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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt

NRSC Memo: "Fatal Mistake To Assume Platner Is Too Damaged To Win"; Bill Gates Finishes House Oversight Interview On Epstein Ties; "I Love The Inflation": Trump Downplays Report On Spiking Costs. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired June 10, 2026 - 16:00   ET

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

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: -- premieres Saturday night at 9:00 on CNN and Sunday on the CNN app, which is always fun.

[16:00:07]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Yeah, Chuck E. Cheese, you know, been around since the founding.

KEILAR: Totally.

SANCHEZ: American institution, truly.

KEILAR: THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT starts right now.

(MUSIC)

KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. Welcome to THE ARENA. It's great to have you with us on this Wednesday.

As we come on the air today, winning at any cost. Is Graham Platner going to be able to pull a Donald Trump in Maine? Donald Trump overcame personal scandal after personal scandal -- you'll remember the Access Hollywood tape -- to ascend to the Oval Office twice.

Now, Democrats in Maine have made their choice. And by a wide margin, the message the voters sent to their party leaders is that whatever scandal may plague him doesn't matter. A covered up Nazi tattoo, allegations of personal indiscretion, they don't matter. Only winning and wresting power from their political opponents is what matters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRAHAM PLATNER (D), MAINE SENATE CANDIDATE: The national pundits, the political establishment, they keep looking for that one story, that one headline, that one moment in my life that they can define the campaign by. But in trying so hard to understand me, they failed to understand that this is not about me at all.

(CHEERING)

PLATNER: This is a movement about us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: The pundits don't understand. The establishment wants to stop me. They're trying to use my past against me. Does that sound familiar at all? Does it sound like anyone else you know?

That aforementioned "Access Hollywood" tape, that was just the worst timed and most shocking example of when Donald Trump did something that all the conventional wisdom said should have made it impossible for him to win. Started back when he trashed John McCain in 2015.

It mattered not. The American people elected him president anyway. And now, 10 years later, Trump once again sits in the Oval Office. Here's what he's saying about Graham Platner.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I watched that thug that's up in Maine. He's a thug. And they're trying to make excuses for him. I mean, he's worse than any human being that's ever run in your office, probably.

But this is a thug. He's a cheap, no-good person, because he's just an outright pig. He's like a pig. I watched him couple of times. He's like a pig.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: A thug and a pig are the words from Donald Trump, who, of course, won after overcoming personal scandal in 2016. The question now, what will voters in Maine do in November? Will it resemble what Donald Trump's voters did in 2016? Will Maine voters tell the political establishment that they don't care that they want to win at any cost?

Just listen to this. This is from Kellyanne Conway. She is the person who managed Donald Trump's campaign. She was in charge when the "Access Hollywood" tape dropped. Here's what she said about Graham Platner's campaign and the scandals that he's faced.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP'S 2016 CAMPAIGN MANAGER: What else do you need? Is there a magic number in the scandalebra that would make you stop? Would it have to do with Nazis or putting upon women, perhaps underage women, or definitely women, not your wife of two years? Would it be that you're lying about -- that you're insulting heroes, that you're not -- he's not even fit to lick their combat boots?

So I'd ask the Democrats, is power really worth that to you?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Kellyanne Conway asking Democrats, is power really worth it to you? There is a lot there, and we're going to dig in.

Let's get off the sidelines and head into THE ARENA. My panel is here, along with CNN chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny.

Jeff, I want to start with you because you obtained this new memo from the National Republican Senatorial Committee, of course, the committee charged with electing Republicans. This is outlining their strategy to try and keep Susan Collins in her seat after Platner won big last night. What's it say and what's your analysis of the big picture here?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Kasie, look, the bottom line is President Trump talking about Graham Platner, Kellyanne Conway talking about Graham Platner. There is a through line that Republicans are worried about this.

And take a look, a listen to this part of this memo that was sent to donors and other party operatives, basically saying, look, there is a race going on here. Let's read one portion of this together. It said, "The political fundamentals in Maine remain challenging, and it is a fatal mistake to assume Platner is too damaged to win."

[16:05:00]

It goes on to say, "Senator Collins has won tough races before and can win this one, but only if we meet this moment with total urgency."

So, a little translation there: Look, the economy is bad. Affordability remains a central issue. And anyone who's an incumbent, particularly for five terms in office, is going to face an uphill challenge here.

