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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
Now: Stocks Tumble On Trump's Tariffs & Weak Jobs Growth; Just In: Trump Fires Senior Official Over Jobs Numbers; Just In: Member Of Federal Reserve Board Resigning; Ghislaine Maxwell Moved To Federal Prison Camp In Texas. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired August 01, 2025 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:00]
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. Welcome to THE ARENA. It's great to have you with us on this Friday.
We're going to go straight to Wall Street. We are waiting on the closing bell. It marks another ugly day for stocks.
The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq all in the red today. The S&P and the Nasdaq on track to have their worst days since April. The Dow, looking to end its worst week in months. Two big reasons for the drops, the data and the deals.
First, the breaking news on that data. A senior White House official telling CNN within the past few minutes that a top official at the Labor Department has been fired at the president's direction. And there you hear it, the closing bell there on the Dow after numbers out today showed a big slowdown in the job market, one of the biggest since the pandemic.
The July jobs report says the economy added just 73,000 jobs last month. And that is way off of what had been predicted. But perhaps more important is the revision of reports from the two previous months. June and May, saying the government overestimated growth by some 258,000 jobs.
And now, about eight hours after all that not so great economic news, the commissioner of Bureau and Labor -- of the Bureau of Labor Statistics is abruptly out of a job, accused by the president without evidence of fudging the numbers for what he says is, quote, political purposes. Where might that idea have come from, you ask.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE BANNON, HOST, "BANNON'S WARROOM": What the hell is going on there? And have we put in our own person into BLS? Is there a MAGA Republican that President Trump knows and trusts? Are they running the Bureau of Labor Statistics yet, sir?
E.J. ANTONI, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: No. Unfortunately, Steve, we still haven't gotten there. (END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: That, of course, Steve Bannon from earlier today with the chief economist for the conservative Heritage Foundation.
And of course, we haven't even gotten yet to the tariffs, the rollout of a new trade policy impacting virtually every country is also factoring into the economic chaos, with Republicans pleading for patience from voters.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): Everybody in Washington now seems to be an economist and some of them just don't know what they're talking about. Take -- taking their advice is like -- it's like taking the advice of a nun about sex.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Okay, well, let's an evocative analogy from Senator John Kennedy.
Our panel is going to be here, but we're going to get started with CNN chief domestic correspondent Phil Mattingly.
Phil, wonderful to have you with us today. And you are definitely earning your paycheck because we've got the closing bell. Stocks taking a tumbling. The president fires a top labor department official. The newest round of tariffs.
And just before we came on the air, we're learning that a member of the Federal Reserve board is resigning.
How does this all interact? And especially what do you make of this breaking news?
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, what's the -- always sunny in Philadelphia with the string chart where he's trying to connect all the different things? You feel a little bit like that? Not quite. The slow summer Friday that I think we all were hoping for on some level.
All right. Let's start with the firing of the labor official and tariffs and the jobs report because those three things actually do connect. Jobs report, as you noted, Kasie was disappointing on the top line for the numbers that came out representing July. But obviously, it was those downward revisions you were talking that even White House officials, which very rarely acknowledge kind of any potential downside of anything.
We're saying, look, this isn't ideal, $250,000 or 250,000 jobs makes the last couple of months look very weak on net and presents a very different picture of where of the U.S. employment situation than I think anybody assumed going into the day, the U.S. economy's resiliency I think is still pretty set and has been very clear over the course of the last several months, despite the president's expansive tariff regime, which has now gone into place.
And the jobs market was a really critical element of that, just month after month after month, churning out kind of estimate beating numbers, those estimate beating numbers now look like they were pretty far off base.
So that's problematic. It's particularly problematic because the president's tariff regime, those April 2nd liberation day tariffs, 120 days later, turns out he wasn't actually TACO-ing about anything. They pretty much went into place with some a couple points down here and there, depending on the country.
That's by design. The president and his team have been very clear. They thought their policy was the right policy. They thought their policy was working. They thought they had leverage as they implemented that policy. That's now in place.
Now let's get to the Labor Department official. Look, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is not something that most Americans are paying super close attention to. The BLS commissioner is certainly not a household name, probably not even here in Washington. And yet it is an appointed position that serves for a four-year term.
The official has been fired. It is almost certainly within the president's authority to do so. There may be some battles on that front, but I don't think there's any question about that, especially given how he's operated over the course of the last couple of months.
