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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
House Oversight Dems Release New Photos From Epstein Estate; WSJ's Peggy Noonan: Trump May Be Losing His Touch; Lawmakers Push For More Transparency On Boat Strikes. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired December 12, 2025 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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MICHAEL IAN BLACK, COMEDIAN: I feel like Pinterest might be trolling us right now. I'm having a hard time envisioning both letter writing and cabbage making a big comeback in 2026. I'm having a hard time imagining that. I don't know.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Yeah, the past and future colliding all at once. Who knows?
Michael Ian Black, thanks so much. We look forward to seeing you this weekend.
BLACK: Thank you so much.
SANCHEZ: Of course, "THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT" starts right now. Thanks so much for joining us
(MUSIC)
KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. Welcome to THE ARENA. It's wonderful to have you with us on this us on this Friday.
Right now, new photos from the Jeffrey Epstein estate being made public for the first time. In them, Epstein is seen alongside numerous high profile individuals, including Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Richard Branson, Steve Bannon and others.
The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee says there are thousands more photos still to be released.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ROBERT GARCIA (D-CA): These pictures, some of these photos are really disturbing and I know we've put some out today. There are many others. And some of the other photos that we did not put out today are -- are incredibly disturbing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: The batch from today includes this photo, which appears to depict a bowl of novelty oversize condoms with Donald Trump's face on the packaging. I will let you read the words on the packaging for yourself. A White House spokesperson accused the Democratic House Oversight
Committee members who released these photos of cherry-picking to create a false narrative about President Trump. The deadline for the Justice Department to release the Epstein files is just one week away, and now even some Republicans are warning that there is much more evidence to come.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): The grand jury material is just a small fraction of what the DOJ needs to release, because the FBI and DOJ probably has evidence that they chose not to take to the grand jury because the evidence they're in possession of would implicate other people, not Epstein or maxwell. What we want to see are the facts and evidence that the FBI and the DOJ have never given to a grand jury.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right, let's get off the sidelines, head into THE ARENA. My panel is here.
But first joining us is Democratic Congressman from Virginia, Suhas Subramanyam. He is one of the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee who released those images today.
Congressman, thank you very much for being here.
I would ask you first, I suppose, to tell us why you selected the range of images that you did, Republicans accusing you of cherry picking to talk about Donald Trump. But he, of course, not the only high-profile man depicted in the photos you put out.
REP. SUHAS SUBRAMANYAM (D-VA): Yeah, this is just a snapshot of what we're finding. Weve only been through about a fourth or a third of the 95,000 documents and images that were released to us yesterday. And so, it takes some time. But this is a representative of the type of things we're seeing.
I'll tell you that, what we've released is disturbing in and of itself, but a lot of the stuff that hasn't been released is even more disturbing and really makes my stomach churn, to be honest. And so, you know, certainly, we're trying to be mindful of how this makes the victims feel. Be mindful of their privacy as well, and just trying to put out things that really -- the public would be of interest to the public. And so that's our concern right now, is trying to find that right balance between transparency and putting out information that's useful to the public.
HUNT: What does it tell you that all of these very powerful, in some cases very wealthy men are all together doing things like, I mean, you just saw a selfie in what appeared to be a hotel room mirror of Jeffrey Epstein with one of these men. I mean, we see Bill Gates, we see Woody Allen. This seems to paint a picture of a situation that brought a lot of people into what is a very strange situation. What -- to this -- what is this a portrait of for you? SUBRAMANYAM: Well, between this one and the last one, showing pictures
of his island, I think it's pretty clear that if you were friends with Jeffrey Epstein, if you associated with him multiple times, you knew about his crimes and you knew that something was wrong.
And so, you know, even seeing one picture with him and Steve Bannon at their desk, it almost reminds you of like, an Oval Office picture. Only then you see it's on Epstein's desk is a picture of a naked woman. And another picture that we had to black out as well. It's pretty clear that not only did Jeffrey Epstein commit these crimes, but he showed them off to his friends and associates.
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HUNT: Can you explain a little bit more about what you chose to redact and why? Because there have been some questions raised about the things people are not able to see, because you've made those decisions to redact some portions of the images.
SUBRAMANYAM: Yeah, absolutely. To be clear to everyone, just because someone's face was redacted doesn't mean they're a victim. It's just we don't know if they were a victim or not. We just don't recognize who they are. And we're trying to find out who they actually are.
With that said, you know, we've redacted anyone that might be a victim in some cases, their picture with Donald Trump. And again, this isn't an abundance of caution, but also us trying to be transparent with everything that's going on, too. And again, there's many, many photos, 95,000 images and documents in this release. So we're working as fast as we can.
