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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt

Trump's Income Topped $2,000,000,000 Last Year; Democratic Socialist Unseats Incumbent In Colorado House Primary; Sources: White House Frets Over July Fourth Rally Attendance. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired July 01, 2026 - 16:00   ET

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

JAKE ZIVIN, LEAD PLAY-BY-PLAY COMMENTATOR, MLS ON APPLE TV: -- in the world a year ago.

[16:00:02]

And they have four or five guys in the attack that would maybe be the best player on any other team.

France has a ridiculous amount of talent that nobody can compare to, to be honest, but hey, it's a game, right? And if the U.S. gets to play France at some point in this tournament, you never know what could happen.

ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: Technically, anything can happen, right?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: You play to win the game. Miracles do happen.

ZIVIN: Of course.

SANCHEZ: Jake, thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining us.

THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT starts right now.

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

Turns out Donald Trump was right about something.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Part of the beauty of me is that I'm very rich.

I'm really rich.

Fortunately, I'm very rich. The money you're talking about is a lot.

Hey, I'm rich.

I have a lot of money.

Great assets, low debt, great cash.

Here's the good news -- I'm very rich.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So, that's true. Now, Donald Trump is actually very rich. New financial disclosures show that his first year back as president was one of his most profitable ever.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: This one is a doozy.

CRAIG MELVIN, NBC ANCHOR: Huge profits from his first year in office.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Trump's personal wealth ballooned last year.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: More than $1 billion from his crypto related ventures.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It shows you this kind of growing fortune he has.

JOE KERNEN, CNBC ANCHOR: So, this is -- I say this a lot, and the other people say, this is how Trump rolls, and it is how President Trump rolls.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So to the tune of how much does he roll? More than $2 billion last year alone. More than a billion of those dollars are from cryptocurrency ventures. Other parts of his income reportedly come from legal settlements branding deals, golf properties.

It is a stunning amount of money, and unlike any president that's come before him, but not necessarily one that he didn't see coming back in April of 2000, "Fortune Magazine" published an interview with Donald Trump. That article was titled, "What Does Donald Trump Really Want?" He talked about his businesses, books, buildings, very typical early 2000s Donald Trump topics.

The then 53-year old even brought a copy of "New York Construction News". He wanted to show the reporter how he had been named owner and developer of the year in 1999. But even back in 2000, Trump talked a lot about the idea of running for and becoming president.

And one thing he told "Fortune" nearly three decades ago now has now come true, when he said, quote, "It's very possible that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it."

Today, as he was boarding the new Air Force One for the first time, it is the retrofitted 747 gift from Qatar. He flew it to North Dakota. He's shrugging off any concerns and dismissing the critics who say he's doing just that. And he shouldn't be profiting off the presidency.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: Well, you know why I'm profiting. Because the stock market's going up. Everybody's profiting. I'm profiting because I have a lot of money and a lot of cash.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right. Let's get off the sidelines, head into THE ARENA. My panel is here.

But we're going to start with CNN chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny. He's live for us in Medora, North Dakota.

So, Jeff, the president just wrapped up a speech at the dedication of the Teddy Roosevelt Library. And, of course, one of Roosevelt's 1904 campaign slogans was, quote, "to assure continued prosperity."

Now, of course, the president is facing questions and criticism about his own prosperity. T.R. was also famous for saying that he thought bribery was essentially one of the worst things that you could do in public life.

What did we hear from President Trump today?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kasie, we could spend the entire hour of your ARENA program talking about a few similarities and differences between the 26th U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and the 45th and 47th president Donald J. Trump.

They are both from New York. There's no doubt President Trump spent some time inside the new library earlier, and he said he saw a lot of what he likes. But there are many differences. As for the profiting, as you just said? I mean, the remarkable windfall that the Trump family and the president has made, which was revealed in those new disclosure documents, really is extraordinary, something that we have not seen in American history.

Teddy Roosevelt, of course, was the president at the halfway mark of the birthplace of America at the 125th year. Now we are in year 250, of course. So the historical parallels just fall short here. But the extraordinary wealth, as well as how the president arrived here in North Dakota today on that brand new plane from the Qataris. It was a plane that the Qatari royal family used, just not that long ago.

But President Trump talked about that new beloved plane like this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: You will never see anything like this. So they just completed it. They made it appropriate for a president, that means the security and all of the different bells and whistles they put on. Very complex stuff, though.

Frankly, we couldn't build a plane like this because we wouldn't be willing to spend the kind of money necessary. They spent top dollar.

