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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
Hegseth, Dems Clash In First Hearing Since Start Of Iran War; Supreme Court Limits Voting Rights Act, Could Impact Midterms; Comey To Argue Vindictive Prosecution In Latest Indictment. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired April 29, 2026 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: -- but you know what happens.
[16:00:01]
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Well, you're lucky that you've got Karen and Tina on board, and whoever handed them the butter knife -- solid, solid. They didn't use it, but solid.
KEILAR: Nice alternate try there.
SANCHEZ: Yeah.
KEILAR: THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT starts right now. It's not going to --
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KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone. Welcome to THE ARENA. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's great to have you with us on this Wednesday.
As we come on the air, we are getting our first real sense of the cost of the war with Iran. As the Pentagon lashes out at critics, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth just finished his first congressional testimony since the beginning of the war, and his exchanges with Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee went -- well, perhaps just as you'd expect.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JOHN GARAMENDI (D-CA): The president has got himself in America stuck in a quagmire of another war in the Middle East.
PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Congressman, you should know better. Shame on you, calling this a quagmire two months in.
REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): Do you know how much it will cost Americans in terms of their increased cost in gas and food over the next year because of the Iran war?
HEGSETH: I would simply ask you what the cost is of an Iranian nuclear bomb?
KHANNA: I'm going to give you that --
(CROSSTALK)
HEGSETH: I would simply ask you -- you're playing gotcha questions about domestic things.
REP. JASON CROW (D-CO): Is it true that Mr. Parlatore was removed? I reclaim my time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: You could see, of course, typically these officials, when they are in these seats, are performing for an audience of one. We did learn some things today, though, a senior Pentagon official told lawmakers that the U.S. has spent $25 billion since the war began nearly two months ago. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that Iran has been defeated.
Today, though, Secretary Hegseth identified a new opponent in the conflict.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HEGSETH: The biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right. Let's get off the sidelines, head into THE ARENA.
My panel is here, but we're going to get started with Democratic congressman from New York, Pat Ryan. He was in that room, and he questioned Secretary Hegseth today and of course, served two combat tours in Iraq as well.
Congressman, I'd like to start with your response to what you heard the defense secretary say right there about who the adversaries are, exactly, and what he said about some Republicans and Democratic members. What do you say to him?
REP. PAT RYAN (D-NY): It was a really embarrassing showing, not for him, but for our whole country. I mean, in his opening remarks, he literally spent more time railing on both Democrats and Republicans and partisan adversaries, barely mentioning China, Russia, Iran, other serious adversaries.
I think it really gives a window into, as you said, this was a performance for the president, not a serious discussion and debate 60 days now into, I think, at least $25 billion. Frankly, I think that number is probably low. And every American paying the price at the pump, our farmers paying the price with fertilizer prices and all of us seeing food prices skyrocket.
So, the American people are owed an honest reckoning. And he did the exact opposite.
HUNT: You mentioned 60 days. And if you want to count it from when Congress was notified, that puts us a couple days out from it. But it still comes this Friday. Do you think hitting that mark is going to change any of the dynamics in terms of Congress being willing to stand up to the president on this?
RYAN: I sure hope so. I mean, the speaker has been cowardly and pathetic, and he knows better. This is foundational to our Constitution and our democracy. That not just for process reasons, but to get to a better outcome, we have a fulsome debate. And now we've seen what happens when we don't do that, when we don't ask the hard questions up front, we're now stuck in. I agree, I think John Garamendi was right.
It is a quagmire and it is not too soon to say that. In fact, each day we let the mess continue, all of us pay the cost in blood as we've seen. I questioned him about 13 troops killed, specifically six killed at a horrific, devastating drone strike in Port Shuaiba in Kuwait. And also, you know, the cost that every American is bearing, as many of my colleagues highlighted.
HUNT: Let me play a little bit of the exchange that you had with Hegseth about those -- those service members in question. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RYAN: When asked to describe the bases defense, one survivor who's come forward from the unit said, quote, "I mean, I would put it in the none category. From a drone defense capability, none."
HEGSETH: Can I speak or are you just going to monologue falsehoods all over the place?
RYAN: It's not a falsehood.
HEGSETH: We moved 7,500 troops off the X based on the intel.
RYAN: Reclaiming my time. Stop. Stop!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[16:05:00]
HUNT: So, what do you think the secretary did tell you about what happened at that base? Anything?
