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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
Trump: "I Don't Care About The Midterms" When It Comes To Iran; Trump-Backed Paxton's Win Gives Dems Hope Of Flipping Texas Senate Seat; "It Scared Me To Death": Jill Biden On Joe's Debate Performance. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired May 27, 2026 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:00]
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Hey, thank you so much for joining us this afternoon.
Always a pleasure, Brianna.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Always.
SANCHEZ: You'll be on "THE SOURCE" later tonight.
KEILAR: That's right. Yeah.
SANCHEZ: So stay tuned for that.
Also, stay tuned for THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT, which starts right now.
(MUSIC)
KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone. Welcome to THE ARENA. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's great to have you with us on this Wednesday.
Right now, Donald Trump -- juggling a lot. There's the brutal midterm fight, there's the stalled negotiations with Iran and an economy that many, if not most, Americans say just is not working for them.
This afternoon, the president made his priorities clear.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They thought they were going to outwait me. You know, well outwait him. He's got the midterms.
I don't care about the midterms. Look what happened last night. That was the prelude to the midterms. People understand it. They know that -- very simple, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. I'm doing that for the world. I'm not doing it just for us. And we've had great support from other nations.
(END VIDEO CLIP) HUNT: I don't care about the midterms, he says. Now, of course, he was talking about how the midterms did or didn't impact his approach to Iran. But regardless, that message may not be what Republicans who are running for reelection want to hear, especially as the war continues to drive prices higher and affordability is once again, the issue that voters say is the top of their minds on the top of their minds.
What's top of mind for President Trump? Today, he seemed really hung up on something.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: D.C. is looking beautiful. The fountains are almost all open. Over the years, I've built hundreds of pools. I build them every time I built a building. I always like to build an Olympic size swimming pools, and I was very aware swimming pool. What goes into making a swimming pool? And now were looking at the World War Two fountain, because that's also in pretty bad shape on the bottom. We're going to duplicate it, I think with the maybe with a slightly different color.
Actually, we'll go with a lighter color, but Doug and I have a lot of fun doing it. It's very exciting, actually, to me. I love construction.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: He has lots of fun, finds it very exciting. He loves construction. But of course, regardless of what you make of President Trump's desire to repaint the reflecting pool and redo the World War Two Memorial, or to build a colossal arch right in front of Arlington National Cemetery, Americans are telling pollsters and researchers that they are focused on something else. They are focused on the prices that are crushing them.
Today, the New York Federal Reserve board issued a new report. They found this, quote, "A remarkable increase in food insecurity, particularly among lower educated and lower income households, and households with young children."
So what does that look like? Ten percent of households say that money is so tight that they either don't have enough food, or that their children have missed meals. That is up dramatically from the four percent who said the same in the summer of 2020. That was the early days of the pandemic.
The Trump administration, though, is insisting that things are better than ever.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT BESSENT, TREASURY SECRETARY: On the economy, two words resilience and prosperity. The continued resilience of the economy speaks for itself even during the Iran conflict, and it speaks to the strength of your leadership. It has never been a better time to be an American. And as you said earlier, we have a record number of Americans working. Just to reiterate, resilience and prosperity have been the mark of your second term.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right. Let's get off the sidelines, head into THE ARENA.
My panel is here. CNN political analyst, national political correspondent for "Axios", Alex Thompson; CNN special correspondent, Jamie Gangel; CNN political commentator, former communications director for Vice President Kamala Harris, Jamal Simmons, is with us; and CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings.
We're also joined by CNN political commentator and a former Trump White House communications director, Alyssa Farah Griffin.
Welcome to all of you. Thank you so much for being here.
Jamie, let me just start with you in terms of what we saw from the president today, this sort of lengthy -- sort of lengthy -- very lengthy period, full stop, cabinet meeting where again, instead of really zeroing in on what Americans say is their top concern, he clearly showed that he has a long list of things that he's really into, really focused on. How is it going to play?
JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: So I think there are three words, "out of touch." Let me just talk about the politics first, when he said he doesn't care about the midterms, he doesn't care until he cares. But Republicans up on Capitol Hill, heads are exploding.
That is not what they want to hear. Even though they learned a long time ago that loyalty is -- is a one-way street.
[16:05:01]
But I think the point about, you know, the numbers, the approval ratings, the economy, you cannot overstate how important that's going to be going into November.
