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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt

White House Official: Katie Zacharia's Debut Press Briefing "Brutal"; Kimberly Guilfoyle Ousted As Ambassador Amid Misconduct Allegations; Just In: Vatican Says Pope Leo Has Lung Cancer. Aired 4- 5p ET

Aired October 13, 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: It's going to be a sweep, Don Riddell says. I appreciate the update, Don. Thank you so much for that.

And thank you for sharing your afternoon with CNN.

"THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT" starts right now.

(MUSIC)

KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. Welcome to THE ARENA. It's great to have you with us on this Tuesday.

We are now three Tuesdays from Election Day. Right now, the briefing adding to the president's muddled midterm message.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATIE ZACHARIA, WHITE HOUES PRESS SECRETARY: He had a historic one-day war, and now we have a booming economy and a great relationship with Venezuela.

REPORTER: Has the US stopped sharing intel with Ukraine?

ZACHARIA: I'll have to get back to you on that.

REPORTER: Did the president speak with the Ambassador Guilfoyle?

ZACHARIA: To the question on -- the president will be back on Thursday, and that's what I will answer. I'll leave it there. He will answer those questions. I'll --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: The new face of the Trump administration, Press Secretary Katie Zakaria, is off to what one White House official describes to CNN as a, quote, "brutal start".

As we come on the air, sources tell our team there are already questions within the White House about how long she'll last in the job. If you blinked during the briefing, you might have missed it. It was less than 15 minutes long, most of the time spent praising President Trump and his accomplishments.

About five of the minutes were for questions. It was mostly from conservative outlets, Breitbart, Fox, and "The Daily Mail".

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZACHARIA: I get to do what I was doing on the outside already, which was hoping to amplify, multiply, and expand upon President Trump's incredible agenda for the American people. And what I hope to do in this position is to take that into an official capacity and only build on, only amplify, and only multiply, to the extent possible, all of the wins he's making for Americans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: In addition to the word "brutal", other White House sources called it awkward and uncomfortable.

But today's briefing comes at a critical time for the White House and for President Trump himself. A federal judge is expected to rule really any minute on whether to impose a longer-term block on the president's White House ban for certain news outlets, including CNN.

But just take a look at some of today's headlines. Republicans are literally begging the president and the White House for a message they can sell to voters. The president and the vice president today are in salvage the Senate mode, with the V.P. in the state today defending a Senate seat that could be slipping away from Republicans for the first time in more than three decades.

President Trump, for his part, is right now heading to the last frontier, hoping it isn't the last stand for Republican Dan Sullivan.

And As for that message about a winning message, it seems like it might still be coming together.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We had a lot of cooling, and the ice is now bigger than it's ever been for some reason. It grew a lot.

Always got to go on a diet. He's a fat guy. Wow.

So, is that the Palestinian flag?

You know the one I like the best? I shouldn't say this. Should I? The one I like the best is gays for Palestine.

And I don't do this with men very often. I started examining his body because I didn't know he was a great athlete. And I looked, and I watched up and down, and I looked at his ass and I looked at the hole.

And then I looked at his hands. Look at his hands, he's got these, like, claws.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: OK, let's get off the sidelines and head into THE ARENA.

My panel is here. But we're going to start with CNN senior White House correspondent Kristen Holmes. She is live for us in Alaska, where the president will hold a rally tonight.

No word on what he thinks about how Dan Sullivan looks or doesn't. But, Kristen, the president departed for Alaska with his new press secretary. What were you hearing from White House sources about her first day on the job?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Kasie, it's not good, but I do want to start by saying one thing, which is that people are generally somewhat empathetic to the fact that this is a very hard job. On top of that, it's even harder because she is filling the shoes of Karoline Leavitt, somebody who is actually very good at this job. And not only that, left the White House and President Trump on very good terms.

So that makes it all even harder. Now, that being said, we are hearing a lot of White House officials really questioning why she got up there two days into the job. I had one outside Trump advisor asking why would they do that to her? She should have had two weeks of looking at murder boards.