(END VIDEO CLIP) ZELENY: And the president did talk about that new plane here, but he left out the detail of where it came from. And again, that is from the Qataris. So that is something that the president has long been wanting.

But again, he did spend quite a bit of time inside this library, and he said he got some ideas for his own presidential library, which will be built in Miami.

But, Kasie, he also stood in a room that has the famous speech, of course, that President Roosevelt gave after leaving office in the arena, urging people to get in the arena, to not criticize from the outside.

And President Trump seemed to embrace that. He said he found those words inspiring. So, certainly, an interesting moment of history here as President Trump continues his march on to a celebration of America's birthday on Saturday -- Kasie.

HUNT: All right. Jeff Zeleny for us in North Dakota -- Jeff, thank you very much for that report.

And my panel is here in our ARENA: CNN contributor, host of "The New York Times'" "The Interview", Lulu Garcia-Navarro; CNN political commentator Jonah Goldberg; the former DNC communications director Mo Elleithee; and former RNC communications director and Republican strategist, Doug Heye.

We're also joined by former Trump attorney, Bill Brennan.

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

Jonah, I was noticing your reaction to the president essentially saying, yeah, I got a lot of money. It's all fine. What does it say that the president has made this much money because he's president?

JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It says that he that he bet correctly that you could flood the zone and make things so chaotic and, and have so many different fires going on that the American public and the -- and the press and everybody else wouldn't be able to concentrate on any one scandal or any one outrage. And, you know, I think this stuff -- some of the stuff qualifies for impeachable offenses. But what qualifies as impeachable offense is what Congress is willing to impeach.

And I don't think history is going to be kind to this guy getting rich and also screwing his investors on the crypto part. That's something that, like, if you had described this 10 years ago about, oh, we're going to get a president here, is going to screw his own investors while getting rich hawking, you know, basically a grift out of the White House. So, oh, no, that would never happen. That might get impeached.

No, our attention span, our ability to sort of focus on good character has kind of gone. LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I want to honor Mel Brooks 100

years. And he had the iconic line, "It's good to be the king." And I think that's what this shows. He is enriching himself in a way that is, in many ways unbefitting of a president who was democratically elected.

HUNT: So, Jonah, I want to pick up on what you said about how the Trump family is doing compared to the investors in these various crypto schemes, because we can show you. So the Trump family has made $1.1 billion in crypto.

And sorry, I have this fancy new iPad, which I can use to show you. There it is. Okay.

So these are these are how the different crypto schemes that the Trump family is invested in. This is how well they've done, okay, in the blue.

You want to know how people who've invested in these have done? They have done. Let's see. There we go.

I'm going to get it. One day -- one day, I'm going to figure this out. Look at that.

So the investors have lost tens or hundreds of millions of dollars as the Trump family has made hundreds of billions, hundreds of millions, in fact, in one case, over $1 billion on this stuff. I mean, Bill Brennan, you know, you talk about the language you use around the presidency or the country is for the people, right? The government -- the government by and for the people. That's not this.

WILLIAM J. BRENNAN, FORMER ATTORNEY FOR DONALD TRUMP: Well -- well, Kasie, I mean, we've had people -- we've had people from all walks of life become president. The nation's first president was fabulously wealthy. If you convert it into modern day dollars, it'd be on a par almost with the current president.

We've had presidents who came from nothing. We've had presidents with generational wealth. President Kennedy had generational wealth. Both Presidents Bush had generational wealth.

It should be no surprise to anybody that when we put an entrepreneur in the White House, that he would continue to do what he can to make money, I believe his money's managed blindly. But if there's impropriety, and that's what I'm hearing from some of the other commentators --

(CROSSTALK)

[16:10:01]

HUNT: We're not -- the conversation here is not an allegation around impropriety. It's around just --

BRENNAN: You know, there's that old adage, the best revenge is massive success. If it's just envy or sour grapes, it's a different story.

HUNT: But, Bill, the challenge here, not that, you know, they are breaking the law to make this money in crypto, but rather the only reason why people are investing in this could be that they want to try and curry favor with the president. So he's essentially taking advantage of the office to enrich himself for reasons that do not then benefit the country, right?

BRENNAN: Well, no, I -- Kasie, I understand your point. And in my world, in the legal world, when we talk about discipline amongst lawyers, there's a phrase called if it has the appearance of impropriety, but that's not enough to convict. If this may have the appearance of impropriety, but before people accuse him of actually, you know, selling his office or, actual impropriety, some type of proof should be there. I mean, I think he donates his whole salary to some charity.

