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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
Trump Will Again Tout Rosy Economic Outlook On Affordability Tour; More Epstein Photos Out, Deadline Tomorrow For DOJ To Release Files; News Conference On Brown University Shooting Investigation Delayed; Trump-Picked Board Votes To Add Trump's Name To Kennedy Center. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired December 18, 2025 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: -- climbed up to about 4,000 feet and then clearly something was wrong.
[16:00:03]
Tried to make it back for the airport, beelined back turn parallel to the runway, and then made a left turn back into the runway, landing to the west there, although clearly something went wrong and didn't quite make it.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Pete Muntean, thank you so much for the reporting. We'll stay on top of this story and all the latest news on CNN.
THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT starts right now.
(MUSIC)
KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone. Welcome to THE ARENA. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us on this Thursday.
Is Donald Trump already a lame duck? As we come on the air, the president digging in on that brash economic message he delivered last night, vowing to repeat it going forward.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: When you go to Rocky Mount, North Carolina, tomorrow night, what's your message going to be?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, it's not going to be that much different from what I did last night. I mean, we've had tremendous success. We're bringing prices down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: The president repeating that message from his prime time address, an address that was pretty widely panned by critics and allies alike.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We're bringing our economy back from the brink of ruin.
I am bringing those high prices down and bringing them down very fast.
They are all coming down and coming down fast. And it's not done yet. But boy, are we making progress. Nobody can believe what's going on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: The people do believe their own bottom lines.
Take it from veteran Republican operative Karl Rove. He wrote this in "The Wall Street Journal", quote, "Mr. Trump despises Joe Biden, yet he is making the same mistake his predecessor made. Telling voters not to believe their own lying checkbooks was politically insane. Mr. Trump is doing the same thing," end quote.
With the midterm elections approaching, a message that isn't landing and potential 2028 candidates starting to make moves, it all begs the question -- a year in, is Donald a lame duck?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES CARVILLE, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: No one cares about Trump anymore. They're not scared of him anymore. His presidency, other than the legal power he has granted to him by the Constitution it's over. No one gives a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) about him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Let's get off the sidelines, head into THE ARENA.
My panel is here.
We're also joined by CNN senior White House correspondent Kristen Holmes.
And, Kristen, we'll start with you. What has the reaction been like inside the White House to the president's address? How are they feeling today?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Look, they're all watching everything closely, and they've seen how it's been reviewed.
I will say one thing. The White House worked together as a team, as they often do the inner circle to craft this speech. And they needed a speech in which President Trump would stay on message. That was short, that addressed the economy.
Now, whether or not you think his message was true, we obviously know that there were a numbers that were inflated or just plain wrong. Or if you think that he went off topic airing his grievances, he did talk about the economy more than we've ever -- we've seen him in the last several months. And that is what the White House was intending to do, to try and get the message across that he is aware that things are not in the place that they need to be, and that they are working on it as an administration.
Now, all of that being said, that speech did not, from the Republicans outside of the White House, the White House advisers that I've talked to, do what the White House intended it to do, which is try and alleviate people's fears. Republicans came out of that speech more anxious that the messaging around the economy was not where it should be going into 2026, and that the party as a whole was not really solidified in that messaging about the economy, especially when it came to all of this blame on the previous administration.
And, Kasie, I will tell you one thing, when I spoke to campaign advisers of President Trump's back when he was running for office, one of the things they said over and over again is that President Trump is going to win on the economy. The other thing they said was that it was a lot easier to run when President Trump himself wasn't in power. When you are running against something, you were saying, you can change something.
Now he is facing the same exact circumstances that President Biden was facing at the time, and handling it the exact same way, which, of course, is raising a lot of questions as to where Republicans are going to go from here.
HUNT: It's not the candidate driving garbage trucks and making French fries anymore.
Kristen Holmes, thank you very much for that reporting.
All right. Our panel is here in THE ARENA. CNN contributor, "New York Times" journalist and host of "The Interview", Lulu Garcia-Navarro, CNN political commentator, Republican strategist and pollster, Kristen Soltis Anderson, Democratic strategist, former senior adviser to the Harris and Biden presidential campaigns, Adrienne Elrod and former Republican speaker pro tem, Patrick McHenry.
My favorite title, sir. Nice to see you. Thanks for coming back.
PATRICK MCHENRY, FORMER REPUBLICAN SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE: Former is my favorite.
(LAUGHTER)
HUNT: So big picture here. Did the president make himself better off today than he was yesterday by giving that speech last night?
MCHENRY: No, but you have to have a reset.