So Republicans are trying to convince donors that they need to contribute because Maine's an expensive race, never mind the other races that they're trying to fund, like a Ken Paxton in a Texas.

But the bottom line here, when I was watching Graham Platner speak last night. Did you see who was behind him? Virtually all women. Women are going to make this choice. About 60 percent of the electorate of Maine are women voters.

He also asked them to earn their trust. He said, "I will try and earn your trust over the next coming months." So that will be an open question here.

And for all the talking outside, if it's from the Oval Office or if it's on Fox News or here on CNN, this is going to be decided by Maine voters. And as I've been talking with some of them who I've known for a very long time, they do want to win. But he won a Democratic primary by a very healthy and impressive margin. But it's a different electorate in the general election as we know very well.

HUNT: Yeah.

ZELENY: So Senator Susan Collins always manages to win, but she's never been on the ballot in this environment in the wake of a Roe versus Wade, of course, being repealed. This will be the first time that the voters will have to decide that and her vote on the Supreme Court. So there's no doubt Maine is a -- the centerpiece of this Senate

campaign, but the amount of attention Republicans are paying to him means that they are not counting him out at all -- Kasie.

HUNT: Really, really interesting.

All right, Jeff Zeleny, thank you, sir, and happy birthday. Enjoy the evening.

ZELENY: Thank you very much.

HUNT: Thank you for spending part of your birthday with us. I appreciate it.

ZELENY: You bet.

HUNT: All right, my panel is here in THE ARENA. "New York Times" correspondent Jodi Kantor is the author of a new book, "How to Start Discovering Your Life's Work"; Kristen Soltis Anderson, Republican strategist and pollster, is with us; former DNC senior advisor, communications director, Xochitl Hinojosa; and former Republican congressman from Michigan, Peter Meijer.

Welcome to all of you. Thank you all so much for being here.

Jodi Kantor, I'm so grateful to have you in THE ARENA. It's wonderful to have you here. I want to start with the big picture on this, right? I mean, Jeff dug into the details, the landscape of the race.

But you did so much groundbreaking reporting around the Me Too movement, and we have seen our politics evolve in dramatic ways over the last decade. And the fact that Jeff's statistic about the electorate makeup is a fascinating one, and I'm sure Kristen can speak to that. But they could obviously produce that picture of Graham Platner with a whole bunch of women behind him in the wake of these "New York Times" headlines.

What does it say about our political moment that voters are willing to overlook the things they're willing to overlook here?

JODI KANTOR, AUTHOR, "HOW TO START: DISCOVERING YOUR LIFE'S WORK": Well, let's talk about what they may or may not be willing to overlook. The accusations against Graham Platner are not classic Me Too accusations. They're not about a boss and a young female employee being subjected to sexual advances.

They're -- they were mostly made in the context of consensual relationships. There are these very sensational texts about sex. There are allegations from former girlfriends that are not -- the way my colleagues reported them -- were not classic abuse allegations.

They were mostly like, being his boyfriend gave me a view into him, and I did not like what I saw. His character was scary, he had this Nazi tattoo, et cetera. There was one of crossing a line physically but I think that means that these are pretty different accusations than say the one that the ones that President Trump faced and, of course, in the "Access Hollywood" tape President Trump bragged about grabbing women against their will.

And so I think it speaks to the kind of confusion of the long post-Me Too moment, in which, like, gender-related accusations get bundled together, but they're actually very different.

HUNT: Kristen Soltis Anderson, yeah, jump in.

KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah. You know, one of the things that Graham Platner said in his comments that you showed earlier in the show was they want to make this just about one moment, but what I'm struck by is it's not just about one moment with him, it's not just about one time where he grabbed someone's wrist. It's about a time where, as your colleagues reported, he took her and he put her in a room and he closed the door, allegedly, and would not let her out. It's about the text to -- up to six other women who are not his wife.

So the problem for Graham Platter is that it's not just one thing. And when he says, it's not about me, he's really hoping that it's not about him. He's really hoping that the midterm is about Donald Trump. And he may get his wish, ultimately, but I feel like there's a chance that Democrats look back at a moment like this, where they had someone run against -- essentially nobody strong in that primary. The sitting governor backed out.

Are they leaving seats on the table in a very favorable environment by choosing candidates who simply are not the A-Team?

HUNT: Well, and here's the question, too, right? There's voters, right? Democratic voters in this case in a primary who showed that they wanted what they perceived to be authenticity from their candidate. The reason the main governor dropped out of the race is because she couldn't raise enough money to stay in the race. But then there are party leaders, right?