HUNT: But it's peanuts by comparison.

BRENNAN: So, he's not looking for the 400 grand.

HUNT: I mean --

BRENNAN: He's certainly not looking for the 400.

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: He's not looking for the 400 grand. He's getting $2 billion.

HUNT: Yeah. I mean, it's -- really is small compared to what we're talking about.

BRENNAN: But why would they? It's like the scorpion and the frog. Why would anybody be shocked now that he's looking to make billions of dollars. That's all he's done --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Wait. Are you saying he's the scorpion? And who's the frog? American?

(CROSSTALK)

BRENNAN: He said that 25 years ago. That's what he does. That's who he is. He's an entrepreneur.

(CROSSTALK)

GOLDBERG: An explanation is not an excuse, right? An explanation is not an excuse. You can say, well, it just appears improper.

You're using a narrow, lawyerly, technical defense to let a guy off who's supposed to be the --

BRENNAN: That's what I do. I'm a lawyer.

GOLDBERG: I understand, but he's the president of the United States. And what lawyer -- what president of the United States are supposed to do is avoid the appearance of impropriety. And the Founding Fathers did not think that impeachable offenses had to simply be illegal offenses. Selling pardons was considered by James -- by Hamilton and Madison to be an expressly impeachable act. And we are now talking about Donald Trump putting up pardons for sale.

So like I -- this lawyerly stuff I just find appalling.

(CROSSTALK)

HUNT: Hold on, Bill, let me -- let me Mo jump in.

MO ELLEITHEE, FORMER DNC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: I agree with everything Jonah just said.

BRENNAN: Few people alive who handled an impeachment. It doesn't work that way.

(CROSSTALK)

ELLEITHEE: I agree with everything Jonah just said, but we don't have to look all the way back to the Founding Fathers.

HUNT: Bill, hold on, please? I just sorry, we have a little bit of a delay that's making it a little bit hard to have this conversation. So if you just don't mind, let me jump in in here.

Mo, go ahead.

ELLEITHEE: We don't have to look all the way back to the Founding Fathers. Donald Trump ran in 2024, right? In 2016 as a guy who was going to drain the swamp. This feels kind of swampy to a lot of people.

But in 2024, he ran as the guy who was going to put money back in your pockets, right? He said to the American people, I'm going to put money back in your pockets. Inflation's at a three-year high. Gas prices are still up year over year.

But his pocket sure got a whole lot heavier. How? By dealing with -- by selling stuff in crypto, selling crypto, which he was against when he was president the first time, and which his administration has aggressively been now deregulating.

He is personally profiting off of the sale of crypto. And as we saw in that chart earlier, he's doing it on the backs of his investors, right? I mean, the Trump meme coin, whatever it's called, opened up trading at $74. It's now at $2.

He got all the royalties up front, so he made billions of dollars on the backs of his investors. He profited. They got screwed. He promised the American people that he was going to make their pockets heavier. Theirs are still lighter. His are a whole lot heavier.

We don't need to go to adjudicate this in a courtroom. This is going to be adjudicated in the court of public opinion in -- over the course of this election year. HUNT: So, let's talk about that for a second, Doug Heye, because we

asked people in our CNN poll -- okay, what's gotten harder for you? So again, as the president has made all this money, we asked if Americans could comfortably afford going out for a nice dinner. Forty-four percent said they couldn't, 65 percent said they couldn't comfortably save money for the future, 66 percent, they -- they -- said that they could not comfortably handle $1,000 emergency expense, and 71 percent said they could not comfortably afford to go on vacation.

Quite a different financial picture, Doug.

DOUG HEYE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Absolutely. Anytime anybody in America goes out to dinner now, they get a bill and they say, what just happened here? Why is there a six percent wellness fee? Why did I spend $250 on something that two years ago cost $180?

But look what Bill's saying -- and by the way, I am happy every day that I don't have to make that defense in a legal profession, a political position or a communications position. But what he's ultimately saying is true. Everything is so baked in on Donald Trump that none of this surprises anybody. So they're not as upset by it.

This goes back to the "Access Hollywood" tape. Wait, the guy who was in "Playboy Magazine" made awful comments. What a shocker.

But where I where I'm confused by the administration and the president on this is they don't seem to really care about these upcoming midterm elections. And I understand that Donald Trump doesn't care about legislative majorities. But I can tell you, having worked in House leadership, the Democrats are already looking at if we win, you're going to be in charge of Government Reform and Oversight.

