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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt

Now: Primaries In Six States With Major Midterm Implications; Trump Switched Planes In Elaborate Rise Triggered By Iran Threat; Scott Jennings On His Phone Call Today With Mitch McConnell. Aired 4- 5p ET

Aired August 11, 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]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: The obstructed view is going to be cheaper. How are they going to fix this? Can they?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: I don't -- I don't think there's any way they can change it. Just a good team.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Harry Enten --

SANCHEZ: Wow.

KEILAR: -- hitting his time mark. Unbelievable.

SANCHEZ: Believe in red and blue.

KEILAR: All right, Harry, thank you so much.

THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT starts right now.

(MUSIC)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone. Welcome to THE ARENA. Kasie Hunt is off. I'm Pamela Brown.

And right now, we are just hours away from the first polls closing in key primary races across the country as votes are cast in South Carolina, Vermont, Minnesota, and more. The story today that we're watching really closely is Wisconsin, where Democrats will decide whether to choose a moderate or a Democratic socialist as their candidate for governor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID CROWLEY (D), WISCONSIN GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: As I've been traveling across this state, there are a lot of people who are concerned about the Democrats, us, our party being able to nominate somebody that can ultimately defeat Tom Tiffany this upcoming November.

FRANCESCA HONG (D), WISCONSIN GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: We're excited that our coalition is multi-generational, multi-party, and we're excited to unite folks all across the state as working-class people, the majority, and defeat Congressman Tiffany in November.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Francesca Hong, who you just saw there, a state legislator, Democratic socialist, and former chef, is the favor to win the Democratic nomination tonight. And already, her expected Republican opponent, Tom Tiffany, is accusing the Democratic Party of surrendering to socialism.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TOM TIFFANY (R), WISCONSIN GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: I think you saw it in the debates a couple weeks ago when none of the candidates took on Francesca Hong and the agenda that she has laid out here for Wisconsin, none of them challenged her. So, it's very clear that the leadership of the Democrat Party, and I don't think this reflects all Democrats across Wisconsin, but certainly amongst the leadership they have capitulated to the big government socialism that she's selling.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: All right, let's get off the sidelines and head into THE ARENA.

My panel is here along with CNN chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny. He is live in Madison, Wisconsin.

So, Jeff, what have you been hearing from voters on the ground today?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pamela, we've been at a few polling places here in Madison, and there has been brisk turnout as well as the early vote even before today. But there's no doubt that Democrats are having these debates as well, these contentious debates about what is a Democratic socialist, what is electability.

But there is a mix of opinion. There's no doubt about that. They clearly want to hold this seat.

But there is strong support for Francesca Hong, that state legislator, the Democratic socialist, who's really caught steam here at the end of the campaign.

We talked to one of her supporters after she voted for her. She explained why.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: And in the governor's race?

NATSUKO SUZUKI, WISCONSIN VOTER: I think Francesca Hong -- so if I voted for Francesca Hong and I think that she's someone who can inspire the Democratic Party. And I think that what -- this course I've seen is that it's very much like let's pacify the rest of the state. And I feel like instead, we need to take a stronger stand and actually vote for things we believe in instead of things that we think other people will like. (END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: So, Pamela, that sums up a lot of the conversations we've been hearing. What does change exactly mean? What does electability mean? There are many Democrats who were fed up after this long era of Donald Trump, really over the last 10 years or so.

So, there are Democrats who want to go all in for change. There are others who say they fear that they will give up the governor's seat here in this very important state. if they go too far. So, there's no true consensus. We'll find that out tonight. But there are about five hours left to vote here at places like this. There's been a steady stream of voters here, like I said, and in other polling places we've been stopping to, also talking to supporters of the Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley.

And Governor Tony Evers, the Democratic governor here, has been campaigning very hard throughout the end of this race here, urging Democrats to think about electability. He, of course, is supporting not Francesca Hong, but David Crowley. So, we will see what happens here tonight, Pamela.

So yes, there are a lot of similar themes from previous states where we've seen this summertime surge of a progressives, but Wisconsin is also a very different state. We're also hearing from a lot of voters who believe it now is the time to be more pragmatic. So, we will see where that balance comes out. But there's no doubt all eyes will be on Wisconsin again tonight -- Pamela.

BROWN: Certainly. Jeff Zeleny live for us there. Thank you so much.

And my panel is here in THE ARENA. CNN contributor, host of "The New York Times'" "The Interview", Lulu Garcia-Navarro; CNN political director and Washington bureau chief, David Chalian, former DNC communications director Mo Elleithee; and CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings.

And we were also joined by progressive Democratic strategist and former communications director for Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez, Corbin Trent.