RYAN: Nothing, unfortunately. I mean, all I primarily did was share firsthand eyewitness testimony from our own soldiers who were in this terrible attack where six soldiers were killed, over 30 wounded, and some of them have come forward and talked about the fact that they were sent to a location closer to Iran. And despite the request not given, proper counter-drone and even basic overhead protection -- and not only was this wrong in terms of protecting our troops, but then Secretary Hegseth, the next day after the attack, downplayed the attack and essentially said, no, this was an anomaly.
And so, I asked him, are you saying these soldiers are lying? And he just would not answer that question or take any accountability. It's pathetic.
HUNT: I want to circle back to what you said about this being a quagmire, because that word obviously carries a lot of weight in -- historical weight, if you will. What about what we've seen so far in these approximately 60 days of war? Do you think makes this a quagmire? That would be, by definition, something we're stuck in that we can't get out of?
RYAN: We got into it with no plan, no real definition of what our goals are. And six -- almost 60 days in the president, hour by hour, shifts those goals as he misleads what's happening. I think the structural dimension is the president thought this was going to be fast and easy.
Clearly, that is not what happened. And so, particularly, the very predictable decision by the Iranians to lock down the strait has created this economic stranglehold. And it really seems to all of us, including classified briefings, we've gotten, that the president and the administration do not know how to get out of this.
That's why we've seen these fits and starts of we're on for negotiations. We're not. We're going to bomb the civilization to oblivion or everything's fine. I mean, it is a mess. And fixing a mess starts with recognizing it. That's all we're asking for here.
HUNT: The president today spent a considerable amount of time on the phone with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and then he told reporters afterward that Putin had offered to help with Iran's uranium stockpile. What do you -- what's your response to that? And is that an offer that the U.S. should take the Russian president up on
RYAN: It's stunning. I mean, we've seen this over and over this year. And in his first term, turning our back and in many cases, directly insulting allies that we've had for decades and cozying up to Putin and other dictators. And this was, by the way, a bipartisan point of agreement. Today, in the hearings, several of my Republican colleagues admonished the secretary for essentially caving to Putin and turning our backs on Ukraine, who is now gaining on the ground and has a real opportunity to have a decisive outcome.
So, to see the president do that, I just think it would strike any American as absolutely backwards.
HUNT: All right, Congressman Pat Ryan, thank you very much for taking some time with us today. I really appreciate it.
RYAN: Thanks.
HUNT: All right. My panel is here in THE ARENA.
The host of "The Chuck Toddcast", Chuck Todd; CNN Washington bureau chief and political director, David Chalian; former communications director in the Biden White House and a CNN political commentator, Kate Bedingfield, 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.
Chuck Todd -- I mean, big picture here for Hegseth. I mean, this was clearly an attempt that he made to perform for the president to defend the war. Democrats looking for opportunities to go after him. But the big picture realities, if you look at the polling, are fairly bleak for the president on this topic.
CHUCK TODD, HOST, THE CHUCK TODDCAST: They're extraordinarily bleak, right? And they've got to find a way out. I mean, look, I understand the -- I don't think Hegseth knows how not to be political. He's kind of got internet brain. He feels like many of his stuff is just sort of like, here's a guy who just is on the Internet too much. Kind of like the Mike Lee issue.
And -- and there's no doubt some of the -- let's not pretend that House Democrats were interested in getting information out of Hegseth. They were also interested in picking a fight and going viral. And I think sometimes, weirdly, they almost play into each other's hands when they do that. But the thing that I think Hegseth was not fully appreciative of is that I do think Congress is going to lose patience on this.
This is a big number that he's asking for financially. And this is an unpopular war. This is an election year, and you're going to have more Republicans uncomfortable about this in a year when a lot of Americans are going to say, hey, you started this war, my costs are going up. What about here?
So, I think this performance may it please the man in the oval, but I don't think it's good politics.
HUNT: David?
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR AND WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: And true on the cost side of it, too. But as you said, looking for a way out of this and there is no apparent way out of this right now.
[16:10:03]
We're in this sort of like stalemate phase, which is the worst political outcome right now for the president, because, as Chuck said, not only is it an unpopular war, it is, but overwhelmingly, Americans are saying they want no more military action.
Like from this point forward, they don't want to see additional military action. So that kind of corners Trump into -- well, if that's not really an option. So, he sticks with an extended blockade, but it means you're not on an off ramp. And this -- this stasis keeps him as a weight and this decision to pursue this as a weight around his party.
