, I really want to give some credit to Abdul here, who after I stepped back in the race, reached out. We've had a lot of conversations, and we talked about our daughters.
And the fact that Michigan is a really special place where my daughter, who is half Jewish, his daughters, who are Muslim, can grow up together and that there is a shared value that we both want our daughters to feel safe for who they are and how they are being raised and their background.
And I hope that that can be a unifying message that brings us together so that we get out of the really ugly moments that we did see in this primary because Michigan has a unique responsibility as a state with our diverse population. We have the largest Arab American population with a very significant Jewish population.
We have to show the rest of the country, the rest of the world that we can coexist, we can do so together, we have shared values and we can't let hate win here.
HUNT: So before I let you go, you, of course, were in this race in no small part because you've been viewed as a rising star in the party. You had thought about perhaps a role in party leadership. Obviously, you decided to step back for what you had expressed at the time was the good of your party. What's next for you?
MCMORROW: No, I don't know yet. I was talking to my daughter, the wisdom of a five-and-a-half-year-old, and she told me, Mommy, for your next job, maybe you might want to think of something you don't have to run for because that seems really hard and you're going into your 40s.
So, you know, leave it to your kid to put a little dagger in your hearts.
But I love helping out other candidates. I get to spend the last week knocking on doors. I know, right, it's like, you know, if you ever just need a check, talk to your kindergarten.
I love helping out other people. I got to help some really great state legislative candidates who won their primaries who were headed to November. I am going to be a part of Michigan Democrats winning in November and showing the rest of the country how we do it. And then we'll see what's next.
HUNT: Well, first of all, yes, the wisdom -- the incredible kindergarten wisdom is really something. You should just tell her the average age of our U.S. senators, you know, maybe you could convince her. You're really on the young side.
MCMORROW: -- some a dinosaur comparatively. She doesn't even know.
(LAUGHTER)
HUNT: Okay, Mallory McMorrow, I'm sure I hope to see more of you here in THE ARENA. Please don't be a stranger. Come back soon.
MCMORROW: Thanks, Kasie.
HUNT: All right. My panel is here to talk more about all of this.
"New York Times" congressional correspondent Annie Karni; CNN political director, Washington bureau chief David Chalian; former communications director for Vice President Kamala Harris, Jamal Simmons; and Republican strategist Brad Todd, both CNN political contributors.
And we're also joined by former senior advisor policy director for the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, Josh Orton. Welcome to all of you. Really glad to know. I shouldn't try to do
anything.
JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: She should have been -- she should have been the other candidate.
HUNT: Okay, so you jumped in and said that and --
BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: She should have been the nominee.
SIMMONS: Well, I think if she had been the other candidate, she probably would be the nominee based on how close this number is. And I know there were people who were casting about a couple of months ago trying to figure out how to sort this primary out.
And I think the problem with Mallory McMorrow for some of the institutional Democrats is that the Democrats in Washington haven't quite accepted the fact that people want to run against us. They want to run against the Democrats who are part of the institutional part of the party. And if we -- and so the Democrats have to get behind these other anti-institutional Democrats who maybe are better candidates, and let's see if they can win. If that had happened, I think Abdul might not have made it through this primary.
TODD: Well, you know, even if Mallory McMorrow, she's not on the ballot. Haley Stevens probably wins last night. I mean, she got 4 percent of the vote. All Haley Stevens would have needed is about 63 percent of the McMorrow vote to win. And polling showed that she was the second choice of McMorrow's voters. So, this victory for El-Sayed is very tenuous even in this primary.
HUNT: Jamal, so, do you feel like Democrats, I mean, put their finger on the scale, their thumb on the scale for Haley Stevens in a way that gave this to El-Sayed?
SIMMONS: Yes, because when you have the Senate majority leader, when you have the governor of the state, when you have a bunch of the big institutional Democrats coming in to endorse her, they actually made the very case that Abdul El-Sayed had been making, which was that she was part of the institutional part of the party.
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He was running against that old part of the party and running against the institutions of the country to change and fix them while she was creating this entire feeling for herself.
But like, you know, Donald Rumsfeld said, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you want. And maybe that's all she had to run with, but it was making his message point every single day she was out there.