[16:05:01]
And that is his version of a reset. His version of the reset is not like, hey, things are rough or admission of a current reality. It is a blaming of the past and talking about the future. It is getting on with the future that this this White House needs to focus on.
You have tariffs that are in place. Half of those tariff costs have been passed on to consumers so far. Half, only half, which will not be a reality. Well, but it's also not the reality of how tariffs affect. It usually goes into two thirds to 90 percent of it are passed on to consumers.
So, you have to have a China reset that has to be negotiated by this White House. You have to have the effects of the tax extension go into place, which will start next year. You have a lot of economic potential from the deregulation that's coming.
All of that is in the future. This is not the year that it was realized. And right now, the economy is not strong enough for it to be a winning message for Republicans.
LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Can I jump in here and just say everyone's focusing on the message. I think what we're seeing is the messenger being not the right messenger. This is not Trump 2.0. This looks like Biden 2.0, because not only are we seeing, the president making the same mistakes, as has been noted on the message, but this is a weakened leader.
He is aging. I'm tired of being shouted at, at my television. He sounds like an aging man who is angry. And whatever vitality and ability he had to connect with people looks to be very, very quickly dissipating. And so, what you're seeing, I think, is a replay of what happened to Joe Biden happening to Donald Trump.
HUNT: So one thing that I found interesting about the speech last night, right, is Donald Trump has dominated our national political life for, what, a decade at least.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: The Trump era.
HUNT: Almost a decade. Okay. This is someone who has not had trouble getting attention, redirecting the headlines the way he wants them to.
And yet -- and he tried to use what historically has been the most possible powerful platform a president has, right? The primetime address from the White House. And, you know, you watch the clips, right? He did a lot of blaming his predecessor. He wanted to talk about the economy.
I just want to contrast that with what presidents normally use this forum for. We can take you all the way back to Richard Nixon and just, just, just think about the difference between what President Trump wanted to tell the country last night, what that was about, and what presidents usually are doing in moments like these. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD NIXON, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I have asked for this radio and television time tonight for the purpose of announcing that we today have concluded an agreement to end the war and bring peace with honor in Vietnam.
RONALD REAGAN, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Today is a day for mourning and remembering. Nancy and I are pained to the core by the tragedy of the shuttle Challenger. GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: On my orders, the United
States military has begun strikes against al Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So, I don't know about you at home or anyone at this table, I remember where I was when President Obama made that address, that Osama -- that we had killed Osama bin Laden. I remember who I was with. I remember the conversation. I'm not going to remember anything about where I was last night or that that speech even happened, which Kristen Soltis Anderson, in some ways is so telling, because this is a president who typically is so good at getting attention. It does in some ways underscore this feeling that, you know, he's pretty well on his on the road to being a lame duck.
KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It felt last night like a state of the union on 1.5 speed. Like how you can listen to a podcast a little bit faster.
HUNT: And I hear the kids do that.
ANDERSON: It didn't feel --
HUNT: I'm too old for that.
ANDERSON: It didn't feel special in any way. It felt like a reiteration of a message that was ultimately not that surprising.
I think it was the right topic. Maybe not for let's block off the primetime address time, but I think it's good that the president is on this topic of affordability. I think there has been a lot of criticism, and justifiably so. That is, he focused on the wrong issues. Is there too much focus on the ballroom on, you know, the grievances X, Y, and Z?
Talking about cost of living is a step in the right direction. And I don't think for one second were ever going to see him morph into Bill Clinton, "I feel your pain". But Donald Trump is capable of connecting with average Americans when he's not ballroom guy, when he's McDonald's drive thru guy, right?
And so, he has the capacity to do it. I don't think that in these formal teleprompter settings is ever where we see it. And so, I do think this was sort of a curious way to deploy a shift to, hey, America, were on the right message.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Because they need to keep him on topic.
[16:10:00]
And the only way that he can stay on topic is if you give him 15 minutes. I mean, we know that from what happened off camera.
ANDERSON: I mean, that's not a guarantee, Lulu.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: It's not even a guarantee. But I mean, prime time, 15 minutes. We know that Susie Wiles was there and was keeping him like, you know, you've got 20 minutes. Exactly. And there was a clock ticking, because if not, what happens is what happens when he went to Pennsylvania where he talks and talks and talks and between everything, the message doesn't land.
HUNT: I think that that's kind of -- I mean, Congressman, you've lived through, right, Donald Trump dominating every conversation, most conversations you've been in, many of them right on Capitol Hill and elsewhere.
Point taken, he's trying to redirect the message where Americans are telling him they wanted to go, but the fact that he has to use a primetime address to do it says a lot about his power over the narrative.