HUNT: Yeah. Well, and instead, I mean, you mentioned he's trying to do all these things. I mean, what we're left with are the Internet memes, right? Like this was the most recent one that the president put up overnight. Again, A.I.-generated, of course. Kate Bedingfield and Marc Short actually let me put this to you first and then Kate, please jump in. But Marc, this idea that the adversary, right, when you're talking about the adversaries of the United States of America, right, there's a long list, okay China, Iran, North Korea, right, others.
For Secretary Hegseth, who in theory, right, is -- I mean, well, he is actually running the Department of Defense. In theory, he represents our servicemen and women to basically say that there are Americans of whatever stripe. You know, he mentioned Republicans and Democrats who are who are more clearly adversaries than those countries. I mean, what do you make of that? Is that like, does that line up with the American tradition, in your view?
MARC SHORT, FORMER CHIEF OFSTAFF TO VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: Kasie, look, I think that the administration has an amazing opportunity here to defeat the world's greatest sponsor of terror, a regime that has killed thousands of innocent Americans and thousands of Israelis. But I think the administration should be articulating what that vision could look like. And I think that the messaging is mixed. I think that today is a theatrical performance.
I think the notion that Russia is going to help us is preposterous. Iran has been providing drones to Russia in Ukraine, and you could make an intelligent argument to say that, look, Venezuela, Iran are proxies of some of our greatest adversaries, and Russia and China. And there's a strategy here is what we're doing. And I think it would be very helpful to their case to make that case to the American people. But again --
HUNT: Why aren't they doing that?
SHORT: The notion that --
HUNT: You just made it very well.
SHORT: The notion that Russia is going to be helping the Iranians is just absurd. And so, I think that that their messaging is often counter to what the opportunity is, not just for America, but for the world here.
BEDINGFIELD: That was very striking, I think, in the hearing today. I mean, Hegseth did have an opportunity to go out and make the comprehensive case. And really what he did was pick fights. I mean, on, you know, on this point about -- are Americans, you know, defeatist Americans are a bigger threat. I mean, yeah, of course that is that runs against the American tradition, but that also runs against the idea of trying to build collective support for your effort.
I mean, the point of building a political coalition is to try to bring people into the tent. So, when you're looking at a very unpopular war where people are frustrated by the rising cost of oil and gas, don't really understand what we're trying to achieve here. To use your big moment to basically say, if you don't get it, well, then you're an enemy of the state and you're an enemy of us. Well, how are you trying to get to a better political place? It makes
zero sense. It's totally counterproductive.
TODD: In this second term, there is nobody in this administration. And I say this with Marc present because it was not true of the first Trump term. There's nobody in this administration that knows how to say, yeah, I hear you. You know, I understand why this. I understand that you're not happy about this. Let me explain.
Ex -- acknowledge, accept the premise. Yes. There is never -- it's always -- this must be the media's fault or my political opposition's fault. That's why it's unpopular. And there's never this acknowledgment that, hey, okay, we get it. But let me explain.
CHALIAN: One thing that is popular that the president does at times try to explain is just the overarching goal of the need of a de- nuclear Iran, right? That is actually a popular item to your point, Mark. And yet not understand -- not explaining to the American people how you get from here to there, that there's some path -- clear path to do that. That is the lost opportunity.
BEDINGFIELD: Yeah. And I thought the moment that was the most illustrative of the problem that they have was the moment where Hegseth was asked about the impact, the cost of gas. And he couldn't answer and went to basically, I would ask you about the cost of a -- of a nuclear Iran.
That argument does not feel that does not feel tangible to people. I don't think that people who are struggling to fill up their gas tank sort of sit back and say, you know, in the abstract, I'm grateful that Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon. We could all agree, of course, of course, we don't --
HUNT: And that's also --
BEDINGFIELD: -- want Iran have a nuclear weapon.
HUNT: The policy and the goal of Democrats and Republicans administrations passed for years.
BEDINGFIELD: But as a political and communications matter, trying to make that case and doing it in such an aggressive way where you're not working to try to bring people onside, you're not going to change public opinion doing it that way.
[16:15:01]
SHORT: To be fair to Pete, I don't think congressional Democrats are going to give him that forum today, but I don't think the administration has sought that forum. I don't think they've looked for other opportunities to say to the American people, here's what we're trying to achieve, and here's what the cost is going to be because even when Chris Wright comes out and says, you know what? It may not be until next year that we're under $4. The president immediately slaps him down.
HUNT: Tough place to be.
All right, David Chalian, thank you. Always great to see you.