[16:05:00]

Great to have you all with us.

So, Jeff really did a nice job laying out what's at stake there in Wisconsin. And they're widely expected to pick Francesca Hong. We don't know how it's going to shake out, but that is the expectation, potentially. What are you looking for? If she is elected tonight, what would that mean for the general in your view, David?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: Yeah, certainly there have been some polls that have her in the lead, but we also just saw in Michigan where polls can overstate some of that wing of the party. So, I don't know that we know exactly how this is going to shake out tonight, but what I do think is critical is that Wisconsin is as close to a 50/50 state politically in America as you can get. So, this decision that Democratic primary voters are making about which candidate they want to get behind and put forward for this general election battle and whether or not that complicates their path to hanging onto this critical governor's seat heading into a presidential cycle is sort of the thing that hangs over this entire race.

And by that I don't mean that if Francesca Hong were to emerge as the nominee that she'd be a sure loser in November. But I do think you've seen over the last couple weeks, she is answering for so much of what she tweeted or things she said. She calls them bad hot takes. And I don't think she's going to be done having to answer those questions from now through November if she's the nominee.

BROWN: Yeah, let's dive in a little bit more about those bad hot takes that she put in. These positions that really are out there, like abolishing prisons, the Senate, and even Thanksgiving. And she has sort of walked back a lot of this, Corbin.

But I want to listen to what your former boss, Congresswoman Alexander Ocasio-Cortez said, or I want to say what she said in this interview over the weekend where she basically brushed it off and said, you know, woke one was crazy.

Do you think that voters will buy that here, Corbin?

CORBIN TRENT, PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I think they're going to buy what she's selling in terms of policy, right? I mean, she's talking about cranes and trains. She's not just saying, hey, we need to stop data center build out. She's saying, hey, we want to take this $2 billion that was going to go to data centers and we need to put it in housing and health care. We need to put it into actually building things here that we need.

She's talking about starting a public bank for Wisconsin that can build housing and infrastructure. She's talking about doing a farmland trust to keep farming affordable. She's talking about building the capacity to process foods.

I mean, she's actually going after a lot of the things that will make life affordable for people by producing more of the things that we need. And I think that is at the root of where Wisconsin has come from politically and who it was. And that is the Democratic Party that I think is going to be emergent.

And if you're going to have one that's going to take us away from a 50/50 state, I think it's her kind of politics that are going to do it. And whether or not -- so it's going to be a matter of putting that out there instead of getting caught in the woke one, woke two, whatever it was. Because I think it's about tangible benefits and putting the government back to the work of making people's lives better. And that's where I think we're headed.

BROWN: What do you think, Mo?

MO ELLEITHEE, FORMER DNC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: I think I sat on a lot of cable news panels in 2024 where we were debating all of Donald Trump's ridiculous comments, talking about his felonies, talking about all these things. And it turns out in a lot of the battleground states, voters weren't talking about those things nearly as much as we were.

I suspect that's going to be the case now. I'm sitting on a lot of cable news panels where we're talking about Thanksgiving and some of these, you know, out there comments that she's made, and I'll concede a lot of them are out there. But I'll be curious in the fall -- will that be what voters are thinking about, or are they going to continue thinking about what they've been thinking about for the past several years, which is the cost of living?

And if that is what voters are thinking about, she's got far better odds than I think Tom Tiffany does. And I think that's true in a lot of these states. If you are singularly focused on the thing that voters actually care about, no matter how many times Republicans yell the words socialist or scream Thanksgiving, if you're not talking about those things, which Republicans are not doing, you are behind the eight ball going into the election.

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So I noted AOC's comment this weekend. You know, woke one was crazy. Let me introduce you to woke two, electric boogaloo. This is the craziest sequel in the history of politics.

If you think what they were selling back in 2020, abolish police or defund the police was crazy. Now it's abolish police, abolish prisons, abolish border, abolish the U.S. Senate, which really means abolish the U.S. Constitution.

And it gets even crazier. Abolish Thanksgiving because fundamentally they hate what the United States of America stands for. You cannot have a conversation about affordability with voters when you're out there saying, you know, this country really is rotten at its core and it needs to be ripped out root and branch, which is exactly what these Democratic socialists are doing.

[16:10:01]

You can make all the happy smiley videos you want, but until you solve the crazy problem of all of these supposed hot takes, how do you ever break through to average voters who are just looking for something normal? And the Democrats are saying, best we can do, cancel Thanksgiving. What do you say?

ELLEITHEE: That sounds a lot like what we were saying. That sounds a lot like what we were saying in 2024.

