Return to Transcripts main page
CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
Blanche Spars With Dems In Heated Senate Confirmation Hearing; Senators Grill Trump's DNI Pick Over Elections & Independence; Exclusive: Admin Escalates Internal Probe Of Leaked Air Force One Info. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired July 15, 2026 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:00]
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: The team opened its hiring process to the public earlier this month for the first time ever, and applying for the role, which is now closed, appeared to be pretty tough.
Omar, I think you could do that.
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN HOST: I don't think so. But, hey, I'm going to trust you on that.
KEILAR: You're a smart guy. And here's a rather smart woman coming up.
THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT starts right now.
(MUSIC)
KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone. Welcome to THE ARENA. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us on this Wednesday.
Right now on Capitol Hill, President Donald Trump's pick for the nation's next attorney general engaging in a very familiar fight with Democrats as he faces Senate confirmation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE (D-RI): How long do you intend to put up with that Kash Patel character?
TODD BLANCHE, ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL: That's an extraordinarily obnoxious question, Senator.
I don't think it's appropriate to use the word "fishy". It's either ethical or not ethical. And there's no --
SEN. PETER WELCH (D-VT): Vermonters would just say it stinks.
SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): Well, you're dancing on the head of a pen here.
BLANCHE: I'm not dancing on any pen. Like, you can't accuse me of violating my ethical rules and then lie about what I did. I did not interrupt you. I did not interrupt you. A little courtesy
would be appropriate.
SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ): You approved the decision to close the department's investigation into that merger, yes or no?
BLANCHE: I was part of the decision.
BOOKER: Yes, you were involved in that.
BLANCHE: Let me answer, man.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Todd Blanche, Donald Trump's former personal attorney, the man who represented him in numerous criminal trials, receiving a predictably chilly welcome from Senate Democrats today as they pressed him on everything from the Epstein files to FBI Director Kash Patel's travel expenses.
But there was one point of bipartisan concern, that $1.8 billion funds that was created to reward people who claim they were unfairly targeted by the federal government.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): You have said that the weaponization fund is a moot issue. Is that your position?
BLANCHE: Yes, it is a moot issue, meaning there is no weaponization fund. The weaponization fund is dead. It's not moving forward.
CORNYN: But just to be clear, the president of the United States, who was a plaintiff in this lawsuit, has not agreed in writing to delete the weaponization fund.
BLANCHE: I suppose they could bring a lawsuit, and then we would litigate it. But even if we were litigating it, there's no fund.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So that was Republican Senator John Cornyn. You may remember that he lost his re-election bid after Trump endorsed his primary opponent. So perhaps he's been freed up and doesn't feel in the mood to do the president any favors.
Blanche's continued refusal to permanently end that so-called anti- weaponization fund could be enough for Cornyn to stand in the way of his confirmation as attorney general.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Did Todd Blanche satisfy your concerns about the weaponization fund?
CORNYN: Well, basically, he confirmed that it's not dead. RAJU: Does that concern you?
CORNYN: Yeah.
RAJU: So you're truly undecided right now?
CORNYN: Yeah.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right, on that note, let's get off the sidelines, head into THE ARENA.
Joining me now is one of the senators who questioned Blanche this morning, Republican John Kennedy of Louisiana.
Senator, it's always great to see you. Thank you very much for coming back to THE ARENA.
I want to play another moment that you actually had with Todd Blanche that stuck out for reasons I think our viewers will immediately understand. Let's watch, and we'll talk about it on the other side.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): Are you and President Trump friends?
BLANCHE: I'm his lawyer, was his lawyer, and now I'm the deputy attorney general.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: He had to clean that up pretty quick. He was President Trump's personal attorney. Are you satisfied with the assurances that he gave you that he would be the people's attorney general and not just the president's?
KENNEDY: Yes, I am. I think -- I think Mr. Blanche is a good lawyer. I like his demeanor. I think he's honest.
I think he's frank. He gives the president his frank advice. I don't think the president necessarily always takes it, but I think he looks the president in the eye and tells him what he thinks. And I don't see any reason not to confirm Mr. Blanche.
I know -- I doubt he'll get many Democratic votes on the committee. I don't think my Democratic friends on the committee dislike Mr. Blanche. I think they dislike the president, and this is their way of getting at the president by going through his proposed attorney general. But I thought he did a pretty good job today.
