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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt

Rubio Posts Campaign-Like Video After White House Briefing; Is Rubio Outshining Vance In Possible 2028 Clash?; "No Gobbledegook": Obama Tells Dems To Speak In "Plain English"; Remembering CNN Founder Ted Turner; Remembering CNN Founder Ted Turner; 2025: Leo Becomes First American Pope After Conclave Election; Sally Field: I Didn't Find Robin Williams Funny In "Mrs. Doubtfire". Aired 12-1p ET

Aired May 09, 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]

CHRISTIANA AMANPOUR, CNN ANCHOR: As chief executive, we all still clung to his vision and his example, his motto, lead, follow, or get out of the way, and he did the first, and it was the privilege of a lifetime for us to do the second, as for the rest, they had to get out of his way.

That's all we have time for this week. Don't forget, you can find all of 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 there a new front runner in the shadow Republican race to succeed Donald Trump as President? This week, everyone noticed Marco Rubio, first looking quite comfortable at the White House briefing podium, then at the Vatican, exchanging gifts with Pope Leo after weeks of President Trump criticizing the pontiff before Rubio went on to meet with Italy's prime minister.

Of course, he is a secretary of state, but it's tough not to compare him with JD Vance, the Vice President, right now. Sources have previously told us that President Trump has openly mused about his Vice President's performance, and even asked friends to compare Vance with Rubio, and that makes this video, uploaded by Rubio's team this week, seem all the more eyebrow raising, shall we say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is your hope for America at a time such as this?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My hope for America? My hope for America is what it's always been. I think it's the hope I hope we all share. We want it to continue to be the place where anyone from anywhere can achieve anything. Where you're not limited by the circumstances of your birth, by the color of your skin, by your ethnicity, but frankly, it's a place where you are able to overcome challenges and achieve your full potential.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right. My panel joins us now in The Arena. CNN Legal Analyst, Former Federal Prosecutor, Elliot Williams, Congressional Correspondent at the New York Times, Annie Karni, Former Senior Adviser at the DNC and a CNN Political Commentator, Xochitl Hinojosa, and former Republican Congressman and Speaker Pro Tempore, Patrick McHenry. Thank you all for being here, really appreciate it.

Congressman, that ad, that video, I guess it's not an ad, it's a video, but still it seems like a campaign ad, which I think is why I'm tripping on it. What did you make of Rubio's performance over the course of the past week? I realize it's early, sort of baked in, but let's be real, it's always ongoing.

PATRICK MCHENRY (R), FORMER SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE: Wow, that's what this week has shown for Team Rubio and for the interest of Republican activists around the country. We've always talked about the memes. The Rubio memes have so dominated this year of him sitting on the couch and then the multiple different disguises of what he's doing.

Every job that is the most treacherous, worst job of the week, of the day, whatever the meme is --

HUNT: He was even the DJ, briefly.

MCHENRY: He was.

HUNT: A couple weeks ago, I think we have a picture of that. I will admit that I -- I don't know, I think I'm a little old for this meme, but here it is. OK.

There's the man himself. You got to wonder, like, you know, what he's playing. Anyway, sorry to interrupt.

MCHENRY: But he's done his memes, and that shows you some level of political connectivity in this environment. But this week showed that that's -- this internal apparatus around the White House is very interested in his talent and what that could bring to a Republican successor to President Trump.

Now, I think we have to ask the question, though, does Rubio actually want it? And that is a very secondary question to this whole atmosphere now.

HUNT: Is there any evidence that he doesn't want it?

XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Of course he wants it.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: What did he say?

HINOJOSA: Yes. Of course he wants it. Also, I will say that he was -- it was a little masterful, I would have to say, because he's not only catering to Donald Trump. He -- you're hearing his words also with Donald Trump on this sort of, the screen in the video, which he understands who his audience is. He understands he needs Donald Trump to go out there and support him in order to have your base.

At the same time, he talks about, you should not be limited by the color of your skin, where you come from, et cetera, which are words that would never come out of Donald Trump's mouth. And so, at the same time, he's trying, seems like he's trying to appeal to a broader electorate, which whoever runs will need to do that. Whether it works, whether that works in a MAGA primary, no clue, but he's starting to lay the groundwork on the two.

