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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt

Parties Play Blame Game On Rhetoric After Press Dinner Shooting; Supreme Court Conservatives Deal Blow To Voting Rights Act; Battle Of The Billionaires: Musk, Altman Face Off In Court. Battle Of The Billionaires: Musk, Altman Face Off In Court; 2011: Obama Roasts Trump At White House Correspondents' Dinner; 2026: The Year Of The Reboot? Aired 12-1p ET

Aired May 02, 2026 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN ANCHOR: -- and it is most definitely that, most of the time. And that's all the time we have right now. Don't forget, you can find all our shows online as podcasts at CNN.com/audio and on all other major platforms.

I'm Christiane Amanpour in London, thank you for watching, and I'll see you all again next week.

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. Welcome to The Arena Saturday.

Is rhetoric to blame for political violence? And if so, whose fault is it? The attack on the White House Correspondents' Dinner has kicked off this same debate we have after violence targeting political figures on both sides of the aisle. This is violence that has become all too common. And once again, the blame game is on.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: They've incited violence in my view. I mean, you have some of the most prominent figures in the House and the Senate on the Democrat side, effectively, you know, calling for war.

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D), NEW YORK: There is a level of rhetoric that is too far, right? We would never say someone should commit an act of violence.

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The left-wing cult of hatred against the President, and all of those who support him and work for him, has gotten multiple people hurt and killed. And it almost did so again this weekend.

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D), MINORITY LEADER: And this so-called White House Press Secretary wants to lecture America and lecture us about civility? Get lost. Clean up your own house before you have anything to say to us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right. My panel joins us now in The Arena. Political Anchor at Spectrum News New York One, Errol Louis, CNN Political Commentator, host of the Off the Cupp podcast, S.E. Cupp, Former Communications Director for Vice President Kamala Harris, Jamal Simmons, and Republican Strategist, Shermichael Singleton, they're both CNN Political Commentators.

Welcome to all of you. Great to have you with us this weekend. Errol Louis, you've seen a lot in your time on the scene. This debate, quite frankly, I find demoralizing every time it happens. And what we saw from the White House in the wake of the dinner, I mean, the President immediately after the shooting did have sort of a conciliatory tone.

He seemed to reach out to the reporters that were in the room with some sympathy. But then, of course, you just saw what Karoline Leavitt said from the podium. How do you feel about the way this has played out, the way the administration has handled this?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, look, as one of the people crouching behind tables that night wondering what was going on, the whole point of that night was to bring together different sides and to prove not just to ourselves, but also project outward to the world that there could be civility, that people from very different political and philosophical viewpoints could, in fact, get together and sort of manifest for the public the way the republic is supposed to be run.

On the other hand, look, the cries of -- for civility are coming from people whose hands are not clean. And there's just no other way to put it. I mean, if you think back to the 2016 campaign when people were beaten at political rallies and then-candidate Trump said he paid the legal bills of one of the people arrested for that kind of violence, it was a very different tone.

And I don't bring that up as an isolated example, but it's an example of how once the genie is out of the bottle, it's very hard to put it back. We've heard this from Dr. King all throughout his life. That's the problem with violence. It's an evil genie. Once it's out of the bottle, very hard to undo it. And I wish more people would spend more time trying to undo the bad that has been done.

S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That's a really good point. And I was in studio covering that night, watching you all crouch under tables. And I think one of the things that really resonated with me is this idea that violence -- violent rhetoric has obviously increased in the Trump era, but so has the sort of righteousness and justification of violence, whether you're looking at a Luigi Mangione or when a Hasan Piker says, yes, if you're mad about Medicaid, go -- you should -- we should kill Rick Scott.

The emboldened sort of way that people are talking about politics as if a political cause gives you the right and the justification to talk violently and then do violence. That's the part that seems escalatory and very, very dangerous to me, that there's no shame around just coming out and saying, you think this problem is so bad, whether it's healthcare or Trump is so bad or whatever's so bad, that your violence is justified.