The reality is this there's just as you noted, there's no evidence of politics here. The president, over the course of the preceding three or four months without fail, was touting these great jobs numbers under the same BLS commissioner.
[16:05:00]
The Biden administration spent the first two plus years in office with a Trump appointed commissioner.
And so, the concern here is -- and I think, Kasie, you know, well, I'm not -- I'm not super reactive to these types of things. You and I both have too many kids to have the time to do that. I think the concern here is U.S. economic data is considered the gold standard worldwide, and calling that into question right now, there's just no net benefit for it over time. And obviously the presidents done in the past.
But this is the first tangible action he's taken related to it and just doesn't seem very smart.
HUNT: Well, and, Phil, just to underscore your point here, Donald Trump just posted on his Truth Social platform. This quote, "In my opinion, today's jobs numbers were rigged in order to make the Republicans and capital me look bad, just like when they had three great days around the 2024 presidential election," then now were into, you know, him talking about votes.
So he's continuing down this path. And I think you did a really nice job of explaining why that could matter to all of us.
Phil, let's also touch on what's going on at the Federal Reserve, because this resignation, it sounds like I mean, bring us up to speed on what happened and what that means for the president.
MATTINGLY: Honestly, what I've been thinking about is maybe if Adriana Kugler had put this out a couple of hours earlier, the BLS commissioner may still be in place because this is something that the president would likely be very happy to see, and I'm almost certain he is. Her term was slated to end in January, so she's long been kind of factored in as one of the officials that the president would have an opportunity to replace with one of his own appointees.
She's a Biden appointee from 2023. She took over an existing term, which is why it's ending in January. According to the statement, she's going back to Georgetown to teach in the fall. That was her decision. She's a labor economist by trade.
She has been somebody who has been on the record that she does not see the necessity of cuts in the near term, which means, obviously, she's in the group of Fed officials, Fed governors that is on the opposite side of where the president very hyperbolically is on this situation. I think what's interesting here is not only the president knew he was going to get a couple of Fed picks and obviously a Fed chair pick next year, which she's been talking about. His team has already started the process. They're pretty far down the process. We'll see how that actually ends up.
But now he can move immediately and add that we saw two dissents from two Trump appointees in the last meeting. This is a legitimate economic debate. I don't want to dismiss this as some kind of Trump thing just based on his Truth Social. This is a very legitimate economic debate, which I think was underscored on some level by the jobs report today.
The jobs report is actually good if you want a rate cut like the president does, but now he's going to get a pick and a confirmation process, and soon somebody on the board to join his other two appointees that have already dissented. Likely, we assume, will share his views on this matter.
HUNT: All right. Phil Mattingly, thanks very much. Again, earning your paycheck. Really appreciate it. Have a great weekend.
MATTINGLY: You bet.
HUNT: All right. Our panel is here in THE ARENA. CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams and CNN political commentator Jonah Goldberg. We're also joined by CNN political commentator, former Biden White House communications director Kate Bedingfield, and CNN political commentator, Republican strategist Shermichael Singleton is here.
And we are also joined again by "Shark Tank" host, chairman of O'Leary Ventures, Kevin O'Leary.
Some of you may know him as Mr. Wonderful. And so, Kevin, you are back today. Yesterday you were here arguing
that this mattered to you as an investor and that the policy had been good for you as an investor. We started the show showing that, you know what? If you're an investor, the policy actually today did not seem to serve you very well. And there are some questions here about these jobs report and the policy that the president is undertaking here.
What say you today?
KEVIN O'LEARY, CHAIRMAN, O'LEARY VENTURES: I don't look at one day's trading and decide I'm going to change my strategy. I mean, I want markets to correct. I want them to go up and down. We're used to volatility.
We had a bad print on jobs. I did not agree on whacking the commissioner. I don't like that. Whacking statisticians makes no sense whatsoever.
You don't shoot the messenger. They used to do that in ancient Rome. Bad news. They killed a guy off the horse. You don't need to do that now. It doesn't matter. This is a job where you just print data. So I didn't like that story.
I think the market is a little concerned about major trading partners not getting deals yet. That make sense. It's not a good idea to have 35 percent tariffs on Canada. We know that that's coming into place at midnight right now unless something magic happens.
So there's a lot of all around what's going to happen on trade. Because you heard Ford automotive company whining about $2 billion worth of profits evaporating because of tariffs. You heard that from GM last week. We talked about that yesterday.
So, with this volatility, it's more about future earnings. But a lot of this stuff including the trade print or the job print -- noise, just noise. You don't make decisions based on one print.