Coming up next here in THE ARENA, we've got new details on how former FBI Director James Comey is planning to fight his latest indictment. But first, the fallout from today's major decision from the Supreme Court, how the six-three ruling is already impacting the midterms and eroding a landmark law from the civil rights era.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Some think that the ruling could create more Republican- held congressional seats in the South.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That's good.
REPORTER: Yeah.
TRUMP: That's a kind of ruling I like.
REPORTER: Would you want --
TRUMP: When did that happen?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:20:15]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Tell me, when did the ruling come out? I've been with the astronauts. Tell me about the -- what happened?
REPORTER: Well, something that the ruling create more Republican-held congressional seats in the South.
TRUMP: That's good.
REPORTER: Yeah. Would you want --
TRUMP: That's a kind of ruling I like.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: A landmark decision this morning from the nation's highest court. In a six-three ruling, the Supreme Court heavily limited a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, ruling that Louisiana's congressional map, which created a second black majority district, did so through unconstitutional race-based discrimination. And already, this is breathing new life into the fight to redraw maps ahead of the midterms.
Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn, now calling for the elimination of her states only Democratic district. Some Democrats saying they'll continue to respond.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): We have to all abide by the same rules. And so if Republicans are going to redraw North Carolina, if they're going to redraw Texas, if they're going to redraw and gerrymander every one of their states, then unfortunately, we have to provide balance to that until we get to the day where we can all finally agree to put this behind us and pass nonpartisan gerrymandering federally.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right. Let's bring in CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig.
Elie, always good to see you. Can you walk us through how we got here and what the bottom line is considering this, obviously, you try to read this. It's pretty technical, but it's really significant.
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yeah, Kasie. So, this is a 6-3 ruling with the six conservative justices in the majority and the three liberal justices furiously dissenting. And the bottom line is that it is unconstitutional for states to draw their congressional district maps with the intent to create majority black or majority other racial group districts, even if they're doing that under the Voting Rights Act.
So, here's the quick history. Louisiana has six congressional districts, and about one third of Louisiana's population is black.
Now, after the 2020 census, Louisiana drafted a map with one majority black district. That was challenged in court and it was struck down. It was found to violate the voting rights act because it didn't give adequate representation to the black population of Louisiana.
Louisiana then went back and tried again. They came up with a map with two majority black districts, like we just saw on the screen. That was challenged by a different group. And that's the decision that reached the Supreme Court today.
And the Supreme Court said even if a state is trying to draw a majority black district under the Voting Rights Act, you cannot violate the Constitution's anti-discrimination laws. And so that two majority black district map is now struck down. Louisiana is going to have to somehow or other, go back to the original map. They're going to lose at least one seat.
HUNT: Let's talk about this year's midterms for a second. You know, I think it's worth -- it's kind of lost in how political this how intense this fight has gotten. But typically, we redistrict every 10 years. Okay? We don't do these like mid redistricting fights, but that's what we're doing right now. This obviously has a significant long-term impact with all states redistricting around the census. But what impact might it have this fall?
HONIG: Yeah, it's becoming a free-for-all with respect to the 2026 midterm. And you're right, traditionally, states do their redistricting shortly after the census every ten years. And now we're seeing that completely thrown out the window. But even if we look at the impact immediately. So first of all, you're going to have Louisiana.
There's probably going to be one district that swings over from Democrat leaning to Republican leaning. Also today, Mississippi initiated a process to redraw its map more favorable to Republicans. Florida is moving, as we speak, to make a similar move.
So, look for states, especially states in the south, to try to take advantage of this, because now, if they can say that the way our maps were drawn, well, there was some intent to create a majority black district, which was common over the last several decades. Now they can say, well, look at this new Supreme Court ruling. Those maps are unconstitutional, they're invalid, and they need to be redone in Republicans favor.
HUNT: Yeah. All right. Elie, stand by for us while we continue this conversation.
Joining our panel, constitutional law professor at Georgetown University, Michelle Goodwin.
Michelle, thank you so much, professor. Thank you very much for being here.
There is so much historical context to everything that Elie just laid out in terms of the actual, you know, what the law says, why it was there. How has this been hitting in communities that this is designed to help represent? And how does it change how we're going to have to understand what it means to be represented?
MICHELLE GOODWIN, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW PROFESSOR, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: Well, it's a great question because we have to start from the historical foundations. Why are we even had a 14th Amendment, 15th Amendment, 13th Amendment. These reconstructed our Constitution because people were enslaved. They were denied enfranchisement -- the ability to read, write, all of those things.