MCHENRY: It's also a formal reset because you have this chaos on Capitol Hill with Republicans not being able to get out of the way on health care. And this is a subject break. And for him to go to this format was that attempt number one.
Number two, the shift in economic policy is different for him. The first Trump administration, the economy is roaring. Now, he's in a traditional place that most presidents are one year in their policies unrealized. Their effects are unrealized. And the hope is that over time, those things will bake in.
Let's rewind, 1993, at this moment, Bill Clinton economy is not going well, not going well. By '96, roaring it, four years in.
You have George W. Bush. Similar thing, softness in '01, strength in '04. Reagan '81, the worst time for the Reagan administration was at this time in '81. And it got roaring by '84.
So, the White House is talking about baking these things in and making sure they capture that narrative in order to shift to what they think are brighter days ahead.
ADRIENNE ELROD, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Yeah, but here's the problem here.
Number one, if this was really the reset that you are saying that Donald Trump wanted to do last night, what he was trying to achieve, the reset would have been him going on national television saying, you know what? I screwed up. I did run on the fact that I was going to fix affordability. I was going to lower prices within the first few months of being president. That didn't happen. Here's what I'm going to do going --
HUNT: Have we ever heard Donald Trump --
(CROSSTALK) ELROD: No, but that would be the reset that you're talking about.
He went -- he went on there and doubled down on everything he's been saying. He's been saying that, you know, affordability is a hoax and that all of you out there who think that, you know, prices are really, you know, have not -- are too high. You're wrong. That's the reset.
If he was going to do that, that would be the reset that we were looking for here. Again, he won this election in large part because he said he would lower prices and people did not trust the Biden administration to do that for a second time.
MCHENRY: But we're 11 months in --
ELROD: And now, here we are and we're -- he promised that he would get this taken care -- I understand that.
MCHENRY: We're 11 months in.
ELROD: But he said that he would take care of this immediately and it does not happen.
MCHENRY: Yes, and you can say President Trump should have said, you know, take more time. That's never going to happen. That is never going to happen. Unrealistic to ask this president to do that.
ELROD: But that would have been a reset if he had gone out there and said that.
MCHENRY: Yes, but he's playing a whole different set. But he's playing by a whole different set of rulebooks that we have or discovering live in real time. So what I would say is this Carville comment that he has lost power, my friends on Capitol Hill, my Republican friends on Capitol Hill.
(CROSSTALK)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: That was not -- that was totally wishful. That was wishful thinking. And that is wish --
MCHENRY : That was magical thinking on the part of -- and by the way, normally so tapped in on this stuff. He is so missed the beat on where Republicans are with this president across the country, but especially on Capitol Hill.
ANDERSON: Yeah. Name me someone who is more relevant. Name me someone who is dominating the political conversation more than Donald Trump like that -- that -- I completely agree with that.
HUNT: Well, James Carville, you're welcome to come here and defend yourself, okay. Because we realize a lot of people took you to task, even though we played after we played what you said.
All right. Coming up next here in THE ARENA, new photos released from the Jeffrey Epstein estate and exclusive new CNN reporting today on what is going on behind the scenes at the DOJ ahead of tomorrow's deadline to release case documents.
Plus, something the president has frequently joked about closer to becoming a reality.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The Trump Kennedy Center -- excuse me, the Kennedy Center.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:18:49]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ROBERT GARCIA (D-CA): It's been clear that from day one, the president and the DOJ have been covering up the Epstein investigation. They've been covering up the files, and now that they're being forced to put everything out, I am hopeful. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt that tomorrow we're going to get all the files. But if we look at past behavior, I'm not sure that's going to happen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: On the eve of the Justice Department's deadline to release the Epstein files, House Democrats have released more never-before-seen photos from the Epstein estate. Among the latest disturbing images, we see a female foot. Theres a quote written on it from the book "Lolita". That book is, of course, about an older man's sexual obsession with an underage girl.
Another image shows a text exchange. It reads in part, quote, "I don't know, try to send someone else. I have a friend, scout. She sent me some girls today, but she asks $1,000 per girl. I will send you girls now. Maybe someone will be good for J?"
The lawmakers did not provide any additional context for the photos. It's not clear when or where they were taken or who took them.
Joining our panel, CNN crime and justice correspondent Katelyn Polantz.
[16:20:01]
We're also joined by CNN senior law enforcement analyst, former FBI director, Andrew McCabe.
Katelyn, I want to start with some of your exclusive reporting from behind the scenes as to how the Justice Department is racing to release, you know, meet this deadline to release these files.
KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, they've put a lot of lawyers from the national security division on this, even though this isn't a national security case or the prosecutors that had originally investigated this. The bottom line, as I've talked to a lot of people who have insight into how this work is going, and there is a hard deadline tomorrow by that act of Congress for transparency.
If you are expecting full transparency of what is in the Epstein files, don't hope too hard for that. It's not exactly going to be that. There are going to be lots of redactions. The people who are working on this, the lawyers who are working on this, have been given guidelines with a lot of exemptions to the transparency law. More than three pages in a list of exemptions of things they need to black out that can't be released. It's not just victim information or personal information.
And then on top of that, it's a lot of files to process. It's a lot of files to process by a deadline. Some someone told me that some lawyers are working on more than 1000 pages a person, and the way that you do these redactions, it's not how you do classified redactions or redactions for other things.
So, it's complicated. The guidance hasn't been great. And on top of that, in not being simple or straightforward, there is an expectation that there could be mistakes here, that there could be over redactions made, things that shouldn't be blacked out, that the Justice Department would otherwise black out.
But somebody makes a mistake or an inconsistency or they are over redacting or missing things. They are letting information get out there that shouldn't be out there. Things like personal information. We saw in the JFK assassination files that were released in March, there were Social Security numbers that got out by the hundreds in those documents. The same group doing it on a pretty tight deadline. A lot of files.
HUNT: Andrew McCabe, what are what are you thinking about here, as we prepare to potentially see all of these files? I mean, what are the biggest pitfalls?
ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: You know, Kasie, it's almost inconceivable to me that we're about to do this, and I -- and I know that people feel very strongly about it for very good reasons, but I come from 21 years in the organization building files, running investigations that lead to large accumulations of information.
And the idea that we would just take all of that information and push it out to the public sphere is incomprehensible to me. There is going to be information about people in there that is maybe unvetted, unproven, but that will cast those people in a very negative light. And typically, we never -- we don't share information from an investigation unless it's in the course of a prosecution, unless it's in the course of proving someone guilty of a -- of a stated offense.
We've had some notorious stumbles, if you remember. You know, July 5th, 2016, when Jim Comey made that infamous statement about what we thought about the Hillary Clinton email case. We were, I think, rightly taken to task over it because this was the FBI talking about an investigation when we weren't asking anybody to be charged.
So, this is like that a thousand-fold. So, I really worry about what's going to come out, and what the impact could be to just unleash these things into the wild. I think there could be many, many people who are, who are adversely -- adversely impacted by this release and who have never had an opportunity to defend themselves and never will get one. And I know that's not highest on everybody's list of priorities, but it is a fact of what's going to happen here.
HUNT: I mean, look, it's obviously a very important and distinct perspective that obviously the experience you have you know, helps us -- it adds to it to what we're learning here. One question I do have, the Epstein estate documents that a lot of that seems to be new here. I guess I'm still struggling to understand how that could be in the context of how many years this has been going on.
MCCABE: Well, that -- that information may have been handed over many times already. It may -- it may be sitting in the government's hands. We don't know, maybe the government subpoenaed that information or got it with a search warrant. It's also maybe sitting in the files of many of these civil lawsuits, most of which have been held under seal by the judges in those cases.
So, this information may not be new to investigators. And the estate may have turned this stuff over before. It just hasn't made its way to us. But I think the way that you're seeing and you characterize these photos that are coming out, that's what you can expect when the files come out.
It's going to be without context. It will be largely without explanation of, you know, an FBI agent who interviews someone. You're just -- you could get just relics from that interview or photographs or handwritten notes that were taken. It's going to be a lot of stuff and probably not a lot of context or analysis.
HUNT: Uh-huh.
I mean, Lulu Garcia-Navarro, we've -- I mean, we've talked about this at some length sitting around this table, and every time we get more of this, you know, the picture that is painted is more disturbing and sort of difficult to wrap your head around. I mean, the release from today seems to add a little bit of color and context.
But, I mean -- I was talking to one member of the Oversight Committee, a Democrat, who said that they have pictures of people engaged in sex acts that they're not putting out it. You know, I struggle to cover this topic because the reality is that it seems that went on are just so disturbing. And it clearly wraps in kind of people in tech and Hollywood and in power across the board, Democrats, Republicans, the whole nine yards.
What is going to be the impact if the Department of Justice actually does succeed in meeting this deadline and dumps all this out into the open?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I mean, what I fear is that it is not going to add to the clarity that everyone is seeking. That said, and I do take Andy McCabe's point, he's speaking at a sort of law enforcement official, but there is a cultural context here and a context around, what the victims want and what the victims want is transparency more than anything else.