HUNT: All right. Fair enough.
[16:10:00]
Jonah Goldberg, Kevin was talking about the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics says he doesn't agree with it. Obviously, was someone on the Heritage Foundation talking to Steve Bannon about this?
I mean, what does it say that the president is to use? Mr. O'Learys words, whacking statisticians?
JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah. Look, this is how you get Soviet wheat harvest projections. This is like smashing the instrumentation in your cockpit because you don't like the readings of the altimeter.
I -- look, Trump's claim, with no evidence whatsoever, is that she was politically motivated. If that's so, was she politically motivated to exaggerate the jobs numbers for the last few months? I mean, what -- what explains that?
This is the same woman who Trump said was the BLS was politically motivated when Biden had a good jobs number in the summer before the election. But the last jobs number before Kamala Harris -- before the election was a disaster for Harris because it was only 12,000 jobs.
The head of the BLS, it's not -- that it's an unimportant position, but when it's operating correctly, as Kevin alluded to, is basically a figurehead who's herding hundreds of data nerds to print out data. And this sends the signal that Trump is going to fire anybody who presents bad news. And that's bad for investors. It's bad for everybody.
KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's also watching -- and watching Trump churn on this as somebody who sat in the White House communications director seat and every month worked through how we message the BLS data, the jobs numbers, the subsequent inevitable revisions, the process. You know, I see him, I see him trying to spend so much time on managing this narrative in and out of Washington.
And the reality is that people absorb the economy, not through how Donald Trump is able to message to Washington, but how they're living it and feeling it. I mean, we certainly dealt with that in the Biden administration. I certainly did. So, you know, he can take all of these steps to try to suggest that, you know, the process is political and he's being undermined.
But if people in their communities are feeling like they can't get a job, they can't move to a higher paying job, that's how they're absorbing the economy, not through Trump's attempts to message here in Washington.
HUNT: So it's interesting you raise that. Obviously, members of Congress are not here in Washington right now. They are back at home. And one Republican congressman was actually confronted by a constituent who was angry about the state of the economy.
Let's watch a little bit of this exchange.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My main concern is the tariffs that are coming up. I would like to know what dire economic circumstances put Trump in a position of throwing tariffs on over 190 countries.
REP. BRYAN STEIL (R-WI): This really, at its core, needs to be an opportunity to make sure that other countries are treating the United States fairly. The United States --
(BOOS)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Interesting that he did not get a great reception there.
BEDINGFIELD: No. I think people understand that what Trump has done is create chaos in order to come in and say, look, I have relieved the chaos. And I think that people fundamentally understand that that is not a productive way to go about this. And I think they see real impact on their industries, their businesses, their small businesses, and they're frustrated by it.
HUNT: Yeah. Go ahead.
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Revisions are inevitable. I mean, March of last year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics revised numbers from 800,000 down. They misestimated it.
This occurs, Jonah pointed out to 12,000 that occurred when Vice President Harris was trying to become president. These things are going to rise and fall. The markets going to rise and fall.
I try to look at other indicators to showcase strength in the economy. I would acknowledge that it's a bit of a mixed bag, but let's take Visa, for example. You look at their reporting a couple of days ago, very strong numbers. And I point out Visa because it gives a good indication in terms of how people are spending. They're spending increase or spending decline.
For the most part, it's increased in certain sectors and it's pretty persistent for the most part.
You look at Starbucks, their numbers are really bad in the first two quarters of this year, they had very high earnings recently, indicating that people are buying coffee again. You look at it and say, oh, this doesn't matter, but it does indeed give an indicator in terms of how middle class families are handling the economic fallout.
So, it's a mixed bag. It's not terribly bad. But if I could give some advice to the president, I would say we probably need to quickly move along with trade deals with Mexico and Canada. And I would try to move quickly with a deal with China. I think that would lead the Fed to lowering rates in September.
HUNT: Well, Kevin O'Leary, I have to say you were a lot more bullish on the tariff situation when you were here yesterday than it sounds like you're being today. I mean, what do you make of the president and what he has done in the last 24 hours especially? I mean, you're sitting in Canada right now. We know our Canadian friends are really not feeling very friendly toward the United States of America right now.
O'LEARY: Well, obviously, we got politics going into the narrative between Canada and the U.S. I'm not agreeing with that move. Recognizing the state of Palestine before the trade deal may not have been the best move. If you understand how Trump works, but I'll let Carney do what he's going to do.