There's a righteous cause behind this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

[12:05:01]

CUPP: That's what radicalizes a college student. That's what really turns on a lot of people who feel disenfranchised and maybe don't know where they fit in when you attach a righteousness to it. That's, I think, where it gets really, really sick.

HUNT: Jamal?

JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, you know, we've got to tamp down the rhetoric. The rhetoric has gotten too hot and the President of the United States made excuses after he made jokes about Paul Pelosi being hit by a hammer, who's Nancy Pelosi's husband.

But there's something that's worse than the rhetoric. And the worst part is when people literally commit violence and then have that excused by the government. So you had January 6th rioters who attacked the Capitol of the United States, who beat police officers, and then they got pardoned by the President of the United States.

You had DHS or -- agents who killed two American citizens. And before the investigation even commenced, the President of the United States said that it wasn't their fault. So there's rhetoric and there's actual violence that has been legitimized by the person who's sitting in the Oval Office.

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, there's also violence and rhetoric that's been legitimized on the other side. Now, I don't want to do the both sides thing because I can easily just do what Jamal just did. Well, the left -- hold on a minute.

SIMMONS: Name the times that Democrats --

SINGLETON: Hold on a minute. Folks on the left have done X, Y, and Z. I'm not going to use this moment --

CUPP: I just named some Democrats.

SINGLETON: I'm not going to use this moment to do that because that's a part of the problem. I think that the pragmatic idea of Americanism for a lot of people, especially younger college age students, they feel it's not working anymore, Kasie. And so when you hear that violent rhetoric and that anger and their frustration and people are looking and they're seeing this bleak future, then they feel through force that is the only means to change this mechanism because voting isn't working, marching isn't working. So this is the only way.

I'm not justifying that, but I think there's something fundamentally wrong here that we need to fix with the system itself beyond just the words. And that's what I don't think we're talking enough about. We can do both sides, but that's not enough. SIMMONS: But I will say this. I do not believe that broad-brushed, most Republicans excuse violence when it occurs. There's a particular Republican who doesn't. That is the problem.

HUNT: And so, yes, to pick up on Jamal's point, as far as the President of the United States is concerned, you know, he said, quote, "We'll stand up to crazy Nancy Pelosi who ruined San Francisco. How's her husband doing? Anybody know?" And then, of course, there was the incident where there were horrible attacks on state legislators in Minnesota, and the message from the President was not sympathy.

So on the one hand, he's got the White House Press Secretary saying the rhetoric that's aimed at him is causing violence. But when these moments of violence are occurring against his political opponents, do you think the President is living up to the standard he's setting for Democrats?

LOUIS: No, no, of course not. And we -- look, we all have some responsibility here. And to be fair, it's a difficult thing to do. One wishes that the President would try harder. It's a difficult thing to do to tell people this is the most important election of our lifetime. You've got to get involved. Your freedom is at stake. Your rights are at stake.

The health of your children is at stake. But don't go beyond a certain point. I mean, we're encouraging people to bring all of the passion and to raise the stakes of their involvement in politics. But we also want to sort of police some boundaries beyond which you're not supposed to go.

It's a very difficult thing to do. It's difficult for the media. It's difficult for the politicians. It is not supposed to be difficult for the President, who has the biggest pulpit of all, to say, we go this far and no further.

You can be passionate. You can care about things, whether it's abortion, war and peace, or any other issue. But you cannot go beyond a certain point. That is something he has never -- he has steadfastly refused to do, actually, when given countless chances.

HUNT: Well, and S.E., I think it is worth also reflecting on what the President said when he was first running for this office, which was that the people who supported him did so, so fervently that he could walk down Fifth Avenue and shoot someone. This is the imagery he brings into the conversation --

CUPP: Right.

HUNT: -- and they would still be with him.