And if I'm Donald Trump, I don't want myself or anybody with my last name investigated and subpoenaed by Democrats.

HUNT: All right. Bill Brennan, thank you very much. Apologies on some of the tech issues that plagued a little bit of our conversation, but I appreciate you being a good sport.

The rest of our panel is going to stand by.

Coming up next here in THE ARENA, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Congressman Robert Garcia, will join us live to talk about the president's eye-popping crypto profits.

Plus, the DSA is headed out west. How Democrats are reacting to another one of their incumbents being ousted by a Democratic socialist

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MELAT KIROS (D), COLORADO CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: They said the establishment and the oligarchy is just too big and too powerful to overcome. You are the proof that the power of organized people beats the power of organized money.

(END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:20:57]

HUNT: All right. Welcome back.

Right now, President Trump is in North Dakota, where he arrived earlier today on his brand new Qatari-gifted plane. That one day after 2025 financial disclosures show, his first year back as president was one of his most profitable ever. Much of the fortune coming from his crypto ventures and through his stakes in companies co-founded by family members.

Joining me now is the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Congressman Robert Garcia of California.

Congressman, thank you very much for being here.

And you, of course, are in line to potentially chair the Oversight Committee should your party retake the House in the fall. What would you focus in on around the president's crypto ventures?

Are -- is there anything there that concerns you that you think Congress needs to look at?

REP. ROBERT GARCIA (D-CA): I mean, it's the biggest grift of all time. I mean, this has got to be one of the most corrupt things that any government official, certainly an American president, has ever done. And the amount that we have to investigate on the accountability front, on the corruption front, is a very long list when it comes to Donald Trump and the Trump family.

We're talking about a president that is $2 billion richer. Approximately 1.4 billion of that, of that we know of, is around this whole crypto coin scheme that he put in place, where we have essentially foreign governments, God knows who else, folks we don't yet know, are dumping in unlimited amounts of cash into essentially a bank deposit box for Donald Trump and his family.

And the idea that there's no real transparency here and that the American president is allowed to do this is not just unprecedented. It's against an illegal -- against the Constitution, and Oversight Democrats will absolutely be investigating this. It will be at the center of our work in the next Congress.

HUNT: So just to be clear, I mean, do you think he did something illegal, or did he just do something that looks bad?

GARCIA: Absolutely, it's illegal. I mean, look, we have the Emoluments Clause for a reason. Presidents cannot be enriching themselves off of their office.

Donald Trump has turned the White House into his own ATM, whether it's having political events there, whether it's been selling access to the White House, whether it's been creating this essentially crypto scheme where all sorts of folks can dump money in. He is going to country after country, followed by his sons, who are then coming in and cutting real estate deals.

We know that there's reports of the Trump's essentially being on the boards of companies gaining enormous contracts from the federal government. There is no question that the Trump's are involved, we believe, in illegal activity. That has to be held accountable. And an American should be outraged that we have an American president that is enriching himself the way that he is.

And whether it's the Trump's -- the Trump stablecoin, the crypto scheme, whether it's the real estate deals, all of this, selling pardons, all of it reeks of corruption in the most corrupt administration in history.

HUNT: Congressman, Americans have, of course, heard quite a bit about the emoluments clause because of some of the things that happened during the first Trump term, of course, when the president was impeached twice and not convicted. Do you think that what Democrats did during his first term with the first impeachment has made it harder to break through and hold him accountable now because people have tuned it out?

GARCIA: Look, there is no question, I think, that people are overwhelmed with the amount of government corruption that exists in the White House and in D.C.

Look, I think the Congress took the right approach. What he's doing in the second term is so much larger in scale and the way it's moving so fast, and the amount of corruption that's happening. The first -- the first administration pales in comparison to what's happening now.

And the reality is that Donald Trump is committing an impeachable offense every single week.

[16:25:04]

So the idea that we're not going to investigate this with everything we've got, I mean, it's crazy. We have to investigate every single part of this. And of all of the kind of schemes that Trump and his family have in place, this crypto scheme is the most serious because there's so little transparency and information that the American public have. We just don't fully understand who is giving Donald Trump all of this money and for what, and if they're getting anything in return.

HUNT: Do you want to see him impeached for this? Do you want to do you want to see Democrats try to impeach President Trump if they take the House because of this?

