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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt

New Rulings, Redistricting Make GOP More Optimistic About Midterms; Are Voters Picking Lawmakers Or Are Lawmakers Picking Voters?; Jeffries On Recent Redistricting Rulings: "The Ghost Of The Confederacy Has Afflicted" Supreme Court Majority; Trump: "I Don't Think About" War's Impact On Americans' Finances; New Warnings Signs For Trump On Economy As CNN Poll Shows Lowest-Ever Approval On Issue; April Inflation Spikes To 3.8 Percent; Trump's Approval On The Economy Hits New Low Of 30 Percent In CNN Poll; 7 In 10 Believe A Recession Likely Next Year. James Comey: Trump's Recent Behavior Seems "A Little Bit Off"; 1999: Stock Market Soars As Dot-Com Bubble Grows; Two-Month- Old Puppy "Natty" Joins Washington Nationals. Aired 12-1p ET

Aired May 16, 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]

PAULA NEWTON, CNN ANCHOR: Now, it will all come to a head at the grand finale tonight, where a winner will be crowned. But Eurovision itself may find it is one of the biggest losers.

That's all we have time for. Don't forget, you can find all of our shows online as podcasts at CNN.com/audio and on our other major platforms.

I'm Paula Newton in New York. Thanks for watching. Christiane will see you again here next week.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Hey everyone, welcome to The Arena Saturday. I'm Phil Mattingly in for Kasie Hunt.

It's an election year, if you hadn't heard, and normally that means voters choose their representatives in Washington. But increasingly, it seems that instead, the politicians are choosing their voters.

Now, fresh off major legal victories, Republicans have expanded their efforts to redraw congressional maps. They're now targeting multiple black majority districts across the Deep South. And that has Democrats crying foul and vowing to eliminate red districts in response.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Republicans are acting irrational by kicking black folks out of Congress.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're looking at losing possibly 19 members of the Congressional Black Caucus because of this, frankly, racist redistricting efforts targeted towards disenfranchising black voters across the country. And we have a responsibility to answer to it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've seen this before. We've been under attack before. And we're going to unite. REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D), MINORITY LEADER: We will beat the far-right extremists, we're going to win in November, and then we're going to crush their souls as it relates to the extremism that they are trying to unleash on the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: My panel is here in The Arena, CNN Legal Analyst and Former Federal Prosecutor Elliot Williams, Republican Pollster and CNN Political Commentator Kristen Soltis Anderson, former Senior Adviser at the DNC and also CNN Political Commentator Xochitl Hinojosa, and former Republican congressman and of course Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry.

Elliot, I want to start with you on this because the soundbites, obviously, they are angry, they are aggressive, they are making clear that they -- this nuclear arms race is not going to stop anytime soon. I think to start, though, explain to people what options the Democrats have right now and what has been a year-long back and forth.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, not a lot. And the options are going to vary from state to state. Some states, and I think this goes back to what the founders wanted with how they crafted elections in the country. They are administered at the state level. And so if someone has a challenge to how a state is running its elections, they have to sue in that state.

Now, you're going to just see different outcomes based on the timing in which states redistrict. You're going to see different outcomes based on how the states went about redistricting. A great example is the state of Virginia, which the state Supreme Court just struck down what happened there because of the manner in which they did it.

A different outcome might happen in a different state. So we are really entering a bit of a wild west of what the path forward will be for everyone as we head toward 2026, and more importantly, 2028.

MATTINGLY: Yes. And the context, of course, is beyond the back and forth that started with President Trump and his team. And the Democrats seem to not just even things out, but almost end up on top, and now it's back the other way. And it's very hard to keep track of. There's a Supreme Court decision in there as well. Obviously, that's triggering a lot of the efforts in the South.

Xochitl, Democrats right now, it felt like three weeks ago, Democrats were looking at each other like, I can't believe we won this. And now, what's kind of the mood right now in the party?

XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think the Virginia decision was a shock amongst the Democratic Party more broadly. But I think that if you're talking to Democrats, and especially if you're talking to leadership in the Democratic Party, they still believe that they will win regardless of Republicans cheating and trying to redraw the lines.

I mean, they're going back on the reason why they are likely to win is because things are very bad for the American people right now. Gas prices are up. Grocery prices are up. People were stripped away of their health care. Health care is more expensive.