CUPP: Well, yes. I mean, five minutes ago, Trump was celebrating the death of Robert Mueller, and he celebrated the death of Rob Reiner. I mean, no one of any seriousness would say we got to this point without Donald Trump. But there are so many sort of unsung, unknown folks that have borne the brunt of this, as well. We can all talk about the famous people Trump has targeted. But there's also, like, journalists whose names you don't know. There's health care workers whose names you don't know, who were targeted and who he incited violence against by talking the way he did about Anthony Fauci, for example.

Election officials who have been targeted with death threats because of the rhetoric he used around the 2020 election. There are lots of people who don't have celebrity, the money, the resources to go out on television and defend themselves. They just have to live in fear of the people that he has stoked to go and get his targets. And that's really unfortunate, too.

HUNT: All right. Quick last word.

SINGLETON: Just quickly here. If that is your premise, not USC (ph), but Democrats broadly speaking, is it justified to say everything is an existential threat, to Errol's point? Because if people believe that, why should any of us be surprised that they act violently?

[12:10:10]

If someone does a wrong or commit a wrong against me, am I to do a wrong against them as well? And that's morally permissible? Absolutely not.

HUNT: Yes. I mean, it has been a feature, I will say, of all of the presidential campaigns that I have covered, whether it was, you know, one where you saw Mitt Romney running against Barack Obama. It was the most important election of anybody's lifetime. And the stakes were enormous. Obviously --

CUPP: That was a much different President.

HUNT: Yes.

SIMMONS: I will just say -- I know we got to go. I will just say, we all did live through the post 9/11 era when George W. Bush went to a mosque afterwards and said --

HUNT: Yes.

SIMMONS: -- it is not up to us to be violent toward our fellow citizens. We need everybody together to solve this problem. It's a long time since then, but gosh, I wish we could get back to that.

HUNT: All right. Coming up next here in The Arena, the battle of the billionaires, the big personalities inside an even bigger courtroom battle as Elon Musk faces off against Sam Altman in a case that could reshape A.I. as we know it.

Plus, the Supreme shakeup coming to the congressional district near you as the nation's highest court deals a major blow to a landmark civil rights era law. That's our quote of the week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [12:15:52]

HUNT: All right, welcome back. President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law in the summer of 1965. And that landmark civil rights era law is back in the news this week after that ruling from the Supreme Court. The six conservative justices sharply limited the use of race when it comes to drawing congressional maps.

That ruling now paves the way for states, mostly in the Deep South, to redraw maps and potentially eliminate majority minority districts. It has the potential to erase a number of Democratic held seats in the House. Now, the President reacted to that decision when he was told about it in the Oval Office by saying, I love it.

Someone who doesn't love it, the three liberal justices in the dissent. That brings us to our quote of the week, the quote, "Now complete demolition of the Voting Rights Act." Justice Elena Kagan wrote that, in her opinion, going on to say that, quote, "The court's decision will set back the foundational right Congress granted of racial equality in electoral opportunity."

My panel is back. Errol Louis, big picture here. What does this mean for representation and for the ongoing battle over racial equality in the United States?

LOUIS: Well, you can see that it's going to be a setback. The whole point of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was to provide a remedy to what had been decades, if not centuries, of seemingly neutral criteria like a poll tax or a reading test or something else that was specifically used to disenfranchise black voters. It went on for decades and decades. That's why the act was passed.

And the idea was to say, look, in a limited way, we have to create what are called communities of interest to put people together. Don't let them get split up. Don't let these crazy tests be applied. Don't put the voting booth so far from people that they can't get to it. And it was sort of a coverall to make sure that communities of interest would have a fair shot at representation.

What the Supreme Court has said is you have to now prove intention, you know, that you don't get the benefit of the doubt, that you have to assume that the legislatures are going to do these things properly and that there won't be any more of these tricks that went on for years and years and years.

And we've already seen that that's not going to be the case. The Florida legislature was sitting, waiting with maps, specifically waiting for the Supreme Court decision so that they could start carving things up. And so black representation will probably go down. That's too bad for the Black and Hispanic Caucus and members of the Asian Pacific Caucus.