HUNT: Yeah. Scott Jennings I mean, there do seem to be some things that the president is really focused on that have broken through with the American people in a pretty negative way. The ballroom, for example, is one that comes up periodically when you talk to Republicans who are campaigning. There, of course, was the example of the fund that he created, the so-called, you know, weaponization fund that Republicans on Capitol Hill couldn't run away from fast enough. And then we hear all of these projects he wants to, to do that he is really into as we, you know, as we played.
Do you think that the president is doing what he should be doing? Is he focused on the things that he should be focused on, considering it's going to impact him if Republicans lose control of Congress and the Senate is now in play?
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, first of all, I don't think the president or any Republican should apologize for beautifying Washington ahead of our 250th anniversary. This is a big deal. It is a huge thing. It's the 250th birthday of our country. Lots of people are coming to
Washington this summer. It ought to be as beautiful as it can be. We ought to have some national pride, and it ought to start in the U.S. Capitol.
So I think this is a total non-issue. Id be offended if he weren't beautifying the city, because I think that's probably what a Democrat would have done. They would have ignored these things and apologized for America.
On his priorities -- look, he's always got a lot of plates that are spinning, a lot of balls in the air, whatever euphemism you want to use. When I hear him say, I don't care about the midterms when it comes to Iran, that's exactly what he should be saying. You wouldn't want the commander in chief making national security decisions solely based on politics. That's complete lunacy.
Every election is going to be about the economy. Every election I've ever worked in, I'm sure everyone you've ever worked in has been about the economy. That is a debate. The Republicans and the Democrats are going to have to have.
They do have an affirmative case to make. Job creation is good. Stock market is up. Price of oil is actually below $90 a barrel today. It dropped about 5 percent on what was said at the cabinet meeting.
They will have an affirmative case to make on their agenda. The Democrats will make a case and the people will vote. Under no circumstances would you ever want the commander in chief making military decisions based on how many people might vote on in a precinct somewhere in the middle of the country. That is -- that is not how you would want national security being handled.
So when I hear him say he's put politics aside to do what's best for national security, that's what a commander in chief should do.
ALEX THOMPSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, but that's not how congressional Republicans always feel. I mean, you remember you were in the W. Bush White House. Mitch McConnell was begging George W. Bush to change his approach on Iraq before the 2006 midterms.
And this is very normal because there are different political incentives. Donald Trump is not on the ballot. He will not be on the ballot again. And everyone in Congress wants him to do something to make things better before November.
JENNINGS: May I answer you on that? Because I always admired President Bush on this point. And after the election, the midterm, he did fire the secretary of defense. And what he said after the election was, how would it have sounded to some private standing on a corner in Iraq who gets a note saying, well, we just fired the secretary of defense because the elections are coming?
The president at that time made a national security and a military decision, not a political decision. And politicians can be mad about that. But the president did it because he thought it was right by military strategy. And what it would have sounded like to our troops in theater if we were making military decisions based on politics. I always admired the president's willingness to do that.
THOMPSON: How did that election go for Republicans?
JENNINGS: We did not do very well.
But you know what? That's okay, because sometimes you make national security decisions and you see how the ball is going to bounce. Again, I would just stress to you, having worked in the White House and watched these situations unfold, do you really want the commander in chief and military leaders poring over polls or poring over military strategy? I would say strategy.
HUNT: So -- yeah, go ahead, Jamal. And then I want to go to Alyssa.
JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah. I mean, Scott said a second ago, the president has a lot of plates spinning in the air, which reminds me of a circus. And I think that's part of the problem the American people are having right now is you elect a president primarily for one thing, his or her judgment. You want somebody who's going to help you achieve the things that you hope for, protect you from the things that you're afraid of.
And now, this president seems like he's not focused on any one of those things. He's focused on an agenda that we don't quite understand. Prices are high. We're in a war we don't understand those. The Iranians seem to be the ones in charge of setting the pace for when that war is going to end. It just seems like it's all getting away from Donald Trump.
And that's why when you have questions about his health, they're not really about his health. They're about his ability. We live through this in the Biden White House. It wasn't really about Joe Biden's health. It was about his ability to exercise the judgment the American people wanted.
HUNT: Or maybe it was about both. Alyssa, I -- to circle back to this quote, right, I don't care about the midterms. Scotts made the argument. And, you know, if you look at the way that the president was making it, he was essentially saying, I'm not using that as a bar for how I'm going to handle the timing in these negotiations, right?
[16:10:03]
He was saying, I'm not going to use politics to make national security decisions.
