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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
What If The Midterm Polls Are Wrong?; Will Out-Of-Touch Comments On Economy Doom 2026 Candidates?; Lane Johnson Retires From Eagles, Citing Mental Health; Stephen A. Smith Apologizes For Comments About Lane Johnson. Lane Johnson Retires From Eagles, Citing Mental Health; 2018: Collins Is Key Vote To Confirm Kavanaugh To Supreme Court; New Study: You Could Be Disturbing Your Dog's Sleep In Bed. Aired 12-1p ET
Aired October 10, 2026 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
[12:00:00]
DR. RICHARD OSTFELD, SENIOR SCIENTIST, CARY INSTITUTE OF ECOSYSTEMS STUDIES: So we're seeing bigger acorn crops and more frequent acorn crops as the climate warms. So the warmer it is, the more quickly they can store enough carbon to produce acorns instead of just maintain themselves and grow.
But that warmer weather has to come with a certain amount of moisture as well. So warm and dry, not so good for the trees. Warm and wet, very good for the trees.
MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ostfeld says it doesn't need to be that scientific. If you're noticing a lot acorns on the ground, it's likely a bigger year.
OSTFELD: But if you have a huge acorn year happening, then you have to mark it on your electronic calendar so that they remind you two summers later that it's going to be a really bad year for nymphs.
TIRRELL (voice-over): So on your next walk in the woods, remember that what's by your feet could be a glimpse into the future.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: All right, thanks to Meg Tirrell for that. And thank you so much for joining us. We'll be tracking the impacts of the storm, Isaias, all day on air and online on the CNN app.
The Arena with Kasie Hunt is next.
KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. Welcome to The Arena Saturday.
We are now just 24 days from Election Day. More than 2.5 million votes have already been cast. Democrats feeling good about their chances of retaking not just the House but also potentially the Senate. In red states like Alaska, Texas, even in Kansas, recent polling has Democrats either leading, tied or within the margin of error. The signs seeming to point to a so-called blue wave. But what if, what if the polls are wrong?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Des Moines Register has Harris up by plus three. It shook the world today, Frank. I mean, this poll, 47-44, this one was like, what?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Biden by 17 in Wisconsin. Another one, Biden by five in Wisconsin.
MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN HOST: You tweeted recently that you were so sure of the result that you'd put it up on the screen, eat a bug if Donald Trump pulled this thing out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right. My panel's here in The Arena. Former Federal Prosecutor, CNN Legal Analyst Elliot Williams, CNN Chief National Affairs Correspondent Jeff Zeleny, Former Georgia Democratic State Senator and Gubernatorial Nominee Jason Carter, along with Republican Pollster and CNN Political Commentator Kristen Soltis Anderson.
Thank you all for being here. It's great to see you.
Jeff, you've been on the road. Is it actually a wave out there?
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: I mean, we'll see if it's a wave, but a couple of things about these polls, are they accurate? I mean, polls, as we know, as Kristen knows better than anyone, they're a snapshot in time. They're not a predictive measure of what's going to happen. So I think that is something we should all keep in mind about the polling.
HUNT: We've been reminded of this lesson, like, repeatedly.
ZELENY: Good, I think we can't do it enough. But I think the bottom line is when you look at sort of where this campaign, particularly the Senate, is playing out in the final few weeks, it's in Trump country. It's in red state. So I don't see any Democrats who are over 50 percent. I don't see, you know, a question is, are Trump voters that have, you know, been difficult to poll over the years, are they reflective in these?
The Democrats I talk to at the state-level races, state legislative races in these states are less confident of there being a wave than some national surveys. So I think we will see --
HUNT: Yes.
ZELENY: -- in the final weeks. I mean, I think the money advantage that Republicans have and the President being out there is going to have some effect, perhaps on both sides, on the President's side, but the spending advantage is one thing that could really make a wave a bit smaller.
HUNT: Kristen, I feel like there have been a couple of times when you and I have been on sets after an election day and, like, there's some egg on the pollsters' faces across the board. How worried are you about that for you this time?
KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I mean, I think the polls in midterm elections have actually been pretty decent. The last two midterms, if anything, when the polls have been off, they're not off in the same direction all the time. In 2018, they were pretty good. In 2022, in some cases, polls underestimated Democrats --
HUNT: Let's take a look at it.
ANDERSON: -- not necessarily Republicans. So there's no guarantee that the polls will be right. And if they're wrong, there's no guarantee we know what direction they'll be in. But, in general, it's these presidential elections when Donald Trump is on the ballot where things tend to get a little more squirrely, because Donald Trump turns out a very unique type of voter who's very hard to poll, very hard to account for.
So I wouldn't -- I'm not a poll truther. I'm saying -- I do think that Republicans are probably looking at a tough night, but to your point about it being a snapshot, in a lot of these polls we're looking at, look at the numbers that they'll have. It'll say, oh, this person's 50 percent, while this other person is 44 percent.