But more importantly, millions of Americans are now at risk of being completely disenfranchised and setting back what had been really one of the prouder, I think, moments for this country over the last 60 years. HUNT: Yes. The court argued, Shermichael Singleton, or certain justices on the court argued essentially that we've made so much progress as a country that the way that's -- this was set up is no longer needed. Do you agree with that?

SINGLETON: Look, I think we've made a lot of progress. I'm certainly not going to disagree with that. I mean, I grew up in the South. My grandparents couldn't go to a mixed school. Here I am, 35, running my own business, got a multi-million dollar investment two years ago to do so.

Talk to my grandparents about that. They could never imagine that opportunity. So I'm certainly not going to disregard where we were 40, 50, 60 years ago to today. Does that mean that progress doesn't continue? No, we have to keep moving forward.

That said, though, I sort of see this as a part of the broader issues that we're having in the country as it pertains to gerrymandering. And how do you adjust it? How do you fix it? How do you not focus solely on things that one group may say, well, this is an unfair adjudication of the process for African-Americans or Hispanic Americans to get a set number of congressional districts and vice versa?

And one idea that I have, and this is a kind of a wild one, Kasie, maybe we look at some at-large congressional districts. And maybe we say proportionately what percent of voters are registered Democrats, what percent are registered Republicans. That way we absolutely assure every single person who fits into both of those groups have equal representation. That, to me, could be a fair idea.

[12:20:03]

HUNT: Yes. And yet, and yet, I feel it is slightly far-fetched, although I appreciate your --

SINGLETON: It's radical. It's radical.

HUNT: Yes, I know. It's creative. That's a good word for it. Jamal?

SIMMONS: Listen, this right, this Voting Rights Act was really signed almost in blood, right? Because you had the people like John Lewis who went across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. I've done that walk before. Viola Liuzzo, a white woman from Michigan who was killed because she wanted to go and fight for voting rights in the South for African- Americans.

So this was really founded in something that was very noble by the country. Now the question is today, do you still need it? Some people would argue yes. I was just talking to someone last week in Mississippi who said one of the reasons you have so many non- registered voters in Mississippi is because if you register as a Democrat, the counties are so small, people know it, and you're punished for having registered as a Democrat.

So nobody wants to register as a Democrat in some of these counties. So there are still these sort of informal ways we have to guard. Now, the one guide I would say for these Republican states who are thinking about doing this is the Republicans in a lot of these Southern states have -- they struck a kind of a bad bargain.

And what they did was they lumped together a lot of African-Americans, but also a lot of liberal and progressive whites into these districts. So if you break these districts up, not only are you going to break apart maybe the ability to elect an African-American, but a lot of Democratic-leaning white people are going to end up in Republican districts. And that could make a lot of those districts much more competitive than people expect.

HUNT: Well, maybe that's good for the country, right? More competitive districts --

SIMMONS: Maybe it is.

HUNT: -- if you're arguing it that way, to be clear.

SIMMONS: Maybe it is.

HUNT: I want to say that that's in context. I mean, S.E. Cupp, I mean, this does also, you know, speak to -- so much of this is really focused on all of the history that has been talked about at this table. When we think about it in strictly partisan and political terms, as opposed to racial ones, I mean, one of the things that really drives decision-making around redistricting is being an incumbent member of Congress already --

CUPP: Yes.

HUNT: -- right? They like to draw things that protect themselves --

CUPP: Yes.

HUNT: -- regardless of --

CUPP: Yes.

HUNT: -- what party they're in or where they come from. And it's also true that gerrymandering is unpopular, and our politicians have launched an enormous gerrymandering war --

CUPP: Yes.

HUNT: -- that is going to land us in a place that is much more gerrymandered and less politically flexible than where we started.

CUPP: Yes, a couple things. I'm worried less about Jamal's future than the idea that we're going to end up in hyper-partisan districts, you know, and that we're going to be in these forever redistricting wars. And it's already begun. And what do we have to show for it? We're like back where we started.