And so, I think it is going to be a very complicated and difficult moment because I do think people will be implicated that maybe have nothing to do with this. But at the same time, there is a huge appetite for people to see what went on. And just those photos right there, you know, it has raised the veil on some really, really disturbing and clearly disgusting things.
HUNT: All right. Andrew McCabe, Katelyn Polantz, thank you both very much. Really appreciate it.
The rest of our panel is going to stand by for us.
Coming up next in THE ARENA, what we know about a potential connection between the Brown University shooting and the recent killing of a college professor as a planned update on the Providence investigation gets delayed.
Plus, what we're learning about what went down in that private vote today to add Donald Trump's name to the Kennedy Center, including why one board member says she wasn't allowed to vote.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JOYCE BEATTY (D-OH): There is a history of this administration, this president just doing whatever he wants. But they also can be consequences by that. And so, when the American people know, it also gives us the greatest power we have, and that's the power to vote and to remove it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:32:33]
HUNT: All right. We were supposed to hear from officials in Rhode Island this hour on the still ongoing search for the gunman in the deadly Brown University shooting. That news conference has been delayed. We'll keep you updated on any additional updates from there.
But right now, we do know that police are now looking into potential ties between that shooting on Saturday and the killing of an MIT professor who was shot at his home outside of Boston on Monday night.
CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller standing by with that reporting. But let's start first with CNN correspondent Brian Todd.
Brian, what is the latest from where you are on the ground there in Rhode Island?
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kasie, we were originally told that there would be a news conference during this hour at 4 p.m. Eastern Time, then two city officials told myself and our colleague Danny Freeman that this was going to be delayed. One of them, I believe, used the word indefinitely. We did get some guidance that they're going to try to get this news conference going as soon as possible. But as to when it's going to happen and what they're going to say and why this was delayed, we've been pressing for those answers. We've not gotten them.
Now, what I can tell you is earlier this week, all this week, before most of the news conferences that they've staged here, they have released some information and images of this so-called person of interest, this main person that they're looking for, who they've released, video and still images of him walking the streets of Providence near Brown University in the hours before the shooting, and the police chief of providence, Oscar Perez, told me specifically that he believes that this person was what, in his words, quote, casing out the area for 5.5 hours, roughly continuously between about 10:30 a.m. on Saturday and the time of the shooting at 4:00 p.m.
So, they've released these images of him walking around the streets. They've also released a map, an area that they are looking at of providence all around that particular area near where the shooting occurred. And they've mapped out in green the area where he was walking, they believe, before the shooting, and in red, the area that he was walking after the shooting. They said that they lost sight of him at an intersection at governor street, not far from university.
But this is kind of what they've been giving us all week, right ahead of these news conferences, some incremental information on where they are in this case. But right now, Kasie, things are a little bit fluid.
HUNT: All right. John Miller, my understanding is you have some breaking news, new reporting you can bring to us right now?
[16:35:03]
JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Right. And this kind of comes out of what Brian Todd has kind of been setting us up for, which is the abrupt postponement indefinitely of a news conference.
But CNN has learned that investigators have identified a suspect in the case. That suspect is not in custody. It's a person who is being sought. We are told from law enforcement sources who are briefed on the matter that they have obtained an arrest warrant for that suspect. So, when that person is located. He is arrestable in this case.
Now, we have seen in the ebbs and flows of this case, other people interviewed other people investigated. One person taken into custody and held, but we're in a very dynamic period of the case, which is why they postponed that press conference. It has also gotten somewhat more complicated. We're told, since the identification of this suspect and how that has come together within the last 24 hours, that there are some common threads that they have found between this case and certain information and the murder of the MIT professor in Boston, which may join those investigations together.
Also very dynamic and subject to change as this develops. But right now, they are further along than I think they have been before. And that's marked by the reporting that they have an arrest warrant, which means they would have had to show probable cause to get that and have sufficient information to get that warrant.
So, we'll be watching. We'll be waiting and we'll update when we have more.
HUNT: Yeah. John, obviously, at one point they had basically the wrong guy. Do you have any reporting on kind of why they may or may not be confident this time?
MILLER: They have developed a lot of information in the last 24 hours, but I think it's -- it's one of those things. And, you know, Brian's lived through this. Andy can talk about it.
Suspects are suspects. And, you know, arrests are arrests, but they're still, you know, the road that you have to go down to prove that case. And remember, this has been moving, you know, to many people's frustration too slowly. But if you've been in one of the middle of these manhunts where you have a suspect that you're looking for, who you haven't identified, it's actually hasn't been that long.