Now, it may be received one way or the other by Capitol Hill Republicans. I think my question is, do we believe that that's actually true, that he actually is making these decisions without regard? Because if there's any president that is poll-driven, it is President Donald Trump.
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Right. And listen, I partially agree with Scott on this that nobody should make national security decisions around politics. It should be what's safest for the nation and what's in the U.S. national interest. That said, I do think that a president should absolutely be weighing domestic concerns. When you have the cost of gas at $4 and $5 a gallon in many parts of the country, that is a reality and economic reality of Americans take the politics out of it.
You talked about the food insecurity that, you know, one in 10 Americans are facing. There's some real economic hardships that the president does have to be able to juggle multiple balls at once, deal with the situation in Iran, but also realize people are suffering and they need answers, and they can't just wait indefinitely. That said, this president is absolutely looking for an off ramp. These negotiations are underway. I think that I get the sense that theyre progressing. He does not want to see this war go on into the months of summer, when travel picks up, when air travel and car travel does, with gas prices where they are.
So, hopefully, he will make a decision based on the economic incentives, the economic benefit of Americans and our national security. But of course, politics is factoring into that.
HUNT: So let's walk through some of what Americans are telling CNN about their own personal financial situations right now.
Bill Brantner, 51 years old, says this, "If I sign a lease and they raise my rent again, I can't do it. If they raise my insurance premiums again, I can't do it. They have squeezed every drop of blood that there is to be squeezed out of this stone."
Sian Slater, 59, "At the end of the week, with the price of fuel added, I have roughly $15 a week to buy groceries and medications. I've had to cancel upcoming medical appointments because I can't afford the co-pays. But right now, I'm feeling very poor and I've never felt that way before."
Kris Massey, 57, "I should be securely middle class. I should be fine. And I'm not. I can't be the only one feeling like this."
And you know, Alex Thompson there, you know, there's this push from politicians to tell people that things are okay. And they are not they don't believe it right now. They feel this way.
I mean, I think the question I continue to ask myself from a big picture perspective, it almost feels like we are in -- living through a second Gilded Age and the sort of separating of the haves and the have-nots in ways that prevent most of our leaders from actually connecting with what's really going on, because they're all in the same category. They are in the have category, not the have-not category.
THOMPSON: And you saw in the cabinet meeting with the message from Scott Bessent and other cabinet officials when they bragged about the economy, what they were really talking about was the stock market, right, which is at all time highs. And as we know from past reporting, it is Donald Trump's biggest barometer that he looks at every single day to measure economic success. But most Americans do not have significant stock holdings. And that's what you're seeing in those quotes there.
HUNT: And one of the other things that I think we sometimes don't talk about enough, Jamie, is the impact of a roaring stock market with many Americans, as Alex points out, not getting a share of that. It is one of the factors that drives housing prices through the roof. And when you combine that with interest rates that refuse to go down because of some of the dynamics that are happening in the Middle East, you end up in a world where people feel -- I mean, some of the people we quoted here are a little bit older than I am, but people that are younger than I am don't feel like they have any idea how to do the things their parents did when they were getting out of school.
GANGEL: It's across the board, and we saw that in the comments. It's food prices. It's medical, it's housing. Inflation. Everybody is worried about who can take out a mortgage.
Just to go back to the midterm elections, it's not just about winning when politicians say that theyre going to be in trouble, Republicans in the midterm elections. It's -- theyre in trouble because of exactly these concerns. Real day concerns by real people who have $15 left to buy groceries.
HUNT: Yeah. I want to play, Alyssa, at one of the moments that Scott Bessent had in this meeting, that stuck out to me because when I heard the phrase, I was like, where have I heard this phrase before?
Let's watch what Scott Bessent had to say. And we follow with something that came from one of his predecessors in a previous administration, I should say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BESSENT: In terms of prices, I believe the prices are transitory. Oil will be lower than pre-conflict levels when this ends.
[16:15:00]
JEN PSAKI, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Obviously, our analysis is going to be done by economic experts. They continue to convey that they believe the impact will be temporary, transitory, however you want to refer to it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: It didn't work for the Biden administration
GRIFFIN: No, it didn't listen.
Alex hit on something so, so, so important. I worked for President Trump in the first term. He judges the success of his economy based on the market and the market consistently performs extremely well when he's in office. He looks at the quads outside in the outer oval and hell say, look, the markets up.
To him, that means average Americans are doing well. But we know that's not the whole economic picture by any means. In fact, only about a third of Americans are invested in the stock market. Many of those are retirement plans, things that are not easily accessible, money that people can just take because there's heavy market gains.
