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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt

President Trump, In Interview With Marc Caputo, Said He Has Not Yet "Learned" The Limits To His Presidential Powers; Vance's Media Blitz For New Book Collides With 2028 Speculation; CNN Poll: Americans Divided On "Culture War" Issues; Obama Presidential Center Opens In Chicago. Aired 12-1p ET

Aired June 20, 2026 - 12:00   ET

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

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Diversity initiatives designed to counter centuries of racism are being undone, and even black history faces erasure, perhaps making this historic weekend of celebration more important than ever.

[12:00:12]

That is all we have time for. Don't forget, you can find all of our shows online as podcasts at cnn.com slash audio and on all other major platforms. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London. Thank you for watching, and I'll see you again next week.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone. Welcome to The Arena Saturday. Kasie Hunt is off. I'm Pamela Brown.

So is Donald Trump obsessed with power? And if so, are there any limits to his appetite for it? This week, President Donald Trump posted on social media a document that he claimed was written by a presidential historian. In it, the author muses about history's most famous and villainous men, listing names like Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Hitler, and Stalin. But this document argues Trump is the first person to ever wield global dominant power.

The author then concludes, "That makes him by far the most powerful person that has ever walked this planet." Well, it turns out that the man who wrote the document is, in fact, not a historian. He's actually a golf caddy for one of the President's friends. Still, Trump seems sold on the idea, later telling Axios that the lesson of the Iran war is that his power, at least when it comes to that, is unlimited.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARC CAPUTO, AXIOS WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: What have you learned about not just the exercise of power, but the limits on your power as a result of the conflict?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There are no limits.

CAPUTO: No.

TRUMP: No, not I haven't learned that lesson yet. I know there are, but, you know, there are no limits. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: My panelist is here in The Arena, co-hosts of the interview podcast at The New York Times and CNN contributor Lulu Garcia-Navarro, editor of The Dispatch and CNN political commentator Jonah Goldberg, CNN political commentator and former communications director to Vice President Kamala Harris, Jamal Simmons, and former Republican congressman and speaker pro tempore Patrick McHenry.

Great to have you all here with us. Jonah, let's kick it off with you. I mean, what do you make of the fact that the President is sort of touting this document that says he's more powerful than some of the history's most brutal dictators like Hitler and Stalin?

JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. There are only two possibilities. Either he believes it or he's just saying it. And I'm not sure which one is better. I don't think, like, I think it's going to be really clear. I think it's just really stupid, right? It just -- it doesn't -- it's a dumb thing to get obsessed about on his part. It reflects his utter lack of ability to draw distinctions between good and bad. He only measures things on the metric and the rubric of power.

And it's his way, I think, of sort of bragging about, you know, himself and all that. The relevant part of it is he is saying this in the context of this deal with Iran, which he says the Iran war proved he has unlimited power when, in fact, the Iranians forced him to a negotiating table because he couldn't get the Strait of Hormuz open. Like, so like, the fact that he doesn't recognize the actual limits on his power as evidenced by the deal that he was forced to get into is a sign of delusion that I think is going to create more problems in foreign policy and maybe domestic policy going forward, because he doesn't actually see the limits on his power. Then he's going to make the same mistakes again.

BROWN: How do you see it, Patrick?

PATRICK MCHENRY (R), FORMER SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE: Well, let's see. Let's understand how President Trump sees it. In the context of coming off this, whatever we're going to call this with Iran right now, a memorandum of understanding, whatever the performance of that is, his psyche is all geared to that. So we have this question about inflation. Well, his mind was on the previous set of questions and in the Oval Office.

And he says, I love the inflation, meaning he's talking to the Iranians saying I'm not scared about anything. What he's saying to the world here is, no, of course, I don't have any limitations. We've got the best military. We killed the top regime. So the regime, I don't feel any limitation on what I can do. That's his psyche on this.