Another person telling me that she should have been having practices, they should have been going through different binders with her, that this was something somewhat of an unforced error. Now, on top of all of that, you have one very, very, very unforgiving person in that audience, and that is President Trump. So, there's been a lot of speculation as to whether or not she and her performance actually would have pleased President Trump if it's something that he would have liked, and again, if he will keep her in that job.

Now there are also a second set of questions and this is all about her legal background.

[16:05:03]

One thing to remind you of President Trump when he announced he was hiring her, he said she was a lawyer. Now there are questions about where exactly she practiced law. President Trump was asked about it. Here's that exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: You said she's an attorney, where did she pass the bar exam? Which state?

TRUMP: Which state?

REPORTER: Can she tell us?

ZACHARIA: China.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Okay, so what you might not have been able to decipher there is that she appears to be mouthing that she moved to China. President Trump has asked where she passed the bar, where she was a lawyer. He turns to her, she says, moved to China. That's what it seems like her mouth is saying.

We did ask a White House official to clarify. They said that right after she graduated law school, she moved to China with her husband who got a job at an American firm there. At that time, she was working in what they said was international transaction law. Unclear though what that means in terms of where and if she passed the bar and was actually a practicing attorney.

So, now, there's questions about that as well. But again, I will note there was a lot of sympathy or at least empathy for Katie Zacharia as she got up there at the podium at one person saying to me, look, she could have impressed President Trump by sitting there on a panel on Fox News all day long. It's quite different when you stand up there in front of a room full of reporters trying to ask you questions, and you're really the face of the White House for the entire world to see.

HUNT: Right. All right. Kristen Holmes, live for us in Alaska.

Kristen, thank you very much.

My panels here in THE ARENA, CNN political analyst, national political correspondent for "Axios", Alex Thompson; CNN special correspondent Jamie Gangel; former DNC communications director Mo Elleithee; and former Trump administration official Matt Mowers.

We are also joined by former Trump White House deputy press secretary, Sarah Matthews.

Welcome to all of you. Thank you so much for being here.

Jamie Gangel, let me start with you just because, I mean, you've seen a lot in this town. This is a huge job, the job of White House press secretary. It is one that has -- it makes people famous. It gives them lifelong careers after they leave.

And it often has held, it does hold, historically, enormous power in that you're speaking for the President of the United States. What happened up there today?

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. Look, as Kristen said, it is a hard job, but we've never seen anything like this before. And you can be sure that Tina Fey and "Saturday Night Live", they are going to have a field day with this.

She was unprepared. She couldn't answer a question about Ukraine. It was --

HUNT: Which could move markets, by the way. Let's make that point as well. I mean, the things that come from this podium have potentially enormous implications because of what the job should mean. GANGEL: Correct. Look, there's no question that press secretaries also want to advance their bosses' careers and agendas, but you are speaking for the United States to the world. It is a critical platform, and today was brutal.

HUNT: Sarah Matthews, can you talk a little bit about the position that she would have been in? And I take Kristen Holmes' point in terms of having some empathy here, although perhaps there is an argument to be made that someone coming into this job should potentially understand that there may be preparation that should be involved. It can be, of course, hard to press for that when the people that you're working with are quite literally running the country.

But you've been around people like this. You understand the implications of the job. I mean, what would you say about her position today.

SARAH MATTHEWS, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY: Yeah, you know, it was a really underwhelming first debut performance for Katie Zacharia. Look, look at her predecessors, Karoline Leavitt and Kayleigh McEnany, two people that I worked with during my time in Trump 1.0. Those two came out swinging in their first press briefings, and they showed that they were sharp, confident, prepared, and equipped to do the job and have the chops for it.

And I don't know if you can say the same about Katie Zacharia. I do give her a little bit of grace, considering that she didn't have nearly as much time to prep. I think Kayleigh had a week on the job before doing her first press briefing, and Karoline had a little bit more time to prepare as well, given after President Trump won, and it was obvious that she would probably be the press secretary.

But I just have to say, I think it was such a misstep on this White House's part by putting her out and putting her in a position where she wasn't able to have a strong performance because I don't think that she had enough prep time.