HUNT: But Republican John Cornyn says he's not convinced. Are you convinced that the anti-weaponization fund is dead?
KENNEDY: Well, I am, but I don't speak for John. Senator Cornyn is a very good lawyer. [16:05:03]
I'm going to miss him in the U.S. Senate, and I don't think he is convinced.
I am, because I have talked privately with and heard Mr. Blanche testify publicly about it, and he's given me his word that it's dead. The president hasn't said that it's dead, but the president never will say that it's dead.
But I think the president, this is just a guess, but I know the president, you do too. I don't think he'll ever say I'm not going to bring it back, but I don't think he will bring it back. It was just the whole thing, particularly in the rollout, was sort of a, it was a total cock-up.
I mean, it -- they didn't have any parameters to it. None of us understood it. That's why we had the meeting with Mr. Blanche, and he did a good job of answering our questions.
HUNT: When you look at that weaponization fund and you consider where your colleague John Cornyn is right now, are you convinced that Blanche is on easy street to confirmation?
KENNEDY: Oh, I don't think it's going to be easy. There are no -- there's no easy street around here right now. I think it's going to -- there are going to be more potholes because I think Senator Schumer is going to shut down the government. But we'll talk about that another day.
And I don't know what Senator Cornyn's going to do. I don't know what Senator Tillis is going to do. My experience with both of those gentlemen is that they're fair people.
And I think they look at Mr. Blanche and say, the guy's qualified, and he's not going to do anything illegal. And he's not going to break the law. And they like his emphasis, as I do, on fighting crime and fighting fraud.
HUNT: Right.
KENNEDY: Now, will they vote for him? I'm not saying that, Kasie. I really don't know. His nomination could die.
HUNT: Interesting. Appreciate that candid assessment. Another one of the president's nominees was also facing your colleagues in the Senate today -- Jay Clayton, who's, of course, been nominated. to be DNI, the Director of National Intelligence.
I want to play a little bit of the exchange that he had with Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff. This, of course, coming before the president's expected primetime address about election security. Let's watch that. We'll talk about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): That Joe Biden won the 2020 election.
JAY CLAYTON, DNI NOMINEE: Senator, I'm not -- I'm not an election denier. Joe Biden was certified as the president of the United States.
SEN. JON OSSOFF (D-GA): Who won the 2020 election?
CLAYTON: I have answered the question.
OSSOFF: Answer it. What is your answer?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: He did not want to straight say that President Biden won the 2020 election. Why not?
KENNEDY: Well, I don't know, but there's this little game, if you followed all the committees, it happens every time we have a nominee in judiciary, where the Democrats try to get a nominee by the president to say that the president actually won the election and President Biden didn't. And they want the nominee to use the magic words that Trump lost the election.
And the nominees, understandably, in my opinion, don't want to play that game. I haven't --
HUNT: But how is it a game? I mean, it's just what happened.
KENNEDY: No, it is a game, Kasie. If you look at -- it's a game of words by my Democratic colleagues. And I have not heard one single nominee by the president say that Donald Trump won the election, and Joe Biden lost. But the Democrats don't like the words they use, so they play these games.
And I do think it is a game. I do not know a single nominee by the president that I personally believe thinks that Joe Biden was not the president.
HUNT: Sure, but, again, I mean, we live in a democracy where, in the past, everyone called the winner to concede and say, you know, congratulations on your win. It was a tough loss for me.
What does it say about where we are that, you know, you think that this is a game of words? I mean, when did this get so hard?
KENNEDY: Well, look, I'm biased, but I think the Democrats have made it hard. I don't think there's any doubt about the fact that Joe Biden was the president. And I haven't heard a single nominee by President Trump say Donald Trump won the election. Joe Biden didn't.
But the Democrats want them to use the magic words so they can then go spin the press, most of which will suck it up like a Hoover deluxe, that this guy called Donald Trump a liar, and he's Donald Trump's nominee.
[16:10:00]
That -- it is a game that's being played.
I've been in dozens of hearings where the Democrats did that. And I don't think the American people have any doubt about who the last president was. It was Joe Biden.
HUNT: Is that not more about President Trump and the way he would react to a nominee saying this than it is about the Democrats?