HUNT: One of the people obviously pictured here that we've been seeing in this carousel of images is the former president, Bill Clinton, who was also a known associate of Jeffrey Epstein.
Did the committee give the Clinton family or foundation a heads up before you put that out?
SUBRAMANYAM: I don't believe so. Again, we're not looking to shield anyone, Democrat or Republican. We are finding the evidence and we're putting it out. The only people we're really consulting with when it comes to whether or not it's appropriate to put something out, is victims. And certainly, we've had a good sense of which victims are okay having their name or image out there. Very few, if any, really.
And so, you know, in this case, you know, if the Clintons have information, we want to hear it. We welcome them to come testify before a committee and clear their names. And it's the same thing with the former Prince Andrew and anyone else, Bill Gates. We want to hear from them all about what they know. When it came to Jeffrey Epsteins crimes.
HUNT: You mentioned at the beginning of this interview, and we've heard from your colleagues that there's much more disturbing stuff. Disturbing seems to be the word. There were some disturbing images you released today that are of a very explicit sexual nature that we have not put in this carousel, basically on purpose, because prefer to kind of try to make this remain as much of a family program as is possible. Obviously difficult in covering this story.
But can you give us an idea of what more disturbing means in this context?
SUBRAMANYAM: Yeah, I mean, were talking about sexual acts involving potentially minors and certainly victims, too, and very suggestive and compromising positions. So just to leave it at that.
And I'll just say again, Donald Trump and others keep saying that they didn't know about Jeffrey Epstein's crimes. But when you see Jeffrey Epstein's homes, like his mansion in New York or his island, or you see sort of the way he lived and the way he talked and the way he communicated with people, it's pretty clear that you knew that he was doing some of these things, and you either chose to hide it or ignore it, or you were participating in it yourself. And so in any case, that's why we have a lot of questions for a lot of people.
HUNT: Just to put a finer point on that, do you have pictures of people engaged in sexual acts as part of this?
SUBRAMANYAM: As part of this release? Yes. There are pictures of people engaged in sexual acts.
HUNT: Are there pictures of men not Jeffrey Epstein engaged in such acts?
SUBRAMANYAM: We're going through that. Again, you know, the last time there was a big production, what we tried to do was release all the files, eventually. We're trying to be selective about what we release now. And so, in this case, we're not really quite sure yet who is who. Certainly, there's a lot of people involved, though, in some of these acts.
HUNT: Okay. I'm almost sorry I asked.
Congressman Suhas Subramanyam, I really appreciate your time today. Thanks very much for speaking with us.
SUBRAMANYAM: Thank you.
HUNT: All right. Our panel is here in THE ARENA to talk more about this.
CNN legal analyst, former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams, CNN political commentator, Republican strategist and pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson, former Biden White House communications director Kate Bedingfield, and Republican strategist David Urban. They're both CNN political commentators.
Welcome to all of you.
David Urban, this is just -- this is disgusting. Like, it is disgusting. And the -- you look at these pictures and it's like the leadership of the United States of America in many cases, like the tech leadership, the political leadership, like, no wonder people are pissed off about this.
DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: There's a lot going on here. Remember this whole, like, wacky pizzagate conspiracy a long time ago where the --
HUNT: Where they shot up. So I order pizza with my kids like all the time.
URBAN: The QAnon people were like, you know, the liberal elite are abusing children. I mean, that was like people derided as some sort of crazy fantasy. Yet we see that kind of playing out here in real life. I think there's a couple of things that are really important here.
I think context is important. Dates are important, right? You know, when these pictures were -- when a lot of these photos were taken, are they pre-2007.
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There was a non-process agreement in 2007 with the federal government. He pled guilty to state charges in 2008.
So, were these pictures taken in 2000 when people had no idea? Look, you could be somebody who is kind of a bad --
HUNT: To the congressman's point, these pictures do seem to show a situation where, like, if you're around this stuff, you know somethings going down.
URBAN: But you, I -- you know, I've not seen the entire -- entirety of the evidence.
HUNT: Right.
URBAN: You may know the guy is kind of weird, but there's a difference between weird and criminal, right? There is no excuse -- 2008 on, there's no excuse for anybody being in any photo or hanging out with a guy in 2008 or 2007 on. If this is 2000, these photos or before that, I mean, if you're a politician, you know, you're -- you associate with a lot of people.
You're a businessperson. So, a lot of people. I'm not defending Jeffrey Epstein. I think context matters. And you can't dump thousands of photos out and say, look, everybody's guilty.
KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: But it's also worth noting that Trump and the Trump Justice Department and the attorney general have created this environment, in some ways, they've created this -- we'll call it a communications challenge. I think that is probably generous, but they've created this problem by telling the world that they were going to release all these files.