You know, we're entering day five, but they started with very, very little with an offender who went to a great deal of trouble by taking multiple steps, some of which we know, that the placement of the hat, the mask covering himself up, and trying to remain unidentified. But we are told that there were other steps taken to not get caught.
So, authorities believe that they have enough to get that warrant, that they have that warrant, that it's on the file, and that if they can find this person and take him into custody, they're going to arrest him. Then, of course, what happens? Is he willing to be interviewed, you know, to the forensics match up, all of the things we went through before. But that's where we are.
HUNT: Andrew McCabe. We, of course, have seen or we saw initially the FBI director getting involved publicly or at least speaking about this publicly. Of course, that was at the time when they had detained someone that they then ultimately released. Now they're looking for or now they have obtained this warrant to arrest, the -- this new person.
Can you talk a little bit about what that means in the -- in the context of an investigation like this? As, as John alluded to, you've seen a lot of these cases.
MCCABE: Yeah, sure. I think I mean, honestly, after all this is done, I think this will remain a case study for investigators on why you don't publicize things. You know, these basic steps in an investigation, like following a lead on someone who you think might be promising, and you certainly don't do it from the social media platform of the director of the FBI, because anyone who's ever been involved in a big crisis investigation like this knows that at least 50 percent of the information that you get early in the early stages ends up being wrong.
And, you know, having the FBI director communicate that as he did in this case, as he did in the Charlie Kirk assassination case, really takes that misstep and blows it out of proportion. I should say, too, though, I think, you know, what the investigators did in the case of the person who was first thought to be a person of interest and then -- and then released, they did the right thing there.
[16:40:03]
There may be elevated expectations too early. But aside from that, they took -- they went and found that person. They brought him in to talk to him. He -- we were told he cooperated or spoke to them for some period of time. And then they checked everything that he told them. They checked it against the evidence that they actually captured at the crime scene. And that's how they ruled him out.
That's what they're supposed to do. So, we can only assume that they've done the same thing in the course of obtaining this warrant that we're learning about now from John's great reporting. So, you know, the fact that they went through that process and ruled somebody out, that's actually, you know, it's disappointing to everyone who is hoping for a quick resolution.
But that's what you want investigators to do. In this case. They've gone the next step. They've convinced the prosecutor to present it to a judge. And now, they've convinced the judge that there is probable cause to believe the person that they are looking for is involved with this crime.
So that is a very, very significant development, development. And it's the one that, you know, we've all really been hoping for, for these last few days.
HUNT: Yeah. John Miller, I mean, of course, the piece of this that, you know, I think for the community was extraordinarily difficult to was that there was this assumption kind of at the beginning that, okay, they -- they'd found their man. The community was safe. Then the question was kind of reopened.
And now, I mean, you've been reporting that they may be looking at whether there's a connection. Can you help us understand between what happened at Brown and then the death of this professor at MIT, because, you know, there had been some reporting that they were totally unrelated. What do you know?
MILLER: Well, there are some evidence that was developed in both cases where and again, this is all within the past day and a half where similar information some, some things that could have been coincidental. But, you know, two coincidental not to consider brought those investigations together.
And I say that in the context of Ted Docks, the special agent in charge of the Boston field office, said on day one of -- and that would have been Monday when that murder happened. Monday night. So, you know, going into Tuesday that they had compared notes on the cases and that there were not similarities. But, you know, that's one of those things where you pull that thread forward and similarities emerged. And that's where they came back to it and said, well, let's take a closer look at both of these. Did we have an individual who struck in providence who then moved on up to Boston subsequently committed another act there? And has been, you know, on the run since?
As we continuously point out in the dynamic nature of these things, you can investigate all of that and actually eliminate it. Coincidences sometimes are coincidences, but it's one of the focuses right now.
HUNT: All right. John Miller, Andrew McCabe, Brian Todd, thank you all very much for being here with us on this story.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:47:33]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You have a big event on Friday at the Trump Kennedy Center. Excuse me, at the Kennedy Center. Pardon me. I'm -- such a terrible mistake, Marco. At the Kennedy Center.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: The Trump Kennedy Center. Freudian slip, perhaps.
Today, the board of trustees for the Kennedy Center officially renamed the country's most prominent cultural institution just that, the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.
The board of which Trump appointed himself the chairman back in February, voted unanimously today to approve the new name, cementing the president's year-long endeavor to transform the center both cosmetically and thematically, to his liking. Having it -- having demanded that it be rid of woke programing Trump today telling reporters he is honored by the move.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I was honored by this board is a very distinguished board, most distinguished people in the country, and I was surprised by it. I was honored by it. You know, we've -- we're saving the building. We saved the building. The building was in such bad shape, both physically, financially and every other way. And now, it's very solid, very strong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right. Our panels back.