So, I mean, it is issue after issue. It is very clear that Donald Trump wanted to redraw the lines because he can't have a record and redo his record. And so the Democrats believe that if it is on the issues and if it is on the way voters feel like right now, and if it only gets worse from now to November, that they end up winning regardless of these redrawn maps and back and forth.

MATTINGLY: Go ahead. I can see you.

PATRICK MCHENRY (R), FORMER SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE: Yes.

MATTINGLY: You've got thoughts. Feel free to share them, Mr. Speaker.

MCHENRY: I've got thoughts. So coming from the state of North Carolina, where we've had 30 years of continuous litigation about our congressional state House and state Senate maps, and having lived through five out of seven election cycles where we had new maps in North Carolina as a direct result of Democrats suing.

And it was Eric Holder, who, with the help of President Obama, have raised money in order to do redistricting across the country for nearly a decade. And their terminology was sue until it's blue.

[12:05:10]

So the countervailing effect here was President Trump and his political team said, well, we have the option to redraw these districts in Republican states and try to maximize the map. This is a result of what all the parties have been doing for a very long time. It is not new.

And the Voting Rights Act is not actually about voting rights anymore. It became, in the last 30 years, about drawing majority-minority districts that disproportionately benefited the Democratic Party. And that is why the Democratic Party is very upset about this, is because in Republican states, they can -- they no longer have the ability to sue until it's blue. And now you have a Wild West.

I think I agree with you, Elliot. It's a Wild West. But we had the Wild West for 150 years in this country for redistricting. Now we're back to basically that sort of -- same sort of outcome here.

MATTINGLY: I want to bounce off something that you mentioned, Democrats being upset about the Supreme Court decision and the majority-minority districts, which have really been kind of a cornerstone of the Congressional Black Caucus, to be frank, for the better part of the last several decades. And this is what Hakeem Jeffries said about the ghosts of the Confederacy. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFFRIES: This unprecedented assault on black political representation, the likes of which we have not seen since the Jim Crow era, the ghosts of the Confederacy has afflicted the United States Supreme Court majority and is invading and haunting the nation right now, and we take that seriously.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Kristen, I want to start with you. I'll get -- I want to ask Elliot about kind of the legal repercussions and, frankly, the context legally of what you just heard. But in terms of this issue, the black majority districts that are being redrawn right now, we just saw one member retire, Steve Cohen, who is not black, but represents Memphis because of Tennessee changing its maps. Does it resonate with the electorate? Is this an issue that fires up one side or the other?

KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, this is one we're putting on my pollster hat. I can imagine writing a question that would get 80 percent of Americans saying that they think the Supreme Court's decision was terrible. And I could write a question that would get 80 percent saying they agreed with it.

And what it fundamentally comes down to is, do voters think that the law should prescribe that states must create representation for racial minorities? Republicans would say, you know what, I could get 80 percent of people to agree that we should not have laws requiring that you draw districts for any kind of racial representation reasons.

On the other hand, I think that the idea that this is now going to reduce black representation is something, that for Democrats, it's obviously going to fire them up. And as we head into the midterm elections, it is right now Democrats that have a huge enthusiasm sense that there is -- the stakes are unbelievably high in this midterm.

They're going to crawl across broken glass to vote. Republicans right now aren't feeling the stakes are quite as high. In all the data I see, their enthusiasm is lower. And so while you could imagine this issue getting messaged on either side right now, it is firing up Democrats much, much more.

Ghost in the Confederacy --

WILLIAMS: Yes.

MATTINGLY: -- look, I -- if you've talked to conservative legal school of thought people for the better part of the last --

WILLIAMS: Right, right.

MATTINGLY: -- several decades, you knew this was where they wanted to go.

WILLIAMS: Right.

MATTINGLY: But what Jeffries is saying there.

WILLIAMS: Yes, that's strong language. But let's be clear, and we should have a little bit of a history lesson here. It's no secret as to how the Constitution was drafted and how our laws were drafted for most of the American experiment that led to a disproportionate number of black representatives in Congress.

Like, this goes back to why we have the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution was to rectify a lot of the racial inequities and how districts are cut up, how people vote, how people are allowed to vote and how their votes are suppressed. The Voting Rights Act in 1964 was specifically written to rectify some of these problems and then re-upped in 2006 because they were seen as still existing.