HUNT: Josh Orton, let me let you get a word in here as the partisan, but from the progressive side. El-Sayed obviously pulled this out, but he didn't do it by as much as some people in the state expected. What were your takeaways?
JOSH ORTON, FORMER SENIOR ADVISOR AND POLICY DIRECTOR, SANDERS PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: Yeah, look -- thanks, Kasie. I think that Abdul had a monumental upset last night. And I compare it not to the polls that were wrong about the spread ahead of time. I compare it to -- what he was up against institutionally, both in money and power, with a, what, 12x disadvantage in spending. There were 60-something million dollars spent against him.
He came in with a very clear agenda of what he stood for, who he was going to fight for, and how he was going to do it, and it won. And with respect to my good friend Jamal, I get the little navel-gazing here of like, well, if only this thing had happened differently, then Haley would've won. If only this thing had happened differently, Haley would've won.
Yeah, that didn't happen. She lost, he won. And I think, frankly, I think there's all positives in this morning after this primary seeing the vice president -- Vice President Harris endorsed Abdul, Abdul's great comments about his former opponents.
And look, at the end of the day, I know Abdul wants to beat Mike Rogers. He does not want him to see the inside of the U.S. Senate. And also, let's not pretend that Mike Rogers is some pillar of centrist upper Midwestern electability. He is a Donald Trump bootlicker. When Trump was there last week, Mike Rogers was up there on stage kind of like trying to like you whisper in his ear and kind of joke with him like he was sucking up to the cool kid, right?
Donald Trump is the most unpopular president in modern American history. His tariffs have been ruinous to Michigan. And I think he's going to have to answer to that.
HUNT: Annie Karni, what are you hearing on the Hill about this? Because now, of course, the Democratic caucus is going to have to embrace this guy if they think they want to take back the Senate. And It's-- obviously, a lot of them were on the other side.
ANNIE KARNI, CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Yeah, I mean, it's complicated. This -- they thought Haley Stevens would do better in a general election. This is a moderate purple state. This is a real test for the progressive movement, having a progressive like this run at this level in Michigan.
This is a blow to Chuck Schumer, not the first. We saw him -- he took a blow in Maine with his pick of Janet Mills, who had to drop out of the primary before we even got to the primary. His pick was Haley Stevens.
He still has a few wins. He recruited Sherrod Brown in Ohio. He recruited Roy Cooper in North Carolina. Those still look on track to win and like good recruits in key states they need to win.
But we haven't heard Chuck Schumer yet talk about what the new map looks like now. I think that the saving grace for them -- I mean, they will get behind El Sayed. They will. The saving grace for them is Donald Trump's deep unpopularity.
I mean, this could be a real wave election in November if this keeps up. And that's in their favor.
(CROSSTALK)
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: Oh, sorry.
HUNT: No, no, go ahead.
CHALIAN: I was going to say that, in talking to folks on the Hill, in the campaign world on both sides, I think Michigan's going to see more money now from both sides, given what the contours of this general election matchup look like probably than it would have. the other way. Both parties were going to fully invest in it. They were going to make a play for it. But now I think it's going to be super --
HUNT: Yeah. So, one thing that I've been picking up in talking to folks on the Hill is that there are nerves among Democrats about the base and the anger in the base, what that means, and what that looks like. What is the makeup of -- what is the sort of most intense version of their base? Where does that exist? And some of what we see in the map of last night's results helps us understand that.
CHALIAN: Yeah, I'm going to just pick Two counties here, they actually are next door to each other to sort of tell this story. So let me go into the Detroit, to Wayne County. And obviously, Haley Stevens won this county by six percentage points, you see. This is Detroit, sorry. And race and ethnicity in Wayne County.
So, what you see here is black population is 37 percent, white population, 47.9 percent. This is U.S. Census Bureau breakdown here. That's one way to look at it is just the racial diversity there.
The -- I'm having a hard time getting out of this. Hang on.
HUNT: Technical difficulties. It happens.
SIMMONS: One thing to pay attention to while we're doing that is look at the two or more racist number or some other race number.