If you -- if you go to kennedycenter.org, it appears that it's still kennedycenter.org. But it says the Trump Kennedy Center up there in the corner.
What's this about, Patrick McHenry? MCHENRY: So, if this was -- if you had a bingo card of what the first
year of President Trump's second term was going to be like, cultural institutions would not be part of his reform package, right? Much less beautifying the city of Washington. And he has been about both those things, that is utterly confounding to most of the populace in the country, right? Like the fascination about the Kennedy Center.
But let's go back to the first term. You have all these independent boards that are quasi-independent boards. The courts have ruled that the president has authority to hire and fire on these boards.
HUNT: Uh-huh.
MCHENRY: And this president has taken those authorities that have long been in the making through lawsuits and everything else in the courts, to redefine these institutions in dramatic ways. So, the woke days of Biden are definitely gone. But this is not the bingo card for most of us that are very close on Republican politics, not the bingo card of likely things or important things to the voters.
[16:50:04]
GARCIA-NAVARRO: You missed one word, which I think is ego. It's about one thing, which is Donald Trump's ego. And I've seen, you know, I'm --
HUNT: It's also not about voters.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Which is not about voters. This is all about himself. It's like, oh, I'm so honored to receive an award on the behalf of a appointed group of people that I put there. You know, I mean, it's -- again, this incredible grasping presidency where nothing seems to satisfy him except having his name on every single building and every single institution and every single award.
HUNT: I mean, it is kind of a remarkable list, actually. So there's a -- there's the Arc de Trump, right? There are plans for this. I mean, it echoes the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
There's the Oval Office that's been decked out. There it is. Right. Those are the plans. Theres the oval office, which is now totally gold plated, as seen here. There are brand new presidential plaques, right. And, you know, we can't see the words here.
Karoline Leavitt said that the president wrote some of these, himself. They are, shall we say, less than flattering to the people that are not named Donald Trump in these plaques. Okay. And obviously, you know, there's sleepy Joe Biden. Barack Hussein Obama is listed in there.
There's the Rose Garden, which he paved over, seen here. Right. Looks a lot more like Mar-a-Lago than it did before the second term.
And then, of course, he's totally demolished the East Wing of the White House. Right? It's a giant hole in the ground. He's going to build a 90,000 plus square foot ballroom. I mean, Kristen Soltis Anderson, is this like -- like, I mean, is this
what people want?
ANDERSON: So what I was saying earlier in the show about there's ballroom guy and there's -- McDonald's drive thru guy. This is another check in the ballroom. Guy category and is yet again the number, the sort of thing that I can't imagine voters are asking for.
But I also think, look, there is there has been -- this is not to both sides. It -- this -- but there has been a ratcheting up of this sort of thing, right? Like there was a point in time when, like all of the first ladies were on the board of the Kennedy Center, and then you get to a point where Trump appoints some people, and then Biden comes in and Biden kicks all the Trump people off, and he puts the Biden people in, and then Trump comes back. He kicks all the Biden people off. And there's been this ratcheting up and ratcheting up and ratcheting up.
And what I have to imagine and what I do here in my research, is voters like they want someone to turn the temperature down. Now, my challenge to voters is then you need to vote for the sorts of people who will ratchet the temperature down. And that is not what voters in either party in primaries are telling us. They're looking for people who will fight, fight, fight and stick it to the other guy.
But this is, again, not to both sides, but we have just seen this ratcheting up and up and up of I'm going to just try to make the other side feel pain. I want them to feel bad. I want to trash the stuff they've done.
I don't love it. And I don't think a lot of voters like it either.
HUNT: I mean, is the problem here just that basically the people that are participating in our politics that are so turned off that they've just shut off the whole project, are the people on both extremes?
MCHENRY: We have a current phenomenon of this very divided republic and all these elections are going further to the right and further to the left, and they are narrowly won. And it is an amazing outcome that is not -- not really, over the last 150 years where the American republic has been. This is a quite a big shift of the populace. And Trump is a -- is part of the representation of that, but not the full story.
And to the point of in the first segment, which is President Trump dominates our politics. So everything is clouded and we can't see the individual pieces that have led us to this moment. But it is a moment indeed that is, that is greater and larger than President Trump.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: To Kristen's point, though, I do wonder after this era is done what happens, right? Because I don't see a moment like, let's say a Democratic president comes into office, I don't see them giving back power that has been taken. I don't see them all of a sudden saying, you know what? I'm going to decide that were going to make things bipartisan or were going to make things nonpolitical.
