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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt

New U.S.-Iran Talks Planned With Ceasefire Expiration Looming; Trump: Iran Ceasefire Ends "Wednesday Evening Washington Time," Says Extension "Highly Unlikely" If A Deal Isn't Reached; Energy Secretary: Gas Prices May Not Fall Below $3 Until 2027; Apple CEO Tim Cook Announces He's Stepping Down As CEO; House Ethics Committee asks Anyone Who Has Experienced Sexual Misconduct On Capitol Hill To Report It To Panel; FBI Director Files $250 Million Defamation Lawsuit. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired April 20, 2026 - 16:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DAVID GOLDMAN, CNN BUSINESS SENIOR REPORTER: But is Chris Wright correct that next week is going to be -- I'm sorry, next year is going to be three dollars. Then, yes, probably not until next year.

[16:00:05]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Yeah. Because two wrongs don't make a right. But does a right make a wrong. We will know soon enough.

David Goldman --

GOLDMAN: Yes, we'll be left with that.

KEILAR: We will be. We'll figure it out soon enough. All right. Thanks so much for that.

THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT starts right now.

(MUSIC)

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

As we come on the air, the frantic rush for a deal with time quickly running out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN HASSETT, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: At the beginning, the president said, in four to six weeks, we expect this could be resolved. And I think were getting pretty close to that being accurate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: White House officials publicly optimistic about the war in Iran ahead of two major flashpoints. President Trump, however, expressing both optimism and pessimism. First, the upcoming second round of peace talks, sources tell CNN the

vice president will again be leading those negotiations. They're planned for tomorrow in Pakistan.

The president posting this afternoon that the deal in the making will be, quote, "far better" than the one made under the Obama administration, claiming it will guarantee peace, security and safety. But then just a few sentences later, he says that's, quote, "if a deal happens."

Second, there's the ongoing ceasefire. The president saying today that it will expire Wednesday night Washington time. And that he's, quote, "highly unlikely to extend it if a deal isn't reached".

That's different than what he seemed to be open to late last week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If there's no deal, fighting resumes.

REPORTER: Just for clarity, you're willing to extend the ceasefire --

TRUMP: Well, we'll see. I don't know that we'll have to -- ideally, but if I needed to, I would.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right. Let's get off the sidelines, head into THE ARENA. My panel will be here.

But we're going to get started with CNN senior White House correspondent Kristen Holmes and CNN international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson. He is standing by for us in Pakistan ahead of those talks.

Kristen, let me start with you, because how those talks are going to shape up depends very much on the people in that building behind you. So, what are you hearing from your sources about the state of things?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kasie, it's really been all over the place and what we're hearing behind the scenes from U.S. officials and White House officials who are involved on their on those talks is being undermined by the president himself, who has been out there conducting these three to five-minute long interviews with various outlets in which he says something completely different than what he said in the last interview, or completely different from what his own staff is saying.

So, for example, yesterday or last week, we heard him saying that Vance wasn't going to go at all. Then today he said he was almost wheels down in Pakistan. And then we saw Vance pull up to the White House here moments after that. So, this has been kind of indicative of what we have heard about these talks overall.

Now, the optimism does seem to have dwindled since last week when they were all in on this. You hear President Trump saying he doesn't think he's going to extend the ceasefire deadline. Well, the deadline was 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday. Now, he is saying that that deadline is on Wednesday. It is our expectation that the teams wouldn't even be on the ground to meet that Tuesday deadline unless they signed a deal almost immediately.

There are still a number of questions as to who's going to show up from the Iranian delegation. We do believe they are sending a delegation, but we've seen publicly this kind of tit for tat out there on social media attacking one another. This maximum pressure campaign that we've seen from President Trump. It's not clear that that's actually helping the situation in terms of these negotiations. But we do know behind the scenes, frantically, the United States has officials, Pakistan has officials, Iran has officials that are trying to get this done in a diplomacy track, rather than going back to the fighting.

HUNT: All right. Fair enough.

So over to you, Nic Robertson. That's of course, what we're -- we're hearing from here in Washington. What are you picking up there in terms of the Iranians, their position heading into this, as well as anything from, of course, the Pakistanis who are hosting.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yeah, I think the headline still has to be that the Iranians haven't made a commitment. I think the expectation here, of course, security in place, venues in place, hotels ready for the different delegations to arrive.

But the expectation here is that, that they are really hopeful that the Iranians are going to come. They're doing everything to make sure they'll come. Theres been no public official announcement of it yet. I -- you know, the sense I was getting from sources earlier on today, it was as big a lift to convince the Iranians to come back to the table as it will be to get a deal around the table, a sense that around the table last time, they came really close to a deal.