Well, I mean, 6 percent of the people said they were unsure. And you're either assuming they're staying home or you're assuming they're splitting evenly if you say, oh, this poll says we definitely know that candidate A is going to win by 6.
[12:05:11]
A lot of times that's not how it works. Voters in the final closing days make decisions that sometimes do make pollsters look foolish if they get too far out over their skis. I always think communicating about this with humility about what we do and don't know is key.
JASON CARTER (D), 2014 GEORGIA GUBERNATORIAL NOMINEE: A lot of that in politics, communicating with humility about exactly what we do and don't know.
HUNT: Yes, I don't know about that. Speaking of a humility or lack thereof, the President has kind of gone back and forth about whether he seems to want to be seen as though he's on the ballot or not, because, of course, if his party heads for losses, he'd probably rather not have to account for them. But on the other hand, he does repeatedly say when he's talking to his base that he is.
Let's watch one of those moments.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Just pretend that I'm running. Because if we do and if you draw the people, you're going to win.
Just get out and vote. If you do that, we're going to win and we're going to win big and we're going to shove it up their ass.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Is he helping anyone?
CARTER: I mean, I think he's helping Democrats in a lot of ways, right? I mean, I think one of the things that you have to know in this moment, and as we were all talking about polls, what no poll can predict is what is the population that's going to show up, right? That is the weakness of polling, is we don't know who shows up on election day.
And what Trump does, I think, is he juices the Republican turnout in ways that, as you were saying before, but he also juices the Democratic turnout, right? And I think the persuadable voters are out there in places like Kansas thinking, am I really going to vote for a Democrat, right? I mean, and in places like Kansas, they haven't done that in a long time.
And Trump is giving them more, I think, from a persuasion standpoint, more energy to say, you know what, the more I hear from him, the more I think it's time to vote for a Democrat.
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: And moreover, pretend I'm not, pretend I'm on the ballot might have worked four years ago in a way that it simply cannot now, where it's not just that he's unpopular, it's that he's underwater. It's that the strength of opposition to President Trump far outpaces, or at least in terms of the energy that people have when they're not happy with him.
And so the -- like, sure, people can -- you can pretend he's on the ballot, that's not great for Republicans, I think. And so it'll just be interesting to see how.
ZELENY: Some other questions, though, I mean, to your point about Kansas, I was out there a couple weeks ago, and a lot of people really like Adam Hamilton are questioning Roger Marshall. But also, do I want to vote for a Democratic majority in the Senate? And there was a very interesting finding in our Iowa poll this week.
Actually, a majority of voters said that they would prefer a Republican Senate majority. So that's a hurdle here, not just for the Chuck Schumer question, but are people going to take a leap and think that their Senate seat is a majority maker? And that could complicate the path for some of these Democrats.
ANDERSON: Yes, and --
WILLIAMS: Just question on -- oh, sorry, just -- but a follow-up question on that. To what extent have Republicans successfully nationalized, whether it's the socialism or the, you know, the crazies in the Democratic Party or whatever? Is that taking hold in places like Iowa? ZELENY: I mean, they're trying.
WILLIAMS: Yes.
ZELENY: For sure.
ANDERSON: Well, and that's where I'll also be interested to see what are the gaps between, say, Senate races, where it is easier to nationalize those candidates --
ZELENY: Right.
ANDERSON: -- and state races. Because I actually will do a fact check here. Kansas voters have voted for a Democrat.
ZELENY: For sure.
ANDERSON: I believe their incumbent governor is a Democrat.
ZELENY: Fair enough. It's not for Senate since --
(CROSSTALK)
ANDERSON: So statewide races can sometimes look different because the issue set is different. And so even in what we think of as a red state, sometimes voters will surprise you and similarly (INAUDIBLE).
HUNT: Well, you can see gaps in Texas, in Georgia, between the gubernatorial races and the Senate races.
ANDERSON: Yes.
ZELENY: And perhaps in Iowa and Ohio as well. It's going to be fascinating to look at. Yes, for sure.
CARTER: Well, and other thing is, I mean, the last thing I think that's important on this is, you mentioned this before, but, you know, we also have different candidates in these different races, right? Like, Adam Hamilton's a good candidate, you know? Like, there's a lot of these folks, Jon Ossoff, great candidate, their -- that's mattered, right?
And so Democrats, I think, have seen a real influx in Congress and elsewhere of people being inspired to run against what's happening in Washington. And so we've got a bunch of good candidates. And it's hard for me to see who the Republican Party is attracting right now as some of these first-time candidates running for Congress, running for Senate. And that, I think, matters in these close races.
ANDERSON: Republicans feel the best, though, in race in -- about places where their candidates are able to have a unique identity. Or I guess I should say, a unique identity in a good way.
CARTER: Yes, non-Trump identity. Yes.
ANDERSON: Texas may -- HUNT: It may be the most unique one.