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It's below five percent. So, we think about the fact that there's so many people from the Middle East, Chaldeans, Arabs, Palestinian Americans who are all there, but there's still a pretty small percentage of the total number statewide. So, it's a big chunk for America in terms of the number there, but not a big chunk of the total vote.
CHALIAN: The other thing we're seeing here is the education divide. So, if you look here in Wayne County, the college degree versus no college degree, OK? This is not a highly college-educated world. So, this is -- Haley Stevens territory was less college educated, more racially diverse. If you go next door where Ann Arbor is to Washtenaw County, what you're going to see is a different story. HUNT: Ann Arbor is the University of Michigan.
CHALIAN: Huge El-Sayed County. He won 60.8 percent of the vote to her 36 percent.
HUNT: Wow.
CHALIAN: Overwhelmingly white, so that's there. And when you look at the college breakdown, as you might expect in Ann Arbor where the University of Michigan is, overwhelmingly college degree these are the two divides for El Sayed to be successful in November, he has to stitch it -- the Democrat can only be successful when this whole coalition comes together.
TODD: This is why Chuck Schumer was right. Haley Stevens was more electable in the general election because she appeals to non-college educated voters and the Trump coalition relies on those two.
HUNT: Yeah.
SIMMONS: But she was going to have problems to it's when she was going to have problems to either way they went there was going to be something that Democrats want to stitch together a new coalition for this election.
HUNT: Interesting.
All right. Josh Orton, thank you, sir. Always appreciate it. Hope you come back.
The rest of my panel is going to stand by.
Coming up next here in THE ARENA, what Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is doing back on Capitol Hill this afternoon and who he's meeting with.
Plus, the House. Speaker Mike Johnson breaks his silence on Republican Congressman Max Miller and the allegations of domestic abuse coming from the congressman's ex-wife.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: We don't take disciplinary action against members for allegations. He's vehemently denying this. It's, in his own words, a nasty divorce proceeding, and it's gotten ugly and it's gotten public. But he's saying the same things privately to members that he is publicly, that he denies all this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:26:35]
HUNT: All right. We are back now with breaking news on Capitol Hill. Todd Blanche is working overtime to try and win over some remaining
Republicans who have yet to commit to voting for him to be the next attorney general.
Our CNN chief congressional correspondent, Manu Raju, is on Capitol Hill. He comes to us on the phone.
This is unusual, usually, as you see him chasing through the halls. However, he is in the basement, and there are, in fact, places in the Capitol where cameras aren't allowed. So, he is on the phone.
Manu, what can you tell us about this meeting? Because it's worth noting, Susan Collins has already said she's going to vote no on Blanche. That's in no small part, because she's running for re- election in the only -- she's the only, you know, Republican senator in a Harris state who's up, so that makes sense. But there's two other people in that room who haven't committed yet. Where does this all stand?
MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Yeah, pivotal meeting right now. Todd Blanche, it's been about an hour or so in the basement of the United Senate, meeting with Senators Bill Cassidy and Lisa Murkowski. Two critical swing votes who have steadfastly refused to say how they may come down.
And if one of them were to vote against the nomination, that could be trouble for Todd Blanche, the most he can afford to lose just two in order to get confirmed. He's already lost one. If he was to lose both Murkowski and Collins, that could be the end of his chances of becoming Murkowski and Cassidy, that could be the end of his chances of becoming the next attorney general of the United States because of the simple maps.
The 53-47 Senate, Mitch McConnell is absent. That means that there is virtually no margin for error. These two have raised different levels of concerns.
Cassidy has raised concerns about what he considers lawfare by the Justice Department. He's also raised concerns about whether or not Todd Blanche would act as independent of this White House would be essentially be Trump's personal lawyer. That would be among the level of the question that he has. He's been raising concerns about anti- weaponization fund as well.
Lisa Makowski also has a wide range of concerns. She's also someone who is not in the abortion camp of third party, and you heard top blinds telling anti-abortion activists on a phone call just a few days ago that he worked to make sure that Dobbs is essentially applied throughout the country when it comes to abortion medication.