And so the idea that this is really just about Democratic districts and doesn't still carry some of -- at least some of the vestiges that it did for most of the American history, I just don't think it's fair. And that's where, you know, Speaker Jeffries uses the language that goes to the Confederacy.

You can draw a straight line from 1865 all the way to some extent to 2026. And so this idea that this is just about politics, I think, is only part of the story. There is a racial element to it. And yes, across much of the South, black Americans typically tend to vote Democratic, but they're also black people who are losing the representatives. And that's why we have these laws in the first place.

So I just think it's a far more complicated issue than just we're just trying to put more Democrats in. And this is really just a power grab by Democrats.

HINOJOSA: Well, it's also pretty rich in a state like Texas that Republicans, the entire reason that they decided to redraw the lines is because they believe that they did better in the last election with Latino voters. And then therefore, the line should reflect as much.

[12:10:02]

What is happening is that the Republican Party is losing massive support with Latino voters all across the country. This number is this year will not look the way that they did in 2024. And so, it's their excuse here was a racial -- it was a racial excuse, their entire reasoning for redrawing the lines. But that is just not going to be the case moving forward.

MATTINGLY: I think it's an --

MCHENRY: Also likewise --

MATTINGLY: Real quick, yes.

MCHENRY: Just be clear, right now, the Democratic Party thinks that this is a total loss for them. And I would say as a Republican, it is not. I think they're over -- there's an overstatement by Democrats at the loss of their opportunity in this election cycle. And I think Republicans enthusiasm that this could save the House is probably not significant enough, given the environment we're in.

MATTINGLY: Yes. And what Democrats can do before 2028, if they want to, if this continues going on, it feels very much like the judicial wars --

MCHENRY: Yes.

MATTINGLY: -- on some level where I remember Mitch McConnell saying you're going to regret this probably sooner than you think. We'll see how it goes.

All right, coming up in The Arena, Former FBI Director James Comey talking to CNN about his latest indictment by the Justice Department and a change he says he's noticed in President Trump. But first, the President's comments on the economy and how his allies are trying to clean it up. Well, Democrats pounce. It's our quote of the week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're negotiating with Iran, Mr. President, to what extent are American financial situations motivating you to make a deal?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Not even a little bit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JD VANCE (R), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't think the President said that. I think that's a misrepresentation of what the President said. But look, I agree with the President that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:15:59]

MATTINGLY: Vice President JD Vance this week trying to clean up and clarify a little bit some comments made by his boss, the President, before he left for China. President Trump spoke to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House. He talked about numerous topics, but it was one Q&A on the war with Iran and the economy that got most of the attention, which brings us to our quote this moment from the President.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're negotiating with Iran, Mr. President, to what extent are American financial situations motivating you to make a deal?

TRUMP: Not even a little bit. The only thing that matters when I'm talking about Iran, they can't have a nuclear weapon. I don't think about Americans' financial situation. I don't think about anybody. I think about one thing. We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That's all.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President --

TRUMP: That's the only thing that motivates me. (END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: You can totally see how not even a little bit was taken out of context, apparently, according to the Vice President. It's -- I've heard better cleanup. Kristen, when it comes to the economy, I feel like saying like you're in my world now, smalls (ph). I'm so excited to talk about the economy right now.

One of the most interesting elements of this week, which I think unfortunately for the President dovetailed with his comments was the CNN poll that came out on affordability --

ANDERSON: Yes.

MATTINGLY: -- which was devastating. And I think what's important for people to understand is when I say devastating, it's not devastating in a purely political sense. This is a Trump thing sense. It's a -- there are systemic rifts in the U.S. economy that have been there for more than a decade and continue to grow and are severely problematic.

You have current economic conditions, 27 percent say they're good, 73 percent say they're poor. Cost of living, Trump policies, have they increased the cost of living? 77 percent say yes. 55 percent of Republicans say yes --

ANDERSON: Yes.

MATTINGLY: -- which like, I don't think I've seen Republicans split on a majority basis from where the President is. Big picture economy, what are you seeing right now when you're talking to voters?

ANDERSON: Yes. There are two ways in which voters have really soured on Trump when it comes to the economy. The first is just overall economic job approval. Used to be for many years, especially during his first term, was something that voters said they actually liked. Hey, I may not like the tweets, I may not like his style, but he's handling the economy well. That is no longer the case.

And the second is gas prices. When you ask voters what party they trust more on a bunch of different issues, Democrats tend to win on healthcare, Republicans tend to win on immigration, and gas prices and energy used to be one that was very much in Republicans' wheelhouse.

