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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
Bad Bunny To Headline Super Bowl Halftime Show Amid Growing Backlash To Trump's Immigration Crackdown; "We Should Take Over The Voting": Trump's Call To The GOP; Dems Blast Trump's Call To "Nationalize" Elections; Trump Promises Schumer Funding For NY Transportation Project If Penn Station & Dulles Airport Are Renamed After The President. Trump Promises Schumer Funding For NY Transportation Project If Penn Station & Dulles Airport Are Renamed After The President; Colin Powell Addresses U.N. Security Council To Make Case For Iraq Invasion: "Every Statement Is Backed Up By Sources"; Kamala Harris & The Rebrand Of The Rebrand. Aired 12-1p ET
Aired February 07, 2026 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AUSTIN APPELBEE, AUSTRALIAN BOY WHO SAVED HIS FAMILY: -- not today, not today, not today. I have to keep on going.
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[12:00:04]
BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: Just extraordinary courage. Bravo, Austin.
Well, that's all the time we have. Don't forget, you can find all of our shows online as podcasts on CNN.com/audio and on all other major platforms.
I'm Bianna Golodryga in New York. Thanks so much for watching.
KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: Hi everyone, I'm Kasie Hunt. Welcome to the Arena Saturday.
Tomorrow, the big day, Super Bowl Sunday. The Patriots facing off against the Seahawks in Santa Clara. Plus the biggest stage of the year, the halftime show this year featuring Bad Bunny.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BAD BUNNY, RAPPER: They don't even have to learn Spanish. They just -- it's better if they learn to dance, but I think there's no better dance than the one that comes from the heart.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: The Puerto Rican superstar is known for speaking out on cultural and political issues, and he dedicated one of his latest Grammy wins to immigrants.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUNNY: I'm going to say, ICE out. We're not savage, we're not animals, we're not aliens, we are humans and we are Americans.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Everyone now wondering whether Bad Bunny will make a similar type of statement tomorrow with more than 100 million people expected to be watching. One person who might not be tuning in is President Donald Trump. The White House this week implying that the Mar-a-Lago Super Bowl watch party will flip to Turning Point USA's alternative halftime show, which is set to feature Kid Rock.
All of these coming after a pivotal week in which the Trump administration announced it would withdraw hundreds of federal agents from Minneapolis, with the president himself acknowledging the need for change.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, speaking of Minneapolis, what did you learn?
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I learned that maybe we can use a little bit of a softer touch, but you still have to be tough.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right. My panel's here in The Arena. CNN Legal Analyst, Former Federal Prosecutor Elliot Williams, National Political Reporter for Axios, CNN Political Analyst Alex Thompson, former DNC Senior Adviser, CNN Political Commentator Xochitl Hinojosa, along with former Republican Congressman and Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry. Welcome to all of you. Thank you so much for being here.
Are we really so divided now that we have to have two Super Bowl halftime shows, Congressman? I mean --
PATRICK MCHENRY (R), FORMER SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE: Of course.
HUNT: You can't, like, I mean, I guess I knew it intellectually but like --
MCHENRY: You can't accept cultural norms across society anymore. No, I mean, this also tells us about a couple of things. Number one, the divide among Americans, number one. Number two, the assumption that the NFL is OK with the Trump administration.
Think about how contorted -- the contortions they went through as an organization, as a corporate organization around the National Anthem in the first Trump administration. And now they have confidence to put somebody up for their prime show of the year, which is the halftime show, the Super Bowl. And they feel comfortable enough to put somebody who has a very different and well-stated political view on something that is a huge divide point -- divided point for Americans right now, immigration.
HUNT: I mean -- go ahead.
ALEX THOMPSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, let's be clear. Bad Bunny was not chosen by the NFL for his politics. Bad Bunny was chosen for money because Bad Bunny was the top Spotify streaming artist, not just last year, but the year before. And the NFL has increasingly tried to expand itself as an international sport. It's why you had NFL teams down in Brazil, not just this year, but last year as well and across the sea.
The reason why -- and that's why I think why Bad Bunny was like, you just have to dance. Like, he is trying -- he may say something political, but that is not why he was chosen.