Now, Jonah has all the appropriate caveats, which is that's actually not the takeaway. The takeaway is the Strait of Hormuz should -- what we should have learned is out of the Ukraine battlefield, which is with cheap drones, the world is a different place. And now we had the Strait of Hormuz shut down by cheap drones. And ski boats, you can call them different things, but if you look at them, they're effectively Boston whalers. These things are cheap, right?

And you had global trade shut down because of these very cheap things. This should be -- this is a lesson for the globe's military leadership. And it should be instructive to all leaders of nations.

[12:05:09]

GOLDBERG: I agree with all of that, with the one proviso that I agree with he's trying to signal. I agree with he's trying to signal on inflation. We talk about that way. But at the same time, he's been carrying around this caddy's historical analysis because he wants it to be true when he's not signaling to the Iranians. So it's something about him that is just obsessed with this stuff.

MCHENRY: You don't have reference with Gary Player's caddy. I mean, this seems a --

GOLDBERG: Socrates, Aristotle, Gary Player's caddy.

BROWN: -- and historian, right? I mean, you know, they don't have to be mutually exclusive. But I wonder what you think about this, Lulu, because on one hand, as you point out, he's trying to say, I love inflation. Trying to send this message, perhaps the Iranians, that he could do anything. But then he also admitted just this week that he was really concerned about causing a Great Depression, that he noticed the stock market would go up when there was talk about a deal. And it would go down when there were headlines that a deal was falling through. I mean, he's acutely aware of the dynamics and the limits in that regard, at least.

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, let's actually frame this conversation in the right way. We're trying to understand how delusional is Donald Trump? Is he -- does he believe the caddies, you know, kind of historical, "document"? And, you know, or is he trying to convince people that this is the truth? And this has always been the question, like, does he believe his own press or the, you know, the kind of reality that he has created around himself where everyone is constantly kowtowing to him? Everyone is constantly serving his ego.

Or does he actually realize that there are things that he has to do? And I think this second term, that has been the real tension because he has entered the second administration with this feeling of being having absolute power. And what we've seen over time, whether it be with immigration, whether it be with foreign policy, that those limits have actually manifested themselves. And so I don't know the answer to that.

I have given up a long time ago trying to understand Trump's psyche. But I do think it's relevant for all of us because we live in the world that Trump creates. And so at the end of the day, it is important what how he sees things and how he navigates them. With this in particular, I think he's just messaging. I think he's messaging to everybody. He's never going to admit that he is not numero uno and he can do whatever he wants.

BROWN: Yes.

JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, first of all, it seems like everybody needs a flock to fly with, right? And so if that's the flock that he chooses, then what are we going to say about it? But it is historically inaccurate and it is strategically dumb to take the position that he's taking.

First of all, the founders set up a system where we do have checks and balances and the President should not have all the power. And so he may be able to find this out in November when Democrats take over at least one house of Congress that he doesn't have as much power as he thinks.

On the other hand, since World War II, I'm somebody who believes in American competitiveness. I believe in having a strong country that's able to get its way in the world. Since World War II, we've done that in part by having alliances that have helped give us power when we go in to take on problems.

This President has learned what happens when you don't have alliances that help you go in and take on big problems. And that's why we're in this situation --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: But has he learned --

SIMMONS: -- with Iran.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: -- and I would say he has not learned. Look just what happened with Giorgia Meloni.

SIMMONS: Well, the rest of us have certainly learned.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: No, but look just what happened with Giorgia Meloni, the leader of Italy, a very close ally of President Trump. And they've just had a huge diplomatic spat. Why? Because Trump, you know, wanted to be the big macho man and say, oh, she was begging for a picture with me.

It's asinine. It is ridiculous and stupid to talk about, first of all, another leader that way, a female leader that way. The language is so offensive and demeaning. Why are you going to blow up that relationship over a picture?

MCHENRY: But for that, though, the G7 was designed around President Trump. That was the whole meeting was about whether or not they can get him on sides, on sides with Ukraine, on sides with trade, on side with China, on side with a resolution in the Middle East. And importantly for Europe, their energy infrastructure, it was all designed around that. And that was a huge footfall at the end to do that with Meloni.