WILLIAMS: Even if it's not just a MAGA primary, the two silhouettes you saw in that video, one Donald Trump, two Ronald Reagan. And he was speaking to --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

WILLIAMS: -- in the -- it's funny that you call it an ad, Kasie, because, come on, it's just a campaign ad. I'm Marco Rubio and I approve this message. He's Marco Rubio, he approves this message.

HUNT: I mean, maybe my definition of ad is outdated because, like, who even really cares about traditional TV spend? It's all about your phone anyway, sorry.

[12:05:05]

WILLIAMS: But point being, there are two big voices in the American political right over the last generation, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, and he seems to be speaking to, like you said, all things to all people, at least within who will be voting in that primary in a couple of years.

ANNIE KARNI, CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: The message was vintage. I mean, that was like a Rubio 2016 ad, like from pre-Trump times, like just the message, the inclusive message. I mean, it was, I also said wow when I saw that on his Twitter feed. Like, he's just blatantly launching a presidential campaign from his official account, is what it looked like.

Also, I find the Rubio memes and the fact that he's doing everything funny when it's juxtaposed with the reality that Jared Kushner and Witkoff are the ones who are, like, going to Ukraine, going to Iran, negotiating every war in the world, and he's actually, as Secretary of State, seems a little sidelined from being, like, the main negotiators of our international crises. Somehow, though, to his benefit, he still benefits from this idea that he's doing every job in the administration.

WILLIAMS: Taking it a step further, it's not only -- OK, so he's the Secretary of State, but there are these other folks in the Middle East doing a lot of -- he's also not Vice President of the United States, and we're here talking about his prospects as the future of the Republican Party. Where is JD Vance right now as we're having this? And it's a reminder -- HUNT: He was in Iowa.

WILLIAMS: He's in Iowa, but still -- but it's a reminder of sort of what a crappy job Vice President is.

KARNI: It is, it is.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was looking -- look at the optics --

MCHENRY: For the first 100 years of our republic, the keys to the White House went through being Secretary of State --

WILLIAMS: Yes.

MCHENRY: And then we've seen over the last 100 years, the keys to the White House are being vice president, at least to the nomination. So this is going to be super interesting for us to follow, but also to show you that Republicans do have more than one choice, even if that choice goes through President Trump.

KARNI: But if I had to look this week, like, OK, so Rubio is in the briefing room launching his presidential campaign, going to meet with the Pope, which is great. Like, he's Catholic, so is JD Vance, but he gets to be the one making peace with the Pope, and Vance is in Iowa campaigning for the midterms in a brutal cycle --

WILLIAMS: Yes.

KARNI: -- trying to talk about affordability. Like, that's a tough job assignment. Like, it's a tough environment out there. Like, who would -- which platform would you rather have if you were potentially running for president? Like, I'd rather be Rubio this week.

WILLIAMS: The Secretary of State or Vice President thing, because it does ask the question, is he Thomas Jefferson, or is he Dan Quayle, right?

Oh, deep cuts, ah?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

HUNT: So here was a little bit of the Ruthless Podcast on this back- and-forth between Rubio and Vance. This, of course, a group of Republican podcast -- turn -- now podcasters, but largely Hill aides actually come out of McConnell world that, you know, they've evolved. Now they're able to talk like MAGA.

Let's see what they had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH HOLMES, CO-HOST, "RUTHLESS PODCAST": Are we going to pretend like that's not a presidential --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

HOLMES: -- candidate?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It sounds like a presidential candidate.

HOLMES: Are we going to do that? It's kind of hard to ignore at some point that this guy's becoming a thing that is larger than maybe even this administration had previously conceived of.

JOHN ASHBROOK, CO-HOST, "RUTHLESS PODCAST": JD is going to have to work for it. He's going to be very hard to beat, but the reality is there's a race on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: What do you make of that? Because they're --

MCHENRY: That's the most popular Republican podcast around and speaks to both the old world of the Republican Party and this new world of the Republican Party. What I make out of that is that they're saying the obvious thing that we're saying here. We have two people within this administration that are thirsty and thirsty for the endorsement and embrace of President Trump so they can become the Republican nominee.