So that is undoubtedly something that Murkowski would be on her mind. She declined to comment walking into this room about where she's winning, about what specific questions that she might ask. But she's always a wildcard on key votes. And that would put the pressure if she were to vote no, that would put a lot of pressure on Bill Cassidy. Cassidy, of course, Kasie, as you know, we lost his primary to a
Trump-backed primary. So, we've come back, been a thorn in the side of Trump at times. He's fallen in line after pressure from this White House, really fall in line.
Now, that's a big question. want to get this nomination confirmed in the next two days, that means this meeting could determine whether or not Todd Blanche gets the job case.
HUNT: All right. Manu Raju for us in the basement of the Capitol -- Manu, thank you, as always, for your yeoman's work.
All right, my panel's back. Annie Karni, we saw Thom Tillis and John Cornyn stand up on this in the Judiciary Committee. Ultimately, they folded after Todd Blanche wrote that letter.
There had been reporting that they wanted to get to yes. Where -- what is your understanding of whether Cassidy and Murkowski are in the same position? Do they want to get to yes?
KARNI: I don't really know. They've been really keeping their cards close to the vest.
[16:30:02]
Blanche has been really trying to woo Murkowski. I think he did actually go to Alaska at one point to meet with her. But as Manu said, she's a wild card. There's talk that she could switch parties and become an independent potentially.
I think that another wrinkle here is if they do end up getting to yes somehow, it's going to actually blow back a little bit on Collins and make it look like, oh, she's only a yes when they can let her off the reservation and it doesn't actually matter when they can afford to lose her. If she's actually -- I mean, sorry, a no -- if she's actually a no that ends this, That will be a different Collins than the usual Collins we see, and it depends.
But I don't know if they want to get to yes or not. We'll see after this meeting.
HUNT: David, what's your sense of the politics here with the president?
CHALIAN: Well, I don't think either one of these senators feel inclined to do the president's bidding, even though most senators, I think, do think that presidents in general should have the leeway to put their cabinet together. It's usually one of those positions that at the end of the day, people don't thwart the way maybe they will a judge or something like that.
But I do think -- you cited Tillis and Cornyn. It was very clear. They were very public about what they were looking for, what they wanted. What I am confusing here is like, why is this meeting happening?
HUNT: Brad probably knows. Brad, what do we know?
(LAUGHTER)
SIMMONS: Come on, Brad.
TODD: Well, let's just say that I think Republican senators like Todd Blanche and they think he's a good lawyer and they think he'd be a good attorney general. Their anger in their angst is a little bit more about what he might be tasked with doing.
And so, because of that, I think that Todd Blanche has a chance to overcome these objections because in the end, the nominee gets to be the nominee on the table. And so, I think that I would probably lay money right now that he gets confirmed, but I wouldn't lay a lot of money.
KARNI: One thing to remember though, when they had to delay this vote earlier because they didn't have the votes, Donald Trump tweeted, I'll just keep him as acting and we'll do this next year. So, if it doesn't look like they have the votes, Todd Blanche will probably continue to be acting attorney general.
SIMMONS: Well, as Brad said, he's a good lawyer, but he's a good lawyer for who? For the president or for the American people or the Constitution? We don't know.
HUNT: All right. Coming up next here in THE ARENA, we've got new reaction to Congressman Max Miller's interview here on CNN as he denies allegations of domestic abuse and vows to continue his reelection campaign.
Plus, more on the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche. He's defending Washington, D.C.'s top prosecutor after a decision that she made set off the president, but he also said this today about Jeanine Pirro.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TODD BLANCHE, ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL: Hypothetically, if the president chose to fire a United States attorney, it turns out he's allowed to do that because he's the president of the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:37:05]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHNSON: This applies equally to Republicans and Democrats. We don't take disciplinary action against members for allegations.
INTERVIEWER: Will you tell him to drop out? JOHNSON: Well, I will tell Max what I tell everyone. These are serious allegations. I'm the father of two daughters who work on Capitol Hill. I mean, the allegations are serious. I think Max is taking them seriously. I think our colleagues are. But again, we have to allow this process to play out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: The House Speaker, Mike Johnson, breaking his silence on the explosive domestic abuse allegations against one of his own, the Ohio Congressman Max Miller.