You've got high unemployment, you've got underemployment, you've got the high gas prices, low consumer confidence. There are so many macro trends.
And by the way, a lot of this is bigger than Donald Trump and bigger than Joe Biden. We've got this A.I. race, this like sort of tech moment were living in where I talk to people my age and my generation, and they know they will not be able to do well as well as their parents. People are -- there is such a massive disconnect from how Washington and the White House feel about the economic situation and how actual Americans do. And I do think it's going to be a really uphill battle for Republicans in the midterms.
HUNT: All right. Alyssa Farah Griffin, thank you, my friend. Always great to have you. Really appreciate it.
The rest of our panel will be here throughout the hour.
Coming up next, Democratic Congressman Jason Crow enters THE ARENA. He's teaming up with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to launch a new caucus amid bipartisan outrage over the DOJ's weaponization fund. We'll discuss.
Plus, it's Paxton versus Talarico in Texas. Ahead, a look at the first attack ads in what's likely to be one of the most expensive races this midterm election.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEN PAXTON (R), TEXAS U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE: He goes by a few names that you may all have heard of. Some people know him as Tofu Talarico.
JAMES TALARICO (D), TEXAS U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE: I'm an eighth generation Texan. I've been eating barbecue since before Ken Paxton's first indictment. And if all they have on me is lying about me being a vegan, I feel pretty good.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:21:34]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAXTON: President Trump is the leader of our party and his endorsement in this most -- is the most powerful force in politics.
SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): I've spent most of my time in the Senate building the Republican Party in Texas, and in the U.S. Senate, and I've always supported the Republican ticket, and I intend to do so again in this general election.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: After nearly 24 years of service in the U.S. Senate, this will be Republican John Cornyn's last after losing an ugly primary runoff to Texas's controversial Trump-backed attorney general, Ken Paxton, now finished with what was the most expensive U.S. Senate primary in history.
Paxton is turning his focus to his Democratic rival, the 37-year-old state Senator James Talarico, who was quick last night to label the scandal-ridden Paxton as, quote, "the most corrupt politician in America" to see what direction the race is headed for over the next five months, look no further than Paxton's newest campaign ad out this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AD NARRATOR: This is Texas. This is not.
HOST: Something that you love that's not family or friends.
TALARICO: I love -- I'm just saying this because its on my mind -- the trans children.
AD NARRATOR: This is Texas. This is not.
TALARICO: Our southern border should be like our front porch. There should be a giant welcome mat out front.
AD NARRATOR: This is Texas. This is not.
TALARICO: It is now existential that we try to reduce our meat consumption. I am proud to say that our campaign has officially become a non-meat campaign.
AD NARRATOR: This is Texas.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Okay. My panel is back.
Scott Jennings, I'm going to give this one to you.
(LAUGHTER)
HUNT: Clearly --
THOMPSON: That's a lot. Volleyball lob.
GANGEL: Look at that face.
HUNT: Well --
JENNINGS: I'm ready, put it on the tee.
HUNT: But here's the thing, okay? Because obviously, there's a lot to go after with James Talarico. If you are Republicans, who are, you know, they're ready, right to do it. And, the challenge is that there are, in general elections, a series of Trump-backed candidates who've lost because, of course, that was an ad for Ken Paxton.
And, you know, the ads that John Cornyn ran against Ken Paxton, including his wife, who, you know, she says she just divorcing Paxton on biblical grounds. He was literally impeached. He was indicted. You know, I mean, there's a lot there as well.
And, you know, Herschel Walker, Kari Lake, Blake Masters, Mehmet Oz, right? These are all Trump backed candidates who won primaries with his help and lost general elections. I -- what is your sort of view of how much this race is going to put Texas on the map in a way that, at the very least, siphons money away from other places?
JENNINGS: Well, you listed you listed off a lot of swing state campaigns there. This is Texas. This is a center right state. Democrats haven't won a race there in 30-something years. And so I do think you start out with an electorate that's just more conservative than some of the other races that you mentioned. That's number one.
Number two, it's going to be a negative campaign. Look, the primary was negative campaign, and Democrats have their messages they're going to run. Republicans are going to run. There's a lot of campaigns get negative.
So at the end of the day, I start to think about what was the average Texan looking at here. And they're going to look at two guys. Paxton, they voted for. He's performed in office and he obviously did something right. He's won several elections.