KENNEDY: No, I think President Trump thinks he won the election. And I think he was cheated. And he's entitled to have that belief.
And the American people are entitled to draw their own conclusions about the truth or legitimacy of what he says. But I just -- to me, it's all a game of words up here between the Democrats and Republicans, because I think if you -- if you go ask the average American who was the last president, they're going to say Joe Biden.
And I just think that, to me, is reality and all of this other stuff about, well, you're not using the magic words that the Democrats want us to use is just a lot of inside competition.
HUNT: Well, who won in 2024?
KENNEDY: I'm sorry?
HUNT: Who won the 2024 election?
KENNEDY: I think President Trump is the president of the United States.
HUNT: All right. I appreciate -- I appreciate this line of conversation.
KENNEDY: I mean, if I'm wrong, you tell me.
HUNT: Right, but you could also say President Trump won the election, right?
KENNEDY: But here's --
HUNT: He did.
KENNEDY: Yeah, but if I do, but that's the magic words that the Democrats and many members of the press insist that we use. And I don't --
HUNT: Well, it's just elections are won and lost. I mean, I don't know. It seems like fairly plain English to me. Yeah, but it's -- there's someone who speaks in a lot of plain English.
KENNEDY: It's more than that. And you know that. I mean, it comes up in every single committee because they want to see the president twist off at one of his own nominees. I mean, I can tell you this. President Trump thinks he won the election.
Now, I analyze it a little differently than some. The issue to me on the election that President Trump claims he won was never -- was there -- was there voter fraud? I think there was on both sides, probably. I saw ballots flying around like confetti.
That never was the issue. The issue was, did anybody prove that there was fraud and that it made a difference in the results? And the answer to that is no. And I think that's what most Americans have concluded somebody goes to court and proves that there was fraud and it altered the outcome of election that's a different story but nobody ever did that.
HUNT: No, look, I appreciate that. There are of course instances -- small instances of voter fraud that always should be investigated but I appreciate the point you made that there were not enough that it would have changed the outcome.
KENNEDY: But I get it -- you know, the game on Capitol Hill is the President Trump honestly thinks he won the election. He has the right to think that. You may not agree with him, but it drives many of my Democratic friends crazy when they hear him say that. And so they can't get to him directly, so they poke at his nominees. It is a big game.
HUNT: So before I let you go, speaking of elections, there is, of course, a big one, a big presidential one coming up in 2028. And we can't help but notice your social media feed, which is now a prerequisite. We can put up a couple -- honestly, it was your looks that stood out to me. I will admit, I watched quite a bit of it on mute.
But the bandana, the sort of all the things that you're doing, there it is, from your house in Louisiana. And I know you've talked a little bit about this. I mean, what do you say to voters, to your constituents when they ask you or tell you, hey, you should run in 2028?
KENNEDY: Well, number one, I've worn a bandana to work out with since God was a baby, okay? That's nothing new.
Number two, I was asked when I was in New Hampshire campaigning for John Sununu, if I was going to run for president.
(CROSSTALK)
HUNT: Politics and eggs, it's a time honored stop.
KENNEDY: And I said, no, I'm planning to run for the United States Senate. But I said, look, I'm a politician. I don't pretend to be otherwise, and I'll never say never. If a bunch of goobers run for president, and I think I could beat them, and I'd be a better president, yeah, I might do it.
And I could catch a wild hare and do it. I'm not going to ever say I'm -- you know, this is politics, but I don't have any big plans.
HUNT: All right, fair enough. Louisiana Senator John Kennedy -- sir, thanks very much for spending some time with us. I appreciate it. KENNEDY: Thank you, Kasie.
HUNT: All right, coming up next here in THE ARENA, exclusive new CNN reporting on a major escalation of an investigation inside the Trump administration, what some White House officials are being asked to hand over as part of a probe into who leaked security details of the new Air Force One.
But first, more on that back-and-forth over the 2020 election with the president's pick to run the nation's intelligence agencies in the hot seat on Capitol Hill.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OSSOFF: Are you aware that Director Gabbard was present at the Fulton County raid earlier this year? Yes or no? Are you aware?
CLAYTON: I was --
OSSOFF: You won't answer that question either.
CLAYTON: I just said I was made aware of it by you yesterday.
OSSOFF: The first time you learned that Director Gabbard was present at that raid was in my office yesterday.