Look, Kayleigh and Karoline were two people that I worked with. They made it look easy. But I know from during my time of being deputy press secretary under Kayleigh, we would spend hours doing murder board prep sessions before every single briefing. And it doesn't seem like there was a lot of prep that at least went into Katie Zacaria's first debut performance, at least from my point of view.

[16:10:07]

HUNT: Yeah, a really interesting inside look.

And, Sarah, how would you say the president himself would react to these performances? I mean, is there anything -- any insight you can offer about how he watches them, how he consumes them, how he then makes his opinion known about how they go?

MATTHEWS: So why actually she was rushed to the podium so quickly is I believe that the president put pressure on her. I think that there's a good chance that he just announced she was going to be doing her first press briefing via Truth Social without really any heads up or coordination between the chief of staff or the White House. That's just me guessing, though, because it doesn't make much sense why they would rush her to the podium, except for the fact that I know that he always was begging Kayleigh McEnany to go out and brief every single day.

And sometimes, there were days we did not want to go brief, and we had nothing good to share, or we knew that it was going to be extra combative because all the headlines were negative, and we didn't feel like it made the most sense to brief that day. And anytime he would see her in the West Wing, he would say to Kaylee, are you briefing today? Or he'd see me, he'd say, is Kayleigh briefing today?

And so, I think that he wants someone out there after we had obviously this period of time where we didn't have a press secretary in the role because obviously there were big shoes to fil after Karoline Leavitt who I will say is probably having the best day in Washington today after this kind of abysmal performance. I feel like she's cemented her legacy as Trump's strongest press secretary.

But Trump wants someone who's an attack dog and is willing to go fight with the media and is going to do that like Karoline and Kayleigh and Sarah Huckabee Sanders did. I believe that they all excelled in that position, doing the job in the way that Trump wants them to.

It's not traditionally how press secretaries offer operate in previous administrations. And so, Katie Zacharia really needs to find her footing and be able to, in her next briefing, come out a lot stronger and much more prepared.

HUNT: Well, and I mean, Matt Mowers, to that point, I mean, you've worked in the Trump administration. You've seen what the president rewards and what he doesn't reward.

And the reality is that attack role, Sarah's right. I mean, Karoline Lovett made it look easy, right?

MATT MOWERS, FORMER TRUMP ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yeah.

HUNT: It's actually not. And you have to do it from a position of great preparation and strength.

MOWERS: And look, full disclosure, Katie's a friend. I like Katie. In my experiences with her, she's very smart. She's very well-read and researched. I have no doubt that she's going to do this job very well.

But she got named on Friday. And here we are on Tuesday and she's already out there. Now, my understanding is it looked like it was meant to be a bit of a small like curtain opening teaser of a press conference before the president went out and answered his own questions directly as he was going on to Marine One.

But look, I have no doubt that she's going to double down, get into the books, understand the brief very deeply. She's an accomplished person. She's very intelligent. She's good on TV. Those are the things the president values. I have no doubt they'll

come out and come across. I just think it's surprising she came out within 72 or so hours of getting the job.

HUNT: Yeah, let's watch a little bit more of what she had to say to reporters here. She was talking about the president's rally, of course, as going to a series of mostly red states, entirely red states, to campaign for candidates.

Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZACHARIA: Everyday Americans are showing up in droves to attend these rallies because of President Trump's America First agenda of lower taxes, higher wages, and one of my favorites, secure borders. Attendance is at record highs as enthusiastic, hardworking Americans are lining up and packing arenas to support President Trump and Republicans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Alex Thompson, what are you hearing?

ALEX THOMPSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, first of all, that last thing she said is just objectively not true. I mean, you can look at some of the attendance at these rallies, they are not at Trump record highs. And in terms of enthusiasm, every Republican you talk to right now is worried about Republican enthusiasm.

So, putting that aside, a lot of Trump allies, including people like Peter Thiel, have recently said that they feel that this Trump administration has suffered from valuing loyalty over competence. And this latest press secretary hire could be the latest example of that. And that, in some ways, they overcorrected from the first Trump term, in which there was a lot of infighting.

Now, in this -- in this Trump administration, there's a lot of rowing in the same direction. But they have sacrificed hiring smart people. That's what some Republicans feel about this Trump administration. And that's a -- you know, what happened today is having people basically confirm that hunch.