Johnson there not calling on Miller to step down or get off the ballot, but instead insisting the newly launched ethics committee investigation into the embattled congressman play out.
Meanwhile, Miller refuses to step aside. He told our Manu Raju this afternoon, quote, "I'm not going anywhere." This as he denies allegations that he abused his ex-wife, their daughter, and two other women.
The congressman also appeared on this network yesterday and said he was inspired by how President Trump navigated his own set of allegations during the 2016 election season. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST, "THE LEAD": Are all three of these women who don't know each other, are all three of them lying?
REP. MAX MILLER (R-OH): Yes, it's very easy, and I can tell you why. Every single time, and people have asked me, you know, what are you going to do? Are you going to drop out of this race? Are you going to resign? Are you going to get out before the deadline?
And my answer to you, Jake, is no, and I can tell you why. In 2016, when President Donald J. Trump faced the most extreme allegations in the world that hit him day after day after day, and people in the media very much like yourself and others said that he would have no shot at winning, that he should not be the president of the United States, but guess what? He stayed in and he was resilient.
And what the American people can see is that they can see that somebody is fighting, who is resilient, and that is a quality that the American people cherish.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: And, of course, Jake's interview with Congressman Miller went on for some 26 minutes.
And here's what some Republicans told our reporters in the aftermath. Quote, one GOP strategist watching Miller's interview with CNN anchor Jake Tapper Tuesday afternoon texted, "I mean, what the absolute F was that?" Another GOP aide on the Hill texted, "I had a feeling this wouldn't go well for him, but it's actually much worse than bad, epic disaster."
Brad Todd, I mean, this is quite a set of allegations to be defending someone against. Why is this playing out this way?
TODD: Well, the hour is not. And if Max Miller is watching this, I hope he will decide he's got to go deal with his issues with his family. I think most of us who had these kind of issues in our family would not trade any office in politics to waste a minute to fix these things.
And Mike Johnson's being a little bit more delicate than and diplomatic than I'd be. I think it's time for him to get out. I think his colleagues are telling him it's time for him to get out.
And it doesn't have anything to do with whether you hold the seat or not. It's like he needs to go deal with his obligations as a dad.
[16:40:00]
HUNT: I mean, Mike Johnson might be right that official sanction doesn't usually come with allegations. But having covered Capitol Hill for a while, I remember how Republican Speakers John Boehner, Paul Ryan handled issues like this and it never it never got this public because they essentially said goodbye before it ever got to this.
TODD: Well, you do have to have a cooperative participant in that, though, for it to get that far. I think that --
HUNT: Well, the public -- but the peer pressure was enough to get these guys to step aside.
TODD: There's plenty of peer pressure being applied to Max Miller right now.
HUNT: Except not from the president, not in public.
TODD: Well, not in public, but that pressure's applied in many different ways, and there's plenty of peer pressure being applied, and it's for his own good and the good of his family. And his father-in- law, Senator Moreno, I think enunciated it well, and I think most Republicans are on his side.
CHALIAN: Do you think the seat is a lost cause if indeed he stays the nominee?
TODD: Well, Trump won the seat by about eight. That is not in what I would call the margin of competitiveness in a normal world, but he would not be a normal candidate. But again, I don't think that -- I think most people think that he needs to do this as a father.
It's not -- we'll deal with whether we can win the seat or not after that, but this is not a sustainable situation.
One of the other things that Johnson said in that interview, he said he hasn't talked to Max Miller about this the last few days, of course, I will. There's all sorts of domestic events going on with 435 members of Congress all the time. It's not my business to get engaged in it.
TODD: Hope there aren't more of these, you know?
KARNI: Johnson often acts overwhelmed by just the sheer incoming of his job. And this is the position he's taken on all allegations. We have a process. He hides behind the ethics process.
The ethics process can take years. I mean, there's absolutely no way this ethics investigation into Max Miller is going to wrap up by any sort of deadline that would matter politically for anyone.
And I do think it is -- in that interview, he also said, what is the speaker to do? I mean, as you said, I've talked -- I've talked to people on Capitol Hill who said the same thing you did, like Boehner, some of the more powerful -- the old model, the powerful speaker, a Pelosi, a Boehner, like had the power to say you've got to go, especially when every seat matters and they absolutely think that if Max Miller's the candidate, this seat is gone.