CLAYTON: It was the first time that, in my recollection, I've thought about it recently. Now, was I aware of it before?
OSSOFF: What?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:20:13]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there a problem with voter fraud in this country?
CLAYTON: I don't think we can say definitively whether there is or is not until we have better processes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: That was President Trump's pick to lead the U.S. intelligence community, Jay Clayton, during his confirmation hearing today before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
It turned tense when lawmakers questioned Clayton about election integrity. His appearance notably comes just a day before the president is set to make a national address on election security tomorrow night, making it all the more relevant how Clayton responded when multiple Democratic senators repeatedly pressed him over this key question.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WARNER: Do you deny that Joe Biden won the 2020 election?
CLAYTON: Senator, I'm not an election denier. Joe Biden was certified as the president of the United States.
I believe he had the most electoral votes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So he won the election.
CLAYTON: He followed our process, had the most electoral votes, was declared the winner.
OSSOFF: Who won the 2020 election?
CLAYTON: You know, I'm not going to do this with you.
OSSOFF: Who won the 2020 election?
CLAYTON: I have answered the question.
OSSOFF: Answer it. What is your answer?
WARNER: We've tried umpteen different ways to give to the ability to just acknowledge that Joe Biden was the president.
OSSOFF: I've acknowledged, Senator, that Joe Biden was the president. I've acknowledged that.
WARNER: And fairly and duly elected.
OSSOFF: And fairly and duly elected under our process.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: This is so hard. Why? The sky is blue. Biden won in 2020. Trump lost in 2020. Biden lost in 2024. Trump won in 2024. And yet, and yet.
All right, my panel is here to help us try to answer these questions.
White House correspondent for "Bloomberg", Jeff Mason; CNN political analyst and historian Leah Wright Rigueur; CNN political commentator, former director of public affairs at the Justice Department, Xochitl Hinojosa; and former Trump White House communications director Mike Dubke.
We also are joined by CNN senior law enforcement analyst and former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe.
And we're going to get to Andy in just a second on the real questions about Jay Clayton's qualifications or lack thereof or what was put on display in the hearing. But I think we should dig into the politics of this quickly first, because, of course, in the wake of the interview we just did with Senator Kennedy, Xochitl, we were talking about it in the break. I mean, what, like, why is it so hard?
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: If I could say the F word on air, I would. It is effing insane.
Listen, President Trump did -- he strongly believes that he won the 2020 election. And if you even think that Joe Biden won it and say it, he could potentially pull your nomination. You, therefore, aren't in Trump's inner circle.
He's worried the -- you know, it is sad when Republicans cannot repeat basic facts. And what happens and the consequences of that is that he feels, therefore, empowered that he can continue to do this. This is why then he has an Oval Office speech with, you know, election, talking about the 2020 election, how he won it.
This could potentially have major consequences in this election if he continues to lie and the Republicans in his party continue to allow him and don't correct it. This isn't just about one man's ego. This is about our country and our democracy, and the consequences it could have moving forward. And Republicans need to grow a spine.
HUNT: Mike, what do you--?
MIKE DUBKE, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: I feel like I'm going in this way-back machine, because the answer that I heard the nominee give was that under our system, he won the majority of the electoral votes. That is how we elect a president.
In 2017, when I was in the White House, I had to live through day after day after day of Democrats saying, Donald Trump did not win the majority of votes. And somehow, and Hillary Clinton did, and somehow that made this a --
HUNT: Are you talking about the popular vote?
DUBKE: Yeah, popular vote, yes, I'm sorry.
HINOJOSA: That happens all this time.
DUBKE: No, no, no, but my point is, we spent months having to defend the fact that he played the game by the rules and won the electoral votes. I heard a nominee today say, Joe Biden won the majority of the electoral votes. He said it. We just played that clip.
I -- I agree with Senator Kennedy. This is a game. This is a game the Democrats wants to -- want to play.
HINOJOSA: Yeah --
DUBKE: And it's been going on for years and years.
HINOJOSA: Donald Trump and she wasn't sitting -- and she's not sitting out there today saying like, I won the 2016 election.
DUBKE: I guarantee you we can find we can find clips for the majority of Democrats from 2017 saying he's not a legitimate president because he did not win the majority of votes.
HINOJOSA: That's not the vast majority of what people think.