[16:25:05]
It's noticeable that the 15th Amendment comes after the 13th and 14th, and it's because the southern states continued to try to disenfranchise Black folks, and that continued during Jim Crow, with whites-only primaries, poll taxes, grandfather clauses such that if you were white and you couldn't afford to pay the poll tax as long as your grandfather voted, then you could vote.
These ways in which Black people in the 1960s had to guess how many jelly beans in a jar in order to vote, how many bubbles on a bar of soap. That's just how insane it is. But when we think fundamentally about why voting is important, then we have to think about the myriad of Jim Crow laws that were apartheid, like laws in the American South that people could not untether themselves, from which we know very well discrimination in housing, education, employment, recreation, can't go into the park, can't swim in the swimming pool. Those were our realities in this country just a few decades ago.
Voting rights, even the law itself, signed into effect by President Johnson, comes only months after the march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge and 600 people being met by Billy clubs and state troopers.
So, when we think about the history and legacy of this, it's stunning what the Supreme Court has done because basically what the court has done is to suggest that you can't put race into a situation that has always been racialized in our country.
HUNT: What do you say to that -- to critics who are who would argue, well, the country has come a long way since all of that that you just laid out.
GOODWIN: Well, that would -- that would be the hope. And what we can see after Shelby County v. Holder with Justice Ginsburg's dissent, it's a majority decision by Justice Roberts striking down another component of the Voting Rights Act. And what Justice Ginsburg said is that who would get rid of their umbrella, essentially, just because today it's not raining.
And what we saw in the wake of that was voter suppression, like we had never seen before since the Voting Rights Act.
So, we've seen the closing of polls. We've seen making more difficult for college students to be able to vote where they attend university. We have seen ways in which there have been people stripped from the voting rolls. It turns out that by thinking we've met this brave new day, we haven't. It's only worsened.
HUNT: And do you agree with the three liberal justices who wrote that the majority has completed their, quote, "demolition of the Voting Rights Act"? Are they right about that?
GOODWIN: Yes. They're pretty much on point about that.
I would note that in the Harvard Law Review just a few years ago, there is an author who wrote a piece at the forward of the law review saying that what the Roberts court considers of racism is an old timey racism, that unless you see police on horses with Billy clubs and hoses and dogs, they're not going to recognize racial discrimination, that that is what they need in order to see racial discrimination.
But the effects are clearly here.
HUNT: And to the sort of political end of the table -- I mean, Marc, what do you think we're going to see in direct response to this from Republicans who are rewriting maps across the country?
SHORT: Well, look, Kasie, I agree with Justice Roberts that the best way to stop discriminating on race is to stop discriminating on race. And I think that this court decision was basically because a federal court said to Louisiana, you must draw a second district based on race.
And the court didn't throw out the Voting Rights Act. The court said you have to have modern examples of how voters have been racially discriminated against. And fortunately, America has come a long way since the 1960s. It has, fortunately.
I think the dirty secret here. In many cases is my experience. And some of the redistricting is that it's often elected white Democrats who have looked to keep districts that have majority black because then they don't want to be primaried.
And so, this debate isn't really as much as it is R versus D as it's being discovered in much of the media today. In many cases, it's D on D, and I don't think you end up seeing a number of Republican pickups that some people think.
I think it's similar to the notion that today, you know, Florida approved a new map that they say can pick up four Republican seats. Kasie, these demographics always change. And I know people look at '24 and say, lots happened in Florida. There's a lot new voters there.
But I saw an analysis. You go back to 2018, which was the last midterm in a Trump presidency. And if you use those results to the new map, Republicans actually lose a seat.
And the same notion in Texas where you're redrawing these seats based upon Hispanic turnout in '24 that voted for Trump because the border was a mess, that doesn't mean Hispanic voters are going to be lifelong Republicans, and they're all going to vote Republican in this midterm cycle. And so, I think a lot of people here might immediately calculate, hey, these are going to be automatic Republican pickups. I don't think that's the case.
HUNT: You're arguing that acting in the short term political moment might actually buy you something in the long term that you don't know that you're purchasing.
Kate?
SHORT: Yeah.
BEDINGFIELD: And look, I think it's important to remember that gerrymandering, particularly as we've seen this mid-cycle effort ramped up by Trump, gerrymandering across the board is unpopular.
[16:30:07]
People don't like it. They don't -- and you see, you know, Democratic voters don't even like it, particularly when Democrats are doing it for Democratic political gain. And you heard Congresswoman Ocasio- Cortez saying, unfortunately, we're having to do this. Part of the reason that that I think the Democrats were able to get the Virginia measures over the finish line is they really positioned it as a response to Trump.