SIMMONS: Relationships only work if both people want to be in the relationship. I'm not convinced that Donald Trump wants to be in this relationship with these allies.

BROWN: All right. We'll leave it there. Coming up on The Arena, one of the year's biggest Senate races is now set. We're going to dig into the blockbuster campaign coming to Georgia and why there are already whispers for one candidate about 2028.

But first, the Vice President has been everywhere this week, it seems, and he's quickly becoming the face of the President's deal with Iran.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[12:09:43]

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have seen some progressive criticisms of me personally saying, what experience does the Vice President of the United States have with hostile, high stakes negotiations? And I would point those progressive critics to the fact that just two days ago, I spent over an hour on "The View." So I actually have a great experience in very hostile negotiations. And I've used that. I mean, look, Joy Behar is way tougher than the Iranians. And she and I are best friends now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VANCE: This is a show of MAGA Republicans, right? That's what my media team told me? OK, good.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, we'll find out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:14:58]

BROWN: All right, Vice President Vance, you see it there. He was on a media blitz this week selling his new book as well as the administration's memorandum of understanding with Iran. The Vice President, who was reportedly advocating against starting the war with Iran, and he'd also been vocal about not wanting to get into overseas wars. Well, guess what? He has been emerging as a leading negotiator to end it.

The White House has been defending many points in the current agreement, including this $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran, which brings us to our quote of the week from Vance himself, who said, "words don't matter."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VANCE: We're going to reward conduct, and we're not going to reward any words, whether they're written on a sheet of paper or not. There's a lot of discussion, the MOU, the gentlemen's agreement, the final deal. Words don't matter, ladies and gentlemen. We're about verification.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BROWN: Do you agree with his words there?

SIMMONS: Of course the words matter. That's the reason why we write agreements. You know, I used to work for a vice president who was a former, who was a lawyer. And she would say all the time, words matter. Words are important because you can move markets with what it is you say when you're in the government.

Listen, I think this is the first station of the cross of anybody who's thinking about running for President. You put your book out. To book or not to book is the first thing we know about somebody who's thinking about it. Raphael Warnock, the senator from Georgia, also has a new book out.

This is the first thing that people do. I think the question for us is going to be whether or not Donald Trump can withstand having J.D. Vance all be the sort of flavor of the month, flavor of the year while he's just a few yards down the Oval Office and people are paying attention to Vance and not paying attention to Trump.

BROWN: But I mean, Trump himself has kind of behind this, too, putting J.D. Vance out there as the face.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes.

BROWN: And not Marco Rubio. Where's Marco Rubio?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Well, wait a second. The question here is why. And what, you know, Washington insiders will tell you and you can take that with a grain of salt, is that he's being put as the face of this simply to sink his chances because this is a very unpopular deal. And whoever is the face of this is going to be sort of skived in the side and this is hurting him.

Can I just say, as an aside, the glow up of J.D. Vance for this is pretty impressive, the tan, the trimness, the sharp suits. I just want to note, you know, he is presenting himself in a very glowed up fashion.

MCHENRY: Also like a beast of a week. I mean, he's performed really well with tough interviews over and over and over again. I mean, just to watch that piece of it is an amazing piece of endurance.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: He's great in interviews. I've interviewed him and he is great in interviews. He is an able communicator. He communicates on many levels. That is one of his strong suits.

SIMMONS: I give him credit for going on "The View." This is foreign territory for him. And I don't know that I would have advised that of most leaders to go into what's probably going to be a hostile environment.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: -- Kamala Harris.

MCHENRY: It was tough territory for your former boss.

SIMMONS: Absolutely. Yes.

MCHENRY: Right? But so I think he performed very well for that.

SIMMONS: The fact that he was able to do it does say something about his performance as a political activist.

MCHENRY: Well, he didn't screw up and that was the important thing.