ANDERSON: But is that, like, a place like New Hampshire, right? If we're talking about a blue wave, then why are we even talking about the idea of a Republican could, like, maybe pick up a -- I'm not saying I think that's likely, but I'm saying that's in the conversation only because in a state like New Hampshire, if you have the last name Sununu, you have a unique identity. So having a unique identity from the national party is something that can help a Republican a lot in this sense.
ZELENY: Or Susan Collins, I would put her --
ANDERSON: Yes, very much.
ZELENY: -- in that category as well.
HUNT: Well, I do think for almost all of these Senate races, too, they are so candidate-driven. I mean, Ken Paxton's race is candidate- driven. Abdul El-Sayed's race is candidate-driven, right? I mean, if it had been another nominee, I don't think we'd be talking so much about that one.
All right, coming up next here in The Arena, have you heard of Buttergate? You will soon. It's our quote of the week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[12:10:05]
DR. MEHMET OZ, ADMINISTRATOR, U.S. CENTERS FOR MEDICARE AND MEDICAID SERVICES: I brought you something as an example. We went grocery shopping, stick of butter, bag of peanuts. Butter in America, it's about $1 for a stick like this. If I charge you $10 --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Or are you shopping?
OZ: Yes, it's --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's not $1. It's $4.
OZ: Well, I just bought this, so it's close to that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, OK.
OZ: Maybe it's going bad.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: So I was riding in highway. I made a speech there, and I passed a gas station $1.95 a gallon. I passed another station $1.85 a gallon. We'll have it lower than that in a very short period of time. And again, remember, with a word, it's just artificial. It's a little bit high. It's a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[12:15:25]
HUNT: President Trump this week on the campaign trail. So the CliffsNote version of the fact check, gas, not $1.95 or $1.85 anywhere in America. The average price currently sits above $4 a gallon. I don't have to tell you this. You know this.
The President's comments, though, are not in a vacuum. Administration officials have for months tried to portray prices and the state of the economy as simply something that they are not. And it happened again this week a few times, brings us to our quote of the week from Dr. Mehmet Oz and butter.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OZ: I brought you something as an example. We went grocery shopping, stick of butter, bag of peanuts. Butter in America, it's about $1 for a stick like this. If I charge you $10 --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Or are you shopping?
OZ: Yes, it's --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's not $1. It's $4.
OZ: Well, I just bought this, so it's close to that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, OK.
OZ: Maybe it's going bad.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: I mean, perhaps the hurt for the fact check right in the moment, I got to say.
WILLIAMS: Yes.
HUNT: I don't know if you've been shopping for butter lately. It's definitely not (INAUDIBLE).
WILLIAMS: I mean, technically, at Walmart or Trader Joe's, you could get a stick of butter in a $4 pack of butter that would be $1. But no, butter is not $1. You know, but Kasie, I think this is a bigger, broader issue, which is that affirming the idea that politicians are out of touch never works for politicians.
Throughout time, politicians have gone out on the record and said things that did not humanize themselves to voters. Martha Coakley in Massachusetts, getting the name of the stadium wrong. John Kerry not knowing how to eat a cheesesteak.
HUNT: Putting provolone on his cheesesteak.
WILLIAMS: Putting provolone and tomatoes on his steak (ph).
HUNT: Give me a break.
WILLIAMS: I used to live in Philly, like, that's a crime against nature, Kasie. But --
HUNT: No.
WILLIAMS: -- you know -- so, you know, we can run down the whole list of these. George H.W. Bush and the scanner --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: -- you know, scanning the supermarket and being mystified by it, wanting a splash of coffee (ph), all of these things. And I just think when people are suffering, the feeling that those in charge are either wealthy or out of touch does not humanize them and does not help them in an election year.
CARTER: I mean, Dr. Oz has been out of touch for a long time, right? I mean, he was walking around buying carrots and calling them crudite when he was running for Senate --
HUNT: Right, and saying the grocery -- the name of the grocery store wrong.
CARTER: Yes, right. I mean, the --
WILLIAMS: (INAUDIBLE).
HUNT: Yes.
CARTER: But at the end of the day, I think, you know, we all know that folks have decided that politicians are out of touch. And one of the reasons is because they are, right? And if they weren't, then why is the government being run the way that it is, right? I think people and Donald Trump, you know, fed into this and took away from it at the original time.
But people feel distant from their government. They feel like it doesn't work. And something like this just drives that home. I mean, fundamentally, people feel disconnected from this government. I think that's real. And I don't think politicians are helping themselves.
WILLIAMS: I also think for lots of people with butter, let's -- specifics on butter -- a $1 to $4 difference is actually significant when people are buying their groceries every weekend and a politician or a leader that just seems to be glib about a wealthy million hair at that. I just think it's a bad moment. Sometimes a stick of butter isn't just a stick of butter. And this was a big one.
CARTER: Fair enough. HUNT: Kristen?