JENNINGS: Are you suggesting that Donald Trump wasn't a defined candidate in '24? We knew everything there was to know. We know nothing about knowing, except she hates Thanksgiving and hates America. That's basically what I know.

ELLEITHEE: What I'm saying is Donald Trump in 2024 was talking about the cost of living. We're not -- or he's not now, and Democrats are.

BROWN: Corbin, go ahead.

TRENT; Yeah, I mean, I'm just like the policies that she's running on are ones that are going to be able to turn the tide for people's affordability. That's just -- and they're big. They're bold like a public bank like North Dakota has. That is a big bold plan.

This farmland trust, big bold plan. Trains and cranes, big bold plans. And it's not the status quo.

I think people underestimate how done with the status quo voters are. I mean, I think that the Democratic Party even doesn't understand why Donald Trump was ascendant twice. They sort of think that it's because was racist or wanted to, you know, deport a bunch of people.

I think people want their country free of undocumented immigrants because they feel like it's hurting them economically. Ironically, I think it's actually helping them, but that's neither here nor there.

I think a lot of the tools that we've seen used by the Republican Party and by Donald Trump to separate and divide America are economic at their core. And when people come up with a better, more sensible solution to that, which I think Francesca Hong is doing, then I think people really want that because it's a more sustainable, more understandable future.

BROWN: And we've heard the Republicans, including President Trump, attack these more progressive candidates, calling them communist, socialist, so forth. He went further though yesterday in the Oval Office. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, the one thing is we have jihadists being elected all over the place. We have this whether it's communism. Jihadism, it's a lot of friend of mine called up. He said you don't really. You should use the word jihadist because that's what's happening when you look at the radicalism and the craziness of the candidates and the stupidity of what they're suggesting, people don't want to have radical lunatics involved in running our country and that's what we have.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So I just want to say what the definition is I know we all know what a jihadist is but just -- just so we understand a jihadist is a Muslim extremist who advocate supports or participates in a violent war to achieve political or religious goals, and the president there said that they're being elected.

What is your reaction to that, Lulu?

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, first of all, I'm just impressed that he woke up in that segment in order to give that statement, because he really hadn't -- he'd been sort of very sleepy that afternoon. And the second thing I'll say about that is that, you know, we're in

this moment where I agree, actually, with all of you, oddly enough, which is if you talk to American voters, what you hear from them is that they are desperate for change, desperate for it. People are hurting in every possible way that they can be, their credit card bills, they can't pay for health care. They can't pay for childcare. And they are so, so done with the political establishment left and right.

So, you know, and that is not partisan. That is just pure feeling. And if you talk to someone in West Virginia who's in a red district or you talk to someone in Detroit in a blue district. So that's the first thing I'd say. And the second thing I'd say is that there's a lot of fear and hope about what change could look like.

And so, on the Democratic side, what you're seeing is people wanting to bet on these candidates who are trying to bring, as your other guest said, some big ideas, right? Someone that says, we're not going back to Biden 3.0, right? That's when Biden came in in 2020 and said, listen, we're going to-- we're going to take you back to the before times. We're going to bring the grown-ups back in the room. And that didn't go down so well.

Now you've had a version of the second Trump administration, and people are -- look at any poll, and they're telling them, this is a nightmare and a disaster. And so I think actually what we're seeing is that the floodgates are opening for different kinds of candidates, and some of those candidates might be nuts, and some of those candidates might be great, but what the voters, and you have to listen to them, are saying is that they want something very different than what the two parties have been offering.

BROWN: And so, do you think the messaging from the president, now he's saying jihadists, you know, started with communists, now this? Do you think that's enough to offset these economic concerns that Lulu very much is right about that Americans are feeling every day, and they elected President Trump to help them with the economy and affordability, and they don't feel like he's doing enough for them?

JENNINGS: Well, I agree with Lulu.

[16:15:00]

People do have real economic concerns and people do want change. I don't disagree with that.

In Wisconsin, of course, there's a Democratic governor right now. But I would say that the question would be, what are we changing into? And what many of these Democratic socialists are offering is changing into something that is just fundamentally at odds with the core of American values and American principles --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: What is Republicans -- what are Republicans --

(CROSSTALK)

JENNINGS: -- higher taxes across the board?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: But what is the Republican answer to that?

See, this is this is where I come to the problem here and I'm not endorsing one side or the other I'm just saying like what is the Republican response to that? What the -- what Republicans are doing it is taking the offensive saying jihadist and communist whatever but what is the alternative, saying more of the same? Nobody wants that. Nobody wants that.

JENNINGS: Well --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: That is -- that is -- that is the problem of the affirmative sort of discussion that Republicans haven't been able to make to the American people.