And you saw some of this in 2016. The difference between Republican voters and Republican leaders was quite stark, right? And we see that, we experience that in our politics every day to this day, right? Republican voters are so loyal to the president, even when the Republican leaders look around and say, this is a terrible idea, the voters back the president anyway.

So that raises the question, what are Democratic leaders doing in this moment when their voters have picked a flawed candidate that they now are in a position to have to defend?

Here are a series of Democratic senators with whom Graham Platner would be colleagues if he were to defeat Susan Collins when they had to respond to questions about him. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Well, he won the nomination. That was the decision of Maine voters, and I respect that decision.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): Look, Graham Platner has taken responsibility for his past.

SEN. STEPHEN LYNCH (D-MA): Well, Maine supports him, so yes.

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): I support the Democratic nominee.

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): I support the Democratic nominee.

SEN. TIM KAINE (D-VA): You know what? I'm a Virginia senator. I don't get involved in other states that choose to do their nominee, sorry.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Xochitl Hinojosa.

XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah, thank you. You have to answer for my point.

HUNT: What are -- what are we sensing underneath that?

HINOJOSA: So Graham Platner doesn't need sort of this establishment. To be honest with you, he's been running a campaign that has been sort of anti-establishment. He's anti-incumbent. He is someone who knows Maine. He is someone who's saying, listen, I am a normal person. I'm not your typical politician.

And to be honest with you, I don't think it really gets him anything for Democratic leaders in Washington to be defending him. So why they're defending him, I'm actually not sure.

One warning I have for Democrats is women is what makes up the vast majority or majority of the electorate that will be that will give us the Senate, that will give us the House, and we need women in order to win in 2028. If you or I a run for presidency and you are going out there and campaigning for Graham Platner, I would say that is pretty bad advice that you have been given right now because at some point, you yourself will need to make the case to women directly.

Let Graham Platner do his thing in Maine, let him raise the money, let him go ahead and hit Collins, et cetera. But I don't think that national Democrats need to go out there on a limb for him at this point, knowing that there could potentially be something more that comes out. Fingers crossed, everybody's holding their breath in Washington, that that doesn't happen, but we don't know for sure.

PETER MEIJER (R), FORMER MICHIGAN CONGRESSMAN: The idea too that, well, he's taken responsibility for his actions. He's transformed. I mean, the allegations of texting multiple women while he's in a relationship and cheating on his wife, I mean, those are within the last year. His Kik profile is still active. He's changed the profile picture. But this isn't, oh, this was 15 years ago. I was going through a rough patch.

And by the way, as a military veteran. I really resent him using post- traumatic stress as an excuse for things that are just vile behavior. Like you -- yes, sure, you were in a dark time. You were getting drunk. But the idea-- and I've heard this repeated by some elected officials, too, that, oh, well, he's like any other military veteran. No, absolutely not.

That is not reflective of the veterans community. That's not reflective of people I know. And that idea that there's a conflation and then that's a reason to excuse vile behavior, it's disgusting.

HUNT: Congressman, you also have some experience with how voters have responded in some of these instances, things they're willing to overlook and not. Do you think -- do you see any parallels here between the president who seems impervious to the laws, the rules of political gravity, and a candidate like Graham Platner? I mean, are we going to start to see more people who don't have to follow these rules in the wake of Donald Trump, because that's the thing we haven't really seen yet, right? Donald Trump broke all the rules and the norms. We haven't seen a series of consistent examples where other people are able to do the same thing.

MEIJER: Well, and you've seen a lot of Republicans who say, oh, well, Trump can do this and he can get away with it, so can I. No, he's Teflon Don. This guy is a unitary standalone figure. The political laws of gravity do not apply to him.

They apply to a lot of folks who want to be like him. And those folks end up vastly underperforming him in the polls. And I think, yes, absolutely, there's an anti-incumbent -- there's an anti-establishment sentiment, and that's an easy thing to play up. It's also an easy thing, as you've seen with his talk about, you know, Epstein class and that. It's an easy thing to start to slide in from anti-establishment to anti-Semitic and go down a very dark rabbit hole of conspiracies.

[16:15:01]

I guarantee you, watch for when the next shoe drops, who he starts to blame and how dark this campaign could be.