BROWN: Let's listen to a little bit of it so we can talk a little bit more around it. Here's what he said as part of the interview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VANCE: The president knows that a lot of Americans are struggling. In fact, he ran on that. He talked about it and we've done some things and made some good progress on that point.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He just said he loves the inflation.

VANCE: What he said, Anna, what he said is that he loves the fact that the inflation is going to come down when this war is over. That's what he said.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's not what he said. That's not what he said.

VANCE: Are you his interpreter or are you his vice president?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Do you think he's successfully defending the President?

GOLDBERG: Yes, I'm going to dissent from all of you guys.

BROWN: We like dissenting.

(CROSSTALK)

GOLDBERG: That clip, dozens of other clips, demonstrate one of the biggest problems with J.D. Vance is that he's always good at winning an argument when he is fighting a straw man, when he's lying about the facts, when he is creating, when he's working on a false premise. He said at that press conference yesterday that all of these members of the Israeli cabinet attacked Trump personally. That was a lie.

He said he characterized the supporters of the war who had the exact same position as Donald Trump as of two weeks ago as not wanting to be happy -- would not be happy unless every Iranian died and every last bomb was dropped. He demonizes, he characterizes people in his own coalition and supporters of the President, never mind everybody else, going back to his days about, you know, admitting that he was going to lie about eating the dogs and eating the cats.

And people mistake it as him being this brilliant debater and this brilliant communicator. I think it comes back and bites him in the butt. And the theory of the case that these guys have, and they basically admitted it on background to Politico, is they think everyone who's criticizing the memorandum of understanding and how Trump has handled this is an idiot. It's their words.

They think they're all idiots. They think they're all stupid. And they're doing Vance a favor by sticking him with this thing. And they're betting, first of all, I don't think all the people who are criticizing this are idiots. And second of all, betting that Trump is going to stick to what he's promised in this is as much folly as betting that he was going to stick with the war in the first place.

[12:20:12]

MCHENRY: But also is the folly of believing that the Iranians will actually --

GOLDBERG: For sure. This whole thing could come unglued. I mean, it looks like it was coming unglued this morning.

BROWN: Yes. I mean he's supposed to go -- J.D. Vance was supposed to go to Switzerland and hold back because of what was going on.

GOLDBERG: Vance wants ownership of it. Let him have ownership of it.

MCHENRY: J.D.'s team had strategic leaks about this war saying he was opposed to it. And so he had this idea you could separate yourself. And no vice president can separate themselves from the president, period, end of story. So he goes out once and the White House obligates him to do this. And he goes out and sells this hard.

Well, either way he's going to be tied to this. So you might as well get the benefit of actually sticking with the team on this. And I think that's the set of politics he's working with in the narrow sense domestically.

GOLDBERG: But he's gambling that in the primaries for '28 being the guy who was trying to sell this deal, which I don't think we're ever going to get a final deal. This is the only deal we're ever going to get. And it's not going to stick. He thinks that ownership of this, clear ownership, proud ownership of this is an asset. And at minimum, that is a massive bet because a lot can change vis-a-vis.

SIMMONS: The most truthful thing Donald Trump said this week --

MCHENRY: He has no other choice, though.

SIMMONS: The most truthful thing Donald Trump said this week is that if it goes well, I'll take credit.

BROWN: Wait, let's play it real quick. Let's hear it from his mouth.

SIMMONS: OK.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's some element to this where you send the Vice President. If it works out, great, you look like a genius for sending him. And if it doesn't work out, it's the vice president's fault. TRUMP: I like that idea. If it works out, I'm going to take the credit. If it doesn't work out, I'm blaming J.D. You better be careful, J.D. He's going to turn his plane around and get the hell out of here. Yes, I like that idea. I think it's a good idea.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Look at Rubio's face in that, though. Rubio is just like absolutely like I am not reacting to this at all. Something else that Donald Trump is reported to have said in a question that was given to him about whether once he leaves the White House if gold will be removed.