[16:25:00]
HUNT: The -- what I'm understanding from what you're saying, Xochitl, and I think what the senator was also saying is essentially that for these nominees who have to compete to get nominated in the first place, who are jockeying with others who might be picked instead, they don't feel like they can be on camera answering this question in a way that's going to upset the president.
Now, Jeff Mason, you are -- you cover the president day in and day out. What I was thinking about as I was listening to that and watching that, and listening to the way that Senator Kennedy was explaining what, in his view, was going on, was back to the period in between the election and January 6th, when there were a lot of Republicans that I was talking to who privately said, the president thinks this.
We need to let the president think this. He can fight it in the courts. He should be allowed to say and do what he wants while that plays out in the courts.
And what we saw happen was that what the president thought and what he said convinced a lot of his supporters to go to the Capitol on January 6th, and we saw some of them do illegal things, violent things, threaten to hang Mike Pence, the Republican vice president, among other things.
Now, of course, those people have all since been pardoned by President Donald Trump. That's a separate conversation. But the idea that the way that we talk about these things doesn't actually matter, doesn't have an impact in the real world, is just not what we're living in right now. How do you understand this, knowing the president as you do?
JEFF MASON, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, BLOOMBERG: I mean, everything you just said is true, number one. Number two, the political reality is that if a Donald Trump nominee says in a hearing, yes, Joe Biden won the election in 2020, that's going to create problems for him or her with President Trump. There's a reason this conversation keeps going. The president absolutely believes he won in 2020. I remember spending late nights at the White House during the period that you were just talking about while they were working on that legal strategy, Mike wasn't there anymore. But the, I mean, for people who are familiar with White House reporter parlance, we didn't get lids until like ten o'clock.
HUNT: A lid is where they put a lid on one of the old school. Remember, we used to actually have film in our cameras. And you would put a lid on the box that had the film in it, and then you were allowed to go home for the night because there weren't going to be anything else. So we're not going to be any more images of the president, but aside.
MASON: Those kids were gone during that period because he was working on the legal arguments and he lost them but what happened in January 6 suggests or was exhibit A of the fact that those words continue to have consequences and also the fact that the Republican Party hasn't been able to move on I mean the speech that the president is going to give tomorrow night probably not going to help him in November I mean this is this is something that ended up hurting him for a long time.
Well, let me rephrase that for a few months -- and then the narrative changed pretty quickly and, of course, he was reelected in 2024.
HUNT: Yeah. The historical view of all of this?
LEAH WRIGHT RIGUEUR, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST & HISTORIAN: Yeah. So I actually think that this is comes down to a question of the lack of independence or the lack of agency for the director of national intelligence, right? So, one of the things that we've seen is that this has been about loyal loyalty historically for Donald Trump. So it's not simply just a game of getting in front of Congress and saying the right things and making sure that Trump doesn't drop the hammer on you. It's also about what are you willing to do in advance of whatever the president is arguing about.
So it's not simply just saying, you know, you won the election, I think that you are under the table, you know, semantics or around the language of it. But it's also about are you willing to show up in Georgia, right, with a ball cap and sunglasses on, and everyone says, well, why are you there, right? What are you willing to do to advance it? Are you willing to support, are you willing to find evidence where there is none in order to make an argument about something that everybody in the country knows is actually not true?
Historically, the DNI has been a position that has been independent, and it is crucial that it is an independent. Clean, I think, is showcasing that he can't do that, and he won't.
HUNT: Let's watch a moment, and I want to talk to Andy McCabe about it on the other side, but the vice president, J.D. Vance, was on Capitol Hill today, and this all, of course, is taking place and unfolding just months before critical midterm elections. And there are Democrats who have been raising concerns about the midterm elections and whether the administration is laying the groundwork to declare some sort of national emergency, whether or not the House speaker will actually seat the Congress should the Congress become one that is Democratic.
Here was J.D. Vance talking about some of those concerns. Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Will the administration support the results of the midterm elections come November, regardless of what they look like?
J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, look, of course, we're going to support the results of the midterm elections. We think we're going to win, but ultimately that's up to the American people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Andy McCabe, this, of course, is something that is potentially going to impact the national security and intelligence community because of the way that the president has looked to the national intelligence and security community and, you know, made changes, you know, in cases he's gutted some pieces of it that overlook or that are supposed to ensure the security, the bipartisan security of our elections.
