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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
White House Defends Trump Aide Natalie Harp Amid Ossoff Remark; Sen. Darline Graham In Debate: "National Security Is Not My Thing"; Trump Defends Data Centers Amid Growing Bipartisan Pushback; 1988: George H.W. Bush's "Read My Lips: No New Taxes" Promise; Prince Harry & Meghan Planning To Move Back To U.K. Aired 12-1p ET
Aired August 22, 2026 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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PAUL SIMON, MUSICIAN: -- in the context of helping black South Africans. It's very hard to get to truth, but musicians will often bring it on a level that goes right to the heart.
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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN ANCHOR: Indeed they will. And that's all we have time for. Don't forget, you can find all of our shows online as podcasts at CNN.com/audio, and on all other major platforms.
I'm Christiane Amanpour in London. Thank you for watching, and we'll be back next week.
[12:00:42]
LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN ANCHOR: Hi everyone, welcome to The Arena Saturday. Kasie Hunt is off, I'm Lulu Garcia-Navarro.
Is it true that the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about? This week, one rising Democratic star put that to the test.
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SEN. JON OSSOFF (D), GEORGIA: He doesn't want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.
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GARCIA-NAVARRO: Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff there, setting off a very public feud with the White House, and all it took was one word, Natalie. That would be Natalie Harp, one of the President Trump's most loyal assistants. The furious right-wing backlash raising real concerns about Harp's close relationship with the President, and boosting Ossoff's position within the Democratic Party.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is your response to Jon Ossoff? DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You mean Pee-wee Herman?
OSSOFF: Well I've heard this particular aide referred to as his security blanket.
KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: The Communications Director Steven Cheung called the Senator Jon Jackoff.
OSSOFF: It's been amazing to watch this White House melt down over this all week.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You got to realize it's time to hang up your wig and let Natalie tuck you in.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: My panel is here in The Arena. CNN Legal Analyst, Former Federal Prosecutor Elliot Williams, CNN Political Analyst, National Political Reporter for Axios Alex Thompson, Democratic Strategist, Former Director of Message Planning in the Biden White House Meghan Hays, and Republican Strategist Melik Abdul. Welcome to you all on this Saturday. Thanks for being here.
Meghan, I'm going to start with you. Was what Jon Ossoff did a punch in the face for Donald Trump and his White House, or was it a misstep? Did he overstep by invoking Natalie Hayes (ph)?
MEGHAN HAYS, FORMER DIRECTOR OF MESSAGE PLANNING, BIDEN WHITE HOUSE: I don't think that it was a misstep per se. I don't think that he was punching Trump in the face. What he said besides -- I mean, they do fly on planes together. But I think that we need to take a step back here.
None of the Democratic Party nor the media would know who this woman is if people from her own party in Trump's own orbit weren't leaking all this information. Who is leaking that letter that came out earlier this week? Who is leaking all this information? Her own colleagues are. So clearly they also think this is a problem and they want this out too.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Alex, though, I mean, she is an aide. She works with the President. I mean, all the scrutiny that is suddenly on her, is it fair? And why did the White House react the way they did?
ALEX THOMPSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, the White House reacted the way they did because she is that close to the President. Now, this sort of insinuation of an inappropriate relationship, that gets to something that is really, like, you know, I think, emblematic of sort of the dirty politics of our age.
But the bigger issue here is that there is concern, to Meghan's point, that there are -- that the President's inner circle is surrounded by a lot of yes people and people that want to tell him what he wants to hear, that Natalie, who also has the, you know, the term of the human printer, right, and the things that she prints are often positive news.
He gets sort of like this dossier of a stream of just like positive things being told about him every day, and she is really the facilitator of that. Like, all -- you know, many of the controversial like Truth Social posts and everything else, she's the conduit through which a lot of those things go to.
That is why there is concern. Not just -- you know, I mean, Democrats are trying to make this a political issue, but there is concern within the Republican Party and within the Trump administration about her proximity and her judgment.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: You know, Melik, I'm going to read a little bit of some of these letters that were published by the Daily Beast. CNN was unable to confirm them, but I think they do speak to a different kind of relationship than we might sometimes think that an employer and an employee would have.