I think unfortunately, what ends up happening is that this only goes so weight to your point, because we have now been in this era where it is literally eat or be eaten politics, and people are accustomed to it. And the voters that actually put people in office, the people who show up to the polls want their politicians now to stick it to the other guy.
MCHENRY: But the balancing part of our republic is divided power between these three branches. It is for this, this very moment, that we have these checks and balances that work overtime with the courts, with the legislative branch, and over time, that will --
[16:55:00]
GARCIA-NAVARRO: They're not working now.
MCHENRY: -- it will and it does have an impact and a limiting impact on the power of our government. And that was the Founders' intent.
HUNT: Well, speaking of very narrowly won elections that tend to swing back and forth in various waves, that brings us to our next story. Three seats, that's it. That's all that stands between the Democratic Party and control of house of the -- the House of Representatives next fall. They, of course, have been emboldened by special election wins as well as the elections last month.
National Democrats have been very bullish on their ability to retake the House, and they are identifying 35 congressional districts as being in play for the 2026 midterm elections. At this time last year, a number of those districts would have been considered totally out of reach. But the party believes that a combination of the presidents slumping approval rating and strong candidates could spell success.
One of the candidates they might bet on is Allison Jaslow. She's an Iraq war veteran. She announced today her bid for North Carolina's third congressional district. She joins me now.
Allison, it's great to have you on the show. And, you know, for viewers who don't know the exact geography of where you are, this is a district in the eastern part of North Carolina. It went heavily for Trump by 14 points. It's definitely an uphill battle.
Why do you think it's one that is possible to win in this election cycle?
ALLISON JASLOW (D), NORTH CAROLINA CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: Well, Kasie, I think voters across the country, but especially here in North Carolina, have an extreme desire to have better representation than they have right now. In fact, North Carolina is one of the states that's a part of the redistricting wars. It actually started here earlier than this year. And, objectively, voters don't have the types of leaders that they want right now. And so, I'm trying to step up and be that type of leader. This is definitely a tough district.
You know, I'm an Iraq war veteran, and this is a district that has two military bases in it. After it was redrawn earlier this year, and these members of the military and the veterans in these communities deserve somebody who understands the sacrifices that they've made in Congress.
HUNT: One thing that voters are telling pollsters now that they weren't necessarily in the first Trump administration when they were unhappy with Trump. They elected Biden. They were relatively happy with Democrats. That's not the case this time, right? Donald Trump's approval rating is at an all-time low in many cases, but people aren't really happy with the Democrats either.
What do you think is the biggest mistake national Democrats have made that you would do differently?
JASLOW: Well, first of all, you know, I wouldn't say that I'm like necessarily all the other Democrats. You know, I have a unique lived experience that many other members of Congress do not have. And also, I think that there's a huge contrast between myself and the sitting incumbent in this case.
You know, earlier this year, Kasie, I stepped down from my role as the chief executive officer of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans of America, which is the nation's leading post-9/11 generation veterans advocacy organization. I went into Congress to testify, to be the voice of the post-9/11 generation of veterans.
That was my job. The current incumbent sits on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, but couldn't even show up that day to hear my testimony and the testimony of the leaders who are alongside me.
So there's -- there's a lot that you can simplify at a national level to D and R, but I have a lot of confidence that the type of leader I've been and have showed up and served as for my entire life, will provide great contrast with the current sitting member of congress in a way that we can pick up the seat this year
HUNT: One significant story out there has been the other veteran and national security veteran members of Congress on the Democratic side, who put out a video urging our troops not to follow unlawful orders, reminding them of an obligation not to. And that, of course, has resulted in a pentagon investigation as well as an FBI investigation into some of these members of Congress.
Would you have wanted to participate in this video?
JASLOW: You know, I'm not sure, Kasie. But I do think it's great that leaders, not just members of Congress, but any leaders on the national stage are providing contrast to the failed leadership at the Pentagon right now, frankly. Unfortunately, we have a secretary of defense, and this is something that I've, you know, given a lot of news interviews about in the past who is unfit to lead that agency? For a variety of reasons, to include that he's not building, in my view, a culture in the military that is needed for the health of the all volunteer force.
HUNT: All right. Allison Jaslow, thank you very much for taking some time out with us today. We will be following your race very closely. Thank you. See you soon.
JASLOW: Thanks for having me. HUNT: All right. Thanks to my panel for being here. Really appreciate
all of you. Thanks to all of you at home for watching.
"THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER" starts right now.