GARCIA: What I want to see is serious investigations into Donald Trump's corruption. Look, nothing is -- everything, of course, is always on the table. But we've got to put our energy into stopping the Trump agenda and rooting out corruption and taking on the administration and the Trump family in all of these deals that are happening across the world.

And so that is going to be our focus. Where that leads us? We'll see. HUNT: Should Donald Trump's children, should President Trump's

children expect to be subpoenaed by a Democratic House?

GARCIA: Absolutely. Look, anyone that is involved in these schemes and corruption will have to come in front of our committee.

I mean, look at Jared Kushner, for example. I mean, Jared Kushner has a $2 billion investment from the Saudis, right, when he leaves the White House. Now he's going around the Middle East envoy, apparently of President Trump while still cutting deals around the world with some of these same regions and governments. I mean, that is -- that is complete corruption that needs to be investigated.

We know that there are reports of Donald -- Don Jr. essentially being on and involved on the boards of certain companies that are getting massive contracts from the Pentagon and from other government agencies. I mean, that has to be investigated.

This has never happened before in any administration, in any presidency, in our history of the country. And so, it's important that accountability is actually in place, and that we tell the American public that while the Trumps get richer, $2 billion richer, folks can't afford the gas, they can't afford their rent, and they can't afford the groceries on the table.

What we should be focused on is affordability, instead of them trying to enrich themselves every single day.

HUNT: Congressman, briefly, before I let you go, there was a Democratic socialist who beat a long time incumbent Democrat in Colorado yesterday. What's going on inside the Democratic Party? Should Democrats be bracing for a wholesale takeover from the outside, the way Republicans dealt with when President Trump was elected in 2016?

GARCIA: I think the Democrats have to always have a big tent and welcome all parts of our party. And at the end of the day, Diana DeGette, who I know a great congresswoman, I honor her service. But the voters elected someone new, and that person has the support of the voters in Denver. And we're going to welcome her and ensure that she has the resources that she needs to be successful in November and be an important part of our caucus.

Folks that win primaries because of their voters, Democratic primaries are a part of our party, and they're going to be welcomed into the Congress and our caucus. And our focus is going to be to take on Donald Trump and ensure that we focus on affordability for the American public.

HUNT: All right. Congressman Robert Garcia, thanks very much for spending some time with us today, sir. I appreciate it.

All right. Coming up next here in THE ARENA, my panel will be back to talk more about the latest blow to the Democratic establishment.

And brace yourself for another debate over crowd size. We have new CNN reporting on the administration's fear that the president's big birthday party for America won't draw very many guests.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: July 4th, we will have the greatest show of all on the National Mall. Your favorite president will be speaking. So, please show up because if we have two empty seats, you know what's going to happen. The fake news is going to say he didn't fill out the arena.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:33:30]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MELAT KIROS (D), COLORADO CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: We will not wait to take the fight to Donald Trump and the oligarchy. We will not wait. We will not wait to abolish ICE and pass Medicare for all. We will not wait to put an end to the politics of the past, to get big money out of our politics, and to reject corporate PACs and AIPAC.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: The insurgent left notching a key victory in Colorado and sending a defiant message to Democratic Party leaders. This after 29- year-old Democratic socialist Melot Kiros who you saw there, ousted 15-term incumbent Diana DeGette, who took office the same year that Kiros was born. It's also worth mentioning here that Kiros is the third progressive challenger to successfully defeat a sitting House member in just eight days.

The anti-establishment backlash, also appearing in Colorado's Democratic primary for governor. The state attorney general, Phil Weiser, defeating Senator Michael Bennet by painting the senator as a D.C. insider and slamming him for voting to confirm some of President Trump's cabinet nominees.

My panel is back, and we're also joined by Jason Kander. He's, of course, the former Missouri secretary of state, former Democratic Senate candidate.

Jason Kander, thank you so much for being here. You, of course, are someone who made a mark as a young, up and coming, you know, star at the time in your party, have a, you know, personal reasons why you then stepped back.

[16:35:09]

But as you look at these new young leaders that are coming up in the Democratic Party, wearing, in many cases, the label Democratic socialist, what -- where do you think that's coming from? And what do you think it means for the party establishment here in Washington?

JASON KANDER, FORMER DEMOCRATIC SENATE CANDIDATE: Well, as a former young person, I'm now -- HUNT: We're still young.

KANDER: A lot more gray than I was. I'm -- I just turned 45. I'm -- I'm about as old as you can be and still be a millennial.