Here is one letter, an excerpt, and she said to Donald Trump, "And please, when I fail, will you tell me you have the absolute right to cuss me out? If need be, when I deserve it, because no one knows or cares about me more."
And we should also say that in response to this, the White House has said that Harp is one of the most loyal and hardest-working aides on President Trump's team, not responding to the letter per se, but just generally her position inside the White House.
[12:05:15]
Does that seem like a regular, healthy relationship between someone who is an aide to the most powerful person in the United States?
MELIK ABDUL, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: What I heard there is loyalty. I don't think that that's something that's necessarily different in our politics. And this insinuation, because it is an insinuation, that there is a relationship being had between the two of them.
And I wrote this week in The Washington Examiner about how the Democratic Party, the left, treats or embraces feminism with an asterisk, that when it comes to Republican women, they are accustomed, they are willing to push these type of narratives. And I talk about how Dr. Condoleezza Rice, in the Senate hearing, Barbara Boxer, suggested that because she was unmarried and without children, that she couldn't understand the cost of war.
And she had to actually, Rice had to push back on her, telling her that we thought -- she thought that we were at the point that single women could be successful in their own right. So there is a history of the Democratic Party actually doing this. And what Ossoff did is a wink and a nod.
And they can say all day long that it had nothing to do with sex -- it had nothing to do with actually personally going after this relationship, but we know that is the only reason that Natalie Harp's name was mentioned. That is the only reason that her name was mentioned.
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, I would say two things can be true, or a few things are true here. Number one, Jon Ossoff knew exactly what he was doing. That was a deliberately planned line to get the kind of response that he did. And the White House took the bait. And they are now making this into, in effect, the Natalie Harp news cycle by continuing to hammer it. Now you're seeing it on Rosie O'Donnell and so on.
What I do think, though, is that this whole fracas is turning into a distraction from some of the bigger problems. Number one, Alex talked about it in terms of an individual's proximity to the President, who's making the decisions, and so on. But two, there were serious questions about her national security clearance prior to this. And that's something we ought to be talking about.
Are the people around the President who have access to sensitive information actually properly vetted? That's not the discussion being had now. Now we're in this bizarre news cycle of talking about whether the President is having an affair with a 20-whatever-year-old young woman.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: But is that what we're talking about, that he's having an affair, or are we talking about there is clearly a very intimate relationship between the two of them? If this was a CEO of a company, and one of his aides or employees was writing a letter like these kinds of letters, would we think that this was a kind of normal interaction?
Natalie Harp has access to his social media accounts. We know that he gets so much information from his very tight coterie around him. Is it not fair to have this kind of scrutiny of someone who is so close to the President?
ABDUL: Well, I think when you -- there's a difference between a President and a CEO. Their relationships are always different because it is the loyalty question that you really don't have in the corporate world there. But I think that the role, and I think people misunderstand the role of an executive assistant to a President.
Joe Biden, I can't think of his name, President Biden, his executive assistant who traveled with him everywhere. Everywhere you saw Joe Biden, you saw Stephen. I can't remember his last name. He's always there.
HAYS: Goepfert.
ABDUL: Yes, Goepfert. He's always there. This is something that's normal in politics.
WILLIAMS: Yes,
HAYS: So, first of all, I worked in the White House with Stephen and the President and have worked in these roles. Stephen did not travel in the same way that she is traveling. He did not print everything. He did not type on social media for him. There was a very different relationship there.
ABDUL: Well, he probably couldn't read it himself on social media like that with Biden because he probably gets someone much like Trump.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: And I do think think he was hiding in the back of --
ABDUL: Yes.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: -- cars to go into --
ABDUL: Trump has someone to send him social media stuff in the same way that Biden does.
WILLIAMS: I think you're right that in every industry, including politics, there's always that senior aide who's around. When there is a gender difference, it is something that causes alarm.
ABDUL: That's right.