For all the seats and -- that Dems have picked up here and Republicans think they're going to pick up here, we're kind of like back to square one. And lastly, I'll just say, to Errol's point about this idea that we should sort of leave this voting project of ours, the crux of the American experiment, to like an honor code, like an honor system. Like, they'll do the right thing.

That really only works when you have people of honor overseeing them. And I think, you know, whatever side of the aisle you're on, you can point to people who do not feel very honorable overseeing what is going on. And I think the person who runs against gerrymandering and who runs against insider trading and betting in politics is going to have a lot of voters giving them their vote, for sure.

HUNT: All right. Coming up next here in The Arena, marking 15 years since what The Washington Post has dubbed one of the most weird nights -- more weird nights in the nation's capital. But first, why Elon Musk spent the week on the witness stand inside a California courtroom.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[12:28:06]

ELON MUSK, CEO, TESLA: I don't trust Sam Altman and I don't think we want to have the most powerful AI in the world controlled by someone who is not trustworthy.

SAM ALTMAN, CEO, OPENAI: Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity. I feel for the guy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You feel for him?

ALTMAN: I do, actually. I don't think he's like a happy person.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: There's no love lost between OpenAI's Sam Altman and billionaire Elon Musk. Now, the years-long and very public feud between two of the world's most powerful men is unfolding in a combative courtroom showdown. This week, Musk testified in his landmark lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that his one-time business partner has betrayed OpenAI's original non-profit mission and deceived him into donating money to help start what is now one of the world's most dominant and valuable AI companies.

OpenAI, which Musk and Altman started together with the idea that the company would benefit all of humanity and not just its shareholders, claims that Musk is doing this just to derail competition against his own artificial intelligence company, xAI. Though rooted in these deep personal grievances, the trial has also partially morphed into a debate over AI safety risks and to what extent AI is a threat to humanity.

Musk testified on Monday that he has, quote, "extreme concerns about AI" and that it could, quote, "kill us all. We don't want to have a Terminator outcome."

Yes. Yes, no. No, we don't. We don't. S.E. Cupp, I mean, what an intense feud between two of the world's most powerful people. What an apocalyptic way to think about it. I wonder, I mean, do you think Elon Musk has a point here in raising concerns about whether or not we can all trust Sam Altman and his OpenAI in the future?

CUPP: Definitely. However, there are codicils, right? Elon Musk has his own history of retaliating against people in his own companies that, you know, disagreed with him, whistleblowers, union organizers. Elon Musk takes things very personally.

We've seen how he can react on his X platform against people he doesn't like. So, again, hard to divorce what's personal for Elon Musk from what is a really good point. The other thing I would just say about all of this is as scary as A.I. sounds to a lot of people, I think the rise of the tech villain over the past 10 years makes it even scarier.

Because if we all thought benevolent people were in charge of this amazing new technology, I think we might feel a little bit better about it. I think I'm going to make a "Star Wars." With a full caveat, I've never seen a "Star Wars."

I got permission. This one's OK. Like, if Luke Skywalker were in charge of the A.I. rather than Darth Vader, I think we'd feel a little bit better about it. But we've met the tech villains. We've met Bezos and Elon and Altman and Zuckerberg. And we've just seen what they've all become and what they've done.

I think that's, like, the scariest layer of it all. The technology is just technology. It's a tool. It's kind of what we do with it.

HUNT: Yes, fair enough. Errol, I mean, do you think it's -- did I do that right?

CUPP: Do you think these guys -- you did.

HUNT: I'm going to keep going with it, OK? Do we think that these guys are more like Darth Vader or are they more like Han Solo?

CUPP: Oh, no, I don't know that one.

HUNT: Like, they mean well and they just want to make a buck.

CUPP: Who's that, right?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Let's be clear.

JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That's Lando Calrissian.

HUNT: Well, but Han doesn't cave. Han doesn't cave to the empire. Lando's got additional problems.

SIMMONS: Right.

LOUIS: This is not about people battling over their concern about the future of humanity. This is definitely not about whether or not a nonprofit organization was being run properly. These guys are about money. It's all it was ever about, money, power, and influence. And, frankly, one of those people, Elon Musk, frequently uses the courts to try and advance his own interests.