So as somebody who used to be the person that people would talk about and say, wow, he's really young and people are still voting for him, why is that happening? I -- I have some insight on it. And I think what that, what I'm led to is a couple of things.

One, generationally, a lot of the voters that are putting these folks into office or who are helping them win these primaries are younger. And if you look at it from their perspective, uh, look, if you were born, you know, like at the end of the '90s or the beginning of the 2000s, you probably don't remember 9/11. And that means you don't remember a time in America where Democrats and Republicans did things together. You don't remember even really the sort of vapors of the Cold War.

And when you put those two things together, what you get are, one, a sense that everybody who keeps talking about, well, we have to work with the other side, or we have to do this little thing to do this little thing, you sound crazy. If you if you talk that way to these folks because they're like, I've been there during school shootings. I've, you know, gone through active shooter drills. None of you have done anything about it. I can't get a job the way my parents did, even though I have a good education, et cetera, et cetera.

And then the other half of it is because they didn't experience, you know, the Cold War at all. They didn't live with, you know, learning about it really from their parents in a big way because they hardly lived through it.

The result is that the word socialism is not as scary to you because it's not conflated with the word communism. It's not conflated with our enemies in the same way. And when you put those things together, I think this generation is understandably launching themselves into office.

And then you have folks much older who are just looking at it saying, well, you know what? The people in there right now don't seem to be getting it done. Let's give these people a try. I think that's what's happening.

HUNT: Mo Elleithee, you, of course, have seen quite a bit in your time. You know, it's been a key part of the actual party apparatus for the Democratic Party. Donald Trump certainly is going to try to remind people that there is a connection between socialism and communism. He's already doing that.

What does it mean that these -- these candidates are winning? And quite frankly, I mean, how worried should people be? I mean, I keep flashing back to 2016, when the country club Republican Party was taken by storm, by, you know, a very angry, very large group of populist voters who otherwise hadn't really been showing up in elections. And look where we are today. ELLEITHEE: Yeah. I mean, a couple of thoughts. One, just to pull on the thread that Jason started, let's take it one step further. I work with a lot of college students, the college students I work with -- Barack Obama is a historical figure to them, right? Their political consciousness was against the backdrop of the past decade of the Trump era.

This style of politics that we've been witnessing for the past 10 years is actually the norm to them. This is what politics is actually like. And I think that is fueling a lot of the youth energy. They want fighters in the way that they see on the other side.

I mean, what this means for the future of the Democratic Party. It's a -- it's a warning flag. It's a -- it's a siren that should be going off here in D.C.

I don't want to overstate some of this, right? I mean, what we are seeing is that these insurgent, anti-establishment change, oftentimes generational change candidates are winning primaries in the bluest of districts, mostly urban areas. They're taking blue districts and turning them bluer.

Maybe -- I think it's like 88 percent of the safe seats. The insurgent candidate has won. But in the swing districts, the districts in the suburbs, the districts that are going to be competitive in the fall --

HUNT: All two of them? No, I'm kidding. It's more than two, but not by much.

ELLEITHEE: But in those primaries, they've only won about 15 to 20 percent of the primaries. So they are not going to have an impact on who wins the -- who wins the House. But they are - if they -- when they do make it to the House, regardless of who's in control, their voices are going to be amplified. And I think often of my friend Doug, who lived through this on the other side of the aisle --

HUNT: He had the first one. He was the canary in the coal mine --

ELLEITHEE: With the rise of the tea party. And so even though the tea party took a little while to take over, when it did, it took us right to Donald Trump.

HEYE: Yeah. Look, that that started well before Donald Trump, right? That the to the 2010 midterm elections where we saw the first real rise of this. And when I worked for Eric Cantor, obviously, that was a big surprise.

And what I would say, looking at the results that we've seen over the past few weeks, a few things. One, when you as a campaign realize that you have a problem, it's probably already too late. And that's what we've seen with a lot of these candidates over the past couple of years, not just over the past couple of weeks.

And I'd add John Hickenlooper in that. Nobody paid attention to his primary, but he barely won that primary. And what that tells me is whether you're talking Hickenlooper, Bennet, Cornyn, Janet Mills, there is nothing about 2026 that says long term incumbent. That's what voters want.

HUNT: Lulu?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yeah.

HEYE: I'll take that.

HUNT: Cosign, she says.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: No, I mean, that's true. I think there what I've seen is that there is an enormous amount of insurgent energy. There's fury, actually, especially on the Democratic side. And that fury is propelling change.