WILLIAMS: And quite frankly, it ought to. Anyone who's ever worked for a senator knows that, you know, a male senator often doesn't have a young female driver.
HAYS: I traveled with a CEO --
WILLIAMS: Yes.
HAYS: -- for two years as the only woman on the team traveling with him. No one ever questioned whether or not there was an inappropriate dynamic because I was not sending letters like this. I was not with him in inappropriate relationships --
ABDUL: We questioned the relationship before the letters came out. That's what happened with her. It was before.
HAYS: But people on your own team are questioning --
ABDUL: The letters came out after this that's why Ossoff actually (INAUDIBLE).
GARCIA-NAVARRO: There was reporting about that relationship before now, but we're going to have to leave it there.
Coming up in The Arena, the senator and the stumble, why honesty may not have been the best policy for Darline Graham in her quest for a full six-year term. It's our quote of the week.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are Taiwan and the South China Sea national security issues for the United States? And if so, why or how?
[12:10:05]
SEN. DARLINE GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA SENATE CANDIDATE: I'm just going to be honest here. I'm not on national security that -- I'm not that informed on national security.
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GRAHAM: I've said many times, I'm not a politician, certainly not a career politician. I don't speak politician. You know, I was just honest, and I think that's kind of a foreign concept.
Of course, Taiwan is our friend, but I think people in South Carolina are more worried about making ends meet. They're concerned about boys' and girls' sports.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[12:15:14]
GARCIA-NAVARRO: South Carolina Republicans will vote Tuesday on which candidate will be the party's nominee in November to replace Lindsey Graham. The current seat holder, Darline Graham, the sister of the late senator, is trying to move past a moment from this week's final debate with her GOP opponent. It happened when she was asked a question about foreign policy in relation to China and Taiwan.
Her answer certainly made headlines, though maybe not for the reasons she wanted, and it's our quote of the week. The senator saying, quote, "I'm not that informed on national security." (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are Taiwan and the South China Sea national security issues for the United States? And if so, why or how?
GRAHAM: I'm just going to be honest here. I'm not that informed on national security that -- I'm not that informed on National Security, so -- but I do support the military. My brother was in the Air Force for 33 years, so I will do everything I can to support the military.
My dad was in the Army. I'm not a polished politician up here. I'm -- national security is not my thing, not my area of expertise, but I do support the military.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: My panel is back. I'm going to start with you, Melik.
ABDUL: Of course you are.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Of course I am.
ABDUL: What a Saturday morning start.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I mean, not the best answer, obviously, considering also Lindsey Graham, her brother's very, you know, important credentials when it comes to national security. What do you make of that?
ABDUL: Well, honesty is the best policy, but I imagine that when she said that her campaign probably -- they were backstage just cringing because it's just not simply -- it's not something that you say, even though it's for a state-level seat, you know -- well, for a Senate seat, they typically don't talk about foreign policy in that way.
But following behind, you know, she's replacing Lindsey Graham, and her brother has just so many decades of history, not just in domestic policy and foreign policy, and she's running for a seat, so it's not a very good look for her. And I think at the end of the day, this is something that South Carolinians will actually have to decide for herself.
It doesn't matter who Donald Trump endorses or anyone, even though he has a lot of influence, this is something that South Carolinians would have to actually decide for themselves. And we don't know because she didn't pass the threshold so it wouldn't go into -- have to go into a brawl (ph).
You know, she didn't pass that threshold, but at the end of the day, South Carolinians will have to decide this. But it wasn't the best look.
THOMPSON: I mean, to your point, on Tuesday, if she wins, it is solely because Donald Trump endorsed her. And it is sort of a test of how powerful that endorsement is because she has not run that good of a campaign, she's not that well-known. And also Lindsey Graham, people forget, Lindsey Graham, while powerful in D.C., always had a primary challenger in South Carolina and was able to navigate the politics of Donald Trump in order to, you know, keep them at bay.
You know, so Lindsey Graham is not necessarily as popular a force in the GOP base of South Carolina as maybe you would think --
ABDUL: Well, the GOP base overall, actually.
THOMPSON: Absolutely.