[16:15:05]
I'm more concerned about your previous statement. Do I feel less or more bullish about tariffs? Here's the way I look at it. It's very simple, very black and white, 10 to 15 percent tariffs equate to the same value added taxes that most countries put on American goods all around the world.
So, if we whack them back at 10 to 15 percent, which is what the E.U. deal was, no problem. Anything more than that, big problem, 35 percent. Big problem, 40 percent. Big problem, 50 percent. Big problem.
Those don't work. But I'm a rational guy. Assuming that Trump is using access to the world's largest consumer market as a hedge squeezing device to say, look, unless we work out a deal that I like, I'm going to squeeze your head at 50 percent. And that's not sustainable for anybody. It's not even good for the U.S.
So, it's just a negotiating tactic. And I've always said this, you got to forget about watching sausage being made with Trump, because he likes to do it right in front of the camera. He's grinding the meat and it's coming out of the meat grinder, and he likes to show it to you until its put into the sausage.
I don't necessarily need to see that. I just want to know what the policy is, as I said yesterday.
So, if we end up next week with a Canadian deal at 10 to 15 percent, good deal. It's going to be fine for both countries. And that's why I say, let's wait.
I mean, I don't know. Youve been watching like crazy. Who's going to negotiate 190 deals in six months? It's impossible. We just want the headline number and that's what we're waiting for.
HUNT: All right. Kevin O'Leary, thank you very much for joining us, sir. I appreciate your time today.
All right. Our panel is going to stand by. We promise we'll get Elliot Williams in on the next block.
Coming up next, what were learning about the minimum security prison that Jeffrey Epstein's former accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, is being moved to. And why victims are calling this move a, quote, cover up.
Plus, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is shutting down. What this means for PBS and NPR.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:21:33]
HUNT: All right. Welcome back.
So, Ghislaine Maxwell, she's currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for helping Jeffrey Epstein groom and sexually abuse underage girls, minor children has just been moved to a minimum security prison camp in Texas. She was serving time at a Florida prison that houses gang members and other violent offenders.
CNN crime and justice correspondent Katelyn Polantz joins our panel. So, Katelyn, this comes a week after Maxwell met privately with
Trump's deputy attorney general. Also, of course, Trump's former personal attorney, Todd Blanche. Is this normal? What do we know about why they're doing this?
KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: On that, it's not normal for the DAG at the Justice Department to meet directly with someone like Ghislaine Maxwell in the prison system, in any circumstance. Set that aside, though. What they're doing now, I did speak to a prison consultant not a long time ago, just this afternoon, Kasie, and that prison consultant told me it is a little unusual for this to be happening for Ghislaine Maxwell, but the Justice Department, the Bureau of Prisons, they have control here.
There are two questions that are being raised, though, right now, it is a question of leniency. Is there some sort of leniency being given by the Justice Department toward Ghislaine Maxwell, perhaps in light of her willingness to speak? Or is this a question of security?
People do get moved around in the Bureau of Prisons facility, and you look at going from a low security prison in Florida to one that is a minimum security prison in Texas. That's where she is now. You would think that may mean that it changes the security for her in a way that makes it less secure, because that's on the outside thinking of the security, but actually, she's now going to be with people who are nonviolent offenders, white collar people, white collar criminals, people like Elizabeth Holmes from the blood testing company Theranos, Jen Shaw from the TV show "Real Housewives of Salt Lake City".
Those are the types of people white collar defendants in the federal prison camp in Texas. They have a lot of freedom to move inside that camp, whereas the low security prison in Florida, those people there could be gang affiliates. Some of them will have been convicted of violent crimes. It's a different situation.
The leniency piece of this, that question that remains, it has been picked up by both the survivors in the Epstein, the accusers, the victims in the Epstein and Maxwell criminal cases, as well as the family of accuser, the late accuser, Virginia Giuffre. She says the family says in a statement, this is the justice system falling victims to right before our eyes.
The American public should be enraged by the preferential treatment being given to a pedophile and a criminally charged child sex offender, the Trump administration should not credit a word Maxwell says, as the government itself sought charges against Maxwell for being a serial liar.
Kasie, we don't have a full answer on what precipitated this move of Ghislaine Maxwell inside the federal prison system, but she has a lot of time left on her 20-year sentence.
HUNT: What a country. A "Real Housewives" star, Elizabeth, Theranos fraudster, and now Ghislaine Maxwell all at the same prison.