HUNT: Yes, and it was interesting to me there that they suggested that Rubio has kind of expanded beyond what anybody thought was possible, which is kind of the piece of this that I'm watching pretty closely.

All right, coming up next here in The Arena, much more on Pope Leo, including how Americans think he's doing as he marks one year as head of the Catholic Church.

But first, less than six months until this year's midterm elections, one former president has some new advice for his party if they want to win back control of Congress. That's our quote of the week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, 44TH U.S. PRESIDENT: What I'm more interested in for Democrats is, do you know how to just talk to regular people like we're not in a college seminar, right? You know, can you talk plain English to folks?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[12:14:13]

STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, THE COLBERT REPORT: How dumb do you think it is for people to say that I should run for president?

OBAMA: Well, you know, the bar has changed. Let me put it this way. I think that you could perform significantly better than some folks that we've seen. (END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Former President Barack Obama, not so subtle jab there at the current President. He sat down this week with Stephen Colbert as the comedian prepares for the end of the long running late show on CBS, saying the bar for the presidency has changed, at least in his view.

That wasn't the only indirect mention of President Trump, but with primaries happening now, the midterms now less than six months away, the former President does have some candid advice for his party. That brings us to our quote of the week, no gobbledygook.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[12:15:01]

OBAMA: What I'm more interested in for Democrats is, do you know how to just talk to regular people like we're not in a college seminar, right? You know, can you talk plain English to folks? And so what I'm looking for --

COLBERT: Is there a strict no gobbledygook?

OBAMA: No gobbledygook.

COLBERT: Here at -- you should carve that into the wall somewhere.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: No gobbledygook. What do you think, Annie? Can Democrats talk plain English to folks?

KARNI: I mean, I think that's like -- it doesn't seem like that original advice to candidates. I mean, that seems, like, I think that we have seen some candidates who are succeeding because they're good communicators, like James Talarico in Texas seems to be connecting because he's not talking gobbledygook and --

HUNT: So with Mamdani.

KARNI: And Mamdani, right. In that interview, Obama praised Mamdani as someone who was a good, on social media, a good communicator, Graham Platner in Maine. I think that more than no gobbledygook, that's related to what we're seeing in this cycle, which is like not establishment, not cookie cutter picked by the establishment.

They want like real the Graham Platner story, the Mamdani story, just like people who are grassroots doing it their own way and communicating in their own way. So I think it just depends on where you're running, but people can -- authenticity.

HINOJOSA: Yes, they don't want the 10-point plan.

KARNI: Yes.

HINOJOSA: And Democrats have always been stuck on hiring these massive policy teams to come up with this. You remember this on Hillary Clinton's campaign where like 10-point plan or whatever issue, roll it out. Voters don't want that. We have seen -- and I think what's interesting about President Obama is ever since he left office, he has been one of the more popular politicians in our history, and people in the Democratic Party have been frustrated that he is not out there more.

But one of his strategies is that he understands in order for the party to be successful, you have to lift up the next generation. And that's been his thing. And that's why you're seeing him lean into Mamdani and some of these younger candidates. And he actually gives a lot of counsel to candidates, not necessarily on television, like on Colbert or anything, but I know that a number of candidates do call him and try to get some of his advice, whether they should run. And that has been his role in the Democratic Party for quite some time.

WILLIAMS: Yes, I think he's so popular because he's not out there more.

HINOJOSA: Yes.

WILLIAMS: Were he out there more in this world, necessarily his popularity would kind of tank. So it's sort of a bit of a catch 22.

MCHENRY: From my vantage point as a Republican, last on the ballot 14 years ago, he's the best the Democratic Party has to offer today. Woo, that is a tough, sad thing for all these governors and all these want to be presidents, very sad thing.

But also we are living in a Republican Party that changed because of President Obama's last campaign in 2012. They took Mitt Romney, made him the embodiment of the devil and one of the worst human beings you could possibly be. And he could not have been a better human being, is not rated as one of the best human beings of our lifetimes to run for president.