He said, no, Cubans like gold. Well, J.D. Vance isn't Cuban. Who's Cuban? Marco Rubio. So, you know, there's this horse race going on between the sort of Rubio wing and the J.D. Vance wing. Democrats are betting that both these wings of the party are going to be royally somethinged because everyone, you know, this will all fall apart at some point. So, you know, that that is the Democrats bet. The horse race between the Rubio wing and the Vance wing. We'll have to see.

BROWN: Yes, we didn't even get to dive into 2028.

SIMMONS: Or the Donald Trump Jr. wing.

BROWN: Well, there's that, too.

All right. Stick around. More to discuss. Coming up in The Arena, a new CNN poll on some of the most divisive topics in American life. What it reveals about culture wars, including how Americans see the roles of men and women in society.

Plus, how the new numbers are already factoring in the race for control of Congress, including in one of the year's biggest Senate races. We'll be back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[12:23:11]

SEN. JON OSSOFF (D-GA): A wave is building. The kind of wave that comes once a generation. When people have been pushed too far and they decide all at once, all together, that enough is enough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: All right, welcome back. This week, new CNN polling confirmed what many of our viewers have surely felt in their own lives that the U.S. is sharply divided over the so called cultural wars. Nearly half of the country, 47 percent, believe that society has gone too far in its acceptance of different cultures and gender identities and sexual orientations and backgrounds.

That number of six points from last summer, driven by a growing number of Republicans and independents who feel that way. Our poll also showing that the U.S. is evenly split largely along party lines on whether society has gone too far in policing offensive speech. And if you look at the 2026 campaign trail, it's clear that Republicans believe that culture wars attacks will bring them success at the ballot box this fall. Look no further than how they talk about the Democratic Senate candidates in Texas and in Georgia.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEN PAXTON (R-TX), SENATE CANDIDATE: Some people know him as Tofu Talarico. Some people call him Six Gender Jimmy. I've even heard some people call him James Tala-freako and others refer to him simply as Low T. Talarico.

TRUMP: The Democrats have a weird, weird candidate. He's vegan. He's vegan. All of a sudden, he's not a vegan.

Mike Collins is our best hope to get the radical left loser Jon Ossoff. He voted for transgender mutilization of your children, transgender for everyone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: And our polling shows that 47 percent of independent voters feel like society's level of acceptance has gone too far. So I wonder Jonah, is it your sense that these GOP attacks will work in places like Texas and like Georgia?

GOLDBERG: I think they can work at the margins in terms of mobilizing members of the base. I'm not sure how much they're going to work on swing voters and independents who probably hear a lot of it as more like name calling than substantive. But like Paxton in Texas is going to run a base turnout election and doing the vegan thing and the transgender stuff will help with the turnout for the base.

BROWN: How do you think, Lulu, a campaign focused on culture wars like what we're just hearing there from Paxton would be against a democratic campaign focusing on, say, affordability?

[12:30:02]

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: But that's what actually Talarico is focusing on. And so what I would say is that that's what they got at the moment. This is a very unfavorable year for Republicans. This is a tried and true playbook that they have deployed successfully, I will say, in other elections. And I think we have to see what the economic situation will look like in September when you start to see voters really tune into these races.

You know, the low-T stuff, basically the masculinity argument that the GOP is trying to deploy is I think one that will hit with a certain voting base. But I don't think it's not 2024 anymore. And people are much more worried about other issues.

PATRICK MCHENRY (R), FORMER SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE: Right. And you're -- precisely, 2024 was a powerful wedge against Kamala Harris, and President Trump used that and narrow-casted these culture war fights in a very precise way using technology. What's also interesting about this poll is the divide within the Democratic Party between what are urban white progressives versus the rest of the party, the more diverse part of the Democratic Party. There's a huge divide here between the Warren and Bernie Sanders faction on going -- on speech, on going too far on some of these cultural issues.

And that's, I think, an interesting thing that we're seeing the separation there, as well as the overall debate about speech and debate between the parties. And the independents look a lot like Republicans in saying, no, we should let people speak their minds more freely than what is currently being policed, and the Democratic Party being outlier.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: But what's being policed anymore? I mean, honestly, have you seen what the state of our public discourse is? What exactly is being policed? I certainly don't see any evidence that anything anymore is being policed.

JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You know, I think of Leon Kass, the bioethicist, who had this wisdom of repugnance, right, and he talked about how we have these initial reactions to things that come up that are different to us. Now, people will push back and say, oh, that is shaped in many ways by our cultural context, not just by what's going on inside of us. I don't count on people reaching to their higher selves.

I think a lot of people are still going to be motivated by whatever is happening inside their gut, which is why it's important that Talarico said, I found some of those things to be cringey, because you've got to put yourself on the same side as everyone else, that this is not necessarily where I want to have this fight, so you can get on stronger ground. And the stronger ground is on the economy, and for him to also talk about values and his spiritual faith, and why that infuses his politics. And that's what he's up to, is to sort of get himself on the same side as the voters.

MCHENRY: We're also seeing two very -- these, Georgia and Texas are still very different, right? You basically have to have Republicans act like Republicans in Texas. Georgia's interesting, because you're going to see the Republican nominee for governor in Georgia win and spend whatever it takes to win. And then you're going to see Jon Ossoff try to carve out this pathway to the Senate, to re-election to the Senate, to a presidential race.

And I think what we're seeing with the way his campaign events look, his messaging, his approach to media, his approach to what works and gets viral action, is all about 2028, not about 2026. It's really interesting to watch how precise they're being with this campaign. It's one of the best-run campaigns in the nation today.

SIMMONS: The number one thing I do know about this Talarico attack, it tells you they're worried about him. Donald Trump is attacking him because they're nervous.

JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, and because Paxton is a terrible candidate.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I was about to say, what ground is Paxton standing on? I mean, the worst you can say about Talarico is that he's a vegan. I mean, let's look at --

MCHENRY: He's also super weird.

GOLDBERG: He's weird.

MCHENRY: Culturally out of touch with Texans. Like this is --

GOLDBERG: I agree with that.

MCHENRY: -- it was great. He had a nice little ride. This is going to be his high watermark.

SIMMONS: They don't believe that or else they leave him alone.

MCHENRY: But it's because we have a deeply flawed Republican candidate who I think is a bad person who I will probably call senator after the next election. Like that's what happens. But Georgia is far more interesting, a far more interesting race to focus on than this Texan guy.

GOLDBERG: And at Sunday, you're going to call Paxton the defendant. But I just want to say, when we're saying it's not 2024 anymore, that's both chronologically true and more metaphorically true. But also, some of this culture war stuff just doesn't play the same way in midterm elections because the President has been, for the last 25 years, seen as an avatar of the culture war for the entire nation. And so people are kind of voting on whether to have a Catholic or Protestant on the throne kind of thing.

And it doesn't work the same way in state and local elections because you're not talking about the entire country. You're talking about a specific race in a specific state.

[12:35:00]

BROWN: That's an interesting point. All right. Stay with us. Coming up in The Arena, historic day in Chicago as former President Barack Obama opens his presidential center.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Democracy can be frustrating. It can be slow. It can be inefficient. And yet, more than anything, I hope this center will serve as an affirmation of just how special, how precious our democracy truly is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[12:40:10]

B. OBAMA: But out of the fire and steel of a revolution, a different story took flight. On this continent, a declaration that we are all created equal, endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights. And that in the newly independent United States, there will be no kings or lords, no serfs or subjects, but only citizens.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Well, as you well know, that was former President Barack Obama earlier this week at the opening ceremony for his presidential center in the south side of Chicago. He told the crowd his center isn't meant to evoke nostalgia, but instead serves as a reminder of the future ahead.

And he also took some veiled swipes at his successor, President Donald Trump, who 11 years ago this week rode down the golden escalators at Trump Tower and changed the face of American politics.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

B. OBAMA: There are thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of these young people out there making a difference right now. And this center is devoted to lifting up their stories. For while our work is nonpartisan, we are not values neutral. We have a point of view. The exhibits in this center are not meant to evoke nostalgia for some gauzy, bygone era.