Elliot Williams, I think my question here is for average people who are watching this happen.
[16:25:05]
I mean, how do you look at this and not think like something smells?
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yeah, the "for average people" was the perfect way to start the sentence, Kasie. And here's why.
Any time a benefit is provided to someone who has been convicted of a crime, even if there's a total basis for it, it just smells bad to the public. And quite frankly, it smells bad to juries. That's in the form of lower sentences, lightened sentencing, moving prisons and so on. And sometimes there's really a basis for it. She might have had a threat on her life or something like that, causing them to move her into a different scenario.
But the problem is the administration, particularly the Justice Department, has created this problem by sort of suggesting that there's sort of more there, there. And I think people are right to ask questions when, as Katelyn had said, the deputy attorney general meets with somebody and then days later, they're moved to a far less restrictive facility.
HUNT: Can I ask you -- I mean, is her life going to be materially better in this environment than it was in the last one?
WILLIAMS: Yes, but I want to make clear that prison is terrible, no matter where it is, even in a minimum security prison.
HUNT: Sure.
WILLIAMS: However, sure, shell be in dormitory style housing as opposed to a cubicle, she will be in a facility that doesn't have double barbed wire fencing and electronic monitoring and prison towers. She will be able to work in a way that she would not be able to. So, it's what we think of when we think of a more relaxed environment. But she's still in prison for a very long time.
But oh, yeah, it's -- and she's also not surrounded by people who might shiv her at any moment in a way that she is here with the kinds of folks she's surrounded by.
HUNT: So, Jonah Goldberg, let me get this straight. The MAGA crowd is angry, as all can be at the Trump administration for not putting out the files on this guy who has Jeffrey Epstein, right, who has become absolutely as he should be a villain to all of them. And Trump has, you know, embraced using that to help himself get elected.
He is now overseeing a Justice Department that has made Epstein's main accomplices life better than it was before he was president. Is that like in what world?
GOLDBERG: Yeah. So, as Elliot says, it does make one want to raise questions. And there is no doubt. I mean, I have not checked the usual gargoyles and fever swamps, but I have no doubt that the conspiracy theories are running amok about what this means, what this could mean. But honestly, I just don't know. I mean, it seems just as likely to
me. You know, we already know that Trump wants to have a UFC fight at the White House. Maybe she's moving her in there for a reality show with those other people. I mean, I'd watch that.
HUNT: I mean, you could cross, you know, an actual TV show in "Orange is the New Black" with the "Real Housewives". I guess. Like, again.
BEDINGFIELD: I mean, it all -- it does seem particularly inexplicable when the specific problem that he has with his base around this is a lack of transparency, and they're clamoring for him to be more direct, more open --
GOLDBERG: And making the story go away at all.
BEDINGFIELD: Well, that too, that --
GOLDBERG: This just that stirs it all up.
BEDINGFIED: That, too. But yes, to do something like this, that feels opaque, that also it doesn't take -- it doesn't take a law degree to determine that what he may be doing here is trying to get to an outcome in which she provides information that exonerates him. I mean, it also just really sort of fundamentally undermines if you were even willing to accept there's a world in which her information would not be biased or tainted anyway, it just, it almost -- it just -- it passes understanding.
WILLIAMS: Let me be clear. The only thing that is going to end this is the attorney general looking into a camera and saying, here is the list or no such list exists, and we cannot provide it to you.
BEDINGFIELD: I think no such list exists.
WILLIAMS: Well, fine.
BEDINGFIELD: But they sort of --
HUNT: They've tried that.
(CROSSTALK)
BEDINGFIELD: -- to say that -- they sort of tried that.
WILLIAMS: There is no solution to this. That does not involve the constant fever swamp conspiracy theories that Jonah was talking about without nipping it in the bud. And they haven't done that, and they don't seem to have any appetite to.
HUNT: Well, and Katelyn Polantz. So we have established that Ghislaine Maxwells day to day existence, while, yes, well still be in prison, which is by definition unpleasant, will be less unpleasant theoretically because of her circumstances in this different facility, you have some reporting and information on how severely the Justice Department wanted Maxwell to be treated back at the time that she was sentenced. How does that fit here?
POLANTZ: Well, it was three years ago and I just went back and looked at the sentencing submissions. In that case, after she was convicted at trial, both she made arguments to the judge for leniency in the system, and she made a lot of complaints at that time about how she was being treated in detention.