So, you know, when the Oversight Committee is putting out select photos, you know, an argument can be made. Okay, well, we don't know about dates and we don't know. But Trump stoked the flames of conspiracy around this. And then when he was in a position to actually make the files public, refused to do so and made himself seem awfully guilty by doing that.
URBAN: There's no way -- I'm in no way defending that.
BEDINGFIELD: The department could put this to rest for Donald Trump by putting the information out, but they won't because it seems --
URBAN: Listen, I think -- I think they should --
(CROSSTALK)
BEDINGFIELD: -- there are things they don't --
URBAN: Like you said this should have been dumped a long time ago. Cataloged. Here's the date of these photos. Here's the date of everything. And make it -- make it public for everybody. This is -- this is how documents get -- the Kennedy assassination. Martin Luther King, all these things. There's millions of pages that get dumped. Let people find out what's in there and make their decision.
But let's do it in a way that is methodical and doesn't paint everybody with the same brush. Let's have a little bit of context, these things. And so, the public, the public at large can decide. I'm for full disclosure, this guys a bad guy and we should know the people who supported him and condemn those people as well.
HUNT: Elliot Williams -- I mean, what of this? I mean, there's obviously, you know, what it seems to be --
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes.
HUNT: Right. And then there is what is prosecutable in a court of law. Now, obviously, to David's point, Jeffrey Epstein was prosecuted once, not very fruitfully, right? Once he got a sweetheart deal. But then obviously he was sent to prison. If you're like, I just I cannot understand how any one of these men looks at this situation goes to this island. I don't care what year it is and doesn't have, like, I don't know, a sense in their stomach that something is not right.
WILLIAMS: I just think -- and I think one of the more telling things is the president saying, look, he was a member of Mar-a-Lago, but we got rid of him because he was a creep. Now to David's point --
HUNT: That was 2011, right? Okay. Several years after.
URBAN: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Right. And it's just people clearly knew that stuff was going on. Now, I -- there are really two big problems that people see here. Now, obviously, it's Kasie's point about people turning a blind eye to sexual assault that seemed rampant in this environment. It's also the broader point that Steve Bannon and Woody Allen are palling around in this hotbed of elite socializing that really turns a lot of Americans off right now is this populist mood is taking over the country.
URBAN: It does sound like, hold on, let me correct what I just said, because it says here some reporting says it was happened in late 2007. The falling out between Trump and Epstein, which lines up with where --
WILLIAMS: But I just -- but I just think even -- regardless of what the year was, people clearly knew something was wrong. I just don't know how you can be this intimate in a social setting and not have a sense that, okay, like, why are there, if not so many young women here or just whatever it is, it defies reason.
URBAN: It assumes that everyone in this picture had knowledge you could be at a party. I picture a lot of people, right? That I don't even know. If you're a politician, you've got photos of lots and lots. There's a lot of people with photographs.
HUNT: Maybe I'm just a daughter of an eagle scout over here. Okay? But like, I'm sorry. Like, you may or may not have, like, deep, intimate knowledge of what's going on here, but, I mean, to the congressman's point --
KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: There's a naked woman --
HUNT: A picture of a naked woman on the desk.
ANDERSON: Also a difference between -- there's a difference between you're at a party, a photo taken next to you, and you are sitting at someone's desk. And that's why to me, the images that stick out the most are these ones of Steve Bannon, like across the desk from him, like that Oval Office --
HUNT: And the hotel room, especially because as you noted, David, so much of this has been a point of -- especially for conservatives and populist conservatives who have said for a long time, somethings fishy here. Something's not right. The elite of our country are all conspiring to keep something from us.
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URBAN: There was a liberal elite, remember.
HUNT: And it was a liberal elite. And now some of the most prominent voices of that movement across the desk from Jeffrey Epstein, that is some imagery.
BEDINGFIELD: Yeah. I mean, Steve Bannon of all people, the one of the -- the most vocal sort of proponents of this populist, conservative MAGA movement. There he is with the elite you know, pedophile leadership that the MAGA base has been decrying for almost a decade now.
So, yes, I mean, it absolutely -- it undermines the MAGA leadership's argument that they were the ones who were coming to Washington to take on the elites, take on the leadership. And I think that's part of why this caused such a fissure in the MAGA base, because it really went to the heart of what MAGA said they were going to do.
HUNT: I mean, it really, it's a pox on everybody's houses.
WILLIAMS: Yes.
BEDINGFIELD: Yes.
HUNT: Right? It shows that they were all and this is the thing, it seems to me right, that to your point and I think, David, you've been making a version of this point as well, that MAGA -- the idea was that Donald Trump was not out for the elites. He was in it for them, right.
And all of this shows that actually everybody's just in it together, right? It almost proves the theory of the case.