And perhaps one of the issues that kind of -- kind of foiled it, if you will, was trying to push through the marathon session. So, I think there's a sense here that if and when talks start here, no one's going to try to go like 21, 24 hours of just continuous talks and people get irritable and agreements kind of fall apart. I think there's a sense that they'll try to make it run over, you know, a longer time frame, people actually going to bed, getting up fresh in the morning, coming back to talk.

[16:05:09]

So, I think there's a new idea of what an approach could look like if the Iranians come. I think there's a sense that if the Iranian, lead negotiator Ghalibaf, the speaker of the parliament, again heads the delegation coming in. And I think that's the expectation. The feeling was he had a lot of authority.

So, whatever the background hardliner chatter that's going on inside of Iran at the moment, that if he comes in with the same authority as he had in the last round of talks, then he can actually get a deal done.

So, I think there's a level of hope and optimism. But until the Iranians commit and of course, if there were some military incident in the Strait of Hormuz right now, and it's been relatively calm over almost 24 hours, which again is a good sign. But if there were some incident, that could really scupper the effort.

So, J.D. Vance leaves Washington tomorrow morning. Well, that means afternoon time here. So, it might even be tomorrow afternoon before we actually finally hear from the Iranians positively, definitively that they're coming by the time J.D. Vance arrives, it will be into Wednesday morning here. So, are you having talks Wednesday, potentially, if were really into this overnight scenario, you have more talks on Thursday. So you're blown past the new deadline that president Trump, the new ceasefire deadline that President Trump's talking about.

But again, the Iranians understand the U.S. side in this wants to use that ceasefire deadline as pressure. That's another thing they're resistant to. There are some big, big issues here. Whatever the hopes and aspirations are.

HUNT: Certainly.

All right. Nic Robertson, Kristen Holmes, thank you both very much for getting us started today.

Joining us now in THE ARENA is former NATO supreme allied commander, CNN's senior military analyst, the retired Admiral James Stavridis.

Admiral, always grateful to have you. Thank you so much for being here.

Can you help us kind of dig a little bit deeper? You heard what Kristen said from here in Washington, what Nic has to say in terms of the Iranians, are you confident that you understand who in the Iranian apparatus is making these decisions and how that's interacting with President Trump's bluster?

ADMIRAL JAMES STAVRIDIS (RET), CNN SENIOR MILITARY ANALYST: That's the biggest question in the room. What is the authority? Nic said that the leader of the Iranian delegation walks into this with if he has the authority to cut a deal, you can sort of see the shape of a deal. I think it would be open the strait fully. In return, the United States will cease attacking Iran. More importantly, at this point to the Iranians, we let them out from under sanctions, probably an ascending ladder of forgiveness in that regard. Maybe some of their assets are unfrozen so they can do some level of reconstruction, and then both sides will go off and declare victory.

The Iranians will say, we took the biggest punch. The United States and Israel could provide. We're still standing. And the Trump administration and Israel will say, we knocked back the Iranian military capabilities significantly. What's missing, Kasie, in that deal? It's the enriched uranium I think that ends up in a sidecar negotiation. It's too complex to come up with a simple solution. So, you do open the strait, let the Iranian oil flow alongside U.S.

oil. You put the enriched uranium in a sidecar to negotiate later, more complex. That's the shape of the deal emerging.

I know J.D. Vance has the authority to cut that deal. I don't know that the Iranians do.

HUNT: Fair enough. So, speaking of the strait, there, of course, were developments there over the weekend, including with this seized tanker. Can you kind of help us understand a little bit about why you think we did that, the ramifications of it, the legality of it and what happens next?

STAVRIDIS: Unquestionably legal. The United States has declared a blockade of Iran. That means we can blockade immediately outside their ports, or we can do, if you will, a distant blockade where we go after ships that are seeking to broach that blockade. That's what happened here. This is an Iranian tanker owned by an Iranian firm. While we are in this mode of enforcing a blockade, we have all the authorities in the world to take that tanker to seize it, then becomes a prize.

And it is -- you're showing video of how it was done. U.S. Marines could use navy seals. We have a lot of capability to do this.

I think it is part of putting economic pressure on Iran.

[16:10:02]

We've already put considerable military pressure, Kasie, as you know. Now, the idea is to put economic pressure by choking back their oil, their economy, not unlike what happened in the United States during the civil war with Plan Anaconda choking the south and taking its cotton away. Here, were taking away Iranian oil profits. Hopefully that will bring them to the table. We'll get back to the deal I described a moment ago, and this could have a salutary ending.