And the response from the Republican Party was, well, we played nice, we played gentlemanly, now we'll full fight dirty like you all have been fighting dirty. And the response from the Republican Party is a direct result of Obama politics, that now we have the Democratic Party sort of harking back with sort of this hagiography of how nice and gentlemanly that administration was.

WILLIAMS: I think that's a little rich --

KARNI: Yes.

WILLIAMS: -- that American politics have not involved character assassination since the beginning of time. A guy literally got caned to a point of blacking out on the floor of the United States Senate at one point in our history. It's all --

HUNT: Well, let's talk about the Republican primary too between John McCain and George W. Bush, where there was some pretty nasty stuff --

WILLIAMS: Yes. HUNT: -- thrown around, especially in South Carolina.

KARNI: I mean, I do think that it's fair to say the Trump era is a reaction to Obama, but I don't think it's because they ran a tough campaign against Mitt Romney that that is the case.

MCHENRY: The response I got from Republican activists was what the way President Trump speaks of his enemies is a direct -- their vote for him was a direct response for how Obama treated Romney. And that's what I hear regularly. There are other factors for sure, and I'm not trying to argue that you should take away your fandom from President Obama. I'm not saying that.

But what I'm saying is the response that he's given a lecture of our current politics 14 years later, the media cycle's different. We have more candidates that instead of speaking like Obama did with a teleprompter and making it sing, are using the F-bomb in order to get a social media cycle. It's very different now.

HUNT: Can I say some of what I think you're saying back to you? Essentially, the argument is President Obama, the way that he campaigned, the way people think about the way he presented himself on stage, it looks like one thing. It's hope, it's change, it's a nice way of doing things.

But what you're saying is that when it actually came to running, he was participating in the exact kind of politics that he's now decrying. Is that right?

MCHENRY: This is why they pay you to talk. I don't (INAUDIBLE).

HINOJOSA: Well, I -- but I think it's hard to argue that in an era of Donald Trump where you would never see the things Barack Obama say, the things that Donald Trump says now. You would never see him targeting his political enemies the way that Donald Trump does now. And so I think they are very different.

[12:20:03]

And to be honest with you, Barack Obama has been, very rarely talks about anything, but he has somewhat signaled that Donald Trump is dangerous. And so I don't -- I think it's -- you cannot compare the two.

KARNI: Yes.

HINOJOSA: But at the end of -- I mean, one thing is very clear is when people think about difficult times in our country, they don't think of Donald Trump as bringing the country together. I think that they often think of Barack Obama and in those difficult times, really trying to lean in to bring our country together.

WILLIAMS: Even where -- you know, it's one thing, we would talk about Bush too, right? I mean, I just think there is -- there was a point at which presidents were the president of the entire country, even for people who did not vote for them. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's right.

WILLIAMS: Barack Obama might have been, he was a partisan Democrat, but there was no question that when he spoke, literally the man's coming out party was a speech about the audacity of hope and trying to create a broader tent, and so on. You could not see Donald Trump giving speeches like that or that Bush gave uniting the country.

And I just think a lot of factors led to the rise of Donald Trump and maybe Barack Obama was one of them, but you cannot pin the sort of the coarseness of someone who's been a public figure literally since the 1970s on one guy --

KARNI: Yes.

WILLIAMS: -- who was president 14 years ago.

KARNI: I think also just in that interview that he did with Colbert, I think the most interesting jab at Trump he made was that he said our democracy can stand a lot, but the thing that concerns him the most about what's happening right now is the politicization of the Justice Department. The Justice Department has to be independent, can't be going after political enemies.

And that was what he -- of all the craziness coming out of the Trump White House, that was what he said is the most concerning to like democracy long-term. So I think that was the most pointed part of that interview.

HUNT: Congressman, for all of this talk, I take your point about where Republicans are, but I think, you know, having been there when Trump was elected, there were plenty of Republicans who couldn't stand Donald Trump at the time. And they said it, you know, in various private and public forums.