HUNT: Mo, you've had big spokesperson roles in the past and understand a version of what this is like. What would you say?

MO ELLEITHEE, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, DNC: Yeah, there's nothing like this job. I've been a spokesperson for a presidential campaign. That's nothing like this job.

[16:15:00]

But even when I took over as spokesman for a national presidential campaign, I didn't rush out. I took a couple weeks to study, to learn, to understand, because the press is just not forgiving. And if you don't get that, then it shows you're not -- HUNT: What do you mean we're not forgiving?

ELLEITHEE: And look, she took three questions from, as you pointed out, conservative media outlets Two of them really didn't push her on any major news of the day or anything tough. The one who did, she did get a tough question, or at least a substantive question from Fox News. And her initial response was, I don't know. I'll have to get back to you.

And that's just not a good look. I'm all for giving people grace on their first day, but this didn't have to be her first day.

And, you know, the last thing I'll say is her message, three weeks before the midterm, was inherently political. Now, every White House press secretary has to walk that line between the political --

MOWERS: Very shocked by that. Never seen that before.

ELLEITHEE: And the formal, right? No, no, right?

But boy, did it sound tone deaf. She came out there and said, I am here to tell you things are great. The president is great. You're welcome.

And I don't think many people who may have been watching this heard the same thing or see the same thing that she said.

GANGEL: Also, she might have said it that way if she was on Fox, but she was reading from this script and she couldn't even get the words out. So, it didn't even seem effective as a cheerleader.

THOMPSON: Yeah, I mean - I mean, you remember also in, like, the Biden administration, Karine Jean-Pierre was regularly skewered by Republicans for often reading from the binder, and you saw a similar dynamic today from her.

HUNT: All right. Sarah Matthews, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate having your today.

The rest of my panel, of course, is going to come stand by. Coming up next here in THE ARENA, we've got new reporting on two key Senate races, one on Democrats pulling money out of a critical campaign, the other involving fugitives. Dubai, a 2024 New Year's Eve party.

But first, a Greek odyssey apparently coming to an end. Kimberly Guilfoyle out as U.S. ambassador. We're going to talk to the man whose text messages led to her very public downfall.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: She was almost a member of your family. How surprised were you to learn about these allegations?

TRUMP: No, she wasn't a member of my family. She, I guess, dated my son a long time ago, but she wasn't. No? She -- she went to Greece. She was doing a good job, but we didn't like what we were reading. (END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:21:58]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: She was almost a member of your family. How surprised were you to learn about these allegations?

TRUMP: No, she wasn't a member of my family. She, I guess, dated my son a long time ago, but she wasn't. No? She -- she went to Greece. She was doing a good job, but we didn't like what we were reading.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: President Trump there downplaying his relationship with the U.S. ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, after the White House asked her to step down this morning. It's worth noting that Guilfoyle was engaged to the president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., for four years.

Her resignation comes amid a string of damaging headlines about her conduct, all of which she denies. Chief among them, a bombshell report from "The Wall Street Journal" detailing how she asked a Trump donor for $100,000 to pay off a credit card.

That donor, Eric Deters, joins us now in THE ARENA.

Sir, thank you very much for being here. I really appreciate your time. I wanted to start just with this resignation post. Guilfoyle says that she's going to vigorously defend herself against the allegations that we already know about. What's your response to that, and is there more?

(INAUDIBLE)

HUNT: All right, we cannot hear Eric here, so we're going to give him a second to potentially turn on his mic or unmute himself. Technical problems here.

Jamie Gangel, were you surprised by what the president said there, where he basically was like, ah, she's not a member of my family?

True, technically.

GANGEL: But to your point, she was engaged for four years to his son. I believe they lived together, were raising their children together. My question is this. When the White House came out and announced that they had asked her to resign, that's not normally the way you do it. If you're going to let someone resign to save face, you let them make the announcement.

So, I don't know if they were pressuring her to do it, that she wouldn't do it quickly enough. But in effect, when they said that, they were firing her.