What are the chances of that? I think probably two and three right now, 65 percent. They're not sending the vice president over there to walk away again. They really think they'll be a deal. I think there's a two in three chance we get to it.

HUNT: Fair enough. When we look at that tanker, I mean, "The Wall Street Journal" reported that it frequently traveled between Iran and China. And as I'm listening to you talk about economic pressure, it and I know we've talked about the role that China is playing kind of writ large here before. Where are they today on what they want to see happen here? And what impact does that have on whether we get a deal?

STAVRIDIS: China is not leaning into this. They think of Iran as a nation that's broadly aligned with them. China has invested a great deal in Iran. They get a lot of oil from Iran. So, they would like to see this settled in a way that keeps a regime in place with whom they have worked now for decades.

Are the Chinese willing to really lean into this to send warships to counter pose the blockade? Absolutely not. The Chinese are currently waiting for President Trump's visit in May. They want that to go smoothly.

Look, China, unlike Russia, which is a disrupter nation, a rogue nation, essentially China wants a functioning global economy, open sea lanes, trade, all of that. So, while they're happy to see the United States spending a lot of capital here, showing them intelligence as to how we conduct warfighting, not answering up in a lot of scenarios. They're happy to see that, but ultimately, they would like to see this settled. So, I think they're quietly sending that signal to Iran that could help get a deal.

HUNT: And how do you read the president and the way he's talking about the ceasefire and whether or not he's willing to extend it, is that just sort of the bluster that gives him a an ability to try to put more pressure on the timeline for these talks, or what do you think he's trying to do there?

STAVARIDIS: I think that's exactly right. You know, when you go to a car dealership and you're negotiating to buy a car and the salesman says, you got to, you got to buy it today, that puts pressure on you. I think that's the art of this particular deal. Put pressure on, put economic sanctions in place. I think that President Trump is trying to do all that, and he's doing it with an imperfect communications network, because we're not in direct contact minute to minute with the Iranian leadership. So he's using the media to transmit that.

Here's what you want to watch for, to see if this deal is going to consummate. Number one, physical location of the negotiators. Does J.D. Vance actually go to Islamabad? If he does? Good thing.

Number two, watch the strait, watch the flow or not of traffic.

And number three, watch the U.S. forces in the region. How are they positioned? Where are they setting the blockade? Are those marines still coming toward the Gulf?

Those are the three indicators I'm watching at the moment. Again, I'm cautiously optimistic we'll get to a deal, hopefully sooner rather than later.

HUNT: All right. Retired Admiral James Stavridis, always so grateful for your expertise, sir. Thank you so much for being here.

STAVRIDIS: Thanks, Kasie.

HUNT: All right. Coming up next here in THE ARENA, we're going to talk to a member of the house intelligence committee. Democrat Mike Quigley will be here live.

But first, new evidence the war is taking a political toll on President Trump and putting him at odds with his own energy secretary. He says he's, quote, "wrong" when it comes to the cost of gas.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST, "STATE OF THE UNION": When do you think it's realistic for Americans to expect that gas will go back to under $3 a gallon?

CHRIS WRIGHT, U.S. ENERGY SECRETARY: I don't know. That could happen later this year. That might not happen until next year.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:19:03]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: When do you think it's realistic for Americans to expect that gas will go back to under $3 a gallon?

WRIGHT: I don't know. That could happen later this year. That might not happen until next year. But prices have likely peaked and they'll start going down. Certainly with a resolution of this conflict, you'll see prices go down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: The Energy Secretary Chris Wright, on Sunday saying gas prices might not go back down to $3 a gallon before next year.

This morning, the president, his boss, is contradicting him, telling "The Hill" this, quote, "No, I think he's wrong on that. Totally wrong," end quote.

Today, Americans are paying $4 a gallon for gas. That's $1 more than what they were paying before the start of the Iraq war. New polling shows only 33 percent of Americans approve of the president's handling of the war.

Meanwhile, "The Wall Street Journal" is reporting that as the presidents dialing up the rhetoric about the war, he's also, quote, "veering between belligerent and conciliatory approaches and grappling behind the scenes with just how badly things could go wrong."

[16:20:08]

"The Journal" reports that earlier this month, as the U.S. was trying to rescue airmen downed in Iran, Trump, quote, "screamed at staff for hours". If you look at what happened with Jimmy Carter, with the helicopters and the hostages, it cost them the election, Trump had said in March. What a mess.