[16:30:16]
He's sent the FBI down to Fulton County to seize boxes that of course from 2020, but it does kind of look ahead. What stood out to you in the Jay Clayton hearing and how do you think it potentially could be important in November?
ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: I think it's a great question. It gets right cuts right to the heart of the biggest issue for me, which is how much does Jay Clayton know about this job that he's auditioning for? I think if you take his -- his comments at face value, but he certainly -- he comes off as a very reasonable guy, as a smart, careful lawyer. He thinks before he speaks. Those are all good things.
But if you look at the substance of his answers to many questions, I'm not sure that he knows very much about what it means to be DNI. He talked a lot about using economics and economic analysis to forge relationships and with foreign partners. When asked for what he thought the major threats were, he went straight to drug trafficking, which I can tell you is probably maybe 1 percent of the total bandwidth of concerns that the DNI has to deal with. The fact that he didn't come out forward and answer John Ossoff's questions at the end about not participating in the execution of search warrants on -- in the United States of America, because the DNI has no role there.
The DNI does not collect any intelligence. They don't conduct any operations. They're not allowed to collect or retain information about Americans. His job is to corral the I.C. and distill the best of its analysis and present that information to the president and be a voice in guiding where that collection overseas goes.
So the fact that he's not -- he freely engaged in conversations on, you know, election security here in the United States, whether or not there's fraud in the elections and things like that, that's not part of his job. Those could have been very easy answers, but his willingness to engage on that level, I think, raises a lot of questions about what he's going to be willing to do, those things that he shouldn't be doing, when he's DNI.
HUNT: Andy McCabe, what -- I mean, what should the DNI be doing when it is related to our elections domestically?
MCCABE: So the DNI's -- entirety of the DNI's role there would be working with the information collected by the CIA, by NSA, by FBI to determine if foreign adversaries are trying to influence our elections. There's a legitimate role for the DNI there to kind of oversee that collection and synthesize it in a way and communicate it so that the president understands what that threat is from our foreign adversaries.
But did Fulton County, Georgia count their ballots correctly? No role for the DNI there. Tulsi Gabbard should never have been there, should not have been involved.
But she was there, as we now know from her own testimony, because the president asked her to. So the question for Jay Clayton should have been, are you going to run the president's domestic errands for him in the same way that Tulsi Gabbard did, or will you stay true to the role of the DNI?
HUNT: All right, everybody stand by for me.
Coming up next here in THE ARENA, what a top cabinet member did this week that made the president furious in the action now being taken.
Plus, exclusive reporting on why some administration officials are being asked to hand over their phones as part of an ongoing internal investigation.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:38:16]
HUNT: All right, breaking news. New exclusive reporting just in here at CNN about the White House's investigation into leaks regarding the security weaknesses of the $400 million Qatari-gifted Air Force One. You know, that was the one that the president briefly abandoned after the NATO summit last week because of security concerns, although the White House claims that the plane swap happened for other reasons.
We are now learning that some government officials were asked to turn over their phones on White House grounds as part of a sprawling investigation, the probe being spearheaded by Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and FBI Director Kash Patel, who was whisked to the White House on Friday to take a hands-on role. Patel was posted up in an office next to Wiles for roughly seven hours as the two established what one source calls a, quote, "war room in the West Wing".
The new details revealing the extent to which the White House is willing to exert control over a law enforcement investigation. Now, CNN has reached out to the White House and the FBI for comment.
So, Andy McCabe, you're the deputy director of the FBI. Can you give us a sense of whether it's normal or not normal for the FBI director to do something like this, to post up next to the White House Chief of Staff, and then to seize phones from staffers on White House grounds.
MCCABE: Yeah, super not normal. Very strong not normal vote on that one. There's really nothing about this that's normal. The fact that the FBI -- that any FBI director would be that directly involved in a leak case, making these sorts of micro decisions about whose phone gets seized and that sort of thing, really bizarre, all kinds of good reasons not to have the director in that role. [16:40:05]
The fact that he was doing it from the White House, basically with his, I don't know, agent partner, Susie Wiles, is also very weird, and then seizing phones from random members of the administration. We don't know if these are cabinet-level officials or just staffers or who that might be, how they came up with that list of phones that they thought were suspicious.