TODD: Mike Johnson, though, I'd like to defend him here a little bit. And he is a Southern man and he is a discreet, if not, if anything else.
Nancy Pelosi came out of the Baltimore political school. It was smash- mouth football. Mike Johnson doesn't work that way. And I think that Mike Johnson is trying to give Max Miller a way to do this without having been pushed off the bridge.
CHALIAN: But it's also been Donald Trump is the one that holds all the strings in the current day Republican Party. And he, while there's been reporting that he has said, this doesn't look good for you, or as Max Miller says, this doesn't look good for you, Max, he says on the phone, he's not out there railing either.
We have no reporting in the gate privately. He said, you must get out. And he's certainly not applying that pressure publicly.
And so Yes, Mike Johnson. But this is a party that takes its cues from Donald Trump.
HUNT: Well, and here was the cue that Donald Trump gave to Max Miller on Tuesday this week when he was asked, Can you comment on Representative Miller? Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Can you comment on Representative Miller?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I hope he's able to work it out. I feel badly for him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: I feel badly for him.
SIMMONS: You know who I feel badly for? Senator Moreno talked about Max Miller holding his daughter's blue bunny hostage, right? That was what got me. He started talking about how he wouldn't give over the bunny.
Anybody who has a kid knows how much the kids love whatever that stuffy or lovey is they have. That got me.
Listen, what the American people are seeing when they see this are a bunch of Republicans who are doing things that aren't mattering to their lives, right? We've got personal savings are going down. We've got credit card delinquencies growing up, gas is back over $4 an hour, $4 a gallon.
And the Republicans can't figure out how to get rid of a guy who's got three sexual assault -- or sexual misconduct charges and apparently was not good to his daughter.
HUNT: Yeah, well, I think it's -- there are allegations that he denied and there are three allegations of violence, you know, and domestic abuse as distinct from -- there are some -- there may be some sexual assault allegations in there.
The first allegation, the woman says that she didn't want him to touch her. He pushed her down the stairs. But again, I just want to make sure that we are very clear about what he doesn't.
SIMMONS: Yeah, thank you. Thank you.
HUNT: Senator -- Brad Todd, what is your sense of where Senator Moreno is on this? Because he did get some criticism for not putting out a statement initially. He came out very strongly in the last two days after we saw that public statement from Max Miller. and really vociferously defended his daughter, said his daughter didn't want him to talk about this.
What is going on with him? Is there a backstory there we should understand?
TODD: No, I think he's clearly trying to be the best father and grandfather he can be, and he's trying to handle it in a way that his daughter wants him to handle it, and as a father, that's what I would do.
[16:45:01]
Let the politics be damned of it. You know, it's a -- he doesn't answer to anybody else's standard in politics before he answers to his family. His family comes first. That's what I would do.
HUNT: All right. Coming up next here in THE ARENA, what President Trump is saying when asked if he's thinking about firing one of his top DOJ officials.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BLANCHE: Hypothetically, if the president chose to fire a United States attorney, it turns out he's allowed to do that because he's the president of the United States. So I don't, and by the way, he -- if the president wanted, if President Trump wanted to fire anybody, right, within his administration, he understands he has the power to do that.
So, when he makes a decision about whether to fire a U.S. attorney or anybody else, that's his.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[16:50:05]
HUNT: The Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche defending the president after court filings blamed reflecting pool damage on shoddy workmanship, not vandalism, as President Trump has claimed. This all comes after an explosive Monday meeting with the president, the U.S. attorney for D.C., Jeanine Pirro, and the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
In an attempt to protect her position, Pirro brought boxes of documents supporting her reasons for dropping the indictment. She is seen there, carting them to and from the White House. The question -- was it enough for Trump?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Is she safe? Are you going to keep her in the position?
TRUMP: I haven't made a determination.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right, my panel is back.
Brad Todd, there does seem to be --
TODD: Your favorite today.