My panel is here in THE ARENA. CNN political analyst, host and editorial director at "Vox", Astead Herndon; chief Washington correspondent for "Puck News", Leigh Ann Caldwell; CNN global affairs commentator, former deputy Pentagon press secretary, Sabrina Singh; and the former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, Marc Short.

Welcome to all of you. Thank you very much for being here. Marc, this portrait that "The Wall Street Journal" paints of the

president at war, right at turns belligerent and conciliatory, and in particular fixated on what happened to jimmy carter. This, of course, the kind of thing that, is from the era where he kind of came of age and was you know, in on the New York scene, I suppose shaped his view of politics.

How do you understand from your time in the White House, from around him, what's going on there? Because he had to make this huge decision. And now it seems like he's veering all over the place, behind the scenes.

MARC SHORT, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF TO VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: Well, Kasie, look, I accept that he was formed during that period of time, and I'm sure that he does that, have that as a historical reference. I think that president can be volatile, and I think the media loves to cover that piece of it. So to what extent that's unusual to relative the rest of the time in the White House, I'm not so sure, Kasie.

But I do think that, you know, as we head into to the next couple of days, I think they have a challenge politically because for many of us who feel that for 47 years, Iran has murdered innocent victims and have been anxious to see it engage and are supporters of the effort. If you end up basically saying, you know what? We're going to -- we're going to unfreeze your assets in exchange for some sort of loose promises down the road on uranium enrichment. I think a lot of people are going to say, this is Obama 2.0. And I think even --

HUNT: From the right is what --

SHORT: Yeah, even the president's own tweet when he says this deal will be much better than JCPOA. He's putting them together himself in his own sentence. And I don't think that's an assimilation that that he really wants. And for those who never wanted to go into this effort in the first place, they're not going to be satisfied either.

So, I think there's probably a political thought here that isn't great. And I think the ones that are probably happy are congressional Republicans who just want to see prices come down as they head into a midterm election, are most concerned about affordability.

HUNT: So, you're basically saying that this whole thing is lose-lose.

SHORT: Like it's relative to what the options are, it may not be if they think that politically, it's worse for them to just stay engaged. But I do think that one of the challenges from the start, Kasie, has been was this effort for regime change, was this effort to degrade their military operations, was this effort to basically ensure there was no longer uranium enrichment?

All three messages have been given, and I think that creates a challenge when there isn't a consistency on what the purpose is. It makes it a lot harder to figure out what the end game is and what the exit strategy is. And I think that if you're not going to actually stay in this to provide the resources or the conditions to actually change the regime, then you're going to have a lot of people are going to be unhappy at the end of the day.

HUNT: Yeah.

Astead, I mean, you've covered this president. What do you make of how Marc's laid this out?

ASTEAD HERNDON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think it's the correct analysis of the political conundrum he's in, because the other side of the lose-lose is true, too. If they kind of engage for the purposes of regime change, if we see boots on the ground, if we see a sort of escalation that will cause folks to be upset, too.

The NBC poll you mentioned about only 37 percent approval rating, I think is, is another continuous sign that this is for Donald Trump to its lowest point yet. And we shouldn't see these necessarily as disconnected issues. Affordability and Iran are connected through gas prices. I mean, and Donald Trump has also created a causal relationship that's easy for a lot of voters to understand. They know he did tariffs and they are tying that to inflation. They know that this is a war that seemed to be driven not necessarily by an imminent threat or some rollout at the White House was doing to prepare the public.

But kind of from an overnight Trump action. So, I think that's why you're seeing that backlash. The last thing I'll say is that poll also showed the lowest number of Republicans saying they strongly approve of Trump. And so, we might see -- we might start to see some of that concern that we maybe have only heard from the Tucker Carlsons and Megyn Kellys right now, filtering down to other portions of the base.

HUNT: Leanne, what do you make of the point about congressional Republicans? Because, yeah, I mean, look, Trump's disapproval rating in the new NBC poll is 63 percent. When you ask him about inflation, it's 68 percent disapprove of what the president is doing.

So, I mean, yeah, when you talk to Republicans behind the scenes, they're kind of like, yeah, what are we doing? Get out of here. Get us out of here.

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, PUCK NEWS: It's not good. It's not good, obviously. So, the problem with Republicans is that they know that Trump is the leader of their party.

[16:25:01]

They know that Trump is still the most popular Republican, despite the fact that he is -- he is lessening in some of these polls with them.