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. He already made his political point this week, and it is getting tons of coverage everywhere. Do I think that your average American is going to move away from the Super Bowl coverage to watch the Turning Point USA halftime show? I'm not really sure.
Like, the Super Bowl is a Super Bowl, regardless of political party, and everyone looks forward to the halftime show. And people like Bad Bunny, and I think people will be very excited about it. And so my guess is there's a lot more viewers on Bad Bunny than there is on the Turning Point USA show.
I think that Turning Point USA and Trump, they're just using it as a political moment. They will attack Bad Bunny, of course. It was a terrible halftime show. And I can predict that right here tonight, I mean, today.
THOMPSON: Not in English.
HINOJOSA: Not -- exactly. And they're like, we have no idea what he said, so.
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Xochitl, let me ask you, what is an average American? And it's a serious question.
HINOJOSA: Yes.
WILLIAMS: You said that. Because what do we mean when we use a term like that? I mean --
HINOJOSA: Maybe someone who is not tuned into politics every day.
[12:05:11]
WILLIAMS: Because I think you see where I'm going with this. There are a lot of Latinos in America now that are spending money, and certainly politically active, and also watching football. It's sort of like Michael Jordan's point about how Republicans watch football too. And to Alex's point, this is literally one of the biggest stars, not in the United States, but on the planet.
Yes, he has political views that are at odds with the administration. But this is about money and making lots of it, and they're going to.
HUNT: Roger Goodell weighed in. He talked, you know, talked about Bad Bunny, but suggested that, you know, politics maybe -- yes, might be encouraged to be kept off the table. Watch.
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ROGER GOODELL, NFL COMMISSIONER: This platform is used to unite people and to be able to bring people together with their creativity, with their talents, and to be able to use this moment to do that. And I think artists in the past have done that. I think Bad Bunny understands that, and I think he'll have a great performance.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: What are the incentives for him, Xochitl, for Bad Bunny?
HINOJOSA: Listen, Bad Bunny, I think is -- it is an honor to perform at the Super Bowl. I don't think he's going to go as far as he did earlier this week, but I do think he might have a unifying message. And the unifying message, I could potentially see him talking about just an inclusive America, and a diverse America.
It's not anything that is bad. It's -- we are a nation of immigrants, so I would not be surprised if that is his message versus an anti-ICE message.
MCHENRY: If you look at the weekend, he paid out of his own pocket in order to stage the halftime show. It is a premiere event for anyone. Even the biggest artist in the world has a particular special stage for the NFL halftime show.
So, yes, it has become political, but for those watching, I don't think it will be political. I mean, and I agree with you, I don't think there's going to be this widespread turning off of one program to another. I think there are going to be some Americans that actually turn it on for the halftime show --
WILLIAMS: Yes, and going further than that, I mean, I think Bad Bunny has -- is probably enough of a savvy businessman, probably is enough around him, to say that going out there and screaming, F-ICE or something like that is just not a good business decision. Now there's likely to be some kind of wink-nod statement about whatever it might be about -- I don't know, I don't want to speculate, but, you know, some statement about that is a dog whistle to pro-immigration folks in America that I think does what he needs to do in front of such a big audience.
THOMPSON: When I say, like, Republicans are saying they're upset because they just want artists that are as free of politics, but then the person they are turning to for their alternative one is Kid Rock, who clearly is a -- like, makes a point of making political statements in his art. HUNT: Yes, let's watch actually how some -- the president and some other Republicans have talked about this upcoming halftime show. Take a look.
TRUMP: I don't know who he is. I don't know why they're doing it. It's like crazy. And then they blame it on some promoter that they hired.
TOMI LAHREN, HOST, "TOMI LAHREN IS FEARLESS": As much as I would love to indulge in that halftime show and see Bad Bunny possibly in a dress trashing our federal law enforcement officers in this great country, I think I'm going to sit that one out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, but you go watch the game.
KID ROCK, MUSICIAN: There's a big portion of this country, like it or not, that's underserved entertainment-wise. And, you know, we're just going to go play for our base. You know, people who love America, love football, love Jesus.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Many of them might be watching Bad Bunny also, I have to say. Congressman, I mean, to the extent we do have culturally unifying moments, the Super Bowl is one of them.