He has a competing company, and so sort of trying to cripple this one is a pretty good way to advance his financial interests. Follow the money. Use Occam's razor. The shortest path to profit is usually where you're going to find a Sam Altman or an Elon Musk.

SIMMONS: You know, we do have two competing things happening right here. So, if we're thinking on one hand about American competitiveness and on the other hand about American security, in one sense, we have to have a way for these A.I. companies to develop so that they can continue to innovate, they can bring all these wonderful things that are going to happen, you know, from science and health benefits, whatever.

And on the other hand, though, we have this question of, you know, are they going to be used by hackers and international organizations that are coming, drug organizations, and maybe foreign competitors that are looking to get into all of our data. So, we've got to figure out, I think, at some level, as a national front, how do we regulate this so that we don't have basically this generation's nuclear technology just out on the open marketplace? We've got to find some way to structure it so we can all survive.

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I just hope we don't overregulate it, though, because the Chinese are not looking at it that way, to just be quite honest. And I get Elon's arguments that, hey, this was a nonprofit entity that's trying to become a for-profit entity, but to your point, it needs to become for-profit, one, to innovate further, but two, when you think about the opportunities for investments, hedge funds to invest in this for-profit entity, not only rich people will do well, a lot of other regular hardworking people who may have a portfolio invested in something like an OpenAI will also benefit in the long run as well. So, I disagree with Musk on this one.

HUNT: We are, though, at the point where, you know, Anthropic, which is another one of these major A.I. companies, quite literally had to limit its release of its latest model to major companies, banks, so that they could unleash it on their own systems and make sure that it could find all of the vulnerabilities before they release it to the public.

I mean, I guess this, I mean, it feels like this genie's already out of the bottle, and we're, like, way late to ask this question, but, like, what are we unleashing?

LOUIS: Anthropic is outpacing, by almost any commercial metric you can think of, they are outpacing OpenAI, even though OpenAI is better known and had a lead in getting to market, and that's because their social responsibility is actually very attractive to a lot of people and to a lot of firms. The fact that they turned their back on what they thought was an unwarranted intrusion by the Pentagon, a lot of people responded to that favorably and took out subscriptions and paid them money every month, and it shows on their bottom line.

CUPP: Free markets.

LOUIS: I think that's going to -- I think that is going to continue. We should not discount the fact that, broadly speaking, the marketplace knows how dangerous this technology can be, doesn't necessarily trust the people who are running it, and we'll go with the more responsible people who want to put guardrails on it.

SIMMONS: But here's the thing, we don't actually know who's out there doing this. So Mythos, which is the Anthropic program we're talking about.

[12:35:04]

HUNT: Yes.

SIMMONS: We don't know that there aren't foreign actors that are already developing the same capabilities. So at some level, we're going to end up with just A.I. versus A.I. on this front, and the rest of us will have very little insight into what the A.I. has developed.

HUNT: All right. On that cheerful note, ahead here in The Arena, 15 years ago this week, a covert military operation was a top headline in the news, but it was a few jokes from the president at the time that everyone is still talking about.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald. And that's because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter. Like, did we fake the moon landing?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[12:40:20]

OBAMA: I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, and a terrorist who's responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Fifteen years ago this week, you can see the time on his face, President Obama announced that U.S. Special Forces had killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a covert operation. The moment marked an end to a decade-long manhunt for the leader of the terrorist organization responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Just 24 hours before the president made this stunning announcement, he attended the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner.

That was the night he delivered a scathing comedy roast, and he poked fun at the birther conspiracy theories that had dogged his presidency. He did it by making this famous T.V. producer, now President of the United States, the punchline.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: Donald Trump is here tonight. Now, I know that he's taken some flack lately, but no one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald. And that's because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter, like, did we fake the moon landing? Say what you will about Mr. Trump, he certainly would bring some change to the White House. Let's see what we've got up there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: I completely forgot that he showed that image.