ABDUL: Yes.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I mean, it brings the larger question is, should Donald Trump have inserted himself into this race and basically anointed a successor to Lindsey Graham and that successor being a relative?
THOMPSON: Well, I can tell you -- just really quick, I can tell you, a lot of Republicans were very surprised when Donald Trump abruptly endorsed her. They -- a lot of them really did not expect that.
WILLIAMS: You know, he is, right now, the standard bearer of the party and it's not uncommon for the head of the party to endorse someone. Now, why he chose this individual, look, it's a personal contact, it's a personal connection, it's a wonderful story. The, you know, the tragic death and the sister. But, you know, let's be clear, voters want authenticity, they want real people to be politicians, but this, to some extent, is what you get --
ABDUL: Yes.
WILLIAMS: -- when real people run for office. Just -- but just to add something to it, Lulu, you know, it's -- this was not a hardball foreign policy question.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: It was not.
WILLIAMS: This is literally an existential threat to the United States when we talk about China and Taiwan and what might happen there. And anyone who's opened a newspaper in the last year can tell you, number one, we support Taiwan, number two, we want to avoid a war with China there.
Boom, I just answered it, and I'm not a foreign policy expert either. It is mind-boggling that someone running for an important Senate seat, even if it's just a statewide election, Melik, but it's an important seat in the United States --
ABDUL: It was in her briefing book.
WILLIAMS: Yes, somebody hadn't told her that.
ABDUL: I know it was in her briefing book.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Well, I just --
HAYS: (INAUDIBLE).
ABDUL: She couldn't remember it.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I want to remind people how her brother spoke about this issue. Here is Lindsey Graham speaking on China and Taiwan.
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[12:20:00]
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (D), SOUTH CAROLINA: It's been the policy of the United States to help provide military aid to Taiwan. We have economic integration with Taiwan. So I want to continue that policy.
What can I do as a member of Congress? We'll be introducing, with Senator Sullivan from Alaska, hard-hitting pre-invasion sanctions. I want China to know, if you invade Taiwan, try to take Taiwan by force. Here's what happens to your economy. The full weight and measure of sanctions and tariffs from the United States will kick in on day one.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I mean, Meghan, just listening to that and listening to how his sister responded to that, I mean, should a Senate seat be a tryout roll?
HAYS: No, absolutely not. But the problem here is that these answers should be disqualifying, and they're just not in today's politics. In any other year, probably even two years ago in 2024, this answer would have been extremely disqualifying immediately. People would not be voting for it. We'd be having very different conversations.
But the fact of the matter is it's not, because, to Alex's point, Donald Trump has endorsed her. So she will likely win this seat on -- when the election happens. And that is really unfortunate because South -- people in South Carolina and the rest of the country deserve better answers on foreign policy.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Melik, why do you think Donald Trump endorsed her? Because she is a known quantity. It's not a shoo-in that she will be elected, you know, formally into office. So why would he spend the political capital on that, do you think?
ABDUL: I would imagine. Of course, I haven't talked to anyone at the White House. But if I were thinking of the motivations behind it, it would have a lot to do with that certain vote. She's being loyal to Donald Trump.
If she ends up winning the seat, she owes her Senate career to Donald Trump. So, therefore, she will be a certain vote for all of Donald Trump's --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: She could be guided by the White House, for example, on issues like China and Taiwan that she might not know anything about.
ABDUL: And even to that point, and to be fair, most senators, especially if they haven't had any type of federal experience, they don't know anything about it. That's why they have committees and staff who actually gets them up to date on that.
WILLIAMS: Yes. I will say, there is an episode of the West Wing on China and Taiwan. A lot of this stuff is not hard to find at least the basics on.
ABDUL: Yes.
WILLIAMS: And like you said, this would have been in her briefing --
ABDUL: And it was. I'm pretty sure it was.
WILLIAMS: And I'm sorry to keep focusing on it, but --
ABDUL: She couldn't remember it.
WILLIAMS: -- at a certain point, we ought to expect more --
ABDUL: Yes.