ANDERSON: I'm mystified at the extent to which this administration has allowed themselves to fall into the exact same trap --
WILLIAMS: Yes.
ANDERSON: -- the Biden administration fell into.
CARTER: (?): Yes.
ANDERSON: The reason that Donald Trump is back in the White House is that the Biden administration said, don't believe your lying eyes and your lying wallets. The economy is actually fine. I remember when they rolled out Bidenomics and I thought --
HUNT: I know. Well, it's --
ANDERSON: -- did the RNC cook this up, like, that's happening.
ZELENY: Let's brand them (ph).
ANDERSON: Like, I don't know, I wouldn't do that if I were you. And it's -- and it is as though the Trump administration just thinks that they are immune from those laws of political gravity. And there are some cases where Donald Trump is able to defy political gravity. But when the economy is bad, that's not one of those things that you can escape.
ZELENY: And one thing we saw in a poll, they're wrong --
CARTER: And you can't convince people.
ZELENY: For sure. One thing we saw in a poll this week are Iowa and Ohio polls. Three fourths of voters in both states agreed that Trump policies are leading to the higher prices here. Three fourths of people don't agree on virtually anything. So that, I think, was a striking.
But speaking of the Bidenomics, I -- at Trump rallies, I've noticed I was at one in Nebraska earlier this week when he blames the economy on Biden, there was far, far, far less applause than there was a year ago. It was very tepid, almost quiet. That schtick is not playing out there because people know that this is his economy.
HUNT: Yes. I mean, are you seeing that in your numbers?
ANDERSON: Well, it's -- the other problem is that it's a mixed message, right? Either it's the economy is bad and it's Biden's fault, but also the economy is a plus, plus, plus, plus, right? Wasn't that the comment from about a year ago? And so it's also the incoherence of that message, right?
It's either that the economy is, it's really good. We promise you. And people don't feel that or it's bad, but it's Biden's fault. And if Donald Trump had just been doing small things around the edges, trying to get a couple wins here and there for people, he could maybe argue, hey, I still need more time to fix the damage.
[12:20:14]
It takes a long time to get inflation under control. But because of the number of policies, the administration has implemented that people, people now know where the Strait of Hormuz is. People know what a tariff is, who did not think about tariffs that much a few years ago. And so he doesn't have the plausible deniability that past presidents have had when they have said, I'm just cleaning up the mess of my predecessor.
CARTER: And I think people, I think for the most part, right, folks pick one or two things to decide what matters to them and their economy, right? Like the economy is driven by a vast number of things. But when I can say tariffs in the Straits of Hormuz and people think, yes, that's the cause of inflation, you lose the election, right? I mean, it is not the good message that you would like for them to be carrying. And it's nice because right now we've got, as Democrats, we can talk about those two things and people believe it.
ZELENY: At the same time, the Democratic brand isn't so hot out there either. So that is --
CARTER: Well --
ZELENY: It's something that could also sort of temper a bit of a wave.
WILLIAMS: But what I would say, though, is in particularly in a midterm year in which the President is not particularly popular, we've seen throughout time that the out party often doesn't need a great message just simply to say we are not that.
ZELENY: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Right? Which is happening here.
ANDERSON: Which is going to lead to a fascinating 2028.
WILLIAMS: No, it's going to be in 2028.
ANDERSON: Because if Democrats do well in this midterm, as they are likely to do --
WILLIAMS: Yes.
ANDERSON: -- success has a million fathers and failures and orphan. Every wing of the Democratic Party --
WILLIAMS: Yes.
ANDERSON: -- is going to claim we won because we stood firm for Medicare for All. We won because we did X, Y and Z. Everybody's going to claim that the victory is because they're wing of the Democratic Party.
CARTER: And the bottom line is Democrats are going to miss Donald Trump as much as Republicans. Because up until, you know, the Republicans are going to be sitting there like, oh, my gosh, listen to sad girl music when Donald Trump is gone and so are the Democrats. Because we're --
ZELENY: Knowing the unifying fact.
CARTER: Right, exactly. Like -- and we got to have policies now.
WILLIAMS: Yes.
CARTER: Just be -- to your point, not Donald Trump, which is right now, it's going to win elections --
WILLIAMS: But it's been a long time since I heard Paula Cole blast (INAUDIBLE). And so 90s sad girl music means anybody.
HUNT: I don't want to wait.
WILLIAMS: I don't want to wait.
HUNT: Yes, I'm right there with you. I'm right there with you.
CARTER: I was thinking nothing compares to you, but even older. But go ahead.
WILLIAMS: Wow.
HUNT: Generational divide.
WILLIAMS: Yes, right.
HUNT: Yes. I mean, look --
CARTER: Ouch.
HUNT: -- the numbers on --
WILLIAMS: That's Prince anyway. Come on.
CARTER: Right, right, right. But (INAUDIBLE) controversial. Go ahead.