And then they're going to look at Talarico who thinks there's six genders and that eating meat is immoral.
[16:22:02]
And so that doesn't sound like any Texan I've ever heard of. My suspicion is at the end of a very long and negative campaign, they are likely to default to their factory settings, which in Texas is a center right conservative state who supports the president. This isn't a 50/50 state on Trump.
They voted for Trump. They like Trump, sending a Democrat to Washington to impeach Donald Trump. That's not what they're going to do.
HUNT: So, Talarico's message in the wake of his of this primary result, said he wants to thank Senator Cornyn for his years representing the state. We don't agree on everything, but we both still believe in public service. And he said this to Senator Cornyn supporters, you have a place in our campaign.
Politics is a game of addition, not subtraction. Sometimes we forget that in our current political climate. But it's clear that Talarico has some recognition of how the past statements that he has made are going to be weaponized in this campaign. And he sat down for an interview with Ed O'Keefe of CBS, White House correspondent, and was asked about a number of these comments that have appeared already in Paxton ads, and of course, online, et cetera.
Let's watch a little bit of what Talarico had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ED O'KEEFE, CBS WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: You said God is non- binary. What did you mean by that?
TALARICO: Well, you know, I think I was being intentionally provocative with that statement, but what it means is that God can't be defined by human categories.
O'KEEFE: You regret describing it that way or talking about god that way?
TALARICO: I -- there are some statements that I've made that I -- that I certainly regret, but Ken Paxton is intentionally clipping my cringey comments to distract from his career of corruption.
O'KEEFE: Do you still believe there are six biological sexes?
TALARICO: I know there are two sexes, men and women. I also know there's a very small percentage of people who have these chromosomal abnormalities, and I believe they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Alex Thompson, you cover the Democratic Party incredibly closely. You're covering the 2028 presidential campaign incredibly closely, that emerging primary. What do you make of what he had to say there and how it may impact this race and what it says broadly?
THOMPSON: Well, this has been a bit of a shuffle to evolution, to the cringey comments, because these have been clipped by Republicans since he won the primary a few months ago, and he has struggled to respond to them. This is the first time where he's like, listen, I made cringey comments, but this is actually part of a larger dynamic we are seeing in the Democratic Party, where a lot of the most prominent Democratic politicians are running away or reversing themselves on stuff they said around 2020, 2021, during the height of COVID, during the height of Black Lives Matter.
I mean, you saw like Gavin Newsom saying, I've never said Latinx in my entire office, but he's on camera saying Latinx in 2020. Like there -- there are a number of Democratic politicians that, you know, some people even call it woke 1.0 that basically believe that we went a little too far in some of our rhetoric. And you are seeing those clips come back to haunt not just James Talarico, but a number of Democratic politicians across the country.
HUNT: Jamal, what do you make of it?
SIMMONS: Well, he's doing the right thing. The first thing you're supposed to do if you're in one of these moments, is just acknowledge the thing that everybody is talking about, right? Yeah. I had cringey comments. Now you're on the same side as everybody else who's watching this, and now you can move on to the really important things, which is that you're running against somebody who's been indicted, who's been impeached, who's that corruption investigations.
And why is it that the president of the United States is supporting someone who really has such a bad public record of what he wants? And I think it goes back to what you asked earlier about the gilded age. Howard Lutnick, when he was running -- during the campaign, said that he thought that the time when America was at its best, when America was great was during the 1880s and early -- early 19th century. That was the Gilded Age. That was a time when wealth difference was great, when billionaires had -- the millionaires had the run of the place, African Americans were shut out of the political process in the South, women had fewer rights, and theyre making pretty good progress on that.
I think Donald Trump wants to have a senator who will do what he wants so that they can bring back this era where rich people got to do whatever they wanted, and everyone else suffered. And that's what the American people are feeling right now.
HUNT: Jamie Gangel, one thing that we have not seen is, you know, every day politicians be able to overcome the kinds of things that Donald Trump has been able to overcome in public life, right? He's been able to have this, you know, outsize personality, let's just call it that, right? Break norms, do things that previously anyone would have said, well, you're never, definitely never going to get elected now.
But we have not seen it apply to other people as much. Do you think it will apply to Ken Paxton here?
GANGEL: So I think that is the flip side of what we're seeing. We have not yet seen, really the campaign against Paxton. And he has a long history of a lot of controversy, indictments, et cetera.