And I think the Democratic establishment, as they always are, are saying, you know what, don't worry, everybody, it's going to be fine. It's just -- it's just a few people out in the bluest districts.

You know how you take over a party? Civil war.

HUNT: Jonah?

GOLDBERG: Yeah. A couple of things. One, I think all of this, if you look back in the last 30 years, all of this is downstream of the fact of how weak both parties are.

I've been talking on here for since I first started coming on here about how basically Donald Trump hijacked the Republican Party because the -- both of our party, we are the first and really only in modern industrialized democracy in the world, whose major political parties have given up the ability to pick their own candidates.

And so, you have the DSA who, on their own terms, like the one of the heads of it in New York, said the other day, look, we don't really consider ourselves Democrats. We call -- we run on the Democratic ballot for ballot access reasons in order to replace the establishment.

Prior to the 1970s primary reforms, the Democratic Party would never allow any of these people to run on their ticket the same way the Republican Party would never allow Donald Trump to run. But when all you have to do is show up at a primary debate and you have low turnout and high and high mobilization of activists, this is how you take over a party.

HEYE: When I said in 2010, when I was running comms at the RNC, hey, we're in a brave new world here on fundraising and so much more. Most of the press said, yeah, yeah, whatever. Now they're saying, gosh, our parties are weak. Thanks, guys.

HUNT: Jason Kander, very briefly, do you think progressive or even a Democratic socialist could win a presidential election in the U.S.?

KANDER: Yes, and I think it just comes down to do you make the argument about how these issues affect people in their lives? I think, you know, here in the middle of the country, what people are concerned about more than anything else. If you're going to boil it down to just one thing that stretches over time, it's our, our, our kids and grandkids going to be able to have a successful life here. Or will they have to move to find it?

And then from that, you can get every other issue. And when you take these issues and you talk about them within the context of that, I think you can. And I think that the Democratic Party would do well to remember that this is not some sort of pest to be dealt with.

Two years ago, we were worried that Trump was winning young voters by much more than -- you know, winning a higher percentage than most Republicans ever had. It turns out young voters think everybody who's thinking incrementally is nuts. And what they really want are people to take big swings.

And now, you have a bunch of people who are running for office and talking about taking big swings, making big changes, but they're actually talking about getting things done. It's entirely possible that these people are going to go to Congress and actually try to get big things done in a bipartisan way, because they think they're supposed to deliver results.

That could be a really good thing. And instead of being worried about them, maybe we should learn a thing or two.

ELLEITHEE: I mean, that is so key. What he just said -- right now, the progressive wing is being equated with bold and the more mainstream, they -- they're being seen as incremental.

Mainstream can be bold. Bill Clinton, Barack Obama in 2008.

HUNT: Right.

ELLEITHEE: They need to start showing that.

HUNT: Yeah.

All right. Jason Kander, thank you so much for joining us. Really happy to have you. Please do come back soon.

Ahead here in THE ARENA, triple digit heat. A late fireworks show. Concerns about crowd size. What our sources say is happening behind the scenes at the White House ahead of the big July 4th celebration for the nation's 250th birthday.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:48:49]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: On July 4th, it's going to be approximately 107 degrees out. And I'm going to go and I'm going to make a really long speech just to show that I can do anything. It's going to be 107.

(END VIDEO CLIP) HUNT: President Trump won't be deterred, he says, by the massive heat wave that's expected to descend on the nation's capital this weekend.

Behind the scenes, CNN is learning that White House officials are bracing for an underwhelming showing between the tightened security measures, that heat wave that will reach triple digits and a fireworks show that is scheduled for later than usual, way later than most kids go to bed, to be clear, the crowd might not live up to the president's expectations.

And we all know how important drawing a crowd is to this president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: If you look at Martin Luther King, when he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours, same real estate, same everything, we actually had more people.

I love Butler, Pennsylvania, but it was amazing. And we had a tremendous crowd, like 55,000, 60,000 people.

[16:50:00]

It was a big crowd, Paul. Don't get nervous.

Nobody's ever gotten crowds like I get a rally. I had 118,000 people at one. I had -- I have 25,000 -- 25,000 is like a small crowd

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Do you think anyone's going to show up on the Mall? It's interesting. They're worried about it.

GOLDBERG: I would be shocked if it wasn't an underwhelming turnout. It's just -- I live in D.C., we all live in like, it's going to be hard to get there. You can't bring a cooler.

HUNT: No coolers, no bags.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And it's hot.