HINOJOSA: More he's talking about himself and less talking -- and not talking about Collins and the economy and the way that people are feeling right now is a loser for him. It is not great if he's out there defending this every day and not getting a message out about how he's going to help the American people or people in Maine.

HUNT: Right. Well, and there's -- Xochitl, correct me if I'm wrong here, but there's also can be a general feeling in an environment as bad for Republicans as this one that just a generic -- a Democrat whose name, you have no ID, never heard it before is the best plan.

HINOJOSA: Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's -- yes.

MEIJER: Get below the parapet.

HUNT: Okay, fair enough.

On that note, coming up next here in THE ARENA, breaking news on Wall Street, the closing bell bringing a close to a, quite frankly, horrible day for the stock market. The Dow has its worst day since October as inflation heats up. So why, you might ask, is the president saying that he loves inflation? We'll explain. Plus, the man at the center of some of the most explosive documents in

the Epstein files just finishing his testimony before Congress.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ROBERT GARCIA (D-CA): Mr. Gates does believe that Mr. Epstein would write emails that were oftentimes untrue. I think he spoke to that in some of the questioning, that he denies obviously some of those claims, and that he felt that Mr. Epstein would write emails to himself and just say things that were not true or didn't happen as Mr. Gates remembers them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[16:21:09]

HUNT: Right now, Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates just wrapping up a nearly six-hour long testimony in front of the House Oversight Committee, connected to his ties to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In his opening statement, Gates denied any knowledge of Epstein's crimes and claimed that Epstein attempted to use details about his extramarital affairs, about Gates's extramarital affairs against Gates.

Gates' testimony, also coming on the same day that "The New York Times" dropped a bombshell report about the White House's attempt to do damage control over the Epstein files last summer. One key Trump official even privately warned associates at the time that the Epstein saga would become, quote, "President Trump's Iran-Contra".

Joining our panel here in the arena, CNN senior national enterprise correspondent MJ Lee.

MJ, wonderful to have you. Nice to see you.

So, Bill Gates wrapped up in this in a way that, you know, we know was related to the demise of his own marriage. Melinda French Gates has been out there in some cases, asked questions about his behavior in ways that I think raised some eyebrows. What stood out to you about what Gates told the committee? And what it says about -- I mean, the fact that he was there for as many hours as he was.

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL ENTERPRISE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. You know, I don't know that there are going to be specific leads that the committee is going to follow up on, as far as we know right now. And we'll know for sure once the transcripts come out, whether he referred the committee to specific people that he saw engaging in bad behavior.

But what I think we are seeing today is a full package of powerful people, people who were very close to Jeffrey Epstein, people who spent a lot of time with him, certainly wanted to be invited to all of his dinners in New York City now saying years later, we never saw -- we were never aware of the crimes that he was committing. And I think if I'm Bill Gates, I'm pretty lucky that the emails where

some of the more salacious and unverified claims about Bill Gates appear to have been written by Epstein to himself. And the fact that Epstein is dead, I mean, you can deny and deny and deny if you are convinced that there is no physical proof to the contrary.

But I thought Bill Gates talking about how he was initially introduced to Epstein was really interesting. He said it was in 2011, and he did know that Epstein had some prior legal issues, but he decided not to scrutinize those matters further. I mean, those legal issues, to be clear, is that Jeffrey Epstein in 2009 was convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor.

These are not just minor legal issues. He was a registered sex offender. So I just think the sort of willful ignorance of powerful people when money is involved is a conversation we need to keep having.

HUNT: Yeah. Jodi, I mean, what do you think it says? I mean, the, the story, this is of course, part of the book that your colleagues, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan are -- it's going to be a blockbuster, let me tell you. It's coming out in a couple of weeks.

They wrote that J.D. Vance, the vice president, was particularly panicked about what was going on and that he even floated enlisting Tucker Carlson to interview Ghislaine Maxwell in prison. Vance thought that it might help the president if Maxwell was willing to state Trump had not been part of any wrongdoing with Epstein.

What does this all say?

KANTOR: Well, I was riveted by Maggie and Jonathan's excerpt. Their book is called "Regime Change". I think it is going to be a blockbuster. And what was so interesting was that you could really see President Trump losing control of the Epstein story, paragraph by paragraph, as they give this internal account of the Trump team trying to deal with it.

And part of what is so fascinating about it is that, listen, we're living through a presidentially-led backlash to Me Too, right?