WILLIAMS: Sorry.
HUNT: The numbers that you were talking about earlier, right, I'm out of touch, 60 -- basically 60 percent of Americans think that the nation's leaders are out of touch. I mean, and that has to be the 28th story regardless. No?
ANDERSON: Yes --
CARTER: I mean, Donald Trump took advantage of that to a degree that nobody has been able to, right? In my opinion, right? Donald Trump is a symptom of the idea that people feel like they're disconnected from their government. So if you get nothing from the system, why not blow it up, right? That's like a real thing. Now we're sort of dealing with that because it didn't get blown up. And as we're trying to process it, you've got these things that have made their lives worse. And so I think it's going to be very complicated. And we were just talking earlier about how campaigning now.
They don't -- people don't connect in the way they used to. It's all on TV. It's all virtual. It's very hard to build a good image of someone on TV, right? Very hard.
ANDERSON: Yes, but actually -- you know, the thing we're talking about earlier, Donald Trump being able to defy laws of political gravity. Imagine many other politicians standing in a McDonald's drive through. It would look patently ridiculous. Donald Trump --
ZELENY: It diminished them.
ANDERSON: Nobody for one second thinks that Donald Trump is actually going to be a McDonald's drive through. But like he kind of pulls it off in a different way. So there are still ways that he, despite being untouchable, has --
HUNT: That was the guy that won the 24 election, the McDonald's, the garbage truck, all of those things. And then now he's at the White House getting like --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ballrooms.
HUNT: -- you know, jobs and building a ballroom. Yes.
All right. Coming up next in The Arena, 2018 is apparently back. How we vote eight years ago, making headlines in one of the year's biggest Senate races. But first, why a surprising NFL retirement has sparked a big conversation about mental health in professional sports and beyond.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're talking about a guy who through his vulnerability to talk about his own mental health struggles. He didn't just speak up for himself. He spoke up for a lot of people who live in silence with that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN A. SMITH, CO-HOST, FIRST TAKE: Here's the reality of the situation. I was wrong. I was wrong to Lane Johnson. I was wrong to the Philadelphia Eagles. I messed up because I made light of the issue of mental health when that was clearly not my intent. It takes courage for people out there struggling with mental health issues to come forward to acknowledge that they are really struggling and that they need help. (END VIDEO CLIP)
[12:28:27]
HUNT: ESPN Stephen A. Smith opening his show Thursday with an on air apology for what some felt were insensitive comments that he made about Philadelphia Eagles offensive lineman Lane Johnson, who announced in a post this week that he's going to be retiring from the NFL, ending a storied 14-year career in Philadelphia, writing he made the, quote, "Incredibly difficult decision" because it was, quote, "critical" that he focus on his mental health.
The 36-year-old had been open in the past about his struggles with anxiety and depression, and his retirement is sparking a broader conversation about mental health and the courage that it takes to speak up about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD, CO-HOST, THE BREAKFAST CLUB: This isn't about Stephen A. Smith. I don't want you to get caught up in the individual. It's about the issue because World Mental Health Day is actually Saturday. So, you know, I feel like God makes things happen for a reason.
So, I mean, this is a great time to have a conversation about all of this, because --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: -- the question I have is why is a man considered strong when he sacrifices his mental health for his career, but weak when he sacrifices his career for his mental health?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: And just underscoring that today, Saturday is, in fact, World Mental Health Day. Let's play just to kind of set the stage for this conversation, because we heard this from Lane Johnson, what Stephen A. Smith originally said that he then apologized for on Thursday. Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SMITH: And now the brother sat up there, one of the all-time greats of our festival, and what did he do, Shaq? What did he do, Jordan? He went like this. You know what? I'm going to call it quits. Now he calls it quits. Not before season. Not off season.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no. After being subjected to this, he said life is a little bit too short. I need to focus. What did he say? His mental health? Am I like -- am I making it up?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, you're right.
SMITH: Am I making -- did he say that? I'm not sure. So the -- four games in to the 20 -- to the 2026 season. A dude that has been in the league forever sits back and says I need to focus on my mental health.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: So Jason Carter, I mean the backlash to that should illustrate that at least we made some progress here. But the fact that that kind of stuff still happens at all also underscores why it's important.
JASON CARTER (D), 2014 GEORGIA GUBERNATORIAL NOMINEE: Yes, look, I mean, you know, Stephen A. Smith is Stephen A. Smith, right? And I think that that's a big part of this and he likes to get out and do stuff. I like the guy most of the time. I think when you talk about the stigma associated with mental illness, and this is something that in my family, you know, Rosalynn Carter in 1970 decided that she wanted to make it her mission to and she spent five decades talking about stigma associated with mental health. It is still there.
But when you see like a certified like badass, like Lane say, I'm going to go focus on this. It has an impact. And you've seen the backlash and that backlash, by the way, it's not just from, you know, the folks sitting next to him looking at him with a super side eye like in that video. It's throughout even, you know, this manosphere, right, where people are like, we can talk about this.