JENNINGS: To be clear, the Democratic socialists, they call themselves socialists, and more than half of the DSA national governing board calls themselves communists. So they're labeling themselves. That is what they want to morph into.

I don't personally think that's going to be popular in most places. It might be in a handful of Democratic primaries. But then you've got to run into normies out there. They want something normal.

And the normal answer from Francesca Hong is, guys, 1621 --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Most people don't feel Trump has been normal. Most people do not feel Trump has been normal either.

BROWN: Is normal out the window at this point, Scott? I mean, you're right.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Most people are like, this is not normal either.

JENNINGS: Ripping up the U.S. Constitution and destroying Western civilization doesn't feel normal to me at all. I mean, at all.

BROWN: Corbin, go ahead.

TRENT: Luckily, we've got to test that. Donald Trump has tried to rip it up, and luckily it made it through.

BROWN: OK.

TRENT: You know? That's -- and so I'm actually very impressed with the strength of the Republic -- of the Constitution and I'm very impressed with the strength of our court systems. Donald Trump has tried to ram so many things through he's tried to test the Constitution time and time again, and luckily, it's held up. So that actually I'm not so worried about this point.

And what I do think is important is that we are able to recreate our economy into one that works for people and that's not being done. Ironically though, you want to talk about socialism and communism, Donald Trump is the one buying up shares in companies, talking about doing windfall taxes to energy companies.

So, the ones that are actually promoting these big ideas of communism seem to be closer aligned with Donald Trump. So, I think he's opening up the door there, too.

JENNINGS: Corbin, I know you guys need a Big Ten. I hope you got some padded walls in there because you're letting in some crazies and you know it. You're putting a brave face on it.

TRENT: Don't you worry.

BROWN: All right. Let's end it there.

Corbin Trent, thank you for joining us.

The rest of the panel going to stand by. We have a lot more to discuss.

Coming up in THE ARENA, Republicans in one state getting ready to show us just how much sway President Trump has on the party. We're going to go live to South Carolina as Senator Darline Graham fights to hold on to the seat once held by her late brother.

But first, the secret switcheroo. New details on an overseas threat that prompted the Secret Service to carry out a covert aviation operation to protect the president's life.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KIM DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: This is going to so embolden Tehran that a threat like this caused the president to have to get into some sort of food cart to go to another plane, that the memes are going to be lit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:22:38]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They want to take out the U.S. leader, me. I'm on every list. I saw things this morning. I'm on every single one of their lists.

I may be gone too, because I'm their number one target, gets out all over the place. I'm their number one because they're scum.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So, there was something on President Trump's mind at the NATO summit last month, and now we're learning some more details about the president secretly swapping planes to protect himself from an Iranian assassination plot. Reporting by "The Washington Post" and confirmed by CNN reveals that the president boarded an old Air Force One, you see it right here, just to secretly deboard using a catering truck right here.

He then flew out of on a smaller military jet, leaving the press and staffers to fly out on that original plane before secretly reboarding it once they landed in London.

When on the new Air Force One, President Trump took questions from the press, but was defensive about the security concerns.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Are you aware of any credible threat by Iran against Air Force One?

TRUMP: I have a threat all the time. I'm number one on their list before you. But if I go, you go, right? So perhaps something you want to change professions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Joining our panel in THE ARENA is CNN national security analyst, former deputy director of national intelligence, Beth Sanner.

Beth, as Trump points out, the president is constantly facing threats. What intelligence would you need to see to put an operation like that into place?

BETH SANNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: It has to be something that the Secret Service and also, you know, the U.S. intelligence community believed was a credible threat. I mean, obviously, there were a number of steps here. You know, the first step was to bring in the old Air Force One, and then that was deemed not safe enough. And then they went to Plan C, it seems like to me.

So, you know, they thought that this was probably a pretty serious threat. You know, there's some reporting that it came out of the Israelis. I don't know any of that. But it has to be pretty real and credible.

And, you know, there's some reason to think that, because Iran has had active plotting and assassinations that they've conducted in Turkey. So, it is an environment that they regularly work in.

BROWN: Why would the Secret Service have determined he couldn't fly on the old Air Force One, which has its own defensive capabilities?

[16:25:03]

SANNER: Well, that's an answer I don't know exactly, but it means that, you know, even though that plane has those defensive mechanisms, you don't want it to actually be in play and for that to have to be used because people can still get hurt. So even if you have a mechanism where a missile is deflected or you use electronic warfare or something, it still can be quite dangerous because this happens in this particular instance, it seems that this would be a shouldered fired, you know, surface-to-air missile kind of threat. And so that's when you're taking off. And those are dangerous moments when you're flying, landing and taking

off. And so, you know, it's quite dangerous. And I think that the concerning thing to me here is that they didn't have Air Force One, you know, take off after it was declared that the president had cleared the area, but instead it does appear that it was almost like a decoy and that to me is a little bit unusual and concerning.