CUPP: Me too.

SIMMONS: Yes.

HUNT: I was there, I was there that night.

CUPP: I totally forgot about the fake White House.

HUNT: How much does it look like the White House now do you think?

CUPP: Well, you just have to turn the pink to gold.

SIMMONS: Yes, it's all in gold now.

CUPP: That is --

SIMMONS: The cursive outside the Oval Office written on the wall is the one that really got me, the branded Oval Office.

SINGLETON: I bet Democrats regret that moment, though. I bet they absolutely regret that moment.

SIMMONS: I take it back. If you told me that we could trade in the last 10 years to get rid of that joke, I'd go for it.

CUPP: I was working at "Fox News" at the time. It was a different place and time. But Trump was doing birtherism, like, every single day.

HUNT: Yes.

CUPP: It was all he was doing. He was brought on all the time by Bill O'Reilly and whomever to do this gross, disgusting birtherism. And the idea that Obama just made jokes about it, I thought was, like, the least he should have done about how gross this thing that Trump was trafficking in. And so at the time, this seemed like light. SIMMONS: Yes.

CUPP: It seemed innocuous. Like, he's here. We're going to, of course, make fun of the crazy birther. But it didn't seem to me at the time to have, like, the weight that now people ascribe to it.

HUNT: Well, speaking of that weight, and I do think it's worth noting, I can't remember if it was before or after that dinner, but there was a split-screen moment where President Obama was at the briefing room podium releasing his birth certificate as Donald Trump was in his helicopter landing in New Hampshire. It was a literal split screen.

I mean, Trump did force this issue to the point that President Obama took action on it. The President has recently said that what you just saw, the joke, had -- was not why he decided he wanted to be president. He said, I loved it. But here's what Roger Stone, who has been close to Trump for decades, said about it on "PBS Frontline." Watch.

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ROGER STONE, TRUMP ADVISER: I think that is the night that he resolves to run for president. I think that he is kind of motivated by it. Maybe I'll just run. Maybe I'll show them all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: He showed them all.

LOUIS: Absolutely right. Roger Stone was the political advisor for Donald Trump for years before he ever got serious about running. And he was the one who was supposed to put these things together. He was his political brain, so to speak, at that time. And you could see it. I remember even then looking at it. And he was glowing. You could sort of see it coming together as the whole ballroom was laughing at him.

Donald Trump does not like to be laughed at. And you could see the resolve kind of setting in. His jaw set. He didn't smile. He didn't grin. He sure didn't laugh. He didn't laugh. He didn't think any part of that was funny. And I remember because the next day I was sitting on the set at CNN, and we were going to analyze the speech and its effect and so forth.

[12:45:08]

And it all got cut short because they said, stand by. Something's coming from the White House. And then Wolf Blitzer popped up on the screen, and we all started scrambling because they announced that bin Laden had been killed.

HUNT: Jamal?

SIMMONS: Yes. No, I remember that was in the ballroom that night, too. And you could see Donald Trump sort of dead ahead. And I will tell you, I will trade. I will trade that great, hilarious skit for the last thing. You're sorry? Well, I'll take it back. LOUIS: Give up that punchline later.

SIMMONS: And, you know, and more seriously, like, so that joke was there, and we have seen the president build these edifices into himself. He's going to do a ballroom and maybe an arc to Trump, and there's going to be, like, the written stuff on the walls and the photos. And that would all be fine, I think, if the other things weren't happening, like the Iran war that we don't understand or the DHS on the streets.

And, you know, there's some things that really matter that have happened over the last, particularly this particular term, that I would just think if the president of the United States focused on manufacturing and immigration and his own, you know, monuments to himself, he'd probably be at 60 percent approval rating right now. But that's not where we are.

SINGLETON: We add more seats to the House, Jamal. I love that idea.

HUNT: I mean, but the thing is that if his approval rating was sitting at 60 percent, it seems unlikely to me, Shermichael, that Americans would care as much what he was doing with the monuments.