[16:25:00]

The president has appointed himself the chief opponent of this movement. But then what happened is it turned out that people really cared about the Epstein files. They were grossed out by the idea of young women being manipulated by the powerful and the wealthy. And part of the lasting power of Me Too is that there's a lot of empathy, especially for very young victims.

And so, to see the president sort of hit by, you could almost call it, a backlash to the backlash was really interesting.

HUNT: Congressman, we were talking about this in the break and you were making the point earlier on the show. A lot of what happened with Epstein-related things before the president took office for his second term was firmly in conspiracy theory world. You know, it was about a cabal or, you know, things that touched on anti-Semitism and other very problematic areas.

But then there was this bipartisan push to put these files out there. And what you saw was it's not just Republican and Democratic presidents, former presidents who are -- whose names appear, not to say anybody's -- not to allege any wrongdoing on anybody's part, but also titans of industry, Bill Gates today, filmmakers, every corner -- of elite society essentially looking the other way so they can stay part of the club.

Why? Like what is wrong? I --

MEIJER: The question is --

HUNT: What is wrong with everybody? I guess is the thing I keep coming back to.

MEIJER: You have a charismatic guy, on the one hand, who's also a sociopathic manipulator. I mean, this gets to the veracity of emails, like, Gee, I wonder if this guy's totally above board.

No, he's trying to blackmail folks to maintain connections or to do whatever. But -- I mean, I was just struck, as you mentioned, I spent a couple of years hearing this from folks who were trying to allege that you know there's some grand pedophile conspiracy cabal across the U.S. government and that's being undermined and Israel is involved in all this and trying to say okay like come on guys like let's -- let's live in reality and now I'm hearing the exact same thing from folks with a inverse political affiliation and it's just -- it is -- it is astounding.

I mean, the kind of Epstein class descriptor is -- I mean, it's QAnon, but something fit for daytime TV. But a lot of the folks who are hearing that are hearing a dog whistle that gets into some parts of the Internet you really don't want to Google some of the terms associated with.

And I'm seeing it become this populist catnip. Yeah, there's folks who have tangential associations with Jeffrey Epstein who are -- you know, prominent fundraisers or prominent elected officials. I mean, he was texting -- there was an Obama lawyer that lost her private sector job.

MEIJER: No, no.

And the very fair question is, like, what did somebody actually know? Was it that there was a charge that maybe he said, oh, well, it was not a big deal, and there have been other prominent folks who've had, you know, charges dismissed, or they -- like, I'm not going to speak to any of those. All I'm speaking to is where it fits into on the political spectrum, and that seems to use the facts as a basis and then fly a million miles away from them into some very dark places.

HINOJOSA: Well, and the thought at the beginning when Trump first raised this, and there were a lot of conspiracy theories, is that they long believed that there was this list that involved a bunch of powerful Democrats. And the reason why I think Democrats raised the alarm last year was because all of a sudden, Trump's DOJ just did a complete 180 and as the reporting shows, they're sounding the alarm. They're freaking out within the White House because they knew that this would end up being a crisis for Donald Trump.

And so what happened between. whenever they got access to the files or the information that they got, and then, you know, over the last -- the first few months of the year and into whenever they passed the legislation to release them, there was obviously an effort within the White House and within Trump's inner circle and DOJ to cover something up. And I think that's why Democrats have also been very vocal about this.

Now, they -- they obviously -- Pam Bondi testified, but I think one big question and what could hold up Todd Blanche's ultimate confirmation is that Pam Bondi has said that he was the person in charge of this. And if he was the person in charge of this and is now trying to be the attorney general of the United States then the issue -- this issue is going to come up for the administration. Once again, more oversight. This is sort of never-ending for them.

MEIJER: I just -- I don't know what's actually being covered up because that's the thing is Donald Trump was actually very disciplined on the campaign trail. He was never one steeped in these conspiracies. There were followers who were.

HINOJOSA: Donald Trump's role -- I mean, I think they long believe that Donald Trump's role with Jeffrey Epstein.

HUNT: Well, we still don't know. There were -- there are clearly people who committed crimes against women.

[16:30:02]

And the survivors are out there saying, you know, we would like this out there, we don't, we can't -- in some cases, we can't or we don't want to.

Well, I think that that was the idea behind the congressional action and still we are -- haven't seen it and we're out of time to even show you the Graham Platner's first ad after winning talks about the Epstein class. So there you go.

MJ Lee, thank you. Always great to see you. Really appreciate it.