The Justice Department, though, at that time they were saying, Ghislaine Maxwell is the perpetrator of horrific crimes. They may be nonviolent as classified in the court system, but she should not be treated with leniency at her sentencing. She -- they even said -- they argued at that time that she was repeatedly lying about not just what happened in her situation, what she was accused of with these victims, but also, she was lying about what happened to her in the detention system.
[16:30:09]
They didn't find that she was being treated unfairly in any way. And so, the judge did designate her at that time to a low security prison, just like she had been in in Florida.
HUNT: All right. Katelyn Polantz, thank you very much for that reporting. Really appreciate it. Our panel is going to stand by.
But up next, Senator Amy Klobuchar will be here, live in THE ARENA. We're going to discuss the Republican push to redraw congressional maps. That tactic, some Democrats say, is going to disadvantage them.
And what former Vice President Kamala Harris says about her future.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN COLBERT, TV HOST: I'm hearing you don't want to be part of the fight anymore.
KAMALA HARRIS, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: No. Absolutely not. I'm always going to be part of the fight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:35:09]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): What is a bad leader do when they get bad news? Shoot the messenger. That's just what happened with the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He ought to start governing like a leader, not like someone who imitates authoritarian leaders.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Democrats on Capitol Hill right now, slamming President Trump over his firing of the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics today, after the agency issued a weaker than expected jobs report.
Joining us now to discuss Democratic Senator of Minnesota Amy Klobuchar, who sits on the Senate Commerce and Judiciary Committee.
Senator, very grateful to have you on the show today.
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): It's great to be on again, Kasie, on what we call liberation day, which involved no tariff agreements being signed on August 1st. But it is wonderful to be on with this crazy story about the firing as Senator Schumer pointed out of the messenger -- shooting the messenger just over the fact that you've got a weak economy and Americans are not going to buy this.
HUNT: Senator, I mean, can you put in context kind of what this means, because we saw the president, of course, in April when they had issued what he clearly thought was a good jobs report, praise for the data and the information here. Obviously, today, he had a different reaction. What, in your view, does that mean?
KLOBUCHAR: Well, I mean, this is typical, right? He doesn't like the election results. So, he tries to mess around with those. He's always trying to have an alternative universe.
And the problem with this where he's firing someone who is well respected in the statistician world, I checked it out, as someone who got overwhelming support for her job by Democrats and Republicans, including, as Senator Schumer pointed out, J.D. Vance voted for her just as recently as 2024. And so, he doesn't like these numbers and he just throws them out.
So let me tell you what isn't going to lie. People's grocery receipts, they're not going to lie. People know what the costs are going right now, and they know how they're going to get worse with these tariffs.
Rent, that's not going to lie. How much people are paying for childcare. He's not going to be able to change that by firing people. And so, you can't fire yourself out of this economy.
You have to show sound leadership and make smart decisions. And he has not been doing that. And instead, we are seeing a major erosion of investment. And it's getting really scary for people, especially with the tariff tax of over $2,000 per family.
HUNT: So, speaking of tariffs, there have been some who have pointed to the most recent GDP report as evidence that the tariffs regime that the president is putting into place is not as bad as many people feared, especially people on Wall Street. What would you say to them?
KLOBUCHAR: I think it's a matter of timing. People have continued to hope that agreements would be worked out, that would actually be sane, and that would actually keep our economy on track to what it was predicted to do. Now no longer earlier in the year.
So instead, what we see yesterday on the liberation day, I mean, I stayed up until midnight with my hat ready for, you know, big excitement. He jacked up the tariffs on Canada, one of our biggest -- Minnesota's biggest trading partners, to 35 percent.
Or Brazil, with which we have a trade surplus, Kasie. He gave them a 50 percent tariff. Continued that in place just because he doesn't like the politics there. This is a trade surplus. We send more over there. We are able to get more money out of there than they are getting. And it's just an unbelievable thing that he's up to.
So, I think what you'll see, and most economists are agreeing with me on this in the long term, you see a pullback of investments. We're already to see -- we're already seeing an uptick in inflation from two recent reports, one a few weeks back, one yesterday.
And then today, of course, we see sadly the numbers much lower than we predicted on jobs added a lower -- a increase in the unemployment rate.
And then, of course, what is his answer to all of this? Instead of giving us some sane trade policy, negotiating Canada and Mexico within the framework of the USMCA trade agreement, he decides, well, I know how to fix it. I'm going to fire the respected statistician who puts out the numbers. That will fool Americans.