Now, job approval for Trump and how he's handling gas prices is like through the floor. Even Republicans saying, I don't love this. And so, look, if Trump had made the case to the American public, there's a real threat from Iran in terms of its nuclear weapon, and this is imminent, and we have got to do something about it, he might have had a little bit more leash from the public, but that case was never made.

And so now this retroactive, well, Iran was really bad, and that's why you've got to pay $5 at the pump, that's why it's just not working for the American voter right now.

WILLIAMS: And I think imminent is the most important word in that. I mean, I think anybody, if you were to ask them on the street, do you wish for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, or how frightened are you at the thought of thermonuclear holocaust, yes, everybody would agree with that. But it's in the back of their mind, what they're doing is buying gas once a week and having to see those -- and frankly, you know, on every street corner, see the prices posted.

One of the most interesting figures I saw in that poll was, are you proud of your personal finances? Are you proud of the personal -- of the state you're in? And a remarkably low percentage of Americans --

ANDERSON: Yes.

WILLIAMS: -- are even saying that. That this is now beyond what people think of politicians, it's how they see themselves. And I think in an election year, that's very, very bad for anybody running for office right now ought to be scared of that.

MATTINGLY: I want to play some of this, the sound from people on affordability, just a mashup of a bunch of people, because I think it's a really good kind of wide scale look at things. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

URSULA SPENCER, MARYLAND RESIDENT: It's survival mode. And that's a mode that I'm -- haven't been used to.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For me, a financial stressor is groceries.

CIARA SIMONE, ATLANTA RESIDENT: Everything's gone up from the beef to the eggs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm a junior and I missed the whole semester of school because I couldn't afford housing. I want to have a house and have a family and, you know what I mean? Like my parents did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:20:01]

MATTINGLY: Xochitl, it's that last quote that one stuck with me, but two, I think connects to a really important piece of the poll itself, which is the number of people who said, the current generation is not doing as well as their parents' generation. And the next generation will do even worse than they're doing right now, which I think captures the, like our inability to get it, like, why is everybody so pissed all the time --

HINOJOSA: Yes.

MATTINGLY: -- since COVID and there's lots of reasons. But I really think like underneath it all is people don't feel like the American dream is necessarily available to them.

HINOJOSA: They -- it's further and further away from them and they're seeing it in not only for themselves, but for their kids. And that is what the scary part of it. And to add onto it, it's almost as the administration didn't learn anything from the last administration. You had Joe Biden talking about a really wonderful economy all of the time. The difference though, is that Joe Biden wasn't saying things like, I don't even think about you a little bit at all, right, or at all. And you don't have -- you didn't have Joe Biden going and building ballrooms or having a red carpet in China or taking, you know, the wealthiest men in the United States to China for business or their, you know, their -- his family profiting off the way -- Donald Trump's family is off the presidency.

And so, there is this disconnect between what Donald Trump is saying and what the American people feel. And this is why I think you see his poll numbers are in the tank when it comes to the economy. And you would think that by now, Republicans would at least warn him that they need to see a change in his rhetoric and what he's doing and his actions if they want to win.

And on the Democratic side, I don't know why we don't have ads up running in every swing congressional district with those comments, but they need to be up fast.

MCHENRY: But you will.

HINOJOSA: We will and they need to be up fast.

MCHENRY: And we'll see a lot more of this.

HINOJOSA: Yes.

MCHENRY: The question here was the message to Iran. And the President is trying to respond to the taco trade --

MATTINGLY: Yes.

MCHENRY: -- which is Trump always caves. And he's saying, in this environment, my message to Iran is I don't care. We're going to stare you down and you're going to cave. That's number one.

Number two, that implications going to China, which is, do you see what happened in Venezuela? Did you see what happened -- how violently we executed the results and decapitated the regime in Iran, trying to send a chilling message to all of our adversaries globally.

So when he's saying this, the message was not to domestic politics, though we will see it for sure. The fact is the American people hate inflation. Everywhere in the world, we're experiencing inflation. You go to Europe, you're seeing this in spades. The destabilizing effect it's had on the U.K. government. We're watching a lot of time this week, especially.