The rest of our panel is going to stand by.

Coming up next here in THE ARENA, Wall Street takes a dive. Inflation spikes. The president brushes it off.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Are you concerned, Mr. President, about the latest inflation number, which came out this morning. Could that be a --

TRUMP: No, I love it. The numbers were great. You know what I really love? I love the inflation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:35:08]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Mr. President, about the latest inflation number, which came out this morning. Could that be a --

TRUMP: No, I love it. The numbers were great. You know what I really love? I love the inflation.

You know why? Because as soon as this war is over, you know, I can say it now, something you didn't know. You know, we've been taking out millions of barrels of oil. Nobody knows it. You know who doesn't know about it? Iran until right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So for the first time in three years, U.S. inflation has topped 4 percent. The president's response was -- is, quote, "I love the inflation," end quote.

The latest consumer price index shows the higher cost of energy accounted for 60 percent of the monthly increase, of course, driven by the war with Iran. And earlier this hour on Wall Street, stocks were also feeling it. The Dow fell more than 950 points, closing below 50,000 in its worst day since October. The NASDAQ and the S&P also dipped more than one and a half percent.

All those numbers coming as the U.S. and Iran have been trading retaliatory strikes after Iran downed an American Apache helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz. And the president says there'll be more.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Well, we're going to be attacking them, attacking them very hard.

REPORTER: You're resuming bombing?

TRUMP: Yeah, well, we are. Based on a helicopter, I guess we have the right to do that. shut down a very, very incredible, actually an incredible machine. So we'll see what happens. But we hit them hard yesterday, and we're going to hit them again hard today in case you miss it, in case you don't turn on your television set.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right. Joining our panel in THE ARENA, CNN national security analyst, former deputy director of National Intelligence, Beth Sanner. Beth, I want to come to you in just a moment on some of the Iran

details, but Kristen Soltis Anderson, I want to start with you on these questions around inflation. I mean, this is starting to show up in so many ways across so many industries, and when it comes to the midterm elections, it's what's driving voters. I mean, costs are up. You could see in those graphs, yes, it's energy that's driving it, but people are feeling it across the board, and the president says he loves it. That goes over with voters how?

ANDERSON: So two things. First, not, well, I cannot imagine, you know, a common question that pollsters ask is favorable, unfavorable. Are you favorable or unfavorable to ice cream, Donald Trump, what have you. I don't think inflation would have a very good fave on fave. I think I can say that pretty confidently.

But it's also not something new. It's not something that's just started. It's something that's been around for a while, and in fact, is the reason he's in the White House right now to begin. The problem is that he ran on an agenda saying he was going to get it under control, which is not the same as saying that it's good.

And so, I mean, my grand theory of this midterm is that both parties are trying as hard as they can to not win. And this is like a part of the sorts of things that the president has said that are unhelpful. But at another level, what the president says or doesn't say is in some way irrelevant. It depends on what people are feeling, right? This was during the Biden presidency.

He claimed the economy is great. What are you all talking about? And by the time there was a pivot away to a little bit more of I feel your pain, it was way too late and we were into Kamala Harris and all of that.

So this is unhelpful but also something that Americans have been feeling and feeling for a long time.

HUNT: Jodi, you've covered this extensively.

KANTOR: Well, I've seen it through the prism of young people who are graduating into this environment, and it is so intimidating. Housing prices, the price of groceries, it's affecting all of their decisions. That, of course, is combined with a really negative job outlook for college graduates, and also an employment environment that has changed in ways that are hard for most of us to see, like memo to anybody who hasn't applied for a job lately.

The process has turned digital and very lonely. I'm talking to kids who have had 150 job applications. They're barely getting any interviews. And when they do, they're getting A.I. interviews. And they're not getting interviewed by real human beings.

So when you combine that with the kind of inflation, with the kind of -- the feeling they have that even if they manage to get a good job, they may not make enough to have a decent place to rent or buy. It is enormously discouraging for them.

We think of graduation as a time of hope and optimism, and this year that's a little harder.

HUNT: Yeah, I want to back up for just a second because we mentioned at the top of show, but of course, you're here because of the book that you have.

[16:40:02]

And it is a look at how graduates can find their purpose, find -- and it's very compelling. I really enjoyed reading it and looking through it. My children are much younger.