What are Republicans saying now privately about this administration? Would they privately agree with Obama that what's going on with the Justice Department is problematic or would they not?

MCHENRY: Well, I think we've learned a lot about the nature of the dossier on -- that dominated Trump's first term.

HUNT: The Steele dossier?

MCHENRY: The Steele dossier.

HUNT: OK.

MCHENRY: A lot about the politicization of the intelligence community and the Justice Department that the Trump inner circle believes and they're targeting of the Obama Justice Department and Intelligence Community targeting President Trump and his team. And that would be the couching of the response now. That's what they would say.

There is a divide here within the Republicans, but that is the predominant voice you now hear on Capitol Hill. That's probably 75 percent to 80 percent of the party. Then there are remainders and I'm in that remainder that say regardless of what they did, it doesn't justify doing something in response.

HUNT: Too wrong to make a right.

MCHENRY: No, and we should actually set a pace for the world on how our justice system evolves and responds.

HUNT: All right. Coming up next here in The Arena, remembering a true American legend and one of the most well-known innovators of our time, the CNN Founder, Ted Turner.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TED TURNER, CNN FOUNDER: I wish God had made us just a little bit smarter, you know? But smart enough to where we didn't go to war with each other and practice cruelty on each other. If we were nice to each other, that's the kind of world that I envision and the world that I've been working for.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[12:28:04]

TURNER: To act upon one's convictions while others wait, to create a positive force in a world where cynics abound, to provide information to people when it wasn't available before, I dedicate the news channel for America, the Cable News Network.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: This week, we said goodbye to CNN's visionary founder, Ted Turner, whose big bold vision for the network you're watching at this very moment transformed the way the world viewed the news and by consequence, how we view each other. Ted Turner was, as Peggy Noonan writes in the Wall Street Journal this week, a quote, "crazy, fabulous American man," the type of person who, as she observes, is increasingly a rare breed in today's America.

Noonan writes this, quote, "We need renegades, brigands, and pirates, we want their visions and breakthroughs. We want their spirit -- go for broke, trust your brain, be wild, insist, announce you are here. What I see coming is a rising thirst for safety and a kicking away from the world that made Ted Turner possible."

Congressman McHenry, what do you make of that assessment that Peggy Noonan brings to the table about the kind of person that Ted Turner was and whether we have people like that in our culture right now?

MCHENRY: Oh, I think we do. I think they're tech innovators right now and they're on the bleeding edge of deploying tech. They're also active on social media and different platforms. But this, where we're sitting, is the creation of his mind and seeing the opportunity.

Ted Turner's mind, seeing the opportunity to communicate more information to people and break free from somebody else's filter and doing that globally. We're living in that embodiment of it. But as a Southerner, he nationalized wrestling, right? And --

HUNT: And the Atlanta Braves, unfortunately.

WILLIAMS: Well, that's --

MCHENRY: And --

HUNT: For those of us who like other baseball teams.

MCHENRY: And growing up in a state without a baseball team, everybody who didn't -- anyone who didn't have a baseball team had the Braves because of Ted Turner. His wisdom in seeing the power of media is absolutely foremost of the last century, absolutely amazing innovator.

[12:30:17]

WILLIAMS: As a big Yankee fan, you know, we can all, I know you like the O's, the Orioles.

HUNT: You can leave.

WILLIAMS: No, but we can chuckle about the Braves and he nationalized the Braves. We cannot understate the brilliance of the move to tap into satellite networks to, one, create what we think of as the superstation CBS, but also put Braves in every household, including mine in New Jersey. And it was like a stroke of mastering the medium that no one had tried before. And there's a reason why we're talking about it today. And every kid in America or many people were watching the Atlanta Braves around the country. And that one created them into a major global franchise, but also it innovated how television broadcast sports. And it was really big.

HUNT: Yes. Let's watch a little bit more about what Ted Turner said back in 1999 about his idea for CNN, circling back to what the congressman was saying, where he looked around, he had an idea, saw an opportunity. Here's how he explained it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TED TURNER, FOUNDER, CNN: Well, I actually thought about it back in '74, '75, six years before I did it. I thought it would be really convenient whenever you got home to be able to tune into the news instead of having to get home at 6:30 or wait until 11 o'clock, because in those days, the news only came on in the early evening and very late.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: It's almost quaint to listen to him say that now, right?