URBAN: Again, it's -- again, why do people distrust government? Why do people distrust Washington? Why do people distrust government?
WILLIAMS: Oh, in Hollywood. But it's all the big institutions, right?
HUNT: It's Woody Allen, its Hollywood.
WILLIAMS: It's Washington.
HUNT: It's Bill Gates.
WILLIAMS: It's Wall Street.
HUNT: It's tech.
WILLIAMS: It's tech and Hollywood.
HUNT: Presidents in both countries -- in both parties. I mean, anyway.
WILLIAMS: Yeah.
HUNT: We have to go.
Coming up in THE ARENA, is President Trump losing his touch from Epstein to the economy to immigration? It seems like he might be on a different page than many Americans. Our panel will discuss.
Plus, the Armed Services Committees will soon get a new briefing about the strikes on those alleged drug boats. Congressman Adam Smith will be here. He's the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. He joins us live. What does he want to hear? What does he make of the president's new explanation for the mission?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Is the campaign against Venezuela still just about drugs, or is it now also about oil?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, it's about a lot of things. But one of the things it's about is the fact that they've allowed millions of people to come into our country from their prisons, from gangs, from drug dealers, and from mental institutions.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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HUNT: All right, welcome back.
There are still more than three years left in Donald Trump's second term, but today there are new signs that his dominance in politics may be slipping. Weve said it before, and its not been true, but hear us out. In a new op-ed in "The Wall Street Journal", columnist Peggy Noonan warns the president may be losing touch not just with his own party, but with Americans across the country.
On the economy and immigration, Trump's poll numbers are lower than ever. His MAGA base is increasingly divided over what America first means as the president cuts business deals around the world and threatens war with Venezuela.
Then there's what happened in Indiana, where Republicans refused to withdraw their states, redraw their states congressional maps despite intense pressure from the White House, leading President Trump to start rooting against some Republicans.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I wasn't working on it very hard. Would have been nice. I think we would have picked up two seats if we did that. You had one gentleman, the head of the senate, I guess, Bray, whatever his name is. I heard he was against it. He'd probably lose his next primary, whenever that is, I hope he does. But because he's done a tremendous disservice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right. Our panel is back.
Kristen Soltis Anderson, you have a new column in "The New York Times", and it's under the headline, Trump's approval ratings are low again. And this time it might matter. Tell us why.
ANDERSON: It might matter, because in the past, Donald Trump has seen his numbers go up and down. But usually that's about style in many ways. That people will say, look, he's been sort of off on a weird message and so on and so forth. But he used to always have at least pretty decent job approval numbers on the economy. This time he doesn't his job approval numbers on the economy are actually worse in some cases than his numbers overall.
And so that's why I wrote this column that basically says he's got to get on this affordability message. And when he went this week on this affordability tour, going to Pennsylvania trying to talk about it, you can see that some folks within the White House are trying to deliver this message that he's got to get back to the things he's really good at. It's very hard for him to stay on that message because it requires him acknowledging that the economy right now doesn't feel that great to a lot of Americans. He does not want to say those words. WILLIAMS: One question about that very wonderful column, Kristen, and
a point that you made. I'd love to hear you expand on a little bit, is that now we're in an era where presidents actually stay within a relatively small window. You don't have this sort of violent swings where, you know, President Bush could have been president.
HUNT: Seventy percent of Americans never like anyone at the same time.
WILLIAMS: Right, exactly right. So how does that play into all of this right now?
ANDERSON: Yeah, I think that's part of why you might look at a job approval number of 41 percent and be like, well, you know, how are you ever going to get much higher than that? And it is true that for the most part, presidents these days kind of hover in that 40 to 50 percent band. But it can't feel good to Trump to know his job approval numbers right now kind of look like Bidens did. That has to sting.
HUNT: Yeah. Go ahead.
URBAN: I was going to say, amongst Republicans, those numbers still are pretty high. They're in the -- I think the poll, the last poll I saw had it, he dropped from 78 in March to 70 now amongst Republicans. So, amongst the base, the base is still with him and he's dropped a bit. The base is still with him.
And I think that, you know, Kristen is exactly right. I think the president doesn't want to talk about affordability, wants to talk about inflation.
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He doesn't like the term. He thinks it's -- you know, it's been concocted by the Democrats. He'd rather be talking about the reduction in inflation and things that are more favorable to him. That presents the economy in more favorable light.
HUNT: When was the last time he had to balance a checkbook?
URBAN: I don't know, I don't know. I would have to confess, I was the last time I didn't balance a checkbook. I'm --
HUNT: I appreciate your honesty.
URBAN: I'm very nervous -- I'm very nervous about it. I'm very nervous about this.
HUNT: Okay. That's very millennial of you. Don't worry.