But it does strike me that what you are writing about, what you're talking about here, is in many ways the heart of that conversation about the economy. When the politicians say, the numbers are going gangbusters, GDP is great, for people, whether it's the kids who are looking for jobs or their parents who feel like they should have been able to give them a future that was better than the one that they had, it's that question of, is the American dream achievable? And this seems to make it feel like, no, it's not.

KANTOR: Well, the question of the book is, what are young people actually supposed to do, right? Because we could spend the entire hour of the show plus on all of the negative factors they face, but in a way that doesn't help, right? Because they need jobs, they need lives, they need to start.

So it's about trying to form a coherent response to this environment that is about time-tested wisdom and not about the prediction of the moment, because we don't know exactly.

HUNT: If it's also learned to code, and now A.I. can code.

KANTOR: Exactly.

HUNT: OK.

KANTOR: Enough with the flavor of the week predictions about what you supposedly have to study. But I think what this has in common with the economic picture you're describing is the question of whether we're maintaining a sense of aspiration, right? It's like a sense of the possible, like even in periods where things have been momentarily very difficult in American economic life, there's still been a basic sense, for instance, that a good college education combined with hard work equals something good, right? Some sense of prosperity or stability.

And now that is in doubt, and that's really scary. And parents are feeling it at graduation, too, because they're thinking, my kids got into college, and we managed to pay for it somehow. And the idea that a job is not -- the idea that my good kid with good grades and good internships is going to apply for 150 jobs and apply into this void and not hear back from anybody, that's really scary.

So I think what we need to do is essentially give this generation much more help. Starting has always been hard. This era is making it harder.

HUNT: I mean, I get frustrated when the customer service agent is a computer, let alone the person doing my job application.

So, Beth Sanner, we've just talked through all of the ways in which it would be nice to be able to be optimistic and forward-looking. And unfortunately, what's going on with Iran seems to kind of run headlong into the hope for that. What do you see in terms of -- what's actually going on with the Strait of Hormuz, the president's back and forth, the sort of increased saber rattling after this helicopter was shut down? Where do things actually stand right now, because of course, if this inflation is going to get any better, it's going to take a lot longer for prices to come down than it did for them to go up?

BETH SANNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Right. And I just want to reinforce that. So the war in Iran is costing Americans hundreds of dollars. It will be many, many hundreds of dollars by the end of the year. And then we already had the tariff increases that created inflation, again, hundreds of dollars that ate away at that tax refund that people got. That's gone.

And so these geopolitical things are absolutely having an effect. And what we know about the Iran war is that even if we decided this tomorrow, it would be six months to get the oil flows back together again. And so where we are right now, I mean, totally understand why President Trump is frustrated. He's the one who said in 2020, the Iranians have never lost a negotiation. But they've never won a war.

Well, here we are. He's, like, literally predicted presciently his own dilemma today. And this idea that we are going to go back to striking Iran, the "Axios" reporting just recently by our colleague, Ravid -- Barak Ravid, was that maybe a short strike, but very intense, with this idea that it would drive them to the negotiating table.

And I think, as I've been saying and many people have been saying all along, that is not understanding the Iranian mentality. It actually will push them further from a deal. So I think that this is where we are, kind of nowhere. And again, these escalations just kind of happen.

HUNT: Well, on that cheerful note, Beth Sanner, thank you. Always appreciate having you. Hope you'll come back soon.

Ahead here in THE ARENA, the fight over the fight with the DOJ is telling a judge about a lawsuit over the UFC match at the White House and how his president and his family are going to stand by.

[16:45:00]

Ahead here in THE ARENA, the fight over the fight with the DOJ is telling a judge about a lawsuit over the UFC match at the White House and how his president and his family are cashing in on the event.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL CHANDLER, UFC FIGHTER: All these different opportunities, and somehow I'm right here in this position to get that one phone call that says you're fighting Mauricio Ruffy on the White House lawn in front of hundreds of millions of people. It's a pretty humbling feeling. It's a pretty -- I just feel very fortunate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Countdown's on. UFC fighters completed their media day obligations today. The Octagon has officially been installed at the White House, and we are just days away from the weigh-in, which is set to take place at the Lincoln Memorial. It all comes as the Trump Organization, which is, of course, run by Eric and Don Jr., announced a new venture to profit off the event.

[16:50:05]

They're selling gold and silver medallions featuring Trump's face that retail as high as $12,000. It's being marketed as a collaboration between the UFC and the Trump Organization.

My panel is back.