I think we've made enormous progress. And I think that he's the kind of person where you look at what he did and said it does take courage because you get to Stephen A. Smith's. But I think at the end of the day, what you're going to see is that folks are ready to talk. And we've made a lot of progress.
KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. What I think is extra interesting about the dynamics around this is there have been some high profile moments in the last number of years where you've had elite athletes saying this, but it's been examples like Naomi Osaka or Simone Biles. And there was a whole discourse about, you know, her decision around participation in the Olympics.
And in this case, you know, I think there was a lot of sort of projection of like, is that weakness? But it's so different when it's coming from this, like, beefy guy. So I am so glad that he made this decision for himself. I hope that his mental health gets to a place where he wants it to be. But I -- and I hope that this now we have a more complete set of examples of elite athletes saying.
HUNT: Yes, well, I mean, to the point that you're making, I mean, let's watch what Simone Biles had to say about her own experience right after she announced that she wasn't going to compete in the Olympics. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SIMONE BILES, GYMNAST: I was like, America hates me. The world is going to hate me, and I can only see what they're saying on Twitter right now. That's that was my first thought.
(END VIDEO CLIP) HUNT: So that, of course, is Biles's experience. We played some of the criticism of Johnson from Stephen A. Smith, which, of course, we know he apologized for and walked back. My favorite Kelce brother, on the other hand, I think, gave us a little bit more hope that we're in a better place on this. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JASON KELCE, FORMER PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL CENTER: I love Lane. Lane is like a brother to me. I'm not going to pretend to know exactly what's going on or why the retirement is happening now, but we're talking about a guy that's an all-time Eagle, a Hall of Fame player, a dude that like means the world to me. And I love the dude very much. We have shared a lot of moments together on and off the field.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Yes. And frankly, it's a leadership moment.
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. And it's not just the passage of time that we've sort of gotten better at confronting this. Every person on this panel and every single person watching this program right now knows someone who is struggling with mental health. You cannot tell me that they are not. Somehow we have sort of exempted athletes and professional sports from this.
Now, Simone Biles, it's a beautiful, poignant example, but she's a young woman and easy to dismiss --
HUNT: And a black woman.
WILLIAMS: And a black woman, right? And easy to dismiss as, oh, it's just Gen Z being soft again. I think probably even a better example than here is Terry Bradshaw, who's probably the baddest dude in American history with two Super Bowl MVPs talking openly about battling depression and anxiety for a long time.
Now, people can say, oh, he's old and he wasn't, you know, talking about it openly back then. But I just think, you know, and this to Kristen's point, it's these high profile examples that America and the world needs because it is just bizarre that we seem to pretend that it's not all around us all the time.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: And the fact that there is a mental health day, I mean, I think that that is one more sign of that. But one area we don't hear it talked about as much is in politics, which we talk about a lot. That's still sort of almost a disqualifying factor. But no, I think anytime we can have this conversation at that level with a giant, like literally a tall man, I think -- an Eagle.
WILLIAMS: But I will also say, you know, and to get cliche for just a moment, and I mean this, and I've said this before, I say this to you, Kristen, we talk a lot. You never know what battles someone's fighting at any given moment. You would never watch the Eagles, even if they are a mediocre team that's not going anywhere. HUNT: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Would you like to go home now?
[12:35:00]
WILLIAMS: You would never watch this man crushing people on a football field and believe that he's dying inside and really tortured and having pain inside. And I just think you would never watch this man crushing people on a football field and believe that he's dying inside and really tortured and having pain inside. And I just think that extends to every single person you interact with on a regular basis. Just extend grace. Sorry for the cliche moment.
HUNT: But we're also learning about how football itself may be contributing to this. I mean, I think there's a lot of information we don't have on that piece of it.
CARTER: Well, and that's been, people have been talking about that for a long time. I think that it is important for us to, yes, acknowledge the progress, but also the stigma against mental illness is ancient. It is ancient. Like, and it is a very complicated thing for people to admit, for people to talk about. And again, we can say exactly what you just said. We don't know what's going on in other people's lives. But you know, for you individually to come out and say, I'm having this issue. I have something that I'm confronting. I'm seeking help. That's hard for a lot of people.
WILLIAMS: And, you know, it's not just, I guess there's two different points to, is football compounding this? Obviously it's a contact sport. People get brain injuries and so on. And, you know, I'm not a doctor. I'm not going to wade into that. It's a sport that prioritizes toughness. We all love football, but we appreciate that it's about toughness, right? And part of toughness is mental toughness. And we associate mental toughness with not admitting that you are in pain.
And I think to some extent, the fact that it's a football player makes this such a beautiful, almost coda to the story, and the example that maybe can get into people's minds.