But everywhere, the experience of people dealing with inflation is one of grave and deep hatred. And therefore hate their system of government in these moments. And until you have stable prices and being -- energy being the main driver of this, 40 percent of this inflation question is related to gas prices and oil prices, until that's resolved, it's going to be very difficult to actually tell the American people, you're doing better and you're feeling better. WILLIAMS: You know, back to Xochitl a second ago, you said an interesting point about ballrooms and these displays of wealth. And part of what was appealing about Donald Trump all along was this aspirational idea of, wow, we have someone who's wealthy, who's, you know, a millionaire, businessman, whatever. And people who support the President saw something in that.

The problem is that the wealthy person can also quickly veer into let them eat cake. And at a time when people are struggling, having that person out saying these things like, I don't think about your finances, can very easily, as you said, appear in campaign ads. And I think we're going to see that.

MATTINGLY: Do you think -- who -- what's the durability of the American people's patience with, to Patrick's point? I mean, the Strait of Hormuz is not open yet. It ain't going to be open anytime soon. And even if they magically make a deal tomorrow, it still ain't going to be open anytime in the near future.

This is going to get a lot worse for people. I'm not sure everybody actually grasps that right now. What's the durability for people who are already pissed off?

ANDERSON: Well, I mean, I feel like the patience has already run out, again, in part because that groundwork wasn't laid for why are we doing this in the first place. I do think that the American people are willing to make sacrifices in exchange for meeting important objectives to keep them and their families safe.

I think it's because those dots weren't connected in advance and we're trying to retroactively connect them is why a lot of voters are going, I don't know that I buy this. I just know that this hurts right now.

MATTINGLY: Yes, that's a really great point.

All right, coming up in The Arena, the market is roaring. So should we party like it's 1999 or worry like it's 99 -- that was a great year. We'll discuss.

Plus, Kasie's interview with former FBI Director James Comey and his reaction to President Trump's late night A.I.-fueled rants on Truth Social.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: You've said in recent interviews that the President doesn't seem OK and that there's something wrong with the man. Is there something specific that leads you to say that?

JAMES COMEY, FORMER FBI DIRECTOR: Well, mostly the 2:00 a.m. social media posting of craziness.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:29:28] MATTINGLY: President Trump on Monday kicked off one of the most consequential weeks of his presidency with a move that is becoming increasingly emblematic of his time in office. The President went on a late night social media spree where he posted memes of his Democratic critics and reposted wildly inaccurate claims about a number of topics, including the war with Iran.

Late night hosts, they seized on Trump's latest social media tirade, having this to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT": Trump prepped for his enormously consequential state visit by staying up late on social media, gunking up the internet tubes with a waterfall of paranoid madness, posting over 55 times in just three hours until 1:13 a.m. My god, when does this man sleep? Oh right, right.

JORDAN KLEPPER, HOST, "THE DAILY SHOW": Don't judge. This man is exhausted from working the graveyard shift at a second job posting insane slop all night. It's important thankless work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: This week my colleague, Kasie Hunt, she anchors this show, spoke to former FBI director James Comey who also expressed concern about the president's late-night social media habits. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: You've said in recent interviews that the President doesn't seem OK and that there's something wrong with the man. Is there something specific that leads you to say that?

JAMES COMEY, FORMER FBI DIRECTOR: Well, mostly the 2:00 a.m. social media posting of craziness, of other people's work, of himself as Jesus, all these sorts of things is not OK. I mean, I've always thought Donald Trump was a little bit off, but whoa, compared to even to six years ago, something's off.

HUNT: What was he like six years ago that's different than how he is now?

COMEY: He seemed, by Trumpian standards, more serious, more even- keeled, less focused entirely on himself and his projects and his obsessions, the people he wants to get, the things he wants to build. All of that seems to me a little bit off, and I don't remember feeling that in 2017.

HUNT: You felt like he was more interested in a wider variety of things then?

COMEY: Yes, I think so. And again, I have a selection bias because I didn't interact with him all that much, but he seemed, obviously he's older now, he's almost 80, but I hope when I move from 74 to 80, there won't be this appreciable difference.

HUNT: Do you think that this change in his mental state as you describe it explains the multiple indictments against you?

COMEY: Yes, I don't know. I don't know.

HUNT: I mean, is he more focused on going after the people he wants to go after because of this?