Kristen Soltis Anderson, how is this event going to play with the American people?

ANDERSON: So, look, I think the idea of having a UFC fight on the White House lawn is probably something that is going to fire up people that really like Donald Trump. They're going to think it's cool. There's going to be a lot of people that would never deign to watch a UFC fight, but they already don't like Donald Trump. And I think it'll mostly just be like a blip for people who don't.

HUNT: For those of us who drive downtown in Washington, D.C. on Sunday, but that's a different category --

ANDERSON: The median voter is not typically driving through downtown. So I think it's the sort of thing where what I do find to be unfortunate is as we head into America's 250th birthday, this should be a moment that's really unifying where we can all say, let's just do cool stuff, let's light off the biggest fireworks display in the history of the world and let's just let it be a cool thing that we can all like. And it does feel like now, if you like it, that it's become inflected with, well, does that mean you're supporting the president? And it should just be like so much bigger than that.

MEIJER: Yeah, and you saw it with some of the performers who kind of pulled out and of the concert that was going to be held. Yeah, I mean it's just kind of -- it's a bummer like we have the World Cup going on. We have the 250th anniversary.

It's going to be a beautiful summer like this should be a moment that everyone's excited about, but it feels just tinged and I don't know. I don't want to ascribe partisan blame for it. I just don't like that it feels like digging the 250th is somehow is somehow partisan coded. It should be an American spirit.

And so I would encourage my Democratic friend to feel the same amount that I do. I know you -- HINOJOSA: I think the biggest problem is that any opportunity that

the Trump family has to benefit financially off the presidency, they take full advantage of it. And I think that as we saw that coin there -- I mean, obviously it is also the president's birthday. This seems like more like it's a party for him. I don't -- I'm not sure how much he actually cares about the 250th anniversary.

But I do think that like going back to our last conversation too, I think it is the contrast here. It's the contrast that the president on one hand says, you know, he's not really concerned about inflation. He doesn't really care about the American people when he's thinking about some of these decisions. And then he goes off and then his family is benefiting financially from the presidency and he's building arches and he's doing -- he's spending all of the sorts of money and knocking down the East Wing and trying to build a ballroom and more concerned about all these things versus the American people.

And that paints the picture of, I think, what Democrats will be talking about in the next few months and heading into November, just because people care about the economy. Trump was supposed to deliver, and he has not been delivering.

MEIJER: But the arch will be cool.

ANDERSON: Well, then there is one cool thing that's happening that is a sporting event that's going to happen in D.C., in part going across the mall in the end of August. IndyCar is going to be having a race here.

HUNT: Kristen is a racing fan.

ANDERSON: I'm a huge fan. I am hopeful that can preserve the nonpartisan spirit and that everyone can agree fast car.

HUNT: But then those of us who don't live have to drive on the roads, which apparently are going to be totally torn up by it, you know?

ANDERSON: We'll figure that one out when we get there.

HUNT: We'll worry about your rims. OK.

ANDERSON: We'll figure it out.

HUNT: I mean, big picture, Jodi Kantor, when you look at what's playing out on the White House lawn, I mean, it is actually a really remarkable visual statement about the way the president has approached this term of his presidency, which is to do what he wants no matter the criticism.

KANTOR: Yeah, and I think every day we see reflections on the country's 250th anniversary. And what it is adding up to is a moment of reckoning. You know, maybe this anniversary, for better or for worse, is less about the kind of, you know, warm-hearted, unifying celebration you're describing and more about a moment of questioning.

What have we become? What are the rules of the presidency? What does Washington stand for? And I think also, can we solve our biggest problems? Do we still have the wherewithal to do that?

HUNT: I think in some ways -- I mean, what you've articulated is some of what you can pick up, I think, in day-to-day political -- when people are handing out the pins that say America 250, right? Ten years ago, that would have been something I think that that most people would not have thought twice about.

And honestly, we shouldn't be thinking twice about it now, right? It's an incredible country with incredible history and we should be celebrating it.

[16:55:02]

And it's a real statement about where we are politically that there are people who, or that this is where the conversation is.

All right, we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUNT: All right, thanks very much to my panel. Really appreciate you all being here.

Jodi Kantor, thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate it.

And don't forget, Jodi's book is "How to Start Discovering Your Life's Work". I really do recommend it. It's quite a lovely way to start your summer.

All right. Jake Tapper is standing by for "THE LEAD".

Hi, Jake.