[16:30:03]
I spoke to some of Scott's, Bush alums from Texas. The words they used about Paxton winning, that they were distraught. They do not want to vote for him. And they believe that at the end of the day, there will be enough independents in Texas who tend to go Republican, who are so turned off by Paxton that they will either stay home, which is a vote for Talarico, or they will actually vote for Talarico.
THOMPSON: Democrats have their own version of testing this up in Maine with their candidate, who has had a number of controversial posts in the past and are seeing what the level of electability is.
HUNT: Yeah, for sure.
All right. Coming up next here, Congressman Jason Crow will join us live in THE ARENA. New caucus is launching on Capitol Hill aimed at what he calls the poisoning of our politics.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [16:35:19]
HUNT: All right. Welcome back.
We have some breaking news at this hour, some remarkable new comments from the former first lady, Jill Biden, about her husband's debate performance two years ago.
Let's watch a little bit of what Jill Biden has to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
INTERVIEWER: Were you horrified as you saw it unfold?
JILL BIDEN, FORMER FIRST LADY: I wasn't horrified. I was frightened because I had never, ever seen Joe like that before or since.
INTERVIEWER: Never since?
BIDEN: Yes or since.
INTERVIEWER: You've never seen him --
BIDEN: Never, no.
INTERVIEWER: What happened?
BIDEN: I don't know what happened. I mean, when I -- as I watched it, I thought, oh my God, he's having a stroke. And it scared me to death.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: It scared her to death, she says an honest reaction from a wife also, of course, many questions about that time period and what people around the president knew about his health at the time, which she was also clearly trying to speak to there in that clip.
For more, let's bring in Democratic Congressman Jason Crow of Colorado, who sits on the Armed Services and Intelligence committees and has also been a voice in the party.
And, Congressman, one of the things that as I watched that I was remembering that you had been one of the centrist Democrats that was reported who had pressed the Biden team in the wake of that debate performance, about whether voters could trust him on national security. And it was reported, the president said, I don't want to hear that crap at the time.
This -- this new interview from Joe Biden, what stood out to you? What's your reaction about what she has to say?
REP. JASON CROW (D-CO): Well, you know, a couple of things. Number one, just as a person, how can we not empathize with Jill Biden? I mean, that that is a hard interview for anybody who has a spouse, a husband, a wife, kids to think about, you know, first and foremost, putting aside their title, their job, dealing with them as a loved one, right? So, you know, I empathize with Jill Biden.
The second thing is, I think back to just two years ago, what it was like to have good people in the White House. I had no shortage of disagreements with Joe Biden. Everybody knows that. I mean, you just talked about it, but there was never a day that went by where I didn't think that the Bidens were trying to do the right thing, trying to find the right answer. Sometimes they got it wrong, sometimes they got it right. But they're just good people.
And you contrast that to where we are now. You have the most corrupt president in American history, someone who is defined by his constant thirst for vengeance. You know, how -- how stark of a contrast is it, frankly?
HUNT: I take your point on the contrast. I think the question it may raise is, to what extent do we owe the second Trump term to President Biden's decision to run for reelection?
CROW: Well, as you pointed out, I was pretty clear that I thought the president needed to step down. I was one of those members that came up and said, you know, hey, this is not going well. I told the president that in your lead in you, you described what happened. I got on a zoom. I told him what I was seeing, what I was hearing, that we weren't on a trajectory to win.
I got into a disagreement or an argument with the president about that. And here we are. I don't think there's one single factor, though. I mean, honestly, there's no one single factor. There's a number of factors that have led to this moment. And I don't believe, frankly, that the reform that's needed within the Democratic Party is just a one term thing.
We've been digging a hole in rural America and working class America for 20 years. I was not surprised, by the way, when he won in 2016. I saw it coming because this has been years in the making where we have not met and have not made the case adequately enough to rural and working class Americans. Where I grew up, the people I grew up with, I saw that I continue to see it, which is why I continue to push for reform and for us to be honest about those failings and those shortcomings so that we can actually rebuild a coalition and win again.
HUNT: One piece of this that, you know, some who've kind of looked at themselves inside the Democratic Party have argued that there should be in particular, a turn away from some of the panel that was describing it as woke 1.0 in the segment right before this. And James Talarico just said that some of the comments that he's on camera making were cringe.
[16:40:00]
Obviously, his Republican opponent has cut them all together and is going to use them to run against him in Texas.
When you listen to those kinds of comments and if you are James Talarico, did he do the right thing by saying his comments were cringe?