I mean, they weren't out there, you know, making an argument about the fact that there should be 10 Democratic representatives in Virginia. They were really arguing, you know, Trump has started this arms race. And so, I think that what you're going to see now on the Democratic side in the wake of this decision is an incredible energizing of Democratic base voters.
I think you're going to see Democratic elected officials, making a very aggressive case about the need to turn out, about the need to reject both to reject essentially what the Supreme Court has done here to try to stop Republicans from gerrymandering in a way that benefits them politically. I think this will be a big energizer for the Democratic base, and I would expect to see a lot of Democratic politicians throw their arms around it.
HUNT: Quick last word, professor.
GOODWIN: Well, look what we're not talking about is the fact that there was already racial gerrymandering and what will take place in the wake of this is actually racialized gerrymandering, that there is a thumb on the scale for electing white officials in these states. And we're sort of looking at this as if you get one more black voter, that's racial gerrymandering. Rather than thinking about, really, you know, a third of the state is black and only one seat?
HUNT: Yeah. Chuck?
TODD: Quick on the hobby sports, if you care about representative -- representation in Washington, you got to do something what is called uncapped the House, which means the house needs to double in size. The reason we have --
HUNT: Okay, Chuck --
TODD: No, no, no, no. But the reason we have this arcane problem, the reason we're having these arguments.
HUNT: None of us are ready for twice as many members of the House of Representatives.
TODD: And yet its why the American voter doesn't feel represented in this town, because every congressional district is gerrymandered, because they're the size of major cities, and they were never intended to be that big.
HUNT: That is true.
TODD: That's why we're in this --
HUNT: Elie Honig, thank you, sir, for hanging out. I appreciate it and thanks very much for your expertise.
All right. Coming up here in THE ARENA, we're going to talk with one Democrat from the Deep South about this voting rights case and whether her seat is now in jeopardy.
But first, James Comey in court today. And what the president is now saying about that alleged threat by the former FBI director.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Well, if anybody knows anything about crime, they know 86. You know what 86 is? That's a mob term for kill him. You know, do you ever see the movies, 86 him?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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[16:37:08]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Eighty-six, you know what 86 is? That's a mob term for. Kill him. You know? You ever see the movies, "86 him", the mobster says to one of his wonderful associates, 86 him. That means kill him. People like Comey have created tremendous danger, I think, for politicians and others.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: President Trump defending the Justice Department's latest indictment of former FBI Director James Comey for posting a picture last year of seashells in the shape of the numbers "86 47", the president arguing that the numbers 86 in that picture are a, quote, mob term for kill him, although there are different interpretations of the term.
This all coming as the former FBI director makes his first appearance in court today to face the DOJ's charges against him on the grounds that he threatened the president's life.
CNN crime and justice correspondent Katelyn Polantz is with us. We're also joined by CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller.
Katelyn, I want to start with you on the latest reporting, because we heard from the acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche. What is he saying?
KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESEPONDENT: Not long ago, even Todd Blanche, he was asked at a press conference. The press conference was about gun regulations, but there was a reporter who asked him, is it the Justice Department's position that anyone who writes eight, six, four, seven? That's what Comey is charged with writing and making a threat would be investigated and potentially charged?
Blanche said it was a thorough investigation, and he gave a little bit more explanation as well -- clearly responding to these questions about the indictment of Jim Comey yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TODD BLANCHE, ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL: Look, every case is different. Every threat's case is different. And so that means that there can -- what is -- what does that mean? That means that the nature of the threat, the person who makes the threat and then the investigation around the threat. And so, you cannot -- it is -- it would be ill-advised for anybody to
compare a particular statement to another statement that appears similar when there's been a thorough investigation. Nobody in this room has any idea what happened during a grand jury investigation between May 15th and yesterday.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
POLANTZ: Now, one thing that we did learn in court today was a really short initial appearance for Jim Comey, about five minutes. That's it.
Not a lot of tension, not a lot of discussion. But we did know that his defense team, they're going to file a motion in this case to try and get it dismissed by claiming that Donald Trump went after him unfairly. The sort of response that Blanche just gave, that's the sort of thing the Justice Department is going to have to expound upon.
Why would Jim Comey be charged with this and not others? If others were writing similar messages? So that's going to be an argument that we will hear in the court once this case moves to the eastern district of North Carolina.