MCHENRY: It is.
HUNT: It's not the biggest one, honestly.
MCHENRY: And frankly, it'll be interesting to see what the viewers have to say about the halftime show afterwards, whether or not they even know about the politics leading into it. And I think for the NFL audience coming out of the Super Bowl, I think this will rate very low on what they care about.
HUNT: It tends to be, Alex, when something -- we're only talking about the halftime show, really, the day after when something has gone very wrong.
THOMPSON: Yes.
HUNT: So --
THOMPSON: We were all growing up during Janet Jackson.
HINOJOSA: I mean, yes.
HUNT: I also feel like I realized that I was old when the halftime acts started being targeted at me instead of at my parents. I don't know if you felt that way.
WILLIAMS: Oh, yes. When there was the 90s nostalgia Dr. Dre 1, which I was like, yes, this is the greatest thing. But it's also musicians who's big -- you know, well, Dr. Dre is still huge, but it was a wink nod to the 80s and 90s. There's no question about that.
HUNT: Yes. Whereas like Paul McCartney performed back when, like, my parents were the ones spending the money.
Anyway. All right, coming up next year in The Arena, a $16 billion offer from Donald Trump to the Senate's top Democrat. What the president wants and why Chuck Schumer is taking a hard pass.
But first, another week of the president saying something, the White House saying it's not what he meant and the president saying, no, it is what he meant. It's our quote of the week. That's next.
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TRUMP: If we need to put in federal controls as opposed to state controls, remember this, they're really an agent. They're really accumulating the votes for who wins an election. If they can't do it honestly and it can't be done properly and timely, then something else has to happen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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[12:14:52]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've recently suggested nationalizing elections. What do you mean by that?
TRUMP: When -- and I didn't say nationally. I said there are some areas in our country that are extremely corrupt. They have very corrupt elections.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[12:15:06]
HUNT: Voting volley, whiplash week, ballot backtrack, whatever alliteration you want to use, it's certainly been a week at the White House. You heard President Trump there on Wednesday say that he didn't call for federal oversight of state and local elections, except that he did.
And that's our quote of the week. The president's message to Republicans that, quote, "We should take over the voting."
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TRUMP: The Republicans should say, we want to take over -- we should take over the voting in at least many 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. We have states that are so crooked and they're counting votes. We have states that I won that show I didn't win.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Pretty clear there. Congressman, would you like to see the country do what the president suggested there?
MCHENRY: No. Is it a bad idea when Democrats had it? It's a bad idea when the president espouses it. They've debated this since the Constitution was debated on the nature of our voting system. We're a federalist, a republic based off federalist principles. And the states have certain responsibilities. The federal government has certain responsibilities.
We have a national market, but we have local regulation. The interesting thing is by us having a less centrally controlled election, it makes it much more difficult to hijack very important big elections in our country. You can not to take a shot at your home state, but Philadelphia and Chicago can have corruption, yet you still have a national election for the presidency that is free of corruption.
And so, that is a resilient system because it's decentralized and very difficult for a nation state actor to hack it. When Hillary Clinton had that idea, it was bad. When President Trump had that same idea, no better. And so, this has been kicked around, but it's really fascinating to me to see Democrats who have been supportive of nationalizing elections and election laws now flip because the president is in their camp.
HINOJOSA: Well, it's interesting that the president is now bringing this up, knowing that Republicans are headed towards a really bad election. And whether it is Pam Bondi trying to gain the voter rolls of some of these states, or whether it is trying to nationalize the election, or even Steve Bannon now saying that ICE should be at polling locations, like this is all part of the same playbook.
This is what they're doing. I don't think Democrats, you know, while I don't agree with any Democrats saying that we should nationalize elections, Democrats have also not been for voter suppression, for obtaining the rolls. So this is -- it's not lost on me that this is all happening around what happened in Tarrant County, where there are major wins, and we've seen major wins over the last few months for Democrats. And now all of a sudden, Republicans are like, whoa, we need changes to the election system.