WILLIAMS: -- people that are running for office in the United States even if she's -- HAYS: Well, and that's --
WILLIAMS: -- the sister of the senator.
HAYS: I assume that it probably was in her briefing book. I assume they probably went over the answer during prep. And this is where you have to give her a little bit of grace for not being an elected official. And this is where the authenticity piece comes in.
WILLIAMS: Yes.
HAYS: She probably just forgot and gave an answer that she was like, shoot, I don't actually remember what I'm supposed to say here. Does that excuse the lack of knowledge here? Probably not. But will people give her grace in the state --
THOMPSON: I would just -- just very quick, I would add to your point. Yes, it's a yes vote. But I would not underestimate sort of the emotional connection that Trump had with Lindsey Graham. It's part of the reason why even though --
ABDUL: And voters have with Lindsey Graham, even those who were actually immediately, people in the party start backing behind her. That was part of that. And initially, what we thought was, is that she was only going to be there, what, until January.
THOMPSON: Six months, yes.
ABDUL: But then it turned on a, you know, in a dime --
THOMPSON: Well, because Donald Trump endorsed her.
ABDUL: Yes.
THOMPSON: And I think part of the reason for that is, you also have to understand, she's not just a sister. Like, Lindsey Graham legally adopted his sister when his parents died at a fairly young age. They were extraordinarily close. And I think like sort of the power of that narrative, and, you know, Donald Trump is nothing if not like a storyteller.
I do think that emotional relationship he had with Lindsey Graham, and that sort of story was an impact.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: All right, we're going to leave it there.
Coming up in The Arena, while voters decide Darline Graham's fate, there was another infamous quote that would end a presidency even before it started. We'll go back to something George H.W. Bush said nearly four decades ago this week in New Orleans.
But first, what one of the most endangered Republicans on the ballot said this year, calling the new third rail of politics and why the President thinks the opposite.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: If I were the mayor of a town or the governor of a state, and I had a chance to get a big plant in, an AI plant or a data center, I would absolutely want it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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[12:28:34]
GOV. JOSH SHAPIRO (D), PENNSYLVANIA: Well, we now have the nation's strictest guardrails when it comes to developing AI data centers in Pennsylvania. We've seen too many developers who are trying to bulldoze our community with these speculative deals that are never going to come into reality, and they're wreaking havoc on our neighbors.
This executive order now requires them to work with us. It levels the playing field and it puts the people before those powerful developers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: This week, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro imposed new restrictions on the development of AI data centers in the Keystone State, joining the choir of lawmakers scrambling to address what has quickly become a political lightning rod. Recent reports indicate that lawmakers and big tech companies alike increasingly recognize the mounting outrage with polling showing that opposition to data centers transcends party lines.
50 percent recently said they do not want to see AI data centers pop up in their backyards, many citing concerns about resource strain and the environment. And in case you need an additional temperature check on public sentiment towards these data centers, look no further than the buzzy ad featuring Jason Kelce that was released earlier this week.
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JASON KELCE, FORMER AMERICAN FOOTBALL PLAYER: AI data centers waste millions of gallons of water. That's why Liquid Death and Garage Beer have decided to team up. We want your pee to cool these data centers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So what are you waiting for? Go ahead and have another garage beer or liquid dense sparkling energy. Then send your P to the A.I. data center of your choice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[12:30:18]
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Don't say we don't show you the good stuff. My panel is back. ABDUL: I was -- I saw something falling from the eagle. I don't know if you guys noticed that. I don't know exactly know what that was. The issue of data center and it is something that has bipartisan support and opposition because there are real concerns I think that the people who feel as if that they're going to stop, you know, data centers, it's just not going to happen. It's kind of like you're feeling as if you need to hold on to your Internet, your AOL Internet dial up instead of getting streaming, you know, high speed Internet.