Another thing I wanted to note about what Blanche just said. He acknowledged the secrecy of the grand jury in this proceedings. There's very likely going to be some discussion about that, because yesterday at the press conference announcing the charges against Comey, the FBI director, Kash Patel, noted that the grand jury was told that Comey had deleted his post on Instagram, as well as apologized.
Really unusual to hear about what a grand jury may have been told from the FBI director at a press conference well before any trial proceedings or major arguments in court -- Kasie.
HUNT: Very interesting.
So, John Miller, you and your team have seen a lot of threats against a lot of public officials. You've investigated them. You've seen different departments figure out how to sort through them and handle them. Obviously, no Justice Department, federal, local, state, whatever has the resources to investigate every single one of those threats that are now flying in the environment in which we live.
How do you assess the nature of the threat that the Justice Department alleges Comey made here, and whether it rises to this level on its own merits, absent any political context?
JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, if my detectives, Kasie, walked into my office and said, we got a threat case, boss, I would say, all right, what's the threat? They put down a picture of shells in the sand and they say, "86 47". My next question is, where's the threat? Where's the thing that says kill somebody and they will -- some people believe 86 means, you know, whack the guy.
And I'm like, and who's 47? And how do we know? How do we know that? That's what the person who placed these shells meant.
Okay. But my mom was a bartender. When she 86 somebody, it meant they cut him off because he'd had too much to drink. My sister was a bartender. When she 86 somebody, that means they had to leave the place.
Comey's wife was a waitress. And, you know, he said to her, that meant when they ran out of a certain ingredient for a dish that 86 it off the menu, meaning they weren't going to serve it.
Now, could you extrapolate that if the boss of the Gambino crime family was recorded in the back room of a of a mob hang out by a hidden FBI bug, that they were going 86 somebody by name, that that meant kill him, you could, but you still couldn't charge it unless you had more.
And then there's the question of, is it Comey's threat? Because the statute requires that a reasonable recipient would interpret it as a serious threat to do harm to the president. And the second charge requires that they must know it would be taken as a threat. Well, when Comey learned it was being taken as a threat by some people on the internet, the first thing he did was take it down, which really kind of walks away from intent.
But the central question is, who put the shells there? If he didn't create that, that that scene, then was it really his threat to begin with? And did the FBI go back to that beach? Did they recover these shells? Were they dusted for prints and processed for DNA? Where's the hunt for the real killers?
I mean, we have to remind ourselves where we are here, which is this is the third time that they have tried to indict him. And the second charge that they've tried to use, and the president has publicly stated to attorney generals past that he wants Comey indicted no matter what.
So, we are where we are. I don't think this will get far in court by any judge who understands the law.
HUNT: John, how do you think or why do you think it got through a grand jury?
MILLER: So that is an important mystery. And, you know, as Katelyn Polantz points out, the fact that the FBI director starts explaining what the grand jury was told is actually a crime, it's a violation of Section 6e of the Justice Department rules violating grand jury secrecy. He's entitled to know that, but he's not entitled to share that.
But what happened in that grand jury is the same way they got the last indictment dismissed, because there were improper steps taken.
The defense is going to start off with the unusual request of the judges. We're going to want to review the grand jury minutes and what was said and how the prosecutors instructed them on the law and what the judge who supervised it said, and so on, because how they got 23 people to sign off with this on a charge, given the history of Supreme Court rulings on threat cases, is something they're going to have to -- something they're going to want to know.
HUNT: For sure.
All right. Katelyn Polantz, John Miller, those of us who you know, cover these marble buildings really appreciate the street cred you bring to the table. So thank you very much for that.
MILLER: Thanks.
HUNT: All right. Coming up next here, we're going to talk live with one lawmaker who could be directly impacted by today's Supreme Court ruling. The first Black woman elected to Congress from Alabama, the state's only Democrat on Capitol Hill, Congresswoman Terri Sewell.
(BEGIN VIDEO LIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Supreme Court has opened the door to a coordinated attack on Black voters across this country.
[16:45:03]
This is an outright power grab.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HUNT: All right, welcome back.
More on today's Supreme Court ruling that limits the reach of the Voting Rights Act. It could spark a fresh wave of redistricting attempts across the South and give a boost to Republicans. Here's how the president is reacting to the decision
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: That's good.
REPORTER: Yeah.
TRUMP: That's the kind of ruling I like. When did that happen? Was it considered a win for who?
REPORTER: A win for Republicans.
TRUMP: I love it.