HUNT: Well, Elliot Williams, the Constitution says, it's pretty clear. I mean, the times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof.
WILLIAMS: Yes, it's --
HUNT: It does mention Congress.
WILLIAMS: Article 1, Section 4, it's on its face, plain. But, you know, the interesting thing, and this is something, whether it's deliberate or just a Trumpy thing that he does, there's always a shred of truth to the statements he makes that he's able to extrapolate and twist and get in people's heads.
Yes, there's some federal role as we think about elections, just the very fact that we elect presidents on a national level, right? He says nationalize the elections, it gets in people's heads and people start thinking, yes, yes, maybe he's right. Yes, absolutely. We should fill it just because of how bad Philadelphia is, the president needs to take it over.
And it's actually quite toxic and quite toxic to the system. I think what he's doing more than anything else is just casting doubt, like so she says, on an election in which Republicans are going to have a pretty bad time. And you can say afterward that it was because of the fraud.
THOMPSON: But interestingly, not the people that are not nodding their heads along being like, oh, yes, that would maybe be a good idea. Are Republicans in Congress?
WILLIAMS: Fascinating, yes.
THOMPSON: Because you have not seen any movement towards trying to actually nationalize election. Yes, and Republicans keep trying to just very, you know, slowly but surely, like divert the president toward a different piece of legislation, like the SAVE Act, talk about voter ID, talk about these other things that I think are winning issues. You are not seeing -- they think voting actually is a winning issue, but they cannot get Donald Trump in part because of his obsession with losing in 2020.
WILLIAMS: Yes.
THOMPSON: They cannot get him on the message they want.
WILLIAMS: And not unlike immigration, the president was on to something with, well, perhaps there are ways in which, you know, on -- across the country, we could tighten up election security or whatever else, but has gone too far and ended up turning a lot of the --
MCHENRY: The last time we had a substantive debate about this as a result of the 2000 election. And you had a bipartisan commission come up for recommendations on how to change federal law that could have implications at the local level. Among those bipartisan ideas were voter ID and national -- and once you sign up for an election, you would permanently be signed up.
[12:20:07]
So when you move states, you don't have to re-register and go through all this, all the shenanigans here. We haven't fulfilled part of those obligations from the 2004-2005 era. So, yes, there is a point on fixing these election laws, but I, for one, am very traditional on this. Back in 2001, when Democrats were saying we need to nationalize the election because it went against their favor, now you're seeing the reverse here with a few Republicans that will chime in with the president's view here.
HUNT: Yes. Although, I mean, we didn't have a Democratic president necessarily out there pressing --
MCHENRY: Yes, because --
HUNT: -- this for their own sake.
MCHENRY: -- Bush won and Gore lost.
HUNT: Well, but even then, when we eventually did get a Democratic office, we didn't see that. But Congressman, I mean, the Republicans who have tried to defend the president on this have insisted he is talking about the SAVE Act, which is, yes, a specific piece of legislation that would make various changes to our election laws.
Do you think President Trump actually knows what the SAVE Act is, and is it remotely plausible that that is what he is talking about in that interview?
MCHENRY: Like all things, these get papered by the White House, and the White House staff have said, no, that's actually what he meant. And then the change was not nationalizing elections, but a few jurisdictions where there's corruption.
HUNT: Fifteen states, the president said.
MCHENRY: Which are Democratic states, just happened to be. But let me just rewind here. So we have Republicans in the House say the Senate needs to change their filibuster rules. Why? Voting rights. And I don't know.
I've lived long enough that four years ago at this time, the Democrats were saying the same thing. The filibusters should be amended for voting rights. And so everybody's pushing and pulling on the same thing, and that is controlling the ballot box and ballot access, which has been as old as voting itself on control of the electorate.
That is not new. This is the reason why I have checks and balances in our delicate system here. So you can't have one party so destroy the voting system as to corrupt it for future elections.
HINOJOSA: But Democrats haven't been doubting the results of the election the way the Republicans have. And like to the point where, like, the current Justice Department is now investigating the 2020 election. What? It's like, what are we doing? Why are we talking about the 2020 election?