Well, the problem is, it won't.
HUNT: Senator, given all you've laid out here, and we of course know that voters are extraordinarily sensitive to the economy and very much vote on it, whether it's good or bad. Economy usually dictates whether or not, it's a change election.
[16:40:00]
And yet, voters out there, while they have started to say that they're unhappy with Donald Trump in many ways, some of his numbers have dipped on issues that he's otherwise strong on, like the economy and immigration. They're still not happy with Democrats, and that's different from 2018, which was, you know, the first half of his first term.
What's different now? Why aren't Democrats feeling the love from voters?
KLOBUCHAR: Well, first of all, I can understand how they're feeling. They're just feeling that there's more chaos, more corruption, and there's costs are going up. And they know when Republicans control both houses and he's president, this is a rubber stamp situation. And what they are going to see and what you see us putting out there now are our own ideas on housing, on childcare, how we bring costs down.
And our standard bearers for this will be our candidates. And we're -- we are recruiting incredible people to run. Look at Cooper, the former governor of North Carolina, who just got in this past week. He's going to be an incredible candidate after Thom Tillis blatantly said that he wasn't going to run because of what was going on with Donald Trump undermining who he was as a leader.
Then you look at the matchups we've actually had, and I think facts matter than anything. Wisconsin Supreme Court race, the Democratic endorsed Supreme Court candidate who favored reproductive freedom. That candidate won by over ten points in the state of Wisconsin or the state legislative races that we've seen in Pennsylvania and in Iowa, or what we've seen in terms of the numbers you're getting out of the Virginia governor's race and New Jersey, governor's race with two incredible moderate Democrats running in those states with Sherrill and Spanberger.
So, I'm just -- I'm telling you right now, when you look at the actual numbers, I don't expect everyone to be loving politicians right now. This is a really hard time to be in America. But what I do think you will see as our candidates start being identified in each state and people start working for them, and excitement grows, you're going to see those numbers go way up for Democrats.
HUNT: So, before I let you go, speaking of candidates, Kamala Harris announced she's not going to run for governor of California. Sparks a lot of speculation. Do you want to see her run for president in '28?
KLOBUCHAR: I think Kamala has been an incredible leader, and I think what you've seen her do just the last week, she said, you know, this isn't what I'm going to do right now. I don't think she indicated at all that, that she was going to be running for president. I think what she indicated is she's going to be helping people around the country focused on the midterms and the like, and I think we're going to have a vigorous primary for president.
So, I wouldn't read that much into that. That's what I haven't talked to her about. I read what she said, and I thought she handled it very well. And I think, you know, I think we're going to have quite a number of candidates running for president. But every one of them better be focused on the midterms right now.
HUNT: You're making me want to ask if you're going to be one of them, you're answering this question.
KLOBUCHAR: I am focused on -- oh, come on, how much fun could you have than working here right now? We're going to be working into the night. You know, I know the House is back on their Epstein recess, but we are working into the night on nominations, appropriations bill on a bipartisan basis, and trying to get some stuff done in a crazy environment.
HUNT: All right. Senator Amy Klobuchar, appreciate you being a good sport.
KLOBUCHAR: Thank you.
HUNT: Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it.
KLOBUCHAR: Sure.
HUNT: All right. Coming up next, Bill Nye the one and only science guy is going to join us live in THE ARENA. He's going to talk about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting shutting down and how it might impact kids. I don't know about you, but I used to watch his show and hear about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting every week.
Plus, concerns about history being rewritten after a reference to President Trump's two impeachments was removed from the Smithsonian.
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[16:48:26]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: This program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: And also viewers like you.
If you are one of the millions of Americans who grew up watching beloved shows carried on your local PBS station, Mister Rogers, Berenstain Bears. I missed it, but "3-2-1 Contact" my colleagues here tell me, is another one.
You're not going to hear that little message anymore. The CBP announcing today that it's shutting its doors after Congress eliminated its federal funding and clawed back $1.1 billion in funds that had already been approved.
Joining us now is Bill Nye the Science Guy. His show ran on PBS for five years, but it has, of course, been replayed, rewatched by millions all over the world.
I'm so grateful to have you on the show to talk about this, because the first thing I thought of when I heard this news was hearing that brought to you by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which I must have seen hundreds, if not thousands, if not millions of times during my childhood when I was watching you and these other iconic shows.
Can you just talk a little bit about what the corporation meant for the work that you did and for the kids that you served?