HUNT: All right. So as we wrap this up, we do want to remind everybody watching, if you or someone you know needs to talk about issues like the ones we've been discussing here, you can call or text 988. You can also visit 988lifeline.org.
All right, ahead here in The Arena, what happened eight years ago this week, that's now center stage tonight in one of the country's most pivotal Senate races.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You did have a chance to interview Brett Kavanaugh before his nominating vote. You said at the time that he said that he considered Roe v. Wade settled law. Do you feel at any level that Brett Kavanaugh lied to you on that day?
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[12:41:19]
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Are you 100 percent certain without a doubt that Brett Kavanaugh will not overturn Roe v. Wade?
SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R-ME): I do not believe that Brett Kavanaugh will overturn Roe v. Wade all the time. They aren't overturned all the time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So we can confirm it's 2026, but Democrats in Maine are still talking about 2018. It was this week, eight years ago, that Republican Senator Susan Collins was the deciding vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. At the time, Collins insisted the new justice would not vote to overturn a woman's right to an abortion. But as we all know, Kavanaugh and a majority of other justices did just that in 2022.
This year, Collins is on the ballot for the first time since both the Dobbs decision and her Kavanaugh vote and her Democratic opponent, Troy Jackson, not letting her forget it.
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TROY JACKSON (D), SENATE CANDIDATE: What will it take for you to admit that you were wrong, you know, especially whenever Kavanaugh went out and did what he did? I mean, and you don't regret that today. So what will it take for you to admit that you're ever wrong?
COLLINS: Well, first of all, when I evaluate Supreme Court justice nominees, I always look at their qualifications, their experience, whether they're fit to serve on the court.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You said at the time that he said that he considered Roe v. Wade settled law. Do you feel at any level that Brett Kavanaugh lied to you on that day?
COLLINS: I do not feel that he lied, but I think that he should not have said it was settled law because to me that meant that it would not be overturned.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So, of course, Collins did face voters in 2020, but it was before Dobbs in 2022. But it is telling, Kristen, that this is back. You know, I mean, I covered the Kavanaugh decision on the Hill. And a big part of what was going on with her then was how angry she was at how people were kind of focused in on her, the pressure that they were putting on her. But it's something that comes up again and again. And now she's finally facing the music.
ANDERSON: Yes. And, you know, remember, in the 2022 midterms, this was a very big issue. And it was one where that was supposed to be a good midterm for Republicans, a red wave midterm. When you're the party that's out of power, you're supposed to do well. The overturning of Roe versus Wade kind of inverted that dynamic because suddenly, even though Democrats were in power, they were angry like they were out of power.
They were angry that some piece of the government had acted in a way that they didn't like. And so it created that it rebalanced, I should say, the like the asymmetry of enthusiasm. So Democrats, I think, ever since that moment have felt that the political wind is at their back whenever the issue of abortion is in the news and that Republicans are constantly playing defense in a way that they weren't in the pre-Dobbs era. So it makes sense that they'd want to lean on this particular issue.
HUNT: Yes. Jeff, you've been in Maine recently. What's the word?
ZELENY: Look, I mean, I think that that is one of the different dynamics of all the races that Senator Collins has won. This is one of the different dynamics in the economy and the Trump era, if you will. But this is something that, you know, really hangs over so many voters there.
The question is the balance here. I mean, she argues that she brings so much to Maine that her seniority in the Senate should overtake everything else. We'll see. But I still believe that that is one of the places where abortion will be a central deciding factor. I hear it very little in other places. As I travel around the country in midterms and presidentials, I can't recall an election where abortion as an issue has been as muted, except in Maine.
[12:45:06]
HUNT: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Yes. You know, it's interesting. I would say, in particularly that, I'm glad we have the clip about him talking about settled law. And I think going back to Robert Bork, we have -- this is not unique to Brett Kavanaugh, but we somehow allow these people to have life tenure on a body that affects all of our rights and not know a single thing about what they believe about anything meaningful.
And that counts for both Democratic and Republican nominees. We have allowed every single Supreme Court nomination to go and say, well, you know, I will just respect, you know, just settled law, settled law, settled law. And to some extent, Brett Kavanaugh and this fight over Susan Collins is a symptom, not the problem. The problem is the confirmation process that just allows people to really just skate through with minimal scrutiny. And here we are.
HUNT: Well, and trust in the Supreme Court is kind of at an all-time low.
CARTER: I was just going to say, I remember a lot of scrutiny about Brett Kavanaugh at the time, right? But at the end of the day, I think you're right. And I think one of the big problems that we have with respect to the court in general, to your point, like all the rest of our democratic institutions, respect for the court is very low because it has become this politicized entity, right?
And when people come through, they say that, that they're going to respect settled law. And then it turns out to not be true. Like the problem is that it's not true.
WILLIAMS: Yes. Number one, the settled law point. Number two, there's remarkable consistency in how the justices tend to rule. Yes, there are the occasional nine zero opinions, but you kind of know what the ideological breakdown is going to be on the court. That is a symptom of what started in 1987 when there was that rift over a really vicious confirmation over Robert Bork or non-confirmation of Robert Bork.