COMEY: Well, he has announced when he came back, I am -- I was the hunted, now I'm the hunter. So I mean, to his credit, he said, I'm going to target people and now he's doing it, which is unlawful and something we raised in the East District of Virginia prosecution, didn't get a ruling on it because it got thrown out for other reasons. But he has announced this is what he's about. He's going to get people that he thinks have criticized him and he's living up to that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: My panel is back and Comey makes, I think, an important point that sometimes people forget. He literally said he was going to do like all of this except for the ballroom, which I don't remember on the campaign trail and is now definitely a fixation on some level. Do people care about the Truth Social? Like I'm numb to it. I don't really, I'm asleep. I don't really pay attention to it. I check in the morning and see if he said anything about an attack on Iran. That's kind of it. Do other people care?

KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So I think that point of to what extent is it quantitatively or qualitatively different than a few years ago is important because we know that there is some level of begrudging acceptance of this, that voters have said, look, I'm willing to exchange that I don't love the tweets in exchange for the things that they thought were going to be good about his presidency.

I think, one, is the downside of the late night tweets rising? Is the volume increasing? It seems like maybe it is. Is the content getting worse? I don't know of actually qualitatively. This is so different. It is funny to me to hear somebody say, oh, you know, actually, I think six years ago he was very serious or, you know, that to me is a little bit like, OK, he was kind of tweeting a lot of this stuff six years ago as well.

MATTINGLY: You just didn't have good answer on that.

ANDERSON: Yes, no, no. We're in a new era.

MATTINGLY: Technological advancement.

ANDERSON: But I think that the bigger problem is it's that tradeoff, right? I'm giving up. I don't love this stuff. But I do like this other stuff. If you're not getting the stuff that you like, then suddenly the stuff that you were sort of making a deal with anyway starts to feel a little more a little more frustrating that you have to deal with it. MATTINGLY: What are your former colleagues think?

PATRICK MCHENRY (R), FORMER SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE: Have you heard any member of the House or Senate say but for the tweets. And the first term, everybody said, well, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but for the tweets.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

MCHENRY: Right. I mean, this is -- it you see this in polling.

MATTINGLY: I think you said that a couple of times.

MCHENRY: I said a bunch of blah, blah, blah. And now I'm saying different blah, blah, blah.

MATTINGLY: Yes. But what are they saying? Like you talk to all those guys. They also like you. Why? I have not.

MCHENRY: No.

MATTINGLY: It's still like you a lot.

MCHENRY: So it's just the part of memes. Like, look, we're a step back. Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance are a meme war, right, of who has like the right profile given all these memes, right? And so the Internet connectivity and explanation now is different than it was in 10 years ago or nine years ago, the last time that Comey was actually in the room with President Trump. Like so, you know, the fact that we're getting a mental diagnosis from a guy who's just doing social media slop on his own posting is kind of rich with Comey. But I think this is just a part of the communication style. And the President flooding the zone is also part of what he's tried to do to capture our attention, especially in the media class, I would say.

[12:35:27]

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: The President was elected for many reasons, but one -- two big ones being. One, I'm going to fix immigration. Two I'm going to fix the economy. They're both failures of this President to this point. And if this is what people are getting, they are certainly not. They're not happy with what they've gotten from this President. Yes, he's popular with a portion of his base. But look literally at the two issues that should have been a layup for this President coming in, particularly after the Biden years. And, you know, to Kristen's point, people have just sort of lost patience.

MATTINGLY: Yes. Oh, just to clarify, former current members, former members all like Patrick.

MCHENRY: Not you.

MATTINGLY: That's why I was willing to joke.

But coming up in The Arena, it might be 2026. But some economists say it feels a lot like 1999. So is that a good thing or a bad thing? We're to explain, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[12:41:02]

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is an important day in your lives. In so many ways, well, you'll be able to get one now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: This week, 26 years ago, the class of 1999 was graduating into a world that seemed in many ways limitless. The stock market roaring, eye-popping investments in tech, lofty hopes about the Internet's ability to transform the workplace. The good vibes dashed. Ten months later, though, when the so-called dot-com bubble began to burst.