BROWN: Yeah, and those journalists of staff on board the old Air Force One had no idea what was going on.

Did anything like this ever happen in Trump's first term, or was a subterfuge escape ever considered? Because we know that there were threats then, too, from the Iranians.

SANNER: Yes. Yes, exactly. I mean, the Iranian threats are real. We have at least -- we have one indictment of an Iranian operative who was charged with plotting a plan to assassinate. But there are other assassination plots, I'm sure, that are a little bit less in the public domain, but certainly this is a real thing.

There was a plot in 2024, in September of 2024, that was reported by Axios about reports that Iranian operatives had brought surface-to-air missiles into the United States and posed a threat to Trump Force One, his plane during the campaign. And this did lead the Secret Service to do exactly the same thing.

And this is the only other known example I have of, in my knowledge, of a decoy of a plane being used by subterfuge, that Trump Force One was flying with people on it, but not Trump. And President Trump was in a plane owned by Mr. Witkoff that was unmarked, and he and Susie Wiles and some other senior staff was flying in that.

And that caused quite a bit of upset among the staff that were left on what they called the ghost flight, because they didn't find out until it took off.

BROWN: Yeah. And Scott, to her point, what do you think about that? press and the administration officials were just left there on that plane as decoys.

JENNINGS: Yeah, I actually interviewed today a guy named Patrick Sullivan, who's a 23-year veteran of the Secret Service and spent four years on the presidential protective detail. And I asked him that question. Do you consider this to be decoy? That's the word that's being used.

He disagreed with that assessment. He didn't think that characterization was fair because there were agents and staff on that plane, and so there were certainly people who would have been possibly in the know. about the plan that was unfolding to protect the president. So that was his characterization based on his knowledge of how presidential movements work.

To me, the most important issue here is. You got to keep the president safe. This man faces threats in domestic airspace on the ground here in the United States, especially when you're overseas. He has to be kept safe, and you want the commander-in-chief to be able to go to NATO meetings and represent the country at the same time.

To go through everything they went through, all this deception and all this stuff, I agree with Beth. They must have had some really specific and very troubling intelligence. Sounds like could have been from the Israelis that his life was in danger. So, I'm fully in support of them taking any action necessary to keep the president safe. That has to be the number one priority.

ELLEITHEE: I agree that we want to keep the president safe, and I'm glad that they did. And it's not the first time that we've seen this. President Clinton used subterfuge when he went to Pakistan. Of course, as he deplaned the real plane, the press corps was assembled to view that, so they didn't hide it for a month afterwards.

But they did that then. President Bush had a huge subterfuge when he went to Baghdad and took a small press pool with him. So, I'm confused as to why they would keep it secret for so long.

But to me, there's an even bigger issue, which is that for weeks, for months, the president told us that Iran did not have the kind of capability, that they had degraded their capability so much, including their ballistic missile program, and that they had degraded the capabilities of their proxies.

[16:30:01]

If, and I agree, this must have been a very, very serious threat, then it's clear that it's maybe not been as degraded as we thought it was.

BROWN: Well, let's listen to the president in his own words what he said back in March about your point, Mo. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They have no air force left. They have no anti-aircraft equipment left, no radar left, no leaders left. We literally have planes flying over Tehran and other parts of their country. They can't do a thing about it.

For instance, If I want to take down that power plant, that very big, powerful power plant, they can't do a thing about it. It's like, take me. That's all they can do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: If what he said was true, why was there concern?

JENNINGS: Well, I think he's talking about military nation-state capabilities. And I think it's possible what the intelligence said was, you know, you got one guy with a shoulder-fired rocket. That's totally different than saying we've degraded their air force or we've degraded their national air defense capabilities.

But are there going to be people in the Middle East with shoulder- fired rockets? Probably now and forever. And that's -- no matter how many wars you win and no matter how badly you pummel Iran into the ground, which we have pummeled them badly, I suspect those kinds of threats are always going to be real. And thank God we have an ally over there that can find out about it and tell us about it, which they apparently did in this case.

BROWN: All right. Thank you all so much.

Beth Sanner. Thank you for joining us. The rest of my panel, stand by.

Coming up in THE ARENA, the final hours of a crowded Republican primary in South Carolina. We're going to talk with Annie Andrews, a Democrat running for the state's open Senate seat as she waits to learn just who her opponent will be.