And so, they can't separate themselves from the president, even though they know that the president is extremely unpopular among the broader electorate. And so, they are in this position where they don't really have much of a choice. They want this war to end extremely quickly. They are hoping and praying that it does.

But another challenge for House Republicans and Senate Republicans is that the president is so distracted, he -- they have -- they are struggling mightily on the Hill to pass crucial legislation opening up the Department of Homeland Security, which has now been shut down for 64, 65 days. Pass FISA extension, which is about to expire, which is necessary surveillance -- foreign surveillance, and Republicans can't get anything done on the Hill. The president is not able to help them. He is distracted with this.

And so, it is a multifaceted challenge that House Republicans see with this war.

SABRINA SINGH, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: I think to that point, you know, from a Democrats' perspective, they are using this time to really hone their message. And you're seeing that in some of the special elections that we've been able to flip this this year and heading into the midterms, Democrats are actually really doubling down on the, you know, the cost of groceries, affordability, electricity bills being too high. And I think that is something that is going to work in their benefit in the midterms.

I also think to Marc's point, you know, Donald Trump brought the JCPOA into his own Truth Social post. It is the exact thing that he wanted to avoid. He said, I could get a better deal. That's why I ripped this up. I mean, prove it. Right now, the strait is closed, gas prices are higher. I mean, the cost of airline fees are going up because airlines are shifting those costs to consumers.

And I think a telling number and I think it was a Quinnipiac poll, is that 73 percent of independents are moving away from Trump. They're the ones not approving of what's happening in Iran. And the independents are exactly who Democrats are going to target in the midterms. And then you look to 2028 as well.

HUNT: Yeah. Marc, Leigh Ann mentioned that the president is distracted, right? "The Journal" also wrote this quote, the president sometimes loses focus spending time on the details of his plans for the White House ballroom or on midterm fundraisers, telling advisers he wants to shift to other topics. Uh-huh?

SHORT: Kasie, as long as I've known the president, he was always multitasking. That is -- that is the way he operates. And so, yeah, I'm sure there's frustration because for members that are up in November, they want the singular focus. But that's never going to be the case.

HUNT: Astead, I mean, I -- I mean, I take Marc's point, but also this is arguably the biggest, you know, the president went to war with Iran, right?

HERNDON: I don't think that the normal kind of excuses even some voters make for Donald Trump have fully applied in this second term. I think it's been consistent that although he won through a diagnosis of real problems, there wasn't solutions for said crises that brought him here.

And I think people are starting to see -- we're starting to see a backlash to that. So, it's built on one another. Whether it was through folks, he wasn't delivering on immigration, upset at the Epstein files, but it's culminated with, I think, not only a war that most people find to be not in Americas interest, but also the economic effect that that war is having, which has been the big driver of his falling approval ratings. People feel like he did not come to do the things that he promised to do.

CALDWELL: And remember, leading up to the war, if you were not reading "The Wall Street Journal" or "The New York Times", you had no idea that the that the president was about to attack Iran. This was not in the public sphere very much. He did not address the public about it.

And so, when presidents try to build public support for something so major as going to war with another country, especially Iran, something that presidents repeatedly have refused to do, he was starting from way behind and he hasn't been able to make the case yet.

SINGH: And he also didn't build a coalition of the willing with our allies and partners to help us in this war. So that's why you're seeing the strait closed and none of our allies participating in this, because he didn't consult with them.

SHORT: Yeah.

SINGH: All right. Coming up next here in THE ARENA, the new $250 million lawsuit filed today by FBI Director Kash Patel.

But first, a member of the House Intelligence committee will be here live, as the president suggests, Democrats are trying to sabotage upcoming negotiations with Iran.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Do you think it's likely that if there isn't a deal, as the president threatens that, you know, this blows all up on Wednesday?

REP. ADAM SMITH (D-WA): I think it's 50/50.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:34:02]

HUNT: All right. Welcome back.

Just before Vice President J.D. Vance is expected to leave for Pakistan for a second round of talks with Iran. The president today going after Democrats, calling them, quote, "traitors" who are, quote, "doing everything possible to hurt the very strong position we are in with respect to Iran."

Joining me now is Democratic Congressman Mike Quigley of Illinois. He serves on the House Intelligence and Appropriations Committees.

Congressman, always good to see you. Thank you very much for being back with us in THE ARENA.

I want to start there with what the president had to say. I mean, what's your response to what he said?

REP. MIKE QUIGLEY (D-IL): Yeah, as far as I know, the Iranians haven't even agreed to another round of negotiations. And if the president wants them to succeed, perhaps you shouldn't go into an antagonistic posture talking about what we're going to continue to bomb, grabbing one of their ships. This isn't what you do during a ceasefire if you want negotiations to work in the future.