Well, fast forward to today, and things have some eerie similarities going on. The class of 2026 is told they're graduating into a booming A.I. economy, even though they say A.I. might be the very thing preventing them from securing a job. A dynamic that seemed to surprise this year's commencement speaker at the University of Central Florida, who tried to offer the students this message.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution. What happened? OK, I struck a chord. May I finish? Only a few years ago, A.I. was not a factor in our lives. OK, we've got a bipolar topic here, I see. OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: I feel like you've got to know your audience a little bit. Like, it is not secret that the current generation of college graduates and college students is, like, pretty freaked out about where things are going here and may not love it all that much. I do, though, since we brought up the 90s, I want to bring up some nostalgic headlines, just because I think it's going to make everybody here feel happy. Patrick may be too young for this. Nineties and 2000 nostalgia headlines. Gen Z is hanging out at the mall, re-energizing the industry. Hacky Sack, my wife told me about this last night, Hacky Sack is mounting a comeback with Gen Z. Chronicles of the 90s, cool, how to dress like John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy. I don't actually have a point to showing you all that. I just really enjoy this moment. If there was, like, a cultural trivia game about 90s, I feel like this panel would crush.

ANDERSON: May of 1999 may have been the peak of society, because you know what came out then?

XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: What?

ANDERSON: " Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace."

MCHENRY: The best. The best.

WILLIAMS: It's the most trashed "Star Wars" movie ever.

MATTINGLY: No, no, no, we're not doing it, Elliot. Do not take that bait. I want to ask you about the issue of A.I. Hard pivot. What's interesting about it, when you talk to both on the company side, of which there's like six that really, really matter, one of whom was traveling with the President in China, but also on the economist side, it's a lot of what could happen, both on the technological side, but also in the workforce side of things. There's not a lot of good evidence right now that there have been mass layoffs or jobs not being offered that I've seen in the data. What is the future on this?

MCHENRY: Well, it's unknown, but what we do know is the internet bubble of '99 undershot the opportunity that the internet would create over a decade. Undershot, even though there was a bubble in '99. What we see now is a massive build, but instead of using debt or the capital markets to do that, these companies are using their balance sheet, and most of the hyperscalers globally are in the United States. The policy thing here in Washington, though, was the shift from the Biden diffusion rule to say that the White House was going to stand there and say, approve LLM models in their deployment society, to President Trump saying, have at it.

[12:44:56]

And that decision has enabled a mass buildout in data centers, a mass buildout in these technology companies deploying A.I., and us being a global leader in A.I. The ramifications, though, are real, though. The question is, can we build up energy capacity enough that we can maintain pace? Currently, the evidence of rising energy prices is not actually connected with the deployment of data centers, although mentally, with the voters, it is, number one. And number two, chips. The question of chips is a real one, because these chips, these higher-end chips, are taking away from the average, everyday things that consumers use and driving up the cost of those things.

It is a complex market. In the United States, A.I. is not as popular as in the rest of the first world or second world. And that is a direct result of people being fearful of their jobs and the consequences of this new technology. A lot to be seen politically and economically in this topic.

WILLIAMS: That's the big difference between 1999 and now, other than both years or years in which the New York Yankees won a world championship. But more importantly, in 1999, there was the promise that jobs will be created by the internet. We need programmers, we need coders, new skills that people can learn, and everybody's going to be OK. Now there is a prevailing fear, and you saw this in that graduation speech, that people's jobs are going to be taken away. Now, that maybe will materialize, maybe it won't, but just that fear is something that this whole country, the world, needs to contend with, and it hasn't. HINOJOSA: Yes, and on the fear piece of this, this is, I think, the first presidential election where you're going to need to have candidates putting forward real policy solutions about what they're going to do about people's jobs. It is not only a fear everywhere, and I thought it was, I was chuckling at that graduation speech because yes, they should be worried. At the same time, are they using A.I. when it comes to their classes and other day-to-day lives?

MATTINGLY: If they want to work in the future, they better. Yes.

HINOJOSA: They definitely are, right? And so many of us are already benefiting from A.I., but I think the question of the workforce and the environment and energy prices and all of these things will be interesting to see given that this will be the first time that our presidential candidates will have to actually debate these issues on a stage together, both Republicans and Democrats, to figure out the future.

MATTINGLY: I love listening to politicians debate emerging technology. It always is so fluent.

MCHENRY: It's just shockingly, shockingly frightening when they're making predictions.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

MCHENRY: And as a notable president, George W. Bush said, the hardest thing about making predictions about the future is the future.

HINOJOSA: Well, they can't be 80 years old either. It can't be 80 years old and talking about A.I.

WILLIAMS: Well, and the most important thing here, there's no clear right-left divide, at least with respect to fear about the A.I.