And whether the impact of the Trump endorsement will power new Senator Darline Graham to a primary victory tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. DARLINE GRAHAM (R-SC): I want to hear from people, and I want to earn their vote.

REPORTER: Senator, what did you say to folks that saying that you're just being handed this seat.

GRAHAM: I don't see it that way. I'm not being handed this seat. I realize that I have to earn voters.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:36:26]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRAHAM: It was amazing. I will never fill his shoes. No one can ever fill his shoes. And I don't just expect it to be handed to me. I know again that I have to earn people's votes.

I want to work hard every single day for people in South Carolina. That's why I want to do this, not to be a politician, not for self ambition, not for power.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So that was Senator Darline Graham this morning, sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham. And she's part of this crowded primary field trying to keep the seat she was appointed to last month.

CNN national correspondent Dianne Gallagher joins us now from South Carolina.

So, Dianne, what are you watching for in this race?

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, Pamela, I have two things that I'm looking at tonight. The first, of course, is which candidates come out on top. And yes, I said candidates, plural, and that's because South Carolina has a runoff rule, meaning that in order to win the election, you have to get at least 50 percent of the vote.

There are 10 people running in this primary race to replace the late Senator Lindsey on the ballot. About half of them are considered frontrunners here. And so, the math does not math, right? It's very hard to get 50 percent, especially after talking to voters who say that they have a whole host of reasons for casting ballots.

We heard from people who voted for at least five different candidates today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER: Who did you vote for?

DELTON BAILEY, SOUTH CAROLINA VOTER: Darline Graham.

GALLAGHER: Why?

BAILEY: Because I think that she follows the same principles her brother did.

WENDY SWEIGART, SOUTH CAROLINA VOTER: Sanford.

REPORTER: Okay.

SWEIGART: Yeah.

REPORTER: What is it that made you gravitate towards?

SWEIGART: I remember him the last time when he was governor, and I just kind of like what he stood for. I did not vote for Mrs. Graham because she's too follows President Trump.

EMILY YUND, SOUTH CAROLINA VOTER: I voted for Russell Fry. I appreciate his previous record standing for conservative values. I had some remaining questions about her as a candidate that I didn't feel I had with other candidates.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER: And so that's the next thing that I'm looking at tonight. And it's whether or not Senator Darline Graham comes out on top, but also what that means when we're looking at President Trump's endorsement and sort of the test again here in South Carolina. He doesn't have the best track record in this red state. If you remember back this summer in the gubernatorial race, his initially endorsed candidate ended up losing pretty badly in the runoff election to a candidate that at the last minute he also endorsed. So, two people in a two-person race were endorsed by Trump.

Whether or not we go to a runoff and that happens again, we will see.

BROWN: We shall see. Dianne Gallagher in South Carolina, thanks so much. And joining us now to discuss is a Democrat running for that Senate

seat in South Carolina, Dr. Annie Andrews.

Thanks for coming on, Doctor.

So, who do you think will win the crowded primary tonight, and how will you organize your campaign to face that person?

DR. ANNIE ANDREWS (D), SOUTH CAROLINA SENATE CANDIDATE: Well, thank you so much for having me.

You know, I've been in this race for over a year talking to voters all across South Carolina about the issues that concern them, mostly about gas prices, grocery prices, and our broken health care system. So, no matter who wins this primary tonight and advances to the next runoff on August 25th, it's going to be more of the same.

When these candidates stood on the debate stage, all we heard from them was pledging allegiance to Donald Trump and slogans, not solutions. And that's the opposite of what I'm offering.

I'm a pediatrician who's taking care of South Carolina's sick and injured children for 15 years. I'm a mom of three public school kids here in South Carolina and I am running to solve the problems that South Carolinians are facing.

BROWN: So as you well know, South Carolina is a solidly Republican state. What is your pitch to Republican voters who may be skeptical about your campaign?

ANDREWS: So I'm not a career politician and I don't want to be a career politician. I really am running to solve the problems that my patients and their families were facing for those 15 years I worked at the children's hospital.

And I talked to a lot of center right Republicans who recognize that their party has left them, has become extreme, and what I tell them is to give something new a chance to give me a chance, and I'm not asking them to leave their party or to become a Democrat, but just to try something different.

And when we elect up and down the ballot in South Carolina and all across this country on November 3rd, that will send a really clear message to the current iteration of this Republican Party that we're done with them, that it's time to get back to an era of American politics where we can have serious bipartisan conversations, where we can work across the aisle to actually solve the problems that Americans are facing.

BROWN: Republicans have weaponized these claims. of communism and socialism to attack your party after a string of wins by DSA candidates. You've criticized the DSA platform, writing on next, quote, "If this is what the DSA stands for, it's completely un- American and unhinged."