BEDINGFIELD: Reduction -- the reduction, let me tell you, I'm going to sit right here and tell you, as somebody who lived this, the reduction in inflation message does not work. People don't -- they don't feel -- if they -- if they see prices going up, if they feel like things are more expensive than when the president took office, whether you can send your economic team out to argue that inflation is not rising as fast a rate as it was rising six months ago, that doesn't land. And I think where Trump is really you know, we saw this play out in
the elections a month ago. I mean, we saw -- we saw this put to the test. Now, granted, our off-year election is different than presidential elections. They are. But we saw Trump on the ballot. It was interesting to me that we saw Susie Wiles say, I think this week or last week that her strategy was to get Trump out there for the midterms. I think given where his numbers are on the economy, I don't think that's going --
URBAN: Well, listen, in some places -- and this and the numbers will play this out. If the economy is kind of stacked, right where you sit is where you kind of stand in life. If you have money in the equities market, the stock markets going crazy. You're doing well. You look at your 401k, the numbers are up.
If you're the Black, Brown and white working-class people that form the base of this Trump coalition, that threw him over the edge, you don't have money in the stock market. You're working two jobs. And so, the economy looks different to those folks than it does to people who have four kids. And those are the people that are disaffected, and those are the people we need to keep on the Trump --
ANDERSON: But even on the stock market point. I mean, if you look at where those gains in the stock market are happening, it's pretty concentrated within a handful of technology related companies, many of whom are led by folks that have been very eager to be in Trump's good graces. And I do think whether it's the Epstein stuff we were talking about in the last block or this, this notion that Donald Trump ran as I'm going to be a man of the people and now is hanging out with a lot of tech CEOs whose stocks are doing great and is hanging out with, I just -- I think, I think it all doesn't necessarily look to the average American. Is he still really fighting for me? He's got to drive that --
HUNT: And you know, Van Jones was making that point just a second ago in the text chain, essentially saying that Trump is so focused on the ballroom that he's building for, in Van's words, the A.I. overlords that he's not noticing how much Americans hate those people or starting to hate those people. What do you make of that?
URBAN: Listen, I do agree, right? I mean, again, it is kind of the haves and have nots in America. That's where we're divided, right? The people who work for a living and it's a great, you know, lots of people in Pennsylvania, western Pennsylvania.
I grew up, you know, eastern Ohio, Macomb County, Michigan, places that swing elections, right? Those are the people that go to work every day. And like I say, put your money, put their hand in their pocket. They pull out some $20 bills to make decisions. How much you're putting in the tank, what they're buying at the grocery store. They're getting pizza tonight for their kids.
Those are the people that are most affected. Those are the people that voted for Trump. We need to focus on those people and win them back.
HUNT: I also -- BEDINGFIELD: Just quickly, I think people feel a lot of uncertainty
right now. And I think that Trump's kind of chaotic sense that he's, you know, swinging back and forth. He's focused on foreign policy. He's focused on the ballroom. That doesn't give people a lot of confidence that he is driving the economy in a way that should give them certainty.
And so, I actually think that this is where peoples uncertainty about the economy and Trump's inherent chaotic style really don't mesh.
HUNT: Trump talked about the midterm elections. And just to kind of bring what we saw happen yesterday in Indiana back into this conversation, right? There does seem to be this fairly broad acknowledgment by Republicans that the midterms don't look great because they're spending a whole lot of energy trying to figure out how to change the maps so that they're more favorable, as opposed to obviously winning on the merits of the argument.
The president seemed to lower expectations when he talked about this on Wednesday. Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: When you win the presidency, you seem to lose the midterms. Even if you win the presidency by a lot and you do a great job as president. You know, some presidents have done good and they've lost -- I think it's like two times in the last many, many years. It's been one -- I don't know why it doesn't make sense. Usually, I can figure things out, but I don't know why. But that seems to be -- but other than that, we should win because we're doing great.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Other than that, we should win.
WILLIAMS: You know, it's just -- it's just profound tone deafness. And, you know, I think this is picking up on something Kate said earlier. I make a similar point whenever we talk about public safety, too.
When people feel something, telling them that that's not true is not a good political strategy.
[16:30:02]
And when will politicians learn, particularly on matters of the economy, where people around the country feel like things are more expensive, like they're struggling, telling them about the stock market or how tech is doing or whatever else is just not a winning strategy. And if he's going to continue doing that, no matter how many seats he picks up next year through redistricting, it just doesn't look like a winning strategy.
URBAN: I would just say again, let's exhale. It's December. I don't know what date is 9th, 10th, 9th, whatever it is. December 12th, 12th. Okay. 2025. We got a lot of living to go between now and the midterms.
Like maybe people start paying attention to midterms, probably after Labor Day, 26.