HUINT: I spoke with Senator John Fetterman here late last week, and he accused some members of your party of cheering on Iran. Do you think that's happening?

QUIGLEY: No. I mean, I think what we're hearing from our constituents when we go back is that they don't want another bloody, endless, endless, costly war. And 300, 000 people in Illinois are going to lose their access to food on an ongoing basis, SNAP benefits, about half a million are going to pay twice as much for health care benefits.

This war is costing $1 billion a day. So, we could have taken care of our own people. This is a president always said America first.

So, no one's cheering on Iran. We're cheering against a president who's doing something that's illegal. It's costly. We've already lost service members. It's wrecking havoc in our economy. It threatens us and the homeland with terrorist attacks.

So this isn't -- I think it's patriotic to cheer for peace and to cheer for common sense and to cheer for diplomacy. Because again, after all, if he hadn't gotten rid of JCPOA, the regime, the regime was not moving forward with the movement toward a nuclear weapon.

So, the president can say whatever he wants. The reality, I think the American people understand.

HUNT: Would you like to see the administration make the deal -- that we were talking to the Admiral James Stavridis, earlier. We do know some of what the contours could be here. President Trump is now comparing what's going on to the JCPOA in his post online. Now he's claiming it's a better deal, the JCPOA, but he's putting them both together in the same sentence.

Do you think this is a deal that you would be happy to see the U.S. make at this point, considering everything you've laid out?

QUIGLEY: Well, let me put it this way. We always favor diplomacy. And if you can move the regime away from moving forward with the nuclear weapon, of course, we're going to be for that. But with which message are we talking about now. Is the night the war began. The president said this is about the liberation of the Iranian people. Well, not so much anymore. There's even a more hard line person in charge.

So, and by the way, when the war started, the strait was open. So, this is going to be very damaging to our country for years to come. So of course, we'd like an exit ramp or one that moves us toward peace.

But it begs the question, what was this all for? What are the costs? And can we recover those?

HUNT: Sir, considering your post on the intelligence committee, I mean, one big question here is how much authority whoever Iran sends to a negotiating table in Islamabad, if they do, how much authority will they have? And really, who is making the decisions in Iran? Can you shed any light on that question for us?

QUIGLEY: Well, look, I mean, what's clear to everyone, whether they're on the committee or not, it's this is about the supreme leader making those final decisions, right? So, when we think about it in terms of Iran and nuclear weapons, the previous regime leaders issued a fatwa against moving forward to develop a nuclear weapon.

So, obviously, that just reinforces the fact that there was no imminent threat. And the president, if he was getting decent intelligence, simply ignored it. So, when we look at the Middle East, we got into a war in Iraq based on bad intelligence, and we got into this war because the president ignored what was probably very good intelligence.

So I'm -- you know, I'm not sure what authority this person has to negotiate for Iran. I don't know that they are going to actually enter those negotiations. But in the end, whatever the authority they have, it's going to be up to the supreme leader there.

HUNT: All right. Congressman Mike Quigley, thank you very much. I hope you'll come back soon.

We have a Chicago gubernatorial bid to discuss. We didn't even get to -- excuse me, mayoral bid. So, thank you very much. I appreciate your time.

QUIGLEY: Fair enough. Thank you.

HUNT: All right. Ahead here in THE ARENA, new details on the quarter of $1 billion lawsuit filed by FBI Director Kash Patel.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:43:43]

HUNT: All right. We have some breaking news just coming in to CNN about Apple CEO Tim Cook and his future at the company.

CNN tech reporter Clare Duffy joins us now with more.

Clare, what are we learning?

CLARE DUFFY, CNN TECH REPORTER: Kasie, what we're learning is that Apple CEO Tim Cook is stepping down as CEO. He will become executive chairman of Apple's board.

Tim Cook has been CEO of apple since 2011. He took over for Steve Jobs, who, of course, founded the company and has really overseen this massive growth of Apple. The introduction of the Apple Watch, of services, so much of what the company is today is because of Tim Cook. Now, he'll be handing over to John Ternus, who currently oversees

hardware engineering at Apple. He is a longtime and beloved leader at Apple. He has been at the company since 2001. He will take over the role of CEO sometime around the end of the summer.

And, of course, Steve Jobs -- excuse me -- Tim Cook says that he will stay around at apple to help oversee this transition. This isn't totally a surprise. There have been questions about Apple's future, the future of the leadership at the company, especially amid some stumbles for the company over the past few years.