KARNI: That's the thing. Like, this is why I'm not a visionary. But it's like at the time when he came up with it, I was just reading something about Brian Stelter saying it was mocked as like Chicken Noodle Network.

HUNT: Chicken Noodles, yes.

KARNI: And like no one could -- people like it wasn't obvious that this was a good idea, which is what the visionaries have a vision that other people can't see at the moment. And now we live in a world where, like, I don't think social media would have like this was a step. The 24 hour news network leads to social media, leads to like the constant streaming of everything. And now it seems obvious. But at the time it was mocked.

HINOJOSA: Yes. And it was mocked. And he believed that their -- Americans were ill-informed and they weren't getting the, you know, they weren't getting the news that they deserved and needed and shining a light on the most important stories. And looking back at what happened then and, you know, airing like the first war on cable news, et cetera, and looking at where CNN is now, I mean, you cannot debate that CNN is the best, you know, cable news network when it comes to covering international issues.

And that is a place where CNN has always thrived. And it was because of him. And it was because of where how he started this in the 24 hour news network and wanting to ensure that the international events in our country that had never been broadcast before were finally broadcast.

WILLIAMS: You know, it's interesting picking up on Annie's point a second a second ago with respect to social media, though, and I reading all the obituaries wonder how Ted Turner personally would have done in an age of social media, given sort of character baggage along the way, whether it's the drinking or allegations of anti-Semitism or, you know, frankly, being married to an anti-war activist and Jane Fonda. He would have been savage today. And it's a relic of a world in which, you know, a lot of people's private lives just got kept out.

MCHENRY: But also, he -- we are living in his shadow. All -- social media, the way we consume news as a product line, even the way to your point about how wars are fought --

KARNI: Yes.

MCHENRY: -- are now different because of Ted Turner and because of CNN. You can't say that for many innovations, but for what he dreamed up here is not just a national network, but a global network at your reach, in your living room about what is happening immediately. And a previous generation, these were days or weeks before you got this information. A previous generation to that, it was months before you found out information like we're getting at our fingertips in a moment.

HUNT: You mentioned Jane Fonda. Someone was on our air earlier this week right after Ted's passing. They went to a recent event with her where she called Ted Turner her favorite ex-husband. She had a couple. But this is what she said about her ex-husband, Ted Turner, in 2015 in this book. "Given his childhood, he should have become a dictator. He should have become a not nice person. The miracle is that he became what he is, a man who will go to heaven. And there will be a lot of animals up there welcoming him, animals that have been brought back from the edge of extinction because of Ted. He's turned out to be a good guy. And he says he's not religious, but he, the whole time I was with him, every speech, and he likes to give speeches, he always ends his speech with, God bless, and he'll get into heaven. He's a miracle."

[12:34:59]

She's speaking a little bit to Ted Turner's conservationist efforts, which are not necessarily as, you know, widely talked about as some of his other accomplishments. He's basically credited single-handedly with saving the American bison. But --

KARNI: Strong words from an ex-wife. I mean, again --

HUNT: She said he was his favorite.

KARNI: I know, but I mean, it's just, I found, she also put out a really beautiful statement on his passing. And just, I thought, like, if you can get that from your ex-wife, it seems like you probably were a good person.

HUNT: All right, ahead here in The Arena, the first year for the first American pope.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And certainly looks like smoke and white smoke.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is it white?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is. We're going to watch it. I'm going to go to Erin. And Erin, as I toss to you, obviously the crowd there thinks that that is the white smoke, but I know we're going to wait for the bells.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It looks as if it is, Dana. It is clearly white. And we have seen the black smoke, which was clearly black. So I think we can say this is white smoke and they have selected a pope.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[12:40:47]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking in Foreign Language).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have a pope.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking in Foreign Language). UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The first eminent and a reverend, Robert Francis Prevost.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The first American pope has been elected.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: That's still pretty amazing to watch. One year ago this week, Pope Leo made history as the first American to lead the Roman Catholic Church and its 1.4 billion members. Just hours after he was elected, he spoke on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica, where his first words were this, "Peace be with you all." Now, as we talked about earlier, the Pope's call for peace is being tested by President Trump.