THOMPSON: Yeah, publicly asking someone to resign is essentially just a step below publicly asking, demanding that they're fired. I would also say, you know, I'm not surprised that Donald Trump has said this. Donald Trump has done many of, I barely knew her sort of acts throughout his public life.

But Kimberly Guilfoyle is not some rando. She has spoken at the RNC. She has spoken at Trump rallies. Anyone that has covered Trump world has interacted with her or confronted her in some way. So, for him to be like, I have no idea, just doesn't pass a small test.

ELLEITHEE: And like, if you look at the polling, the number one issue on people's minds right now are prices. Number two is corruption, right? People are frustrated with what they see as rampant corruption coming from this administration on a near-daily basis.

[16:25:04]

So maybe the president decided he could have had any number of people to fire in order to demonstrate strength on corruption. I don't know why he picked her.

But even that, right? Maybe it was to say, hey guys, you know what? I will not stand for any corruption at all. And look, I'm even willing to fire someone who's been close to my family if there's a whiff of this.

That's not what they said, right? They said, she's been a great member of our team and we wish her well. I'm not sure that's going to satisfy the public's hunger to push back on corruption.

HUNT: Matt Mowers, I mean, you worked in the first Trump State Department. This story broke as Marco Rubio was in the same frame --

MOWERS: Yeah.

HUNT: -- as Kimberly Guilfoyle in Greece, OK? There is a 2028 campaign looming. We can set that aside, but it doesn't seem unremarkable to me that those two things happened, that that happened the way that it did.

But how do you understand why this would be such a problem for the president?

MOWERS: Sure. Well, and I had to not fire people at the State Department while I was there a few times, at least more than once, I will say. And you do sometimes give people the benefit of the doubt, let them resign. We didn't call on them publicly to do it, but they also weren't nearly as high profile and they weren't having exposes in "The Wall Trade Journal" about their exploits.

HUNT: But we weren't engaged for four years to the president's son.

MOWERS: That is also -- to my knowledge, that's all.

(LAUGHTER)

MOWERS: And so, look, it's not, you want to be careful when you're traveling abroad as the secretary of state or the president that you're not undermining America's representative to the country when you're in that country. And so, I think it was understandable that Secretary Rubio kind of brushed off the questions while he's standing in front of the Acropolis with the ambassador until further action was actually taken.

I'm sure if he was here in the U.S. and look, I don't know what he said to the president, but I have a hunch we can assume what Marco Rubio thought about this, and he expressed that to the president. There's a reason why they called her to resign and she's no longer going to be ambassador.

HUNT: Can you explain a little bit about the dynamics that would lead them to keep her in the fold the way they did because she, of course, was engaged to Donald Trump, and then she is no longer. What demanded that she get a speaking slot at the convention, that she get this ambassador post to Greece?

MOWERS: Well, a lot of the speaking slots and things like that were things she wanted to do. She was actually a pretty effective communicator on the stump. She'd be out there. I think when I ran for Congress in New Hampshire, I even campaigned with both Don Jr. and Kimberly at various events, and she was pretty good on the stump. They basically liked her.

But I think the reason the president handled it the way he did now is he believes in personal relationships. And if you've been good to him, and look, she's always been loyal to Donald Trump, I don't think anyone can dispute that, he's going to handle it very differently than if he thinks you've been undermining him.

I'm confident he's being very honest when he says he doesn't like the things he read and the things he saw, but I'm also confident he wanted to let her go gracefully and not publicly the way he could have.

HUNT: Yeah.

THOMPSON: The one thing about Donald Trump that's always been consistent is he is very resentful of any, even sometimes when it's not true, of anybody grifting or making money off of him and his name. And that's what "The Wall Street Journal" story alleged.

HUNT: Yeah. I think Eric Deters is back with us.

Eric, I think you hopefully have been listening to a little bit of our conversation here. But, you know, if we could just circle back. You have been in touch with the White House since this all unfolded. What have you been trying to convince them to do, and what's the response been, even as they've asked her for her resignation publicly?