(LAUGHTER)
HUNT: There seems to have been a contentious back and forth between Pirro and Doug Burgum, the interior secretary. Where do you think ultimately the president comes down on this? Because I will say, you do seem to have seen Pirro's -- the things that got Pirro noticed in the first place by the president and have a very long-standing relationship. She knows what he needs when you got to go in and convince him to do something.
Where does this all stand right now?
TODD: Well, I think her long relationship actually does matter. People who have long relationships with the president have the ability to go back and forth with him and debate these things. She's torn between the fact that there's a political imperative and she had to present evidence in front of a judge, and she knows what the standard that is.
The president lives in a world where he's not a lawyer, he's in politics. He gets to have a political opinion and not have to be concerned about going in front of a judge. So, this is some natural push and pull of this. I don't know inside their relationship to know where it lands, but I know the relationship is a lot longer than most of his in town.
HUNT: David Chalian, this does seem to be in no small part because it hits right on the core of who the president believes himself to be, the builder who can execute these kinds of projects. And it's become --
CHALIAN: With his pool guy.
HUNT: With his pool guy. Well, I mean, and essentially, Pirro is saying, well, your pool guy screwed it up. Nobody cut it open.
What -- this just seems to be one of these things, and it's always a little bit of a struggle to figure out what has broken through, like what of the -- the stuff that perhaps, you know, you got to evaluate how serious it really is. Like, what breaks through with Americans? This seems to have broken through, this reflecting pool situation.
CHALIAN: Reflecting pool, ballroom, the arch. These projects that he has focused on no doubt has broken through. Every poll indicates that. And by the way, broken through in a negative fashion for him. I mean, I think our latest poll last week showed 58 percent, a clear majority of Americans, feel, like, dissatisfied or unhappy about these projects.
And unfortunately for Donald Trump, it also feeds into a big problem he has right now with the American people, which is that he's seen as being focused on the wrong priorities. And this is now like a data point that Democrats use to sort of put in that.
But the least surprising development about this, as you said, because it cuts to the core of who he is, is how angry he got at Pirro, apparently, for undermining this entire story that he was trying to sell on this.
SIMMONS: So, wait a minute. The president of the United States is upset and threatening to fire the U.S. attorney for not lying to a judge. I mean, that's fundamentally what this is about. He wants her to go in and misrepresent the facts to a judge, and she refused to do it, and now she may get fired for it.
The question isn't so much about Donald Trump, because he is who he is. We knew that when we hired him. The question now is about who are we and who is the United States Senate? And do we want a Justice Department that is going to be governed by the whims of a president to ask people to go into court and tell untruths, or do we want one that's going to represent the truth for the American people in those courtrooms?
HUNT: Well, it is worth noting that, of course, the most high-profile person that was charged in connection with this was an Olympian who is now asking the Justice Department for secret details of how his case was handled, because, again, they're trying to push through an anti- weaponization fund.
This was my colleague, Dana Bash, pressing Jim Jordan on whether this Olympian would be entitled to this fund.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Should he be eligible for money from the anti-weaponization fund?
REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): Well, that'd be up to the board. I mean, if this thing is formed, remember --
BASH: What do you think?
JORDAN: That's up to -- I don't make the decision, it's up to them.
BASH: Do you have an opinion?
JORDAN: What I do know is Peter Strzok got $1.2 million trying to undermine President Trump's election campaign.
BASH: You have an opinion that he shouldn't have got it. What about David Hearn?
JORDAN: Well, that will be up to the board. I don't know all the facts. This story just broke. I don't know all the facts.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[16:55:00]
HUNT: Very briefly. Difficult -- generate some difficult questions.
KARNI: Yeah, I mean, I just wanted to follow up on something David said, that the impression that this is where Donald Trump's focus is. Like, it's not an impression. From the reporting of my colleagues to cover the White House, this is what he spends most of his real energy and time on, these projects, these development projects.
So, no wonder he got so fired up that she undermined his --
HUNT: Oh, man.
OK. On that note, we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HUNT: All right, thanks to my panel. Really appreciate you all being here.
Thanks to you at home for watching as well.
Don't go anywhere, though, because Jake Tapper is standing by for "THE LEAD".
Hi, Jake.