Some unattainable past that we can dream about and say, oh, we miss you, Barack. They're meant to remind us of who we can be. To remind us of what's possible. So we can forge ahead, clear-eyed and confident, and do the work that still needs to be done. We can learn from the past. But America's story isn't frozen in the past. It has chapters yet to be written.

MICHELLE OBAMA, FORMER FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: You all, hope is all we have. Because hope is the essential spark that lights the fire of change. But hope is a choice. Whether or not we use our voices to speak up is a choice. Voting is a choice. Being a decent human being is a choice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: All right, my panel is back. I want to go first to you, Jamal, to get your sense of why it was so important for Obama to make that distinction, that message about nostalgia.

SIMMONS: A lot of people were worried that if they went to this library opening or center opening, because it's not technically a library, there are no books there, they're keen to remind everyone, it's a place for people to do things, that it would just be a nostalgic look back at a time that maybe we're past, and that people would revel in this moment where we all sang, you know, Kumbaya and America was great, and they wouldn't work on the problems that America faces today. The last part of the quote we played in the beginning was when the President began to talk about the democracy that was put in place by the founders, and how it had the language of inclusivity, but it didn't actually -- it wasn't actually very inclusive. Women couldn't participate, African Americans, Native Americans, all these people were left out of it, landowning white men.

But over the course of decades, over the course of that 200 years, we made America a place where we, the people, met all the people. And now here we are at a moment where we can continue to do more work to make America better, that's the point I think the President was trying to make. We've come a long way, and we still have far to go.

MCHENRY: Yes, but frankly, this is about the past. All these presidential museums or whatever you want to call them are about the past, and it's particularly striking to me looking at the current crop of Democratic leadership. First, you know, President Obama, long retired, with his vice president who was most recently on the job, kind of getting lost, walking off the stage, and looks like he's out of a different generation, like he's the grandpa there.

And you look at the Hill leadership and the Democratic Party doesn't have a leader like Barack Obama or President Obama. So this does rekindle a bunch of nostalgia for Democrats about kind of the current group versus what they had, number one. And I think that's a very notable thing looking at this.

[12:45:04]

Number two, if you look at those --

SIMMONS: No, the country likes the Obamas.

MCHENRY: That's what I'm saying. They don't like the current crop of Democrats is my point. So here's my second point, which is you look at that group of presidents and former vice presidents, and you look at that group, that represents 11 presidential campaigns in four families, right? That is a lot of history sitting on stage at a time where the American people hate politics and hate sort of organized parties as well.

BROWN: A man not standing in the previous picture was the current president, Donald Trump, who was not invited to this. And I want to read this excerpt from "The Wall Street Journal's" Matthew Continetti, who describes Obama's legacy as, quote, he says "The cavalier attitude with which Mr. Obama imposed such policies, acting as if the opposition didn't exist or was beneath consideration, made backlash inevitable. Donald Trump's presidency may be Mr. Obama's most enduring legacy." What do you think about that, Jonah?

GOLDBERG: So I want to have some grace. This is Obama's day. He gets to have his center and all that kind of stuff. Matt Continetti is a friend and colleague of mine at the American Enterprise Institute as well. I generally, I think directionally, Matt's right about this.

I think that the message that, and I agree with Jamal entirely, that Obama is actually very, very good about talking about the evolution of the ideas of the American founding and the Declaration of Independence, and I've always celebrated his ability to do that.

That said, when he talks about the nostalgia -- don't give into the nostalgia about looking back at when I was president and everything was great. That is exactly what Matt is talking about because half the country didn't think everything was great under Obama and he talks as if the median Democrat who loves Barack Obama represents all of America.

That's what America was like. He did have an approach to politics that created such resentment among Republicans on Capitol Hill, in flyover. Now, I think that resentment led a lot of Republicans to lose their freaking minds. I want to be clear about that. And they overreacted and I think picking Donald Trump as punishment for Barack Obama was one of the most spectacularly dumb things the Republican Party ever did.