The company has been in particular behind other big tech rivals in artificial intelligence. So, there had been some questions about whether we would see a new Apple leader sometime in the next few years.

[16:45:01]

But this is sort of a surprise that we are getting this out of the blue today.

But John Ternus, again, a beloved leader, a longtime leader at apple, not totally surprised to see him taking the reins from Tim Cook in this moment.

HUNT: All right. Clare Duffy for us, Clare, thank you very much for that reporting.

Let's turn now to this story today. In a rare statement, the House Ethics Committee is asking anyone who has experienced sexual misconduct on Capitol Hill to report it to their panel. This request follows the recent resignation of Congressman Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzales, who both faced ethics inquiries into sexual misconduct before they stepped down.

CNN congressional correspondent Lauren Fox joins us now with more.

Lauren, you and our team here at CNN had some strong reporting this weekend on the culture, the harassment culture on Capitol Hill. I mean, this is something I covered when I covered the Hill full time. What have you learned at this hour?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, essentially, Kasie, back in 2018, there was really this effort to try to clean up any allegations of sexual harassment or assault that occurred on Capitol Hill and really clarify for staffers the process that they had access to if they wanted to come forward. This was all in the light of the #metoo movement that was transpiring at the time in all sectors of the country's society and workplaces.

But what we have come to find out, obviously, with the resignations of Swalwell and Gonzalez, is that things haven't really changed on Capitol Hill. And I talked to a number of former staffers, current staffers, members as well as our colleagues did as well. And essentially what we learned was that this is a pervasive issue, in part because of the unique nature of Capitol Hill, because of the around the clock work that has to happen up here, because of those blurry lines between what's happening officially in offices and what might happen outside of offices, in networking, happy hours where people are in close proximity to members.

And that was one of the issues that really continued to come up time and time again. There are a lot of happy hours. There are -- there's a lot of alcohol that's part of the culture up here on capitol hill. And there's also just a fear of coming forward, given the fact that there is not equal power between a staff and a member who's elected by tens of thousands of people when they're running for reelection in their districts.

And I think that that all culminates in a culture where people feel really afraid to come forward on Capitol Hill. And that was something that we found time and time again. And look, lawmakers are trying to brainstorm ways to make reporting easier. You saw the House Ethics Committee come out with that statement, encouraging people to come forward. But some of this is just an underlying cultural issue that exists in the halls of Congress.

And as one member, Representative Mike Lawler, told us last week, essentially, there's only one way to clean this up, and that is for their colleagues and fellow members to act ethically -- Kasie.

HUNT: Well, and Leigh Ann Caldwell, you and I were on the same reporting team at another network when all of this was unfolding. We sort of put together for -- to try to explain to people watching tv how if you wanted to report a claim on capitol hill, something happened to you. The process was absolutely insane. There's no other way to put it. I mean, we had bullet point after bullet point after bullet point after bullet point. What Lauren's basically seeming to say is that, you know, that doesn't that hasn't changed fundamentally.

But I want to zero in on the reality that this is fundamentally about an imbalance of power. Yeah. Right. I mean, you have young staffers who are severely underpaid, frankly and each individual office functions like its own little fiefdom and everyone is scrambling to get ahead.

And then you have members, some of whom are, you know, very new to power. And some of them like it a lot and they act inappropriately because of it. And there's no system set up on the Hill to deal with it.

CALDWELL: Yeah. Kasie, I wrote about this this weekend as well, and I went back and read our reporting from 2017 and 2018 about this. And, and it is a culture that a process, even though the process for reporting and settlements has improved because of #metoo, in 2018, a process does not change culture. And that's ultimately what the problem is.

Yes. Now, people who do report have more rights. They are able to get representation. Lawmakers now are responsible for any settlements through their own income, rather than the taxpayer.

HUNT: Slush fund. CALDWELL: Yeah. You know, the slush fund doesn't really exist anymore.

They are the progress.

HUNT: Progress.

So, there is progress. But what has not changed is the attitude on the Hill and bosses who really have no accountability. And it goes beyond just sexual misconduct, assault, harassment. There's just the attitude in some of these offices where bosses calling staffers at 2:00 a.m. demanding social media posts immediately, drivers having to take their bosses to late night dinners, having to wait for them -- get drunk bosses back in the car.

[16:50:17]

So, there's just a lot -- not a lot of boundaries. And that is the challenge of changing it, regardless of how the process has improved.