ANDERSON: Right now, I think it's fascinating. I mean, think about the internet as an issue in 1989. The internet was not a defining issue in, I don't believe, the 2000 presidential campaign, 2020-2002 midterms, you know. I mean, there are other things going on. The internet was transforming society, but it wasn't a political issue. Here, I don't think that A.I. is going to be a defining issue of these midterms, but I bet you it will be a defining issue of the 2028 presidential race.

MATTINGLY: It's going to be a great policy debate, if nothing else. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, we can't get fooled again. That was the other presidential schism that I very much like.

[12:48:10]

All right. Coming up, something totally different, there's a new not- so-big dog in town.

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MATTINGLY: The Washington Nationals baseball team has expanded their 26-man roster. Their new rookie is two months old, three baseballs tall, and commands the field with all four of his legs. I'm sorry, what? Meet Natty, the Nats' new team dog. This little guy is just so adorable that we're changing this segment to, I'm sorry, aw, aw, aw.

Like all rookies over the next couple of months, Natty will get familiar with the ballpark and his teammates appear at games and community events and learn how to be a good boy. Once he gets past spring training, AKA, service time with his puppy razors, Natty, that's a great baseball card right there, will be promoted to professional training with the goal of making it to the bigs as a service dog. Natty was on CNN this week and had a lot to say about joining the team.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Natty is going to be famous after appearing here in The Situation Room.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, well, yes, he's already famous. He's done a lot of media in the last few days.

BLITZER: Yes. He's talking.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's got his own social accounts. He's got his social accounts. A lot of people are really interested in this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Like dogs on set with Wolf is my favorite part of working at CNN, which happens more than you would think. Who's got a take on this?

WILLIAMS: Well, I mean, I guess the question is, can he field? Because he's clearly better than anything the Nationals are putting out on the actual, come on. Hey, you thought it. I said it. They are not doing well as a team. Why is everybody? Oh, like I said, like --

MATTINGLY: Honestly, like you turn the puppies, like you're punching down. You're a Yankees fan. We don't need to knock the Nats.

WILLIAMS: Touche, touche. OK.

HINOJOSA: Let's talk about puppies.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

WILLIAMS: Wow. OK, this took a turn. But, all right, go ahead.

HINOJOSA: Yes. I mean, don't you want to talk about how you promised your family a puppy after your book release? And now, have you delivered on the puppy?

ANDERSON: Wow.

WILLIAMS: I use the acknowledgements of my book to shame my wife into getting us a puppy, again, so I'm working on it. MCHENRY: This has been a very awkward segment here now.

MATTINGLY: Do you have the puppy?

WILLIAMS: Not yet. It's, you know, what's funny as --

MATTINGLY: This segment is turned so hard against Elliot. It's going to be great.

WILLIAMS: I know. My God.

MATTINGLY: This is what you get for trying to draw into a "Star Wars" fight. Where's the puppy? Why haven't you bought the puppy?

WILLIAMS: You know, as I get the dog, as I said in this conversation, I quoted, Martin Luther King as one would, which is that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward us getting a Labradoodle. It's coming. It'll happen. It'll happen.

[12:55:01]

MATTINGLY: That feels empty. No. I want to talk more about when you're actually -- I want a firm commitment here.

WILLIAMS: You got to talk to my wife, dude. Like this is a -- it's a family wide decision. It's complicated.

MCHENRY: I love how this segment turned into seizing on Elliot.

WILLIAMS: I know.

MCHENRY: This feels like so rewarding as like a refresher for -- just so refreshing.

WILLIAMS: Pallet cleanser.

MCHENRY: Yes. Pallet cleanser for the whole week.

MATTINGLY: Yes, yes, yes. It's like that great Eric Church UNC commencement speech.

MCHENRY: Oh, yes.

MATTINGLY: Except we're attacking Elliot instead of saying profound things while playing a guitar.

WILLIAMS: We love puppies.

MATTINGLY: Very, very soon.

WILLIAMS: That's a beautiful puppy. We love baseball. We love it all.

MATTINGLY: We love puppies. We love baseball. Elliot is not to get his wife a dog.

WILLIAMS: Yes. MATTINGLY: That's how it is.

WILLIAMS: Thank you.

MATTINGLY: Thank you to my panel. Thank you for watching. You can, of course, see The Arena every weekday here on CNN at 4:00 p.m. Eastern. You can also catch all of it by listening to The Arena's podcast and 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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