ERIC DETERS, ACCUSES KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE OF PAY-TO-PLAY REQUEST: Well, the bottom line is that this whole happened because Kimberly Guilfoyle, even prior to the $100,000 issue, failed to help me get some attention for my 580 Dr. Durrani victims who suffered unnecessary spine surgeries and I wanted an extradition. I'm thinking I'd like to stress, which is kind of like new, is her big, I'm going to defend these false allegations, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Well, she might have survived on the Greece issues. They could have told her to cut it out, but she can on my issues. The reality of it is, is that right before her confirmation hearing, she decided to grift and that's when she promised me everything, but she claims that these are false. She claimed initially that the text messages were false. "Wall Street Journal" confirmed that wasn't true.

Then she claimed I was a known blackmailer. I don't know where that came from. And then she's saying these were for invoices from prior work. That's false.

So, I'm being forced to sue her and I am going to sue her for defamation by Friday, and then I'll get to take her deposition, issue subpoenas and have a good old time. And I have told the White House that's what I'm going to do.

HUNT: And what has the White House said back to you about that?

DETERS: They've not responded. But by the way, the White House made a very strategic error, and I think it's Susie Wiles.

Last Thursday, I sent him an e-mail, and I said, extradite Dr. Durrani.

[16:30:01]

Just let me know by Monday at five o'clock that it's happening. That's all I'm asking for, extradite him. And if not, I'm going to media.

They didn't respond. I went to the media. Right about now, maybe they wish they would have responded. If they don't respond, they're just going -- this is not going away.

I've been contacted by Raskin's committee. Garcia's committee. I'm sure I'm going to be contacted by state.

The OIG is not going to drop this just because she resigned. I'm not going to sue her just because she resigned. The Democrats aren't going to drop it just because she resigned. I mean, this isn't going away.

HUNT: When you say if they don't respond, it felt like there was a second-half to that sentence. If they don't respond to this latest e- mail from you, then what?

DETERS: If they don't respond and continue the extradition, I'm going to continue my pounding away at Kimberly Guilfoyle.

HUNT: Okay, is that a threat, sir?

DETERS: It's a promise.

HUNT: Okay, Eric Deters, thank you very much for your time today, sir. Apologies for the tech challenges at the top. Keep us posted.

DETERS: Thank you.

HUNT: All right, coming up next --

DETERS: All right, thank you.

HUNT: Of course. But coming up next here in THE ARENA, just what was Ken Paxton doing in the Middle East on New Year's Eve two years ago? And maybe more importantly, who was he with?

But first, why Democrats have growing confidence in one Georgia race and growing apprehension about another as early voting gets underway there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:35:55]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

HUNT: We have some breaking news coming in right now from the Vatican. It's a significant development on the health of the pope, Pope Leo.

CNN Vatican correspondent Christopher Lamb joins us live now from the Vatican.

Christopher, what do we know?

CHRISTOPHER LAMB, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kasie, we've just been told by the Vatican that the surgery that removed a growth on Pope Leo's lung has been tested and is found to be cancerous. The pope had an operation that lasted about 90 minutes and the Vatican saying that the tests that were done afterwards, after part of his lung was removed, showed that this is cancer.

We don't have any more details about what treatment might be needed, what's next, but there are going to be further tests to determine the next steps. Now, obviously, this is alarming news here for people in the Vatican and across the Catholic Church. Pope Leo had announced to the world that he was coming in to the Gemelli Hospital for surgery. He had said that there was a nodule on his lung that needed to be removed, that it had been detected early but was localized.

And in the statement, they do say the statement written by doctors who treated Leo but released by the Vatican. The statement says that the diagnosis of this cancer was as suspected from preoperative tests. So, this was something that the doctors were suspecting when they decided to operate on the pope.

But nevertheless, this is alarming and shocking. The pope is 71 years old. He generally seemed to be in good health, keeps up an active lifestyle. The announcement that he made to the crowd in St. Peter's that he was having this operation caused a lot of shock and alarm in the Vatican. And now, this news obviously increasing that sense of uncertainty and anxiety. The pope does have a packed schedule. He is due to undertake a very

demanding trip to Latin America in early November, including to Peru, a country he knows so well as having spent so many years there as a missionary and a bishop. He had said on that Sunday audience, that Sunday Angeles, when he announced the news that he planned to still take on that trip, but obviously a lot of questions about it. He's just had this lung surgery. He's His agenda in Peru would take him into high altitude.