ANDERSON: Not that he doesn't have a message on this. He can talk about things I've done X, Y, Z on energy. He could roll back some of the tariffs. He can talk about tax cuts. It's not like he doesn't have anything to say. But if people aren't feeling it, it makes it much harder.
URBAN: But some of those things are going to happen. They're going to happen naturally after January 1st. All these tax cuts take place. No tax on tips. He did message that correctly. We talked about some of the people in Pennsylvania are going to have more money in their pocket every month because of no tax on tips. Social Security, overtime, all those things that's going to matter. People are going to have more money in their pocket moving forward. The economy is going to grow a bit.
So I think the administration is counting on that happening in 26. Tide turning a little bit. Messaging will be coming.
WILLIAMS: Okay. The other thing that will happen after January 1st, we should all take bets on when the first campaign ad that has the president saying affordability is a hoax comes out. I think January 2nd, literally, people, it's just such a winning message, I think.
BEDINGFIELD: Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. He can try to tout substantive, he's trying to tout substantive work that he's done. But the fact is, every time we see Donald Trump talk about the economy, he says affordability is a hoax. He's unwilling the Trump ego will not allow him to say things are not going as well. I understand your pain.
ANDERSON: I -- you know, he has to let go of the doll thing.
BEDINGFIELD: If people don't -- yeah.
ANDERSON: The -- you will have to buy fewer dolls.
BEDINGFIELD: Only need two pencils at Christmas.
ANDERSON: I mean --
BEDINGFIELD: He's not -- he does not -- he does not seem to have internalized a message that connects.
WILLIAMS: Not a chicken in every pot.
HUNT: Two pencils in my -- in my kids stocking. That would go over real well for Christmas. Real well. All right, back to his teacher. Had me send an entire box this year.
All right, coming up next in THE ARENA, what is behind the second surge this year of a disease that was declared eliminated in the U.S. a quarter century ago. Plus, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee joins us
live here in THE ARENA. Congressman Adam Smith watched the video of that second strike on a suspected drug boat in the Caribbean. What he saw and what he says could happen next week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ADAM SMITH (D-WA): I talked to him yesterday. Just an individual one on one meeting, and urged him, he wants to be here. Let's be clear about that. Admiral Bradley should brief the full House Armed Services Committee and the full Senate Armed Services committee, and he is absolutely, 100 percent prepared to do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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[16:37:19]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: When do you expect Admiral Bradley to brief your whole committee next week?
SMITH: It's supposed to be next week. I talked to him yesterday, just in an individual one on one meeting, and urged him. He wants to be here. The Department of Defense decides. But Admiral Bradley should brief the full house armed services committee and the full Senate Armed Services Committee. And he is absolutely 100 percent prepared to do that.
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HUNT: The man who oversaw that controversial follow up strike on a suspected drug boat in the Caribbean, Admiral Frank Bradley, is now expected to brief the full House and Armed Services Committee sometime next week. That is if the Pentagon lets him. That is according to Congressman Adam Smith. He's the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, and he's been lobbying for the full panel to be briefed after lawmakers who viewed the video of that second strike have come out with vastly different interpretations of what they saw.
And that Democratic Congressman from Washington, Adam Smith, joins us now in THE ARENA. He is the ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee.
Congressman, thank you very much for being here. How confident are you that Admiral Bradley will brief the full committee next week?
SMITH: It seems headed in that direction. In fact, I just talked to my staff in the last hour. There may be a full house brief as well, but it seems like on Wednesday he is prepared to come and brief the House Armed Services Committee, which I think is very appropriate and hopefully it will happen.
HUNT: And what can you tell us about the one on one meeting that you had with the admiral in terms of his justification for his decision on this -- in the context of the second strike?
SMITH: Sure. I think there's two things that are interesting about this. One, to your point about people having different interpretations of the video. That's the reason the video needs to be released so the public can see it and they can judge. And there's no reason not to release it. They've already released, what, 15 or 20 different videos of boat strikes? It's not hard to make sure that anything sensitive is not included in the video.
You can certainly show the couple of minutes leading up to the strike, and then people can see and judge. They can see that you have two people clinging to a capsized boat, to a piece of the capsized boat, the bow with no weapons, no means of communication. So, we can see that and that can let people evaluate and say, listening to what some people have had to say about it.
Then the second, Admiral Bradley's justification for this, and you kind of got to go back to al Qaeda and the 9/11, the post-9/11 authorization for the use of force against al Qaeda. That authorization said al Qaeda and their affiliates are trying to kill Americans. We need to get them first. So, we empowered the special operations command to go around the world, find these people, and take them out because they were deemed to pose an imminent threat after 9/11.