And here we are today, but just nowhere else in American public life can someone stand up before the American people and say so little about what they believe and still be granted this gift of government scrutiny.
ANDERSON: Although I would note that there are plenty of conservative activists who are quite frustrated with whether it's Kavanaugh or with Amy Coney Barrett feeling like, hey, Donald Trump put you on the court and they from time to time do diverge from it. It's not always six, three.
WILLIAMS: Fair. That's entirely a fair point. But I would say go back to the transcripts of Elena Kagan or Sonia Sotomayor.
HUNT: Well, David Souter is also an example.
ZELENY: I mean, but this is also leading to what is one of the biggest questions of 2028, the expansion of the court. All these frustrations here have led up to that is going to be the next big question about the Supreme Court.
HUNT: But back to Maine for a second. I mean, Kristen, what does it say to you that it was to say to you about Susan Collins and her relative strength as a candidate? And maybe it's Troy Jackson's weakness. I'm sure it's also partly that. I mean, Maine has kind of fallen down the list of races that Democrats are most interested in. And she's the only Republican defending a Harris seat.
ANDERSON: I wonder to what extent this is because Susan Collins has a track record of outperforming her polls. And do Democrats look at this as fool's gold in the way that they have looked at a state like Texas for so long and been like, is this the year we get Texas? No. You know, and so I wonder how much of that is what is moving Democrats attention away from Maine and into other places.
On the other hand, it could just be that Democratic strategists think, OK, these other pickups would be psychologically so exciting. Oh, my gosh. What if we picked up a seat in Iowa? What if we won Texas that maybe Maine feels less satisfied?
ZELENY: Yes. And I would just expanded. So I think it's spread around the intrigue. It's not just all on Maine and Michigan. There are other possibilities now.
WILLIAMS: And just really quickly, what we were talking about earlier in the program, the idea of waves and change and so on. People might not like Congress and people might not like the President, but they often like their senator or their member of Congress. And that sort of throws off some of these predictions that we try to make.
ZELENY: Some people do.
(CROSSTALK)
CARTER: We'll find out who likes who, right?
WILLIAMS: There's a reason why Congress hasn't. Congress has an 18 percent approval rating, but many members of Congress are outpaced that.
CARTER: Yes. And Susan Collins is clearly a remarkable politician.
WILLIAMS: Yes.
CARTER: Like love or hate he, she has done this for a long time.
ZELENY: She's built something in your hometown that is like literally her.
[12:49:11]
HUNT: For sure. All right. Coming up next, something totally different. It may mean you owe your dog an apology.
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HUNT: All right, welcome back. There is a new study out this week that may have you apologizing to your dog tonight. Researchers found that people who share a bed with their dogs do not experience disrupted sleep. If anything, we humans are the ones disturbing their sleep. Sorry, what? Researchers tracked the sleep of 25 humans. This does not seem like a big enough sample and their dogs for four weeks. The data shows sharing a bed didn't affect how well or how long the dogs or the humans slept. In fact, pet owners who slept with their dog got about as much sleep as owners who didn't.
And, you know, when you toss and turn or wake up in the middle of the night, apparently, it turns out, it's usually the humans who move first, not the other way around. So your dog isn't actually waking you up in the middle of the night. You're waking them up. I feel like this is actually like an extremely controversial topic, whether the dog actually should sleep in the bed. You don't have a dog.
WILLIAMS: I don't have a dog. Like I told you.
HUNT: It's also controversial.
WILLIAMS: Oh, but I use the acknowledgments of my book to shame my wife into the fact that we don't have a dog. I love dogs so much. I will give -- we don't deserve them as humans if they want the bed. Make them happy.
[12:55:04]
HUNT: I have to say, I have a small dog called Radar. I like would be very sad without him. Like, I don't know. Kristen?
ANDERSON: So I had a very large fluffy retriever and I loved any time that I could snuggle with him, but logistically he's the size of like having another person there. So it didn't really happen that often. I will say watching dogs sleep, like when he would put, like, you could see that he was trying to chase a squirrel or something was.
HUNT: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Got to get a California King though. Just get a bigger bed.
ZELENY: That's what crates are for next to the bed.
CARTER: That's what crates are for next to the bed.
WILLIAMS: Wow.
CARTER: I'll say this. We wake up every morning in my house, wondering how the dog did during the night far more than anyone cares about how I slept.
WILLIAMS: No doubt.
CARTER: It's definitely true.
HUNT: All right. Thanks very much for my panel. Thanks to all of you at home for watching as well. Don't forget, you can see The Arena we're on every weekday right here on CNN at 4:00 p.m. Eastern. You can also catch up by listening to our podcast. We're on X and Instagram at TheArenaCNN. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. The news continues next here on CNN.
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