SINGLETON: Oh, not at all. I mean, Kasie, think about it. If it was 60 percent approval and let's say everything Jamal just laid out was accurate, we'd have a strong economy, wages would be up, entrepreneurship would be up across the board, people would be able to pay for their kids to get an education, health care, child care, all of these things that we talk about so often would be a bygone for most people. So if Trump wants to tear down something and build it, he wants to build monuments, most people wouldn't care because as we were talking about, Jamal, the financial security would be there.

I think this always comes back to how do people feel about the money in the pocket and in the bank, and if it's not there, anxiety goes up, they become angry, factionalism increases, uncertainty increases, all of the negatives that we've been discussing this whole show are present, and that's sort of been part of my critique, like, hey, we've been given the keys to the palace. We have every opportunity as Republicans and conservatives to get this right because it's beneficial for the party but mostly beneficial for the country.

HUNT: Yes. All right. We will be right back.

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[12:52:13]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Runway. It's not just a magazine. It's a global icon. A winding road that brings us back together again.

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HUNT: "The Devil Wears Prada." Much anticipated sequel. Well, it finally hit theaters. I can't wait to see it, I got to be honest. It kind of feels like nostalgia is at an all-time high. President Trump also seems to have caught the reboot bug.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is your take on these reports that you're show "The Apprentice" is going to come back, could come back on Amazon with host Donald Trump Jr.?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I've been hearing it. Look, we had a great success, 14 seasons, and "The Apprentice" was a tremendous success. I've been hearing that, you know, a little bit. So we'll see what happens. He's a good guy. He'd be probably good. He's got a little charisma going. You need a little charisma for that sucker. So we'll see what happens. Yes, they tell me about it. We'll see.

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HUNT: Interesting father-son dynamics going on there. "The Wall Street Journal" is reporting that Amazon is in early talks for a potential reboot of President Trump's reality show, "The Apprentice." That's probably where you originally heard of Donald Trump. This time it might possibly star Don Jr. I'm sorry, what is happening? What year are we in? "Malcolm in the Middle" is also back. So is "Scrubs." Apparently we are going to see those tan bodies in red bathing suits slowly running down the California beach because "Fox" is reportedly working on a "Baywatch" reboot. And apparently even "Little House on the Prairie" is making a comeback.

Is this, I mean, where to even begin on this? What did you -- I'm not convinced Donald Trump, President Trump, thinks Don Jr. would be actually good at it. Or is that just like he doesn't think he was going to be as good as Donald Trump, the President, was at it?

LOUIS: I think he has enough of a showbiz instinct to know that reboots are a bad idea.

HUNT: They make a lot of money.

LOUIS: No, no, commercially they can be quite successful. But creatively they'll never be the kind of breakthrough, iconic kind of pop culture phenomenon that you'll find with like "Breaking Bad" or "The Wire" or "The Sopranos" or anything like that. Each of which have some interesting roots but took a lot of chances. And doing a sequel is the opposite of taking chances.

CUPP: Yes. I understand like the nostalgia. And it's a real commentary on like modern times that we really just want to go back and relive like the 90s, the 80s and 90s. And as an 80s child, please send me back. Send me back. Those were the days. But I don't under -- I never understand a reboot. Because if something was great, you're not going to make it better. If something was bad, why are you going to make it again and make more of it? I just don't under -- it doesn't live in any kind of sweet spot. It just feels like slop. And it doesn't feel very creative. And Hollywood is full of creative people. [12:55:24]

SIMMONS: So I'll say I do some work in this area and I will say people -- it is evidence of the brokenness of the development process in Hollywood.

HUNT: Yes.

SIMMONS: And it's the risk aversion that nobody wants to take a chance on new ideas.

HUNT: All right, guys, thank you so much for being with us. Thanks to you at home for watching. Don't forget, you can see The Arena every weekday right here on CNN at 4:00 p.m. Eastern. You can also catch up by listening to The Arena's podcast. You can follow us on X and Instagram at TheArenaCNN. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. The news continues next on CNN.

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