The two men have been going back and forth over the President's handling of the war with Iran. President Trump says the Pope should stay out of politics. The pontiff, on the other hand, says he will not back down from speaking out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POPE LEO XIV: The things that I say are certainly not meant as attacks on anyone. I will not shy away from announcing the message of the gospel. I'm inviting all people to look for ways of building bridges for peace and reconciliation, of looking for ways to avoid war at any time that's possible. To put my message on the same plane, as what the President has attempted to do here, I think not understanding what the message of the gospel is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: It, Congressman, strikes me, I mean, part of why this whole, why everything is so elevated here is just watching any pope speak English with an American accent. It still kind of gets me every single time we do it. But what do you make of the way this has played out this week? I mean, you saw Marco Rubio go to basically try to make peace. And we're exactly a year out from this enormous moment for the church and for Americans in the church.

MCHENRY: I think it's a reset. I mean, you had the secretary of state doing diplomacy with one of the most powerful voices in the world sitting in the Vatican. I think that is a message to Catholic voters here in the United States, for sure. But it's also a personal message from Marco Rubio, who is Catholic, and making sure that there is a view of reconciliation with this Pope.

Now, what this pope's message is, and the newness to the papacy, the art of delivering this message to, you know, over a billion Catholics globally is a complex one in a world that is not perfectly in love with America. And doing that in a way that's genuine to the papacy and to the mission of the Catholic Church is a very important one, also very tricky.

HINOJOSA: Yes. And I also, just listening to the Pope's remarks there again, something that stuck out, and how he was talking about this isn't an attack. This wasn't an attack in any way. I'm not going to stop with continuing the message of the gospel. And I think that's what we often miss, and definitely what Donald Trump misses. He equates the message of the gospel, which is being against a war, as an attack on his agenda.

If someone is not praising what he is doing, he sees them as against him in some way. And that's not what the Pope meant in any way. And this is how, this is the way that Trump has lived his presidency in the second term, is that he is used to everyone being around him, being for him. And those that speak out against him, he goes off and attacks them. But the Pope is doing his job. And it's very difficult for the President to understand that.

HUNT: I mean, this keeping score, right?

HINOJOSA: Yes.

HUNT: He's not new for President Trump, Congressman. I mean, he has been keeping a very careful score for his entire life.

MCHENRY: Lifetime. A lifetime. If we saw little journals from his childhood, I'm sure we'd see those. That's not new. I think what we have is the American lens here as well. The eyes on President Kennedy as the first Catholic president of the United States, the view of every word he said in light of his faith was overanalyzed. And I think we see this now with Pope Leo, is overanalyzing his American-ness and whether or not he can be a global Catholic.

[12:45:20]

HUNT: Let's put up how Americans responded to, you know, a variety of the recent statements that have gone back and forth between the Pope and President Trump, because it sort of underscores some of the challenges for the Pope here. So 66 percent viewed positively the pope asking Americans to contact Congress to work for peace and reject war. Just 21 percent liked what Trump posted when he said a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. He was threatening Iran. And then there was Trump posting an image of himself appearing to depict himself as Jesus, which just 9 percent of Americans.

WILLIAMS: Yes. Who are these 9 percent of people that are OK with that? That is my question.

HINOJOSA: They're all in the White House.

HUNT: They're the ones who thought it was -- just -- it's a doctor.

MCHENRY: But more importantly for society, they have driver's licenses, right? Is that what you're asking, Elliot?

WILLIAMS: Touche. No, but it's interesting. These three things that we articulate here, number one, world peace, number two, wiping out civilizations and number three, graven images, are in the man's job description, the idea that we're making anything of this other than the fact that, you know, the religious leader of a billion people is simply saying things that come out of the book that he seems to be teaching every day. It's sort of striking and odd to me. I don't know.