Do you think the policies of that wing of the party are hurting the election prospects for moderates like yourself?

ANDREWS: So, I'm not a socialist in the DSA is a separate political party and what they are saying is not at all aligned with the reasons I'm running what I believe in or who I'm fighting for or what I'm fighting for. And when I talk to voters, whether it's voters in black churches in rural parts of South Carolina or in suburban homes down here in Charleston, I'm hearing the same things.

It's pain at the gas pump. It's grocery prices and it's concerned about this impending Medicaid budget cuts that will devastate access to health care for so many people in South Carolina. So I consider the DSA conversation a distraction from the very real issues that we are facing here in South Carolina.

BROWN: All right. While we're talking about elections this morning, President Trump was asked about the possibility that he could simply force through some of the voting changes he wants before November. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WAYNE ALLEN ROOT, HOST, "TOP TEN COUNTDOWN": If they never get the SAVE America Act done, you have the right to declare a national security emergency for elections. And the Supreme Court ruled in 1983 under Reagan that INS versus Chadha, that if you declare a national security emergency as the president of the United States, They can't challenge it. It can only be overturned by a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress.

So, if you do this in the next month, we will get photo ID, proof of citizenship, and a limit to mail-in ballots, and get over these --

TRUMP: Let me just say the stranger things have happened, okay? I'll leave it at that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: And the Constitution says voting's up to the states and the changes around that. It's important to note, though, that election deniers are on the ballot today with Trump's endorsement, including Mike Lindell in Minnesota and Tom Tiffany in Wisconsin.

How concerned are you that this could end up being a repeat of 2020, where Trump and these election deniers will say the election is stolen if the outcome doesn't swing their way?

ANDREWS: So those don't sound like the words of a winning political party or political party that has any plans to solve the problems that we are facing. You know, the first thing that Darline Graham did when she became a US senator was to co-sponsor the SAVE Act, which is systematic voter suppression.

We already have voter ID laws here in South Carolina, so this is just yet another example of a lack of focus on the issues that voters here on the ground are talking about, and it shows me that she is really unfit to lead. We have a lot of and we don't need to be systematically suppressing voters.

BROWN: But are you concerned that we're going to hear some of the same rhetoric and that the doubt and the mistrust around the election will happen again like we saw in 2020?

ANDREWS: Yes, I think they're purposely sowing doubt so that they can question the results when they lose on November 3rd. There is no widespread voter fraud in this country, and this is a distraction because Donald Trump ran on a platform of lowering grocery prices and not starting new wars.

And what we have seen under this Trump administration is the exact opposite of that. Grocery prices are through the roof, and we are now in a war with Iran that we have no exit strategy for, and that is the exact reason that gas prices are so high. And what's more, as a pediatrician under RFK, Jr.'s leadership, we have seen a complete destruction of the public health infrastructure in this country with the recent executive order from the Oval Office yesterday, which is attempting to dismantle our safe and effective routine childhood immunization schedule.

[16:45:10]

I've talked to so many pediatricians yesterday evening and this morning who are deeply concerned about this further sowing of conspiracy theorists and disinformation in our public health infrastructure. So, we need to be talking about the issues that we're actually facing.

BROWN: All right. Dr. Annie Andrews, thank you so much for joining us.

And coming up in THE ARENA, an update on the health of Senator Mitch McConnell, what he's now telling our Scott Jennings after leaving rehab and being hospitalized back in June.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:50:01]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ANDY BESHEAR (D), KENTUCKY: Mitch McConnell's been there so long, he doesn't think he works for the people of Kentucky. But he can be gone for eight weeks from his job and not call into one news station, even a friendly one, not do one video. You know, even for people that are concerned about him, he doesn't care about them enough to say this is what's happened. This is my timetable for returning and folks, I'm OK. Does it raise questions on whether he has the capacity? Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear says he has still not heard from Senator Mitch McConnell, who vanished from public view following his hospitalization on June 14th. Since then, the Senator's office has only shared two so-called "proof of life" images. Late last week, his office released a statement announcing he would be discharged from a rehab facility.

Scott Jennings spoke to Senator McCall earlier today.

Scott, first of all, we do wish the senator a speedy recovery. How is he doing and what did the senator tell you?

JENNINGS: Well, he seemed to be doing a lot better. You know, he left the rehab facility several days ago and he's been recovering at home. And I could tell, you know, I talked to him early on and talked to him again today. I could tell being at home was better than being in the hospital, that's for sure.

He told me he was doing this rehab at home. And I think their plan is to hopefully get him back to the Senate. It comes back into session September the 14th, and I know there's some issues that he cares about a lot, Farm Bill, NDAA and some other issues.