And of course, any one of those people could have just said no and --
HUNT: I was going to ask, is it legal to do that?
MCCABE: You know, it's -- if someone agrees, sure, here you can have my phone, then -- then there's, you know, that's -- that's consent. So that's perfectly legal. But if they say, no, you can't have my phone, then you can't do it without a search warrant.
So it's -- but I'm sure that under the circumstances, people who provided those phones probably didn't feel comfortable saying no, thinking it might be their job or their reputation or all the above if they said no.
Yeah, it's just bizarre. And I should also add that, of course, under the infamous Pam Bondi memo issued, I think, in April of 2025, the previous requirements by Merrick Garland basically made issuing subpoenas and demanding information from news folks in the course of a leak investigation, almost impossible.
And Pam Bondi obliterated that, said basically, we're going to use whatever we want to use to demand information, records, source identifications, that sort of thing.
There's still some nod towards least intrusive method, but basically under these circumstances, impossible to characterize issuing those subpoenas as the least intrusive method when it happened within hours of initiating the case. You actually have to do some work to prove that you've tried other methods and that they didn't work, typically, to satisfy a least intrusive method standard.
HUNT: Interesting.
I mean, Jeff Mason, to pick up on what Mr. McCabe said there about what it would feel like for someone on the White House grounds, a staffer, cabinet appointee, whoever, to be asked for their phone by the White House chief of staff because the president's pissed and not handed over, realistic? Not realistic?
MASON: Well, it seems unrealistic that they wouldn't hand it over. But I would say to draw this conversation into a broader sort of theme with everything we've talked about already today, the norms are gone. Like, there are no norms at this White House. There are no norms with relation to how President Trump governs.
That is true with regard to how he views the Department of Justice, with his attorney general nominee now having to say I was both his personal lawyer, which, of course, he was, and A.G. -- those lines are very, very unclear. I mean, there isn't a line there as much in this White House as there was in the norms of previous White Houses, including, in fact, in President Trump's first term.
I remember him saying at one point, where's my Roy Cohn? Because he was unhappy with his first attorney general. But that applies here, too. Bringing in Kash Patel, of course, he's the FBI director, but he's also Kash Patel, Trump supporter who was friends with Susie Wiles, friends with all of these people who was part of that inner circle. They don't see that as any sort of a problem to bring him in and do this.
HUNT: You remember.
DUBKE: Well, this is a flashback Wednesday for me. So we talked about the elections in 2017. I remember, and I think, Jeff, you were there while you were standing outside wanting to get in when Sean Spicer called all the comms and press staff in and everyone had to turn over their phones, with White House counsel standing there.
And the irony of ironies is all they were looking for was to see who had Signal on their phone, which we were not supposed to have at that point.
MASON: Then. Interesting.
DUBKE: Then. Yeah, how times have changed.
But we went through the same thing, and it was all around leaks, and the president is obsessed with leaks.
Now, I handle, and maybe Jeff can correct me later after the show, but I think the only departments in the White House that didn't leak were the communications and the press departments. Everybody else was leaking.
But we're the ones that were told to turn over our phones. And to your question, everyone did.
HUNT: All right. Andy McCabe, thank you so much for being with us. Always appreciate your time.
The rest of our panel is going to stand by here.
Coming up next in THE ARENA, new reporting on why the president overruled his own DHS secretary as a community in Maine grapples with the killing of a 25-year-old immigrant by ICE.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE; One young woman kept coming up to the window and putting my hand up to the window saying, "No more, no more". And I thought, this is just bloody. Let me know how to help her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:49:26]
HUNT: All right, welcome back.
Less than 24 hours after DHS paused traffic stops by ICE agents in the wake of recent deadly shootings in Maine and Texas, the president has stepped in. This morning, he overturned that suspension, saying, quote, "We cannot give up one of ICE's most important and effective crime fighting tools, the traffic stop." Sources tell CNN the president was furious after prominent MAGA voices suggested the pause made him look weak on immigration enforcement.
[16:50:00]
Xochitl Hinojosa, this is in contrast, of course, to what was decided by his new Department of Homeland Security chief, Markwayne Mullin, who was essentially brought in to make things a little bit more palatable after Kristi Noem handled them in a way that turned public opinion against the president on an issue that was previously one of his biggest strengths.