Technology is going to move. There are some real concerns that communities have. And I think what states can do is to really put some hard restrictions around these center, you know, within certain distance of this or that. But I think that's what's probably regulations. It's going to have to be regulated. You're not going to bend.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I want to play some of those concerns from an interview here on CNN. Here is a Kentucky farmer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DELSIA BARE, KENTUCKY FARMER: And I call it what I would call anti human movement right down to the technology that will remove your job from you eventually. I think we just are to have humans stand up against it all the way along. I don't see that many benefits to taking your food, water and air away from you. They don't want to come forward and tell you who they are. They just want 2093 acres and the rest of us in the county can kick rocks would be their way of putting it toward us. You might have embraced the kiss of death. I'd rather still be standing in 20 years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: She turned down $5 million for her farm because she didn't want a data center on it. Meghan?
HAYS: I just think that Democrats here are making a mistake in how we're addressing this. I think that we need to talk about the real problem here and why people are so opposed to it. This is a symbol of people think that this woman was saying that people are going to take their jobs because of A.I., that it's using all these resources. But we need data centers. We need to be able to have working Internet and phones and all the things that the data centers are actually working and being able to compete with China. And I just think that we are being short sighted. We can regulate this. Communities can regulate this.
We can be able to have data centers and be thoughtful in our communities and not use our resources or make the data centers pay for the electricity they're using and in the communities. And I think we just need to have an honest conversation of this is not the A.I. that is taking your job. This is -- that's a different conversation. And I just hope that Democrats here learn how to message a little bit differently, because they're not going away.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I just want to correct something. She turned down 26 million, excuse me, $26 million, which is incredible. What we have seen in a lot of these places where data centers have popped up are, yes, downsides, but also upsides. They pay a lot in taxes, and that has helped build schools, build libraries. And that is the economic argument that President Trump made. Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If I were the mayor of a town or the governor of a state, and I had a chance to get a big plant in an A.I. plant or a data center, I would absolutely want it, because the jobs are enormous and the money paid, the taxes paid are just enormous. And if you don't take it, you're going to be left behind because there are plenty of places that want it. So I would say that maybe it can use a little bit public relations help, but if I were a governor or mayor, I would want that plant in my community.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Alex, why has this become such a political football?
THOMPSON: Well, the politics have changed just as fast as technology has changed. I mean, you played also an earlier clip of Josh Shapiro. The reason why Josh Shapiro is now becoming a datacenter critic, he was a huge cheerleader, just a data center cheerleader just a few years ago. He boasted how Amazon was coming in with what he called the largest investment in the history of Pennsylvania, a $20 billion A.I. infrastructure. And he wasn't alone.
Democratic governors across the country, Michigan, Illinois, people also with presidential aspirations. What they saw is not just local tax revenue. You also had jobs, you had building trade unions, openly support many of these many things, because in the deindustrialized, especially Midwest, this was an opportunity to support, start building things again. But the politics have changed so quickly because of, you know, A.I. data centers in some ways, you know, Meghan alluded to this earlier. Data centers have existed well before A.I.
They are now powering A.I., and now they are a proxy for the anxiety about this new technology is going to, you know, replace our jobs also potentially where we're going to also be left behind. And that's why you're seeing all these politicians both on the left and the right sort of retreat from data center boosterism.
[12:35:04]
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes, I actually want to play some political ads, so we do get a sense of just what a big issue this has been in this upcoming election.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's been called the face of data centers in Ohio. Why? Because Jon Husted spent years aggressively recruiting data centers to the state.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Meet data center David Crowley. DAVID CROWLEY, MILWAUKEE COUNTY EXECUTIVE: There's an opportunity for us to really become A.I. and a data hub, not only for the entire country, but for the entire globe.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Data center production and energy use in Texas is skyrocketing to meet A.I.'s needs for your future.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What? Who authorized that?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Greg Abbott.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: All of this is a function of how fast A.I. has developed, far faster than any technology that we -- that we grew up with. Just think about, for everybody, think about the first time you heard the word, the letters A.I. or thought about them in, in a meaningful way. And that's in the last six months or year, all of this talk about data centers has exploded. I think there's a huge disconnect between what the public thinks A.I. is and actually what it might be. Everything ranging from, you know, when you go to the cardiologist and how quickly they are -- the -- how quickly they look at the scan of imaging of your body to whether, you know, typing into the computer, what outfit should I wear today?