So based on what I heard today, it sounded like he was in an improving position. But you know, we're still a month away from the Senate coming back into session.

BROWN: So back in September.

JENNINGS: Yeah, that I think that's their hope is that he can get back to work and by the way, this is the end of his term. He's not running again. There's an election in Kentucky in November. He'll be out of office come January.

So, this is the last few weeks of the Senate session of his term.

BROWN: Do you just call him up directly on his phone or do you call an aide and the aide hands it? How does it work?

JENNINGS: He called me directly from his phone today.

BROWN: Oh, he called you, okay?

JENNINGS: Now, you have to understand, I've known him since I was 16, 17 years old.

BROWN: Yeah.

JENNINGS: We've had a relationship for a long time. I worked on a lot of his campaigns over the years, so it's not unusual for us to chat. But in today's case, he was really up on the campaigns. he's a political operative at heart. We talked a lot about the Michigan Senate race. We talked about Maine a little bit, talked about just the map in general.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Scott, why isn't he calling into a credible news organization? Why is he talking to you and not talking to you?

JENNINGS: You're saying it's not credible to call me Lulu?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I'm saying -- I'm saying it's totally credible but as you said yours but -- I mean -- but there -- I think there's -- what I'm hearing from Governor Beshear and I'm just wondering how you view that, is you know, why isn't he calling into -- even one that he would consider friendly like Fox News? I mean, I guess -- I guess that's the prevailing question that --

BROWN: Or put on video.

JENNINGS: Yeah, you know, my view of him and frankly my belief about males of that generation is that they're intensely private, to be honest. He's always been a little private about his own personal health care. You know, he's a polio survivor.

And one of the issues that he's had over time is weakness in his legs. I think that's part of what's going on here and part of the conditioning that he's having to go through right now. But I think men of that generation, frankly, are just pretty private about it. And to be honest --

BROWN: Calling on you radio show? Have you asked him to call into your radio show?

JENNINGS: I hope that he will call into my radio show. I've had him on before, and I'm hoping to have him on as we get closer to when the Senate --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Does he know about all of the brouhaha around this?

CHALIAN: Is he aware of the whole swirl?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yeah.

JENNINGS: He told me today, he said, it was like, I know this is unusual circumstances. I'm sitting here. The doctors tell me I don't have any life-threatening issues. It must seem rather strange.

So yeah, I got the feeling he's somewhat aware of it and frankly, somewhat frustrated by it.

BROWN: You always say he's still doing the work of the senator.

JENNINGS: Yeah.

BROWN: I mean, is he taking calls from constituents? Is he having constituents come to meet with them? I mean, because he hasn't voted since June.

JENNINGS: Yeah, I know -- I know he's had several meetings with different kinds of people. I know when the Senate was in last week, he had talked to Senator Bozeman of Arkansas about the farm bill. I know he had talked to Senator -- I think Senator Curtis in Utah about preservation of the filibuster.

So, I know he was doing sort of senatorial work on the phones as the Senate was winding up its previous session. And I know he's had a few other visitors to come by and talk to him about other issues. And I know he's routinely meeting with staff. I do think this farm bill and NDAA stuff coming up is pretty important. BROWN: I just have to ask this because I know Americans have been asking this. He has voted against paid sick and family leave over the years. And I just wonder if you think this will change his point of view about that because he's now been out what seven, eight weeks?

JENNINGS: Yeah, I really have no idea. We didn't -- we didn't talk about it.

BROWN: You think he should? I mean, just thinking about it. He's voted against it in the past.

JENNINGS: I don't know. I'll be honest. I hadn't contemplated how an 84-year-old's recovery from a fall would. affect his views about his previous voting record, but --

BROWN: It's politics.

JENNINGS: -- I mean, I don't know.

I mean, this Beshear thing amuses quite a few of us in McConnell world. You know, McConnell beat Andy Beshear's dad like a drum in 1996. I don't think the Beshears have gotten over it. Andy Beshear spends a heck of a lot of time out of Kentucky and away from the governor's office himself right now, getting ready for his ninth place finish in South Carolina.

So, I'm -- it's a little bit craven to me to see Andy Beshear out there running around turning this into a political issue when it's pretty simple. An 84-year-old man who's at the end of his term had a health issue.

He's recovering from it. He's trying to get back to work. I expect he will get back to work. He got elected by the people of Kentucky to serve a full term. And based on what I heard today, that's what he intends to do.

BROWN: And like I said in the beginning, we hope that he has a speedy recovery.

JENNINGS: Yeah.

BROWN: And we'll be right back.