HUNT: Yeah. Sabrina, I mean, you've worked on political campaigns. You understand the landscape here. In your view, you know, I think one of the questions around the culture of this has been, how is it that it seems like everybody kind of knew what was going on, at least in the case of Eric Swalwell.

I don't want to say that it was widely known or certainly it was not known to me and to many others people we've spoken to that there were violent, there were violence issues, rape allegations, all of that, but that there was this idea that, you know, he was inappropriate with people and that that was just an open secret. Like why?

SINGH: Yeah. And having worked on the Hill a few different times in House offices, the problem here is that there's no actual HR overseeing all these offices to what you said. It's like they all act as these little fiefdoms, but there's no centralized place where you can really go as a staffer and, and not go through all these, you know, filling out multiple claims of paperwork. So there's not like a central place.

In terms of rumors that are circulating about a member -- you know, it's so unfortunate because sometimes you hear these things passed around like a happy hour, but rumors, you know, for something for that to be corroborated, someone has to come forward. And if you hear it as a staffer, I mean, it's really upsetting. But what do you -- what do you do? Like who do you go to report it to? There's no -- there's no place.

And so, I think -- I mean, I was in the on the Hill, I started there in 2010. The culture has not fundamentally changed. I mean, there's been improvements, but there's no place for staffers to go to report. Even if you hear a rumor. And then you start rumors start getting flying around.

HUNT: Right. And of course, not every rumor is true, as we know, we have to be very careful about that. But certainly, a persistent problem.

Lauren Fox, thank you for laying it out for us. Really appreciate it. We'll talk to you soon about this, I'm sure.

All right. Let's go to this other developing story. FBI Director Kash Patel is suing "The Atlantic" for defamation over a story that alleges the director has, quote, "alarmed colleagues with episodes of excessive drinking and unexplained absences". His lawsuit is demanding $250 million in damages.

CNN's chief media analyst Brian Stelter joins us.

Brian, walk us through this. What do we know?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Well, number one, the FBI director following his boss's footsteps. President Trump has filed numerous defamation suits. And now, Patel doing the same thing challenging this article in court. But because he's challenging the article, he's also repeating many of the assertions in it.

So, here's a part of what the lawsuit says, describing what Patel and his lawyer say are false allegations against him leveled by "The Atlantic". Quote, "The statements falsely assert that the director of the FBI is a habitual drunk, unable to perform the duties of his office, is a threat to public safety, is vulnerable to foreign coercion, is unreachable in emergencies, and behaves erratically in a manner that compromises national security."

"Atlantic" reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick says she spoke with more than two dozen sources, including FBI officials, members of Congress and even, quote, "hospitality industry workers," meaning people at bars or hotels who maybe saw Patel drinking. But Patel is pushing back very hard on this and saying that "The Atlantic" should pay up in court.

So, now this is going to be a legal battle, at least for a little while. We should note CNN has not independently corroborated the anecdotes in "The Atlantic" article, but this article is getting a lot of attention online ever since it was published on Friday. Millions of people at this point reading it online, trying to find out more about Patel and the allegations against him.

HUNT: And, Brian, what's "The Atlantic" said in response to the suit.

STELTER: Well, number one, the magazine expected to be sued because Patel threatened to sue before publication. Today in a statement, the magazine said, quote, "We stand by our reporting on Kash Patel and we will vigorously defend 'The Atlantic' and our journalists against this meritless lawsuit."

So there's the court process here, which will take some time, but then there's the court of public opinion, and you're already seeing people placing bets about Patel's future. Progressives and other Patel opponents are sharing video of that time at the Olympics, when Patel was in the locker room after the Team USA final, he was chugging beers with the athletes. Some of those progressives are predicting that Trump's going to cut Patel loose because Trump is a well-known teetotaler.

At the same time, conservatives, other Patel defenders are saying "The Atlantic" piece is a hit job. They're saying "The Atlantic" piece has no on the record sources and seems to be really unfair. So, a lot of arguments in the battle of the public opinion battle over Patel. But this legal process will take some time.

This afternoon, the case was assigned to veteran judge, Emmet G. Sullivan. He dealt with the Michael Flynn suit. So that's going to be interesting. And for any public figure, whether its Trump, Patel or anybody else, there's a very high legal bar. In order to prove actual malice, in order to win a defamation suit. This will be hard for Patel to do, but he's showing he's going to try.

HUNT: All right. Brian Stelter reporting for us. Brian, thank you very much for that.

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And we will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUNT: All right. Thanks very much for my panel. I really appreciate you being with us.

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Hi, Phil.