But Barack Obama, the way he governed, the way he assumed that all the good people agree with me and love what I'm doing and that there is no credible argument on the other side of my policies is one of the reasons, not the only reason, but one of the reasons why we got Donald Trump.

SIMMONS: I will say Barack Obama did win majorities twice.

GOLDBERG: Sure.

SIMMONS: Popular majorities. That has not happened for Democrats in a long time.

GOLDBERG: Yes.

SIMMONS: So he was one of the few presidents to win popular majorities. So the argument that half the country disagreed with him may be a little less than half.

GOLDBERG: OK, 47 percent.

BROWN: It is true. I mean, there are many in this country who don't look at Obama's term with this sort of fondness of nostalgia as he described there. But at the same time, he is still popular. I mean, he is the most popular president, former president, 57 percent of Americans view him favorably. I wonder, Lulu, what you make of his lasting appeal.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Well, first of all, I want to note that lots of people wore tan suits to this event. Because my job, I think, today is to talk about the sartorial choices that people are making, which I thought was kind of fun.

You know, listen, I think what he has done with his library is actually pretty iconic and incredible. A lot of these libraries are pretty boring. They're self-serving. And I think this one is particularly beautiful. And the art choices that were made are pretty inspiring. I think every president's legacy will be hotly debated. And it will always be a part of the country that will disagree with them because they are, by their nature, partisan, right? They are elected by -- yes, I mean, so, you know, I kind of, you know, I think placing Donald Trump at the feet of Barack Obama is just kind of thin sauce to my own viewpoint.

GOLDBERG: No, Hillary Clinton deserves a lot of blame, too.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I mean, I think Donald -- I think the Republican Party deserves a lot of blame --

GOLDBERG: For sure.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: -- because they were the one who actually, you know --

SIMMONS: I agree with that.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: -- put his rise there. So, like, if blame, by the way, a lot of people love Donald Trump, but blame is not the word for it.

BROWN: Thank you. Because she likes Donald Trump.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So, if you want to partition blame, but what I'm saying is, you know, Donald Trump is a singular figure in American political history, and I think he came at a time where there were fractures --

BROWN: Yes.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: -- all across the political spectrum. So, laying at Barack Obama's feet, to me, doesn't work.

BROWN: By the way, to circle back on the tan suit, it will not be on display in case anyone was wondering.

(CROSSTALK)

[12:49:48]

BROWN: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: For Father's Day, this Sunday, CNN's Jake Tapper, a father himself, is hosting a special hour of State of the Union, a look at fatherhood conversations with Senators Mark Kelly, Tim Scott, and former Senator Mitt Romney. It airs at 9:00 a.m. Eastern and again at noon. And here's a preview of Jake's sit down with Senator Romney.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MITT ROMNEY (R), FORMER UTAH SENATOR: He was there for the major events in my life but communicated frequently and thoroughly how much he admired me and thought I had huge things in store. When I lost in 1994 to Ted Kennedy, he said, oh, this is just the beginning. My dad was insistent, oh, no, you're not finished. I became governor in 2003, so almost 10 years later. [12:55:05]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: And then the Republican nominee for president and then a very well respected Senator. I mean, he missed all of that.

ROMNEY: But I hope he got it. I hope he gets a chance to look in.

TAPPER: Yes.

ROMNEY: But my guess is he's not looking back. He's looking forward on the other side. It's like, oh, I'm sure Mitt's doing great. I'm going ahead.

TAPPER: Is there any regret that he didn't get to see that or does it matter because he was just?

ROMNEY: No, I'd love him to still be part of our life. I think from time to time what I would give, how much money I would give to spend a day with him.

TAPPER: Yes.

ROMNEY: Just -- I mean, I don't think there's a limit I would give. I'd give it all to spend a day and to have that chat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: And thanks to my panel and thank you all for watching. The news continues next on CNN. Happy Father's Day.

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