So I will challenge you on that. I don't think you've seen Democrats go to that extent.
MCHENRY: Democrats go in 2004 election.
HINOJOSA: Not the way to have sitting government investigate what was happening.
HUNT: Certainly, as with many things, Donald Trump has taken the entire conversation to a new level. We all agree on that.
HINOJOSA: Yes.
HUNT: OK.
MCHENRY (?): Until 11.
HUNT: Great. Coming up in The Arena, a 76-minute speech that arguably tipped the scales on one of the biggest stories of the 21st century. But first, Donald Trump's latest plan for the nation's capital and why it is alarming some architects.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL KOSTA, HOST, "THE DAILY SHOW": This is how you can tell Trump doesn't live with Melania full time, because this is one of those ideas men have when they're home alone for too long. Whenever my wife goes away two days into her trip, I'm like, actually, you know, we do need a skate park in this living room.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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[12:27:37]
TRUMP: I'm doing an arc, a triumphal -- they call it a triumphal arc. 57 cities have arcs.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
TRUMP: We're the only major important city. Washington, D.C. should have maybe the first arc.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
TRUMP: We're doing one that will be more magnificent and larger than the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. We're going to do one that's going to top it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is it true it's going to be 250 feet to mark the anniversary?
TRUMP: It'll be about that, yes. It'll be a little bit taller than the one in Paris.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Coming soon here to Washington, D.C., President Trump's triumphal arch. It's a monument he has long proposed as a towering commemoration of our country's 250th anniversary. The structure, which would sit atop a grassy area near the Virginia side of the Arlington Memorial Bridge, has been dubbed the Arc de Triomphe.
The president, who is of course formerly in construction, has certainly already made his mark here. He put his name on numerous buildings across the city. You may recall recently he did that to the Kennedy Center. But he doesn't want to be done. The president last month told the Senate Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer, he was finally prepared to drop the freeze that he's had on $16 billion that would fund a major infrastructure project in Schumer's home state of New York. But there was a catch and a rather unorthodox one. Schumer would have to agree to rename New York's Penn Station and Washington's Dulles International Airport after Trump.
If anyone has flown through Dulles International Airport, would you really want your name on the outside of the building?
HINOJOSA: No. No, absolutely no.
HUNT: I mean, the Saarinen Terminal is gorgeous, but once you get past that part, I mean, I don't know. Alex, like, are there no -- like, I guess none of us should be surprised. I want to play, actually, part of the reason why maybe we shouldn't be surprised.
This was a CNN piece, OK, from 1999, all right, long before Donald Trump was really seriously thinking about running for president, although he was kind of, you know, he's always been toying around in politics. This was Jeanne Moos, she's a legendary correspondent here, asking people what Donald Trump would do if he were president. And again, the year 1999. Take a look.
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JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We figure one of the first moves President Trump would make is to plaster his name on a few places.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He tried to put his name on the Bible, if he could get away with that.
MOOS: We can see it now in neon, the White House becomes Trump House and Camp David becomes Camp Donald.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HUNT: I mean, apparently it's a tale as old as time, no one should be surprised.
ALEX THOMPSON, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, AXIOS: UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is anyone really surprised? Like having basically gone through America and seeing his name on every Trump hotel. The man also reportedly wants to have his name on the new NFL Commander Stadium.
He also wants his name on as many things as possible. He obviously, even when he was sending checks to people, you know, in the first term, made sure that it was his signature.
HUNT: Well, that was a smart political move.
THOMPSON: They launched it, they launched TrumpRx.gov last night. They also have launched Trump baby accounts. You know, I still remember that all the machinations Democrats went through, Xochitl will remember, about whether or not, should we embrace Obamacare or not? We are so far away from that.
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Nevermind me.
HUNT: That is a difference, actually, Xochitl. I mean Democrats desperately tried to get us all to call it the ACA, which, you know, it's just obscured the --
HINOJOSA: And then we embraced Obamacare. But also I think this is funny while this is happening, and Trump just recently talked about how he was upset about the 2020 election because it impacted his ego. And so this goes back to just his ego in general and how it is, and his staff knows this. I mean you see cabinet members talking about how great he is. You see them praising him.