CROW: Well, what we need to do is we need to focus pretty relentlessly on what I call issues of universal common good that, you know, when you're rebuilding a coalition, because right now we don't have a coalition. We lost 90 percent of U.S. counties in the fall of 2024. That is not a winning coalition. So we have to focus on the things that everybody, whether you're a Democrat, Republican, independent, somewhere in between, or just someone trying to live their life is focusing on -- that's health care. That's infrastructure. That is affordability or lack of affordability in America. That's children. How excruciatingly difficult it is to raise children in America. That needs to be 80 or 90 percent of what we talk about.
At the same time, I just don't believe for an instant that we cant talk about protecting vulnerable people, right? And show empathy and sympathy and understand that there are people who are really, really, maligned and cast aside in our society right now and that we shouldn't be a voice and champion for those folks, too.
I don't -- I just don't buy that it's a choice. It's a false choice. We don't have to do that. We can focus on the issues that build a coalition. And we can also champion those that don't have a voice.
HUNT: One back and forth that the Democratic Party also was dealing with over the weekend, something that I know you had spoken out about, the DNC had posted about the Americans who died in what they called Trump's war with Iran, and that was who they were honoring on Memorial Day. It looked -- it looked like this.
Not to take anything away from honoring the folks in this picture, of course. But you also spoke out about this. And it was ultimately taken down. Why? And did the DNC do the right thing in removing it?
CROW: Yeah, absolutely. Listen, I call a spade a spade. I call it like I see it, whether it's my party or not, my party, right. This country deserves -- the people that I served with in Iraq and Afghanistan deserve the truth. They deserve people who are going to put country before a political party. And sometimes we fall short.
And when we fall short, we have to be willing to acknowledge that and call it out. That was -- that post was wrong. It was a mistake. The great thing is, and this is why I'm proud to be a Democrat, we called it out as a mistake and we owned it. We took -- we took the post down, we fixed it.
And again, contrast that with the party of Trump that refuses to call out mistakes, refuses to acknowledge reality, would never in a million years ever back away from that.
So while we actually fixed a mistake that same day, Donald Trump, in trying to honor our fallen literally in the same Truth Social post attacked the Democrats, right? Nobody on the Republican side called that one out.
So, listen, that's a double standard on their side. There shouldn't be a double standard on our side. If we fall short, we're going to fix it and move forward just like we did.
HUNT: You've mentioned a couple times here how working Americans, people like you, the people that you grew up with, are responding to our political environment. And, you know, one place where you saw Republicans denounce a president that they often hesitate to denounce was on this weaponization fund, this $1.776 billion to help Trump allies, essentially, people who were at the capitol on January 6th, potentially, or others who were prosecuted. You and your colleague, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have founded a new caucus to try to do something about that. What is -- what's the goal and what are the plausible objectives? What could you do about it with this?
CROW: Yeah. Alexandria and I formed this caucus along with our friend Mike Levin, because there's a lot of things we can do that don't require legislation, don't require constitutional amendments.
Your members of Congress can reject corporate PAC money. They can post their public meeting schedule on their website. They can come out and say that theyre not going to trade stocks.
I mean, there are things that if you want to just be a leader and you want to show you're serious about reform, you don't need to pass some big reform package. You can just start doing it yourself. Lead by example, right?
So that's what this caucus is about. That's what, you know, Alexandria and Mike and I have decided to do. We're going to -- we're going to put pressure on folks to start leading by example. We welcome them to join us in that effort.
There's a lot of people that talk about corruption and ending corruption. There are fewer people who are actually willing to walk the talk and do it themselves, to show that it can be done.
So, we're just trying to draw attention to that issue, get people to join our grow -- what is a growing coalition.
[16:45:01]
And more than anything else, I'm worried about Donald Trump, but what I'm worried about more than anything else is the partisanship and the vitriol and the apathy that is gripping this country. If people check out and say that their voice doesn't matter, their vote doesn't matter, then we're all lost, right? So, we have to address corruption to get people reengaged.
HUNT: All right. Colorado Congressman Jason Crow, thanks very much for spending some time with us today. Really appreciate it.
CROW: Thank you.
HUNT: All right. Ahead here in THE ARENA, much more on Joe Biden's new comments about her husband's 2024 debate performance. Our panel will weigh in after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [16:50:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Making sure that were able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I've been able to do with the -- with COVID, excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with -- look, if -- we finally beat Medicare.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: No matter how many times you see that, wow, it's perhaps the most famous and most consequential moment in the history of presidential debates.