REPORTER: But my question --
TRUMP: This is a very good -- we can end this news conference right now. I want to read it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[16:50:00]
HUNT: All right. Joining me now, Congresswoman Terri Sewell. She is the only Democrat to represent Alabama in Congress and chairs the Congressional Black Caucus' Voting Rights Task Force.
Congresswoman, thank you very much for spending some time with us today.
First, let me just get your response to what the president said there, that this is the kind of ruling he likes.
REP TERRI SEWELL (D-AL): Well, you know, this is a devastating blow to the VRA, especially Section Two. It means that states like Alabama can enact discriminatory redistricting maps with immunity. I mean, really, they can do it without any regard to the law. And it's really scary that we've come to this place.
You know, I grew up in Selma, Alabama, where people fought and died and marched for the right to vote. And this decision says that their vote can be diluted for partisan reasons.
And since when do we come to the day where partisan politics rules over racial discrimination seriously.
HUNT: Congresswoman, I'm glad you mentioned your personal background, and I know you shared some photographs of you with some of the civil rights icons, who were the ones who were on the front lines of the fight for black representation. Can you talk a little bit about what it means, especially, you know, speak to people who look at, you know, what has changed since this time, since this the fight that John Lewis had to fight and now and the progress we've made as to why this kind of representation matters still?
SEWELL: Well, representation matters, who you have representing you matters. And the fact of the matter is, until we have the Voting Rights Act of 1965, we had no black representation. And frankly, a decision such as this one today was so devastating that we could go back to pre-reconstruction era, you know, discrimination on partisan terms. And it just really is frightening that the sacrifices of folks like John Lewis meant so little that we were going backwards and not forwards.
It was only because of the Voting Rights Act that we actually got black representation. And the fact that they can now enact racially discriminatory maps in the name of partisan politics means that this is going to become a rampant exercise race to the bottom, if you will, for Republicans and Democrats. I personally think that we as Democrats can't sit back. We have to fight back.
So, if blue states and red states are going to redraw their maps, I think that Democrats need to think about redrawing their maps. I mean, I know it's a race to the bottom, but it's a -- it's to the bottom. And you know, you're fighting fire with fire. And I think it's important that we win this fight because it's about making sure that the Republicans don't steal the next election. And that's exactly what they're doing. HUNT: Steal the next election. Could you point to how you believe
that's happening?
SEWELL: Well, you know, I think that the redistricting that's going on in Florida is, you know, this was all started by Donald Trump by asking Texas to find him five seats. And what you've seen is a tit for tat. And, you know, I know I personally voted against gerrymandering not once, but twice when Democrats were in charge. We voted for the Freedom to Vote Act.
But the fact of the matter is Republicans did not vote for that. They wanted gerrymandering and what the Supreme Court has allowed them to do is to have partisan gerrymandering, and they can actually draw discriminatory maps and use it as an excuse. So, they did it for partisan reasons.
It's pretty scary times to live in that we don't actually protect, you know, the rights of protected classes on race, but we allow partisan gerrymandering and that's kind of where we are. And I think that the fact that they can not only, you know, have to redraw seats, but now that they can redraw lines even before elections is pretty devastating.
HUNT: Right, Congresswoman, I -- do you think that your seat specifically is going to be targeted by those who are rewriting maps in Alabama, potentially. I mean, and we've had to remind our viewers, usually redistricting does not happen in between, you know, census times, but we will see kind of a nationwide redistricting at the ten- year mark.
SEWELL: Yeah. No, I think that, you know, do I think that they will? Yeah. Do I think that they should. No.
I mean, I think that, you know, we have not had midyear redistricting. And, you know, this is something that Donald Trump has really cooked up this whole scheme and it seems to be working a very conservative Supreme Court has really lost its -- has lost touch with American -- with American people, in my opinion.
And I think that they that decisions like today doesn't give very much hope to those who are minority voters and black voters, those who are not in the majority in their state doesn't give much hope that the Supreme Court will uphold the Constitution, which offers them equal protection under the law. And it's just unfortunate that we've come to this place.
You know, I think that Alabama has a decision, had a decision in Allen versus Milligan that gave us a second opportunity seat. And you know, that seat is in jeopardy just like my seat is in jeopardy. It shouldn't be, but it probably will be because I can't imagine that Trump wouldn't put pressure on my Republican governor.
HUNT: All right. Congresswoman Terri Sewell, thanks very much for your time today. I really appreciate it.
All right. We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HUNT: All right. Thanks so much to my panel. Really appreciate all of you joining us today. Thanks to you at home for watching as well.
Don't go anywhere. "THE LEAD" anchored today by Brianna Keilar starts right now.