I don't think I've ever seen this of any president, any cabinet meeting, where you have to go and you have to kiss the ring and talk about how wonderful he is. He wants his name everywhere. This is all about Trump's ego. We know how this goes. It's unfortunate that we are only in year two of this administration, because I think when we're done, all of D.C. will be named after Donald Trump.
PATRICK MCHENRY (R), FORMER SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE: So I've got an idea, which is the people movers at Dulles, that President Trump should name them the Biden people movers, because it's slow moving, it's out of a different era.
HINOJOSA: If he watches this, you know this will happen.
MCHENRY: They're not quite sure where it's going, right?
HINOJOSA: Yes.
MCHENRY: So maybe it's the people movers, the Biden people movers there --
HUNT: At Trump International Airport.
MCHENRY: Look, that's a way to make it bipartisan. Everybody gets what they want out of this.
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I was just wondering how long you workshopped that joke, because that was well executed, Patrick.
THOMPSON: I don't think I lied.
HUNT: Oh, OK.
MCHENRY: No, it wasn't. Thank you so much. Alex is spot on.
THOMPSON: It wasn't a compliment.
MCHENRY: No. Thank you. But it's better than answering the actual question. So, but on this, the fascinating thing is, 1999, they're talking about Trump putting his name on things. If you had thought about this before the election, a year and a half ago, Trump's fascination with the architecture of Washington, D.C., the layout, even the golf courses around Washington, D.C., public golf courses around Washington, D.C. It's an interesting set of lists that the President has. And I'd love to know what else is on this list, because renaming Dulles, that was not in anyone's bingo card for sure.
WILLIAMS: The one thing, though, I think it's important to set the Kennedy Center aside and treat everything else differently. The President can put his name on whatever he wants. If he wishes to put his name on the Institute of Peace, that's fine. We are losing sight of the fact that the Kennedy Center is a memorial to a slain president, right? I think people think of it as, oh, it's just a theater.
It's just a place where you go see Hamilton. No, it was, you know, designated by Congress as a memorial to John F. Kennedy. There's a statue of him in it. The first song played at it was commissioned in honor of his death. It's a memorial. And the idea of Trump putting his name on that is very different than all of this other stuff.
And I think it's easy, in the craziness of the Trump era, to sort of lose the thread and think that it's all chaos and nightmare. The Kennedy Center one's really, really bad, and I think people aren't really catching that.
THOMPSON: Trump had his eye on this from the very beginning, though. There's some reporting that actually, because in the one big, beautiful bill, there is $250-plus million for, "renovations." And that was put in at the direct insistence of Donald Trump himself to actually get that line item in. He has clearly had his eye on this.
And his sort of obsession with, you know, names, it's why he reportedly even floated having RFK Jr. on the ticket in 2024, because he liked the way that Trump-Kennedy looked.
HUNT: Well, I mean, isn't that part of it, Congressman, with Donald Trump, he has always wanted to be thought of alongside a certain, you know, social or political class that he always felt outside of.
MCHENRY: Absolutely. Even though he's the center of the debate in New York and the biggest market in the world, I mean, it's an incredible thing to think of him as an outsider, given his long record and his wealth. What is interesting about all of these questions, it's about optics. It's about the view from the outside and what the populist views of this debate.
[12:34:58]
Some of this is precisely to get Elliott to say what he did, right? It's to entice his opposition to make claims against him. And so some of this is normatively, right, to commemorative arch for our 250th anniversary as a country, yes.
How do you name it? What does it look like? And all those other things that then tip the balance and encourage the debate.
WILLIAMS: I want to be clear, though. I'm not an -- this is not an opposition to the President. The Kennedy Center point is a fundamental one about how we treat memorials. And if Barack Obama were to put his name on the Lincoln Memorial, the outrage would be widespread across the country. And I just think we're losing sight of that.