KARNI: I think that Trump also just I mean, this was a bad fight to pick. The Pope is hugely popular here. He has some like 67 percent approval rating or something, something Trump could only dream of. There's a lot of Catholic voters in a lot of key states that Republicans need to win in this midterm cycle. So I think that, you know, and that Trump, it's a double down only never apologize.

HUNT: Well, except for the Jesus, which he took down.

KARNI: Right. Right. Which is notable. He took it down. That's like he doesn't do that. And sending Rubio over there, I think, is like an acknowledgement that this needs to be fixed.

HUNT: Interesting. All right. Coming up next here, something totally different. Did you find "Mrs. Doubtfire" funny? Apparently not everybody did. We'll explain.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[12:52:06]

ROBIN WILLIAMS, ACTOR: Ms. Hillard?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The water's boiling.

WILLIAMS: Hello. Oh, I'm sorry to frighten you, dear. I must look like a yeti in this getup. This is my nightly meringue mask, part of my beauty regimen. What it is? It's basically egg whites, creme fraiche, powdered sugar, vanilla, and a little touch of aloe. There you go, dear. Oh, there you go. You've got your cream and your sugar now. It's a little cappuccino. One drop or two. Would you like another one? Oh, there you go.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Oh, I miss him. Robin Williams, so lovable, so funny. In that 1993 comedy, can you believe this movie's that old? "Mrs. Doubtfire." Apparently not everybody thought that he was lovable and funny. Sally Field, who played Williams's exasperated ex-wife, was on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" this week. She made this admission.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT": Here you are with Robin Williams, "Mrs. Doubtfire." Was he always cracking people up on set?

SALLY FIELD, ACTRESS: Yes, he was. Everybody would laugh.

COLBERT: Everybody would, like, break in a scene?

FIELD: Yes, but me. It drove him mad, actually, because I would never laugh, ever. And everybody else was laughing and carrying on. COLBERT: You were too professional for that.

FIELD: It wasn't funny. It just wasn't funny.

COLBERT: You stand your ground.

FIELD: I mean, and then once, we were at the tail end of the picture, and Robin was always trying something different to make me laugh. It was so unfunny, I can't begin to tell you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: I'm sorry, what? There was that cake face scene we just saw. There was the scene where "Mrs. Doubtfire" tries to cook. She accidentally sets herself on fire. I guess not even a chuckle from Sally Field? Here's what she said did make her laugh.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FIELD: Wonderful Pierce Brosnan. We were sitting at the table at the restaurant, and he made a fart noise on his arm, and I was gone. That was it. That was it.

COLBERT: How did Robin take that?

FIELD: He said, that's all it took? I mean I have to leave for a minute. I laughed so hard they had to redo my makeup.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: I mean, my six-year-old son would have found that funny also.

MCHENRY: Who doesn't? Who doesn't?

HUNT: I was surprised she admitted this.

HINOJOSA: Yes, I mean, I -- we were all chuckling here when you're playing all of these pieces, and I think anyone who's watched it, I've watched it like a thousand times, was laughing through the whole time. I mean, I think that, can you just imagine Robin Williams so frustrated and be like, why won't this woman laugh at my jokes? And I think that is what is what's funny about it, just picturing him doing that. It seems like she was probably more annoyed at him than anything. That's what that seemed like.

MCHENRY: Well, also, I think the takeaway here is, if you're going to have a 70-year career in Hollywood, you need to be a consummate professional, and I think her professionalism versus his wild ways were a conflict. But in other settings, she said wonderful things about Robin, and everybody else that interacted with him had these very favorable, nice things to say about his humanity.

[12:55:12]

WILLIAMS: You know, I think her laughing at Pierce Brosnan's jokes is just a testament to his handsome British man privilege. And it's just -- he just can go through life being the guy. And it's also, he plays the second husband in the movie. It's always those guys that just magically manage to sort of, I know, right?

HUNT: On that cheerful note, thank you, Elliot. Thanks to the rest of my panel. Thanks to all of 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 our podcast. You can follow the show on X and Instagram at TheArenaCNN. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. The news continues next on CNN.

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