[16:40:02]
What the president has done and what Secretary Hegseth have done is now expanded that to include anyone who is part of a group that is engaged in trafficking drugs and drugs are certainly a major threat to the U.S., but is it an imminent threat, in the same way, if somebody's flying a plane into a building is an imminent threat, and once you expand that authorization to anybody affiliated with one of these groups or possessing drugs, that is a dramatic expansion of presidential power, all I might add, without congressional authority.
There was congressional authority for the post-9/11 mission. There's no congressional authority on this. And it is a dramatic expansion.
Now, even within that dramatic expansion, these two guys clinging to a side of a boat, I still don't think they meet the definition of an enemy combatant where lethal force was appropriate.
HUNT: One of the things that we know from, you know, what you and other colleagues have said is that Admiral Bradley consulted with a JAG, a lawyer, a military lawyer in the time in between these two strikes. Have you been able to talk to whoever that lawyer is?
SMITH: No. And that's why you've heard some Republicans say, oh, the investigation is over. We've seen everything. It is not even close to over. We have hundreds of questions that have not have not been answered.
We need to go through the chain of command. And the chain of command is a little weird here. Why is the JSOC commander having target authority in the southern commanders AOR, area of responsibility? Typically, that combatant commander in this case, Admiral Holsey,
would have the authority. How did he get down? And also, apparently that authority has moved around during the 3 or 4 months now that these strikes have been going on.
So who had the authority and what was the legal analysis? Is there anything written down that the office of legal counsel memo that came out and justified these strikes was not actually written until September 5th? This strike happened on September 2nd.
So, what is the legal authority around this is a question needs to be answered. So, I think there's a lot more questions that need to be answered. Need to bring these people in. Have those questions answered. Because look, if this is accurate, is this if this is how they're interpreting what they now have authority to use the U.S. military to kill people for, I think we need to rein that in, because that is an enormous amount of power, as I said earlier.
HUNT: One thing that the Congress did in the NDAA, the Defense Authorization Act, the must pass bill that funds the department, was to curtail Defense Secretary Hegseth's travel budget unless he releases this video. Are there other tools at the Congress's disposal to force the secretary's hand?
SMITH: Certainly, if the majority is willing, a majority of members in this sense, I don't mean necessarily just the Republican majority, but if the majority of members are willing, we can subpoena, we can pass laws requiring it. We can place all kinds of restrictions on this to require that information to be given. So, there's a lot more we could do to get greater transparency and accountability.
That's another big concern I have about this Department of Defense. They seem willing to not follow the law. And that's really important when you're talking about when you expand it out to using lethal force.
And if they're unwilling to follow the law in other areas, like not turning over information to us. So let's start with the fact that I just called it the Department of Defense, it is the Department of Defense. And yet they insist on calling themselves the department of war, which is not legal. The law is clear. They haven't changed the law.
So, if they're not interested in obeying the law in terms of that, in terms of turning over information to congress that they're supposed to turn over. And Secretary Hegseth's rather well documented, even before he became the secretary of defense, contempt for the lawyers in the Pentagon, the idea that they're simply holding him back from doing what the military needs to do, that level of contempt for the law leads to putting our service members, I think, in a dangerous position, you know, being told, hey, just go do what you have to do, and were not going to worry about accountability.
I think it leads to things like this. So, we need to have those documents, and we need to question what those rules of engagement are right now. HUNT: Very briefly, sir, before I let you go, the oil tanker that was
seized by the U.S., do you think that was a legitimate action or was it illegitimate?
SMITH: I don't know yet. It sure doesn't seem legitimate. And that gets us into the other piece of this. Supposedly, this is about stopping drugs from coming into the U.S. but of course, we have the well-documented efforts of president -- sorry, well-documented decisions by President Trump to pardon drug dealers in a number of different areas. If it seems to meet other needs that he has.
Or is this really more about what was in the national security strategy last week where President Trump reasserts in his mind the right of the United States of America to dominate the western hemisphere. So, is this more about the fact that he wants to wants to go after Maduro and Petro because he finds them insufficiently loyal to the United States dominance of the region?
And that is deeply troubling as well. If you have this expanded rules of engagement and he's after regime change in potentially multiple countries, I think that's the wrong national security strategy for our country.
HUNT: All right. Congressman Adam Smith, thank you very much for your time today, sir. I really appreciate it.
SMITH: Thank you.
HUNT: All right. Coming up next here in THE ARENA, the latest move by President Trump's health officials to undermine a vaccine that was a standout victory in his first term.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Operation Warp Speed, people say, is that one of the greatest achievements ever in politics or in the military, because it was almost a military procedure. But everybody, including Putin, said that Operation Warp Speed, what you did with that, nobody can believe it.
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[16:50:16]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR., HHS SECRETARY: I support the measles vaccine. I support the polio vaccine. I will do nothing as HHS secretary and makes it difficult or discourages people from taking.