And now we know what was going through the mind of President Joe Biden's wife, First Lady Jill Biden, as she watched that fateful night unfold right here on CNN. She just spoke to "CBS Sunday Morning".
Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
INTERVIEWER: Were you horrified as you saw it unfold?
JILL BIDEN, FORMER FIRST LADY: I wasn't horrified. I was frightened because I had never, ever seen Joe like that before or since.
INTERVIEWER: Never since?
BIDEN: Yes or since.
INTERVIEWER: You've never seen him --
BIDEN: Never, no.
INTERVIEWER: What happened?
BIDEN: I don't know what happened. I mean, when I -- as I watched it, I thought, oh my God, he's having a stroke. And it scared me to death.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Some really remarkable comments with us on our panel.
We just happened to have one of the people who wrote the book about the Biden presidency with our own Jake Tapper, Alex Thompson.
What's your reaction to what the former first lady had to say here?
THOMPSON: Well, she says that she's never seen him act that way before or since. But in the interviews that over 200 of which that Jake and I did other people did see him act like that in the months before and in the months after that. And those moments became increasingly hard to predict. And the White House was increasingly trying to manage them to keep those moments out of public view and eventually, you know, during the debate they could no longer hide those moments from the public.
I'd also say that what she just said there is very much at odds with what many of Biden's top aides have said at the time and have said, you know, since the 2024 election, which is they didn't think the debate was that bad. And they think they thought the Democratic Party way overreacted. They certainly didn't think that he was having a stroke at the time, and they thought it was -- you know, he was clearly trying to say big pharma. And instead of beat Medicare and that the -- that this was a whole, you know, tempest in a teapot overreaction.
But Jill Biden is now saying that at the time when she was watching, she thought her husband, the president, United States, was having a stroke. And then also later that night spoke at a rally in which she praised his performance, then also did an event right afterward at a restaurant, and then also let him go and do a rally the next day in North Carolina. That seems to be a little bit at odds with her level of worry.
HUNT: We actually have that moment. Let's play it just to remind everyone. And again, we just heard from Jill Biden, who tells "CBS Sunday Morning" she thought she was afraid that Joe Biden was having a stroke on stage during that debate moment. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JILL BIDEN: Joe, you did such a great job. You answered every question.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUN: Jamie Gangel, bit of a contrast?
GANGEL: Yeah, no question about it. So, a couple of things. It is true that that debate moment was striking. We have never seen anything like that before.
But it wasn't in a vacuum. We had all been watching Joe Biden for quite some time in public, not looking his age, not looking quite -- quite right.
The other thing that I find interesting, just to go back in time is the Sunday after this, you'll -- you'll tell me the event, the family, the Biden family gets together. And there's a lot of talk in the party that Biden is going to step aside and drop out and instead they come out and they say he's staying in.
So it's, again, hard to match her reaction to that, to the fact that they then stayed in.
HUNT: I mean, is your sense, Alex, that she's essentially trying to defend herself against possible accusations that she was aware and didn't tell anyone?
THOMPSON: I will say, I am going to be interested to see the full interview that will be on Sunday and her book that comes out next week, which is tied to this interview. I hesitate to just take the one comment and see what the whole narrative -- without seeing what the whole narrative is.
SIMMONS: Well, I think the model here ought to be Kamala Harris the night of the debate, because she actually sealed her positive fate that night when people asked the question and she said, listen, I'm not going to get into the back and forth about the debate. Let's talk about -- and then she went on to talk about the future and to talk about other issues. She didn't try to defend it because it was kind of indefensible.
HUNT: Yeah.
JENNINGS: I remember I was there in Atlanta, and my reaction right after the debate was, we ought to pray for the president, because I remember watching that thinking something is wrong with this guy.
[16:55:07]
To hear her say she's never seen that, though -- I mean, everybody knows people had seen it. There's on the record interviews about it. And right now theyre in court trying to prevent the release of the Robert Hur tapes, when they -- when the special prosecutor investigated Biden. They wouldn't be trying to prevent the release of those if they weren't worried about what he sounded like on there.
THOMPSON: And those tapes are not from the presidency, but from 2015.
JENNINGS: And of course, just -- we should acknowledge a remarkably difficult moment for any person that were to love the president, she being his spouse to watch on stage. So, of course, acknowledging that as we dissect this.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HUNT: Thanks to my panel. Thanks to all of you at home for watching.
Don't go anywhere. "THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER" starts right now.