HINOJOSA: That's right. And if you heard Todd Blanche's testimony earlier today, he also talked about the need for law enforcement and federal law enforcement to follow the use of force policy that the that the Biden administration put in place, which was essentially that you should not be shooting at a -- using use of force when there is a moving vehicle, and you should be using it in very rare circumstances.
And what we have seen is that the FBI follows that. The Marshall Service follows that. Every other federal law enforcement agency follows that. But for some reason, ICE cannot seem to follow it. And there is a problem either with training or they don't understand the use of force policies, or they have to meet quotas that put them in these situations. And when they're making decisions where they are killing people who are not the targets or Americans.
And as a president -- if the president of the United States cared about those policies and how, and maybe how that makes him look and how that is killing people, that he wouldn't have reversed that decision. And politically, you're looking at a place like Maine where there is a competitive Senate race and you are looking at Texas where I'm from, my sister's running for governor there, but there is a very competitive U.S. Senate race there as well.
And so politically, this, I think, will have large repercussions, especially in places like Texas where there's a large Latino population.
HUNT: Well, and let's put up the recent Quinnipiac poll that shows us what Trump's approval rating is on immigration, 55 percent disapprove of President Trump's handling of immigration. Just 42 percent approve. I mean, we don't have the number from 2024 when he was running for reelection, but it was not like that, right? President Trump had a distinct advantage over President Biden when he was running against him on this issue. And here was Trump himself talking in February about what he learned
after the killing of Alex Pretti in Minnesota. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
INTERVIEWER: Mr. President, speaking of Minneapolis, what did you learn?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I learned that maybe we can use a little bit of a softer touch, but you still have to be tough.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So, Mike Dubke, it seems like things have changed?
DUBKE: Well, I don't know if things have changed. What has changed, though, is the approval rating, as you just put up on the screen, of the president on this, which is a shame, because he has effectively shut down the border. What the American people were looking for after years of open border, or I'll use that term, people can disagree with me, under the Biden administration, effectively zero crossings at that border. He should be riding high on that number. Republicans should be riding high on this number.
And you're taking a situation in which a car is a deadly force and you have armed -- you have armed officers who are faced with that, making these split-second decisions, we should be taking a pause. I think what Markwayne Mullin did, what Homan did, was the right course here, and it would be helpful to the president long-term. So I don't understand his upset.
HUNT: Yeah, no, that being the point, my question being, what changed since he learned maybe we need a little bit of a softer touch?
Because, I mean, again, Leah, I like the detail that I keep coming back to is that his around three-year-old daughter was outside in Bluey pajamas.
RIGUEUR: Right, and I think the American people see that too I think it's an important detail it's a humanizing detail but it's also a point that ICE does not have the right to similarly kind of indict to convict and to execute for things that are not death sentences right for crimes for misdemeanors including for people who are, you know, guilty or what have you and in this case again mistaken identity.
I think one of the things though that the president is responding to, however, is actually the numbers and the fact that so many things are going wrong right now. It is unforced blunder after unforced blunder with its administration, particularly as they are moving into the midterms. And so what does the president do when he is feeling kind of constrained, when all of these things are coming down on him?
He goes back to the things that he knows, the things that offer him security. We also have people in the MAGA world orbit, Bannon, for example, saying this says that the president is weak, it shows that he doesn't actually know what he's doing. Markwayne Mullin should be hard and coming, you know, we shouldn't have a pause. We shouldn't have a pause on this.
And so what does the president do? He defaults to that as opposed to saying, wait a second, let's stop, take a beat. And actually coming, you know, we shouldn't have a pause. We shouldn't have a pause on this. And so what does the president do? He defaults to that as opposed to saying, wait a second, let's stop, take a beat and actually do the procedural thing, because this is an indication that ICE does not have the training.
[16:55:02]
ICE does not have the experience. ICE effectively is not doing what they are employed to do.
HUNT: All right. And just in case you were wondering, 53 percent of voters in our exit polls said that Trump was right on immigration. Only 44 percent said Harris. So that number is basically inverted in the intervening time.
On that note, we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HUNT: Thanks very much to my panel. Really appreciate you all being here.
Thanks to you at home for watching as well.
Don't go anywhere. Jake Tapper is standing by for "THE LEAD" where he is not watching the World Cup semifinal.