They're two very different things, and some of them serve some quite valid social purposes. Now that's getting lost in the debate here, and it's all become a debate over these data centers, which, as you said, existed a long time ago. It's just complicated, but it's going to keep being a political issue.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: All right, coming up in The Arena, the political pledge that imperiled a presidency.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE H.W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My opponent won't rule out raising taxes, but I will. And the Congress will push me to raise taxes. And I'll say no, and they'll push and I'll say no, and they'll push again. And I'll say to them, read my lips. No new taxes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[12:41:42]
BUSH: I'm the one who will not raise taxes. My opponent now says he'll raise them as a last resort or a third resort. But when a politician talks like that, you know, that's one resort he'll be checking into. Congress will push me to raise taxes and I'll say no. And they'll push and I'll say no, and they'll push again and I'll say to them, read my lips, no new taxes. (END VIDEO CLIP)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: "Read my lips, no new taxes." Thirty-eight years ago this week, that phrase brought down the house at the 1988 Republican National Convention and helped launch George H.W. Bush to the White House. Then it brought down his re-election campaign four years later. As President Bush raised taxes to reduce the budget deficit and avoid widespread spending cuts and those six little words from his RNC speech, they followed him on the campaign trail, giving political ammo to his Democratic rival, who didn't shy away from reminding voters of that broken promise.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The George Bush promise.
BUSH: Read my lips. No new taxes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Then he gave us the second biggest tax increase in American history. Bush increased the gas tax by 56 percent. Can we afford four more years? Bill Clinton, a different kind of Democrat. As governor, Arkansas has the second lowest tax burden in the country. Balanced 12 budgets. You don't have to read his lips. Read his record.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: My panel is back. Malik, I'm going to start with you. I mean, Bush really paid for his broken promise there. Do you think politicians these days are held to the same standard if they don't follow through with their campaign pledges?
ABDUL: Is that rhetorical?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I know, I just thought I'd bring it out there.
ABDUL: No. And it always depends on who the politician is. We've seen people get away with things that other politicians have been able to get away with. Of course, Donald Trump is a very good example of that. The interesting thing about that with G.W. is -- H.W. is that I believe he was the last vice president who actually went, who actually went on to become president. So we hadn't actually seen that.
WILLIAMS: Yes.
THOMPSON: Well, except for her former boss.
ABDUL: Well, I'm saying actually consecutively to then go on into the White House. But this idea of taxes, though, people may not understand a whole lot, but they understand the rising costs in what taxes -- raising taxes.
WILLIAMS: There's another really important trivia question about him, which is that presidents -- of the vice presidents of the United States who are primaried by members of their own party almost always go on to lose. Right before he ran against Bill Clinton, he was challenged from the right by Pat Buchanan, who hammered him on that pledge. It was a conservative coming at him and saying that, look, this wishy-washy guy went and raised your taxes. This is why promises and empty slogans on campaigns just don't work. They will come back to bite a poor campaigning.
HAYS: Sorry. Campaigning is harder than governing. And I think that you don't realize that until you're actually governing. You can say whatever you want and no one holds you accountable until you actually win and need to run for real.
ABDUL: A slogan is a slogan.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Well, I --
[12:45:01]
THOMPSON: Well, I would also say, like I would dispute your thing that politics have changed. I think Donald Trump ran on bring down costs and you're seeing that, and no new wars. And you're seeing higher costs and a new war. And you are seeing in the public polls that voters are punishing him and Republicans for that.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Well, speaking of. That's exactly what I was going to bring up. I'm going to show you now. Yes, you got there first, my friend. You got there first. I'm going to show you now some best hits of Donald Trump promising something that didn't turn out to be true.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We are never going back to a party that wants to give unlimited money to fight foreign wars that are endless wars.
With our victory in November, the years of war, weakness and chaos will be over. I don't have wars.
No more wars. No more disruptions. We will have prosperity and we will have peace.