SEN. RON WYDEN (D-OR): Anybody who believes that ought to look at the measles book you wrote saying parents have been misled into believing that measles is a deadly disease. That's not true.
(END VIDEO CLIP) HUNT: That was RFK Jr. at his confirmation hearing earlier this year, and nearly a year into his time as health and human services secretary.
The U.S., currently facing a surge in measles cases. If you're keeping score at home, it will be the second surge this year for a disease that the U.S. eradicated 25 years ago. Out of the 111 measles cases in the current outbreak in South Carolina, at least 105 of those people had never received a dose of the MMR vaccine, measles, mumps and rubella.
Nationwide, one of the nearly 2,000 of the nearly 2,000 measles cases recorded in the U.S. this year, 92 percent of them were in unvaccinated people. And if you look at this graph from the CDC, cases spiked in late January that hasn't dropped below 11 cases a week at any point this year.
My panel is back.
And, I actually -- I want to play because you saw there at the top of the segment, RFK Jr. saying in his confirmation hearing that he would support the measles vaccine. I think it's important to underscore that he will say different things in different contexts based on who he thinks is watching and the audience he is speaking to.
I interviewed him before, during his -- before his presidential run, and he flat out said to me that he didn't say something that he actually said, I just want to play it again, and then we're going to talk about it on the other side.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: You said, quote, there's no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective. Do you still believe that?
KENNEDY: I never said that.
HUNT: So, stop me. We have the clip. Please play the clip.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KENNEDY: There's no vaccine that is safe and effective.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So, you did say it. Do you still believe it?
KENNEDY: Well, here's what -- here's what I -- here's what I would say. First of all, I'm not anti-vaccine.
HUNT: How is that statement not anti-vaccine?
KENNEDY: Well, it's -- I can say right now there is no vaccine medicine for cancer that's safe and effective. It doesn't mean I'm against all medicines. I've been fighting for years to get mercury out of fish. Nobody calls me anti-fish. (END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Totally irrelevant. But, Kate Bedingfield, the reality that we are now facing with that man running the health agencies of the United States is an enormous outbreak of the measles. And there's also, as we're talking about this now, a black box warning on the COVID vaccine, which is a vaccine that was developed under President Trump.
Help me understand -- I mean, just help me understand.
(LAUGHTER)
BEDINGFIELD: I would -- I would like to -- I would like to understand as well.
I don't -- look, from a medical perspective, I certainly don't understand the -- what he is advancing here has been debunked by science. Vaccines have been safe and have been used to protect children and all of us in this country for more than 100 years. That is an undeniable fact.
From a political perspective, I really don't understand because this is an issue. If you look at all of the polling, this is an issue that is actually fairly unpopular. Yes, there is a -- there is a cohort of anti-vaccine voices in this country. But for the most part, if you ask people how they feel about the HHS secretary making it harder to access vaccines, people are against it. Republicans are against it, independents are against it. It is not a popular issue in this country. And the fact that Robert Kennedy continues to drive what is fundamentally dangerous misinformation is a frightening thing.
But I also -- but politically, I also think this is -- this is going to be a problem for him. And as we approach the midterms, I think Democrats have an opportunity to make this an issue. And I think it will really resonate, particularly with suburban voters.
ANDERSON: There's also -- there's a big difference among those who are skeptical of vaccines about the difference, being skeptical of the COVID vaccine, which is much more widespread. And the very, very, very narrow group of people who are skeptical of things like MMR.
And I think one of the things that allows that to exist is that we have been so blessed by not having things like polio, like the measles. If you ask someone on the street, what happens if you get the measles? What happens if you get polio? Most people under the age of 60 cannot reliably answer that question, and that's awesome.
And it's terrible -- and it's terrible that we might be on the verge of actually --
[16:55:00]
URBAN: But I would say this, the underlying question is this why do people distrust the government such that they're willing to suspend all these, you know, medical, all this medical proof? Why are they willing to do it? That's the bigger question to me. Why do they distrust the government so much?
HUNT: It is a big question.
All right. We'll be right back.
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HUNT: All right. Thanks very much to my panel for being here on a Friday. Have a wonderful weekend.
Thanks to you at home for watching as well.
A programing note, you can watch this weekend. This Saturday, you can catch "THE ARENA SATURDAY". It's going to be on at 8:00 a.m. and noon Eastern Time, right here on CNN.
You can also stream THE ARENA live. You can catch up whenever you want in the CNN all access app. You can scan the QR code below. You can also catch up with us by listening to THE ARENA's podcast. Follow us on X and Instagram @TheArenaCNN.
Phil Mattingly is standing by for "THE LEAD".
Hi, Phil.