GOLDBERG: It's going to be hotter than hell. And keeping kids until 11:00 at night to watch a fireworks show after forcing them to listen to Donald Trump. I mean, like this whole thing, we just set the context. This whole thing is basically the Trump phone of civic events, right? It's the shoddy product that is really just about the branding or anything else.

There was a bipartisan commission that was supposed to do a very sort of vanilla, but open to all Americans celebration, and they pushed to the side so that this thing could be marketed and turned into a Trump thing. And this is the consequence.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Fyre Festival 250.

GOLDBERG: Yeah. HEYE: You know, I'm going to quote my friend Sean Spicer here, who

said on January 20th, 2017, these attempts to lessen the enthusiasm of the inauguration or the July 4th fireworks show are shameful and wrong. And I'll just leave that there.

(LAUGHTER)

HUNT: Yes, Spicer did talk about -- what?

(LAUGHTER)

HUNT: I mean, Mo --

HEYE: Worse choice.

HUNT: Look, this is -- you know, it's a big birthday for the president or for the -- for the country.

GOLDBERG: You said it right the first time.

ELLEITHEE: There you go, I mean, that's it.

HUNT: But there's a reason. There's a slip there.

HEYE: L'etat, c'est moi.

HUNT: And -- I mean, I don't recall any other -- I remember, we were earlier this week, we were talking about, Gerald Ford and the way he handled the latest or the bicentennial quite differently than it's usually handled.

ELLEITHEE: I mean, imagine how cool it would be if Donald Trump had invited all the living presidents to come and do something, or said he was going to play video greetings from all the living presidents as he spoke, that would be a different thing, right?

But it's not because it is about him. It is about his birthday, right? This is just a continuation of the -- of a celebration of him. And the timing couldn't be worse given the heat -- you know, Jonah said fireworks starting at 11:00 p.m. We hope --

GOLDBERG: Right.

ELLEITHEE: It's after he speaks. He doesn't --

GOLDBERG: If he finishes on time.

ELLEITHEE: -- stick to the script.

GOLDBERG: Yeah.

ELLEITHEE: So, I think it is such a missed opportunity for the president of the United States to actually have at least one huge unifying night in America. But that's never been --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Do you know what? You know what, though? I mean, I'm going to be a little contrarian and just say America 250. This where we at?

I mean, this is -- this is precisely where we're at. We're a divided country with a president who wants to go on television. And, you know, not say the truth about his crowd sizes, and basically exclude a whole bunch of people. So, you know, this is -- this is the reality of where we're.

GOLDBERG: But there's another place we're at. And I think it's worth pointing out, you look at the reaction to the World Cup celebration, where it is -- it is -- I think one of the reasons a lot of Americans love the European reaction to how much they like America is, because it's not about our politics. It's about stuff close to the ground. It's like, oh yeah, we actually are --

HUNT: Ranch dressing, ranch dressing.

GOLDBERG: Ranch dressing, and Buc-ee's. I mean, we're actually a pretty cool country.

ELLEITHEE: And the celebration of America 250 is happening all over the country, right?

GOLDBERG: Sure.

ELLEITHEE: The number of community events that have popped up that are being built out, that are going to be robust, like that's going to be lovely.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I want to say the World Cup is indeed the celebration of our country.

HUNT: Hey, go USA.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Go USA, playing tonight.

HUNT: We may lose tonight, but fingers crossed.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Take it back. What?

(CROSSTALK)

HEYE: We are going to win. There's the negative Nancy. Burn her. Burn her.

HUNT: Okay, we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:58:32]

HUNT: All right. Before we go, we here at THE ARENA wanted to take a moment to reflect on the legacy of America's 26th president, Theodore Roosevelt, as his presidential library in the Badlands of North Dakota prepares to open on the nation's 250th birthday. The name of our show is, of course, inspired by that famous passage from the speech he gave in 1910 titled "Citizenship in a Republic". This is the exhibit at his library.

In his speech, Roosevelt spoke about what's required of citizens in a democratic society and the courage that it takes to put yourself in the arena, to engage in the political and social issues of our time.

Here is that passage, the man in the arena, as recited by President John F. Kennedy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN F. KENNEDY, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Theodore Roosevelt once said, the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause who at best, if he wins, knows the thrills of high achievement. And if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Proud to have the show be named in honor of that.

Thanks so much to my panel.

Thanks to all of you at home for watching as well.

Don't go anywhere. "THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER" starts right now.