Under Trump, we will have no more wars. I'm not going to start a war. I'm going to stop wars.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: And of course, we know that that did not end up being true. And his poll numbers reflect that, to your point. Let's look at them now. On immigration, once his strongest issue, 38 percent. Crime, 37 percent. Foreign policy, 31 percent approval. Economy, 29 percent. And on and on. Cost of living, 23 percent. I mean, these are terrible numbers for the President. And it is because he came in specifically promising no new wars and that the economy is going to be better. So, looking at that, do you think that people are not held to the same standard? This would seem to suggest that they are.
ABDUL: No. I don't actually think that -- no. I don't think that that is actually a very good comparison there. Donald Trump, and I think that we've seen over and over again, a lot of times with Donald Trump, the issue is messaging. It isn't the actual implementation of the policy, like, for instance, around immigration.
This time last year, Donald Trump was riding high on immigration. But what happened? We started seeing videos of the enforcement where Kristi Noem, the not-so-funny, you know, social media memes and all of these type of things. It exhausted people. They got frustrated. And then they became angry. So, even that support that he had around immigration, it's not there.
And I don't think it's because of the immigration-enforced. The immigration -- the idea of getting rid of, you know, people who are here illegally and all of that. I think it is how people are responding to the things that they're seeing on television, like the deaths and some of those other things.
WILLIAMS: But that's not messaging.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I'm going to give you the last 30 seconds to you.
WILLIAMS: That's how they were carrying out immigration enforcement. That is not what people voted for. Those images out of Minneapolis were not what people voted for. Man, Donald Trump's going to have a hard time running for that third term if he keeps this up.
ABDUL: There's no third term.
WILLIAMS: Well, but I'm just saying, but this is exactly the point. He made all these promises. And to Alex's point, his numbers are suffering as a result.
HAYS: But no one's going to ever hold him accountable, right? So, are they going to hold the Republican Party in Congress accountable and are they going to hold the 28th candidate accountable for Donald Trump's actions? That is yet to be seen. But Donald Trump will never have to pay the price.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: All right. We're going to leave it there.
[12:48:01]
Coming up, something totally different, a royal return.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We want out privacy. We want out privacy. We want out privacy. We want out privacy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Three years ago, "South Park" joked about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's demand for privacy. Now the couple is back in the headlines as they announced they will be moving back to the U.K. I'm sorry, what? CNN has learned that Harry, Meghan and their two children are planning to relocate from California later this month to a private residence outside London. Sources say their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, are already enrolled in British schools and will start in September. This all comes six years after the couple stepped back from official royal duties and fell out with members of the royal family.
King Charles was reportedly made aware of these plans just days before the news broke. Sources say he welcomes the opportunity to see more of the Sussex family, but the rest of Britain appears to be a bit more divided.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not especially happy about it because they trashed the whole country numerous times, betrayed their family, betrayed his king, his father, went out to America and now they're bored and now they want to come back.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But maybe he's just truly British at the end of the day and he just misses home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hope they have a good time when they come back and the press leaves them alone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: All right, my panel is back briefly. Everyone, quick round. Is this a good or a bad thing?
WILLIAMS: It's like -- let's get over the British royals. They're coddled by a friendly press. Who cares? Just move on.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Alex?
THOMPSON: I guess when the American sequels stopped working, they're doing a reboot back in the U.K.
HAYS: Good riddance. Go home. Goodbye.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Really?
HAYS: Goodbye. Are there no royals on this panel? Oh my goodness. Come on. Bring me home here.
ABDUL: The Republican is saying, I love to see families united. This is a great thing. Move back home. That's where most of the family is.
THOMPSON: Americans died in 1776, so we didn't have to care about them anymore.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: That's correct. I am a royal watcher. I like Harry and Meghan. I am sorry to see them go and I hope they return. Thank you to my panel and thank you for watching.
[12:55:08]
You can see The Arena every weekday here on CNN at 4:00 p.m. Eastern. You can also catch us by listening to The Arena's podcast and follow the show on X and Instagram at TheArena at CNN. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. And the news continues next on CNN.
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