BILL NYE, SCIENCE EDUCATOR, AUTHOR: Well, it's why the show became so popular, so for you, broadcast historians, "The Science Guy" show started out in syndication at 22 minutes 30 seconds, and then it ended up on public broadcasting with an extra five minutes of programing every day. So, if you have a copy of those old shows, hang on to them.
But with that in mind, that's where the show, the science guy show, became very, very popular. And it has served -- the show has served to educate people in elementary science for decades.
[16:50:06]
And I'm very -- I'm honored and it's wonderful. It's great.
But part of the reason it was so successful is so successful is we had very compelling research that ten years old was as old as you could be to get the so-called lifelong passion for science, and it's probably as old as you can be to get a lifelong passion for anything. And I mention it because it was based on research, it was based on science, it was based on provable facts. And that's what shaped the science guy show and made it so successful.
The same is true of "Sesame Street", and the same is true of "Mister Rogers" and other shows. So, what's going on, everybody, is a little bit in the weeds. The administration is trying to use these rules or laws, which were clearly, in my opinion, clearly never intended to be used this way to derail the will of Congress. And so they're using these, apparently, they're planning to use this business of business, of impoundment, of funds. And this extraordinary new legal theory, pocket rescission.
And there's no such thing. They're making it up. And the irony is that the communities that are going to be most affected by curtailing public broadcasting are the rural communities that voted for this administration.
And I just -- as one example, I have met countless people, that is to say, more people than I can count who came to this country from other parts of the world and tell me that they learned to speak English by watching public broadcasting, by watching my show, by watching "Sesame Street". And one of the ideas of this administration, which nominally quite reasonable, is to make English the official language.
Well, if you want people to learn English, you want to have public broadcasting. This is just an ironic mess up on their part. Back to you, Kasie.
HUNT: Sir, one big difference, too, with public broadcasting and its funding, is that the focus is on things like the science, things like what you learn from sesame street and not on, you know, advertisements.
You know, I think -- I was only allowed to watch PBS growing up as a child I think in no small part because my mom cared a lot about that. She didn't want me to have to think about the latest toy that I wanted to buy, but just to be there and learn things.
What does that mean for kids?
NYE: Well, so part of the reason the science guy show was funded was through this thing called the Children's Television Act, because in the 1980s, back in the 20th century, children's television was becoming an ad for ads for toys, which is, if you're a kid, that's fun. You watch a superhero animated show, and then you can buy a physical object, a doll, action figure of the of that superhero. That's fun and cool, but it doesn't have the educational value that people in the early 1990s wanted children's programing to have.
And for -- for you historians, there was required -- television stations were required to have three hours of educational programing a week, three hours. Oh my goodness. Our ability to print money is being stopped. Oh my. But that turned out to be to the good. And it led to this in my day.
It led to this collaboration between commercial programing -- commercial stations and public broadcasting. But it never would have happened without the influence of public broadcasting.
So, the plan right now is to cut at $1.1 billion through this new legal theory that I'm sure -- I'm -- I am not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure it will be shown to be illegal. What's -- what they're trying to do.
But this all takes time. Takes time and time and time. And when you break stuff, it's much harder to put it back together.
Take an example from your life. Have a dinner plate. Breaking a dinner plate just takes a moment. Making a dinner plate from scratch requires a factory and centuries of technological development.
It's the real deal, everybody, push back. And you know something that fascinates me. I don't know how many of your viewers watch the other side, the very conservative media outlets, but they are fascinated with what goes on on the mainstream media like this cable news network.
So, keep up the good work because it will leak through to the other side. Thank you.
HUNT: All right. Bill Nye, very grateful to have you. Thank you very much for being here.
[16:50:00]
I was hoping to get our panels favorite shows, but of course we were listening to the science guy instead. So maybe on the other side.
We'll be right back.
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HUNT: All right. Thanks very much to my panel. Thank you guys very much for being here. Thanks to you at home for being with us today as well.
And of course, if you missed any of today's show or yesterday's show, you can always catch up by listening to our podcast. Just scan the QR code or you can follow along wherever you get your podcasts.
And I am working this weekend. I will be back Sunday at 9:00 a.m. and noon Eastern, hosting "state of the union", in for Jake and Dana. Among my guests this weekend, the EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and Colorado Governor Jared Polis will also be our guest.
But right now, Phil Mattingly is standing by for "THE LEAD".
Hi, Phil.