So, a lot of uncertainty here now following this news from the Vatican about the results of the pope's surgery.

HUNT: Well, Christopher, this, of course, was quite a lengthy surgery, seven hours, according to the statement from the Vatican.

Can you talk a little bit about the hospital where he's treated? They've apparently treated other popes there in the past. And I mean, as you point out, 71, I mean, we've seen pontiffs serve for into later years than that. And as you point out, he had seemed to be in good health. And of course, for those of us here on this side of the Atlantic, he was hailed as the first American pope, really a surprise when of course he was elected.

LAMB: Yes, that's right. I mean, he was elected at the relatively young age for a pope of 69. He's now 71. We'd had in the run up to that conclave that elected him Pope Francis in the hospital, the Gemelli, for a number of weeks. He was in there, in the hospital with lung problems too. He had pneumonia and he of course as a young man, Pope Francis had had part of his lung removed.

So, it had those health problems for Pope Francis, and there was a feeling that Pope Leo, the first American Pope, was seen to be in very good shape.

I should say, though, that the surgery or the Pope was in the operating room for approximately three hours, and the surgery lasted around 90 minutes. I also did speak to a lung expert earlier in the week who did believe or suspected that it could be cancer but he did say that the outcomes for this kind of surgery I mean this kind of removal of a nodule that is cancerous the outcomes are pretty good.

So, I think there is also reason to be hopeful despite this obviously very concerning news and I think, you know, we're expecting the pope to spend the next week in hospital, and he has canceled all audiences until the 20th of October. He will, though, I'm sure, try to do things from his hospital bed in terms of making announcements or making some decisions. That's what Pope Francis did. to show that he is still running the church.

But until, for the next few days at least, the pope is expected to be in hospital recovering from this surgery and obviously seeing what happens next. There are further tests that are going to be done that will determine some of the next steps.

HUNT: All right. Christopher, stand by for me.

I want to bring in Dr. Jonathan Reiner. He's a CNN medical analyst and professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University.

Dr. Reiner, thank you so much for being with us.

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Sure.

HUNT: Can you help us understand what -- we heard Christopher talking a little bit about what the Vatican has let us know about the kind of cancer that the pope has. Can you explain what the prognosis may be based on what limited information that we do have?

REINER: Sure. We've been told that the pope was found to have adenocarcinoma of the lung, which is the most common form of lung cancer diagnosed, followed by squamous cell cancer. But most of the lung cancers that are diagnosed are adenocarcinoma, which is found sort of equally in smokers as well as non-smokers. And the pope underwent what they described as a video-assisted thoroscopic surgical -- we abbreviate that as VATS -- a VATS lobectome, meaning they took one of the lobes of his lungs.

And what we don't know in detail is how early this cancer has been diagnosed. The pope's statement this weekend, when he announced that he was going to undergo surgery for a lung lesion, he stated in that it was found early. And if that is indeed the case, then that is very good news.

Lung cancer caught very early can be completely cured. Even more extensive lung cancer now can be very effectively treated with a variety of modalities such as radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and now increasingly immunotherapy. So, lung cancer today does not have nearly the kind of dire prognosis that it had even as recently as 10 years ago.

So if this indeed was an early cancer and the lobe was removed and lymph nodes turn out to be negative and advanced scanning such as PET CT imaging don't suggest any evidence of distance spread, then, you know, the pope may very well be cured by this.

He's a relatively young man. He's only 71 years of age, and he's healthy. He plays tennis. We don't really know of any other major medical issue that he faces, so he should recover relatively quickly from the surgery. He'll probably be in the hospital for three or four days until the chest tube -- the tube that drains residual air out from the chest cavity can be removed.

And then he'll recover back at the Vatican. And usually, it takes really a few weeks after surgery like this for people to feel back to themselves.

[16:45:04]

But again, he is apparently very healthy, and he should recover at a fairly rapid pace.