HUNT: All right. Coming up next here in The Arena, the secretary, the speech and the skepticism it later created.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLIN POWELL, FORMER STATE SECRETARY: Given Saddam Hussein's history of aggression, given what we know of his grandiose plans, given what we know of his terrorist associations, and given his discernment to exact revenge on those who oppose him, should we take the risk that he will not someday use these weapons?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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[12:41:41]
POWELL: My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. Saddam Hussein has chemical weapons. Saddam Hussein has used such weapons. And Saddam Hussein has no compunction about using them again, against his neighbors and against his own people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Twenty-three years ago this week, Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed a packed U.N. Security Council meeting sent by President George W. Bush to make the case to the world that Saddam Hussein not only had weapons of mass destruction, but if not stopped, that he would use them. Powell used those four words, weapons of mass destruction, 17 times in that 76-minute speech. And they, of course, became synonymous with the U.S. justification for the eventual American-led invasion of Iraq.
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POWELL: The gravity of this moment is matched by the gravity of the threat that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction pose to the world. Leaving Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an option. Not in a post- September 11th world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Of course, after the war started, no weapons of mass destruction were actually found after the U.S. overthrew the Iraqi government. In fact, that revelation turned Powell's U.N. speech into a deeply embarrassing moment for the U.S. and damaged American credibility on the world stage. At home, the numbers told a similar story. After 2005, less than 40 percent of Americans said they trusted the government to do the right thing. And that number has fallen steadily over the 21st century.
And, Congressman, I mean, that graph may explain exactly where we are in terms of the way our politics play out, the way that President Trump, you know, exploits divisions among us. And I think for, I mean, certainly, you know, that was one of my earliest memories of how we were conducting ourselves on the world stage as an adult. And it was one that ultimately, I think, led a lot of people to question whether they could believe what the government was telling them in a way that perhaps, you know, I mean, obviously, the Vietnam era created some similar trends and things. But I'm curious what you think that moment has meant in the long term.
MCHENRY: It's had huge implications for questioning things that we assumed to be bipartisan facts or nonpartisan facts. It's led us to question our government, our system of government. And then the kicker to this was two years later, two and a half years later, you had the financial crisis, which changed everything economically for the last really generation of Americans growing up.
So the combination of the two have shaken the bedrock of what we think of as our democracy in the United States and has changed our credibility around the world and our coalitions around the world as well.
WILLIAMS: And I would say that speech in that era launched two careers. One was Barack Obama and the other is Donald Trump. I really do think that sort of part of what launches Obama into the White House, in addition to the financial crisis, is a response to the United States being entangled in the wars of the early 2000s. And part of what launches Donald Trump to prominence is this idea that America should not be the world's police and that whole movement of MAGA sort of comes from some of that.
THOMPSON: I think you could even go further than that where you're seeing a rising generation of Iraq-era veterans, particularly Vice President J.D. Vance. You also have Ruben Gallego, a senator from Arizona, who might run for president. And, you know, that sort of era of disillusioned Iraq War veterans are now sort of coming of age and is affecting our politics right now.
HINOJOSA: That's right. But -- and you're also seeing it play out today in this sort of distrust of the government. You've seen the administration, whether they take action with Venezuela. You've talked about endless wars. What is their plan? Whether or not they believe that this is all for drugs? Look, I think that there have been, you know, and the government, whether it's Republicans or Democrats, have questioned this administration and our leaders even before this anytime they take action because of this very speech, right? And I think it has had broader implications.
[12:45:05]
HUNT: I want to show President George W. Bush reflected later about his biggest regret as president of the United States. And he referenced, of course, the intelligence that you saw Colin Powell talking about right there, the weapons of mass destruction, intelligence as part of it. Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq. A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said, you know, the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein. It wasn't just people in my administration and, you know, that's not a do over. But I would, you know, I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: I mean, Congressman, it's sort of stunning to watch and even think about. Elliott mentioned Barack Obama. He was one of the few who opposed the Iraq war because at that time, those intelligence assessments, that conversation was considered to be basically a set of facts. And the, you know, Congress was overwhelming. Democrats supported the President at that time based on what he was saying.
Now, obviously, it was in the wake of 9/11. There were other things going on. But the idea that anything remotely close to that kind of universal acceptance of a situation as, yes, you know, it starts here and it ends there, it feels so foreign to the moment that we're in today.
MCHENRY: And today we still have the intelligence community and investigative agencies at the federal level questioned. And President Trump is doing that even though he's leading the executive branch. And so that is born out of, you know, the last 20 years of politics around this.
But I would say when we're talking about war policy in the United States. You had a political decision by Democrats at the time because Afghanistan was a good war. Iraq was the bad war. But that's not new to that moment. It is as old as a republic with the disagreement and the partisan disagreement on approaches to war and war fighting.
HUNT: Sure. That's absolutely true.
All right. Coming up next here, something totally different. The political re-rebrand that's got Gen Z saying, cringe. We'll explain.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[12:51:51]
KAMALA HARRIS, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So, KamalaHQ is turning into headquarters, and it's where you can go online to get basically the latest of what's going on, and also to meet and revisit with some of our great, courageous leaders. (END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Kamala Harris relaunching her KamalaHQ account. She says it's now a "online organizing project for next generation campaigning." The account, which garnered more than a million followers on Twitter and more than 5 million on TikTok during her presidential campaign, it is now called Headquarters 67. At least, it was called Headquarters 67. Gen Z and Gen Alpha were quick to call the rebrand cringe because of the apparent reference to that viral 67 meme. Now, if you have been with us here in the arena Saturday, you may already know the 67 meme.
I am reminded that it looks like this. I had to be reminded. I am definitely -- anyway, it doesn't really mean anything. After a full day of people mocking the change as an attempt to appeal to the youth, KamalaHQ, which rebranded to Headquarters 67, is now Headquarters 68. I'm sorry. What? What does 68 even mean? At least it's not 67. This has some in the political world. Or I guess it had us flashing back to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's too much build-up. It's too much build-up.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Rebranded. What do we think? I love it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I love it. I love it. It looks great.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I never knew you had so much neck.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean that in a good way. I think necks are neat.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm going to go show everybody myself. OK, let's go do it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCHENRY: OK. Let me just say, as a Republican --
HINOJOSA: I love how you're going first.
MCHENRY: Let me just say --
WILLIAMS: Enjoying every moment of opportunity.
MCHENRY: As a Republican looking at a tough midterm, the joy of joys is Kamala Harris reemerging. I am so grateful she's reemerged. This makes me so happy.
HINOJOSA: This is why this whole rebrand is not helpful for this reason alone.
WILLIAMS: The delight on his -- and the camera --
HINOJOSA: --face just for this reason. WILLIAMS: It's a Christmas warning for him.
HINOJOSA: She's obviously trying to build her list. She's obviously thinking about running for president. She -- I will say that if you are a Democrat in a vulnerable district right now, you do not want Harris campaigning for you, especially if she lost in your district. What you might want, if she wants to raise a bunch of money and give it to candidates, that's probably more helpful than having a platform that seems like it is, you know, she's trying to help Democrats, but it's really to help herself. And I think that's why Democrats are peeved about this.
HUNT: Isn't the biggest sin if -- like if you're trying to appeal, like, if you're a cool young person, isn't the biggest sin trying too hard?
WILLIAMS: Yes, and quite frankly -- in all seriousness, this is going to sound silly, but if my 12-year-old son is saying, there's been a rebrand, Daddy, and 67 is not cool anymore, it is the height of tone deafness for a political campaign to be tapping into that. Do they not have anyone, I don't know, reading the internet to suggest that, well, maybe we should just come up with a new.
[12:55:09]
HUNT: Also, everyone of voting age is so fed up with 67. Can I just tell you, as a parent, like, I turned on a football game the other day, and they were about to kick the extra point, and the score was 67. And it sets up, my son is like, 6.7. All right.
THOMPSON: Maybe 67 is not totally dead.
WILLIAMS: What's dead?
HUNT: He's six-years-old. Not 7.
WILLIAMS: It's dead.
HUNT: All right guys, thank you so much for being with us today, I really appreciate it. Thanks to you at home for watching as well. Don't forget, you can see The Arena every weekday right here on CNN, 4:00 p.m. Eastern. You can also catch up by listening to The Arena's podcast and follow the show on X and Instagram. We are at TheArenaCNN. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. The news continues next on CNN.
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