HUNT: Dr. Reiner, can you give us a sense of depending on -- it sounds like essentially what you're saying is if they caught it early and it hasn't spread, that's one situation that would likely mean a potentially good outcome for him. If, in fact, it spread, it might look different. For Catholics around the world, some of whom in Latin America are looking forward to potentially a visit from him in the fall, what are the differences in the courses of treatment and what the pope may or may not be able to undertake in the coming months based on what we learn?

REINER: Well, I think, again, it depends on whether the pope would have to undergo rigorous treatment, such as chemotherapy. Whether -- first of all, whether he requires any further treatment at all. And I hope that he does not, because that would mean that his lung cancer was caught before there was any evidence of spread.

Many patients will undergo treatment such as radiation therapy. Patients at higher risk may undergo a course of chemotherapy, and that would be obviously more debilitating, which would perhaps, you know, preclude travel for an indefinite amount of time depending on the extent and duration of treatment that's planned.

And then there's also immunotherapy, which is often a very well- tolerated modality, and which has really revolutionized outcomes in patients with lung cancer. So again, it depends on spread. It depends on how early this was caught. What we don't know is why the pope was tested. Was he having symptoms? Was this just part of an annual screening?

And that has meaning, because if he was having symptoms, that suggests perhaps not such an early presentation. But again, if this was an early detection of the cancer, then he should do quite well.

HUNT: All right. Dr. Jonathan Reiner, thank you very much for that. Christopher Lamb, for us in Rome, thank you as well.

All right. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:51:39]

HUNT: All right. We're back now with that breaking news from the Vatican. Pope Leo, the first American-born pontiff, has been diagnosed with lung cancer.

The Vatican says that the pope had a, quote, "successful" surgery today to remove a part of his lung that was found to have a cancerous growth. He is now recovering, and he has canceled all public events until October 20th.

Our CNN religion contributor, Father Edward Beck, hopefully will be joining us shortly.

But while we're waiting for him, Jamie Gangel, this, of course, this American pope, a baseball fan, right, when he was unexpectedly elected, the reaction here in the U.S. and around the world was really quite something to see. What is this going to mean for Catholics worldwide?

GANGEL: Look, I think, first of all, everyone is hoping it was caught early, that there is a speedy recovery.

But to your point, Kasie, this is a very popular pope. He was popular immediately. I always joke if I wasn't Jewish, I would become Roman Catholic because of Pope Leo, or as I call him Father Bob.

I mean, he has a wonderful personal demeanor and touch in how he reaches people of all faiths. So, I think this is -- you know, let's hope for the best, but I think a lot of people are going to be praying.

HUNT: There will be a lot of prayers for sure.

Father Beck, I think you're with us now. I'm sure your prayers are going to be among them. What's your reaction?

All right, it sounds like we may be having a little bit more trouble with Father Beck. Father Beck, what is your reaction to --

FATHER EDWARD BECK, CNN RELIGION CONTRIBUTOR: Yes.

HUNT: -- what we're learning from the Vatican today?

BECK: Well, I was kind of surprised in the sense that we thought it was going to be routine and it's not routine, no cancer is routine. However, it is a kind of lung cancer that is treatable as we've heard, it's not small cell lung cancer, which is the most deadly.

I found it interesting that Pope Francis, when he was a younger man, had part of his upper lobe of his right lung removed. And now this pope had the lower lobe of his right lung removed. And Pope Francis lived all of those years with just that part of one lung.

So, we're hopeful that that'll in fact be the case here. And of course, our prayers are going out to Pope Leo for successful continuation of the treatment.

HUNT: Father, he announced this to the crowd on Sunday. Were you surprised he did that?

BECK: Yes, I was a little bit, I think, but in the sense that I don't know -- this pope is very different in the way he's come into this. He came in very shy, and I think he's really grown on people. And, you know, the reaction of people just showing up for him, I thought, was pretty amazing at the hospital.

And so, I think that people are surprised by the popularity of this pope because they didn't think he was going to be as popular as he is. So, let's hope we have long time to enjoy that popularity with him.

HUNT: Yeah, indeed, of course.

[16:55:01]

Our prayers and thoughts are with him.

And Father Edward Beck, I really appreciate you jumping in for us here at the last minute. Thank you very much for your time today.

All right, don't go anywhere. "THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER" is going to start right after a quick break.