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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
Sources: Trump To Push Foreign Meddling Claims In Speech; Officials Probe If White House Aide Profited Off Trump's Words; Source: Blanche Meeting With Epstein Survivors This Hour; Hegseth's New Policy Will Test Troops For Low Testosterone. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired July 16, 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: Thank you so much. Such an important story, and we do appreciate it.
Omar, a pleasure anchoring with you today.
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN HOST: Always.
KEILAR: Always.
And THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT starts right now.
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KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone. Welcome to THE ARENA. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us on this Thursday.
As we come on the air, President Donald Trump is preparing to give a major speech from the White House. Sources tell CNN he's expected to use this address to share what he will claim is new information about foreign efforts to meddle in America's elections.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: It will shock you if you have an honest eye listening to the president tonight, and everything he is saying will be backed by facts and by evidence that will be provided this evening.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Everything will be backed by facts, and he will provide evidence. That's the claim.
But I think we've heard that one before.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And we said, "Oh, we lost by a whisker." That was said sarcastically. Look, there's so much proof. All you have to do is look at it. If you look at the facts -- and I'd love to have you -- you'll do a special on it. I'll show you Georgia, and I'll show you Wisconsin, and I'll show you Pennsylvania, and I'll show you -- we have so many facts and statistics.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: This afternoon, the White House said that tonight's address could also include updates on Iran and the economy. A clear sign they know Democrats will hammer the president for not focusing on affordability.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), MINORITY LEADER: Instead of the bullshit that he's peddling about 2020, he ought to focus on lowering people's costs, getting rid of the chaos in administration, getting rid of the corruption.
SEN. JON OSSOFF (D-GA): Here's what's going to happen tonight. The world's most famous sore loser will deliver a primetime presidential sour grapes address to pursue his six-year-old grievances about the 2020 election, while his war in the Middle East spirals out of control and the cost of living continues to rise for Americans across the country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So, look, at this point, we all know President Trump simply cannot or will not publicly accept that he lost the 2020 election fair and square, that the American people chose Joe Biden over him. Even though an intelligence assessment ordered by Trump himself found, quote, "We have no indications that any foreign actor attempted to alter any technical aspect of the voting process in the 2020 U.S. elections, including voter registration, casting ballots, vote tabulation, or reporting results," end quote.
And let's flashback to the aftermath of 2020, when election officials, Republican governors, and some of the president's highest-ranking allies all agreed and were willing to say the election wasn't stolen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEOFF DUNCAN (R), FORMER GEORGIA LT. GOVERNOR: Proud to report that continued to not see any sort of systemic issues or fraud or improprieties.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): My colleagues, nothing before us proves illegality anywhere near the massive scale, the massive scale that would have tipped the entire election.
CHRIS KREBS, FORMER DIRECTOR, CYBERSECURITY AND INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY AGENCY: There is no foreign power that is flipping votes. There's no domestic actor flipping votes. I did it right. We did it right. This was a secure election.
WILLIAM BARR, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL: I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I told the president was bullshit.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: There you have it.
Let's get off the sidelines, head into THE ARENA. My panel will be here, but we're going to start with CNN senior White House reporter Kevin Liptak, who's at the White House for us.
Kevin, what are you hearing from officials there ahead of this speech?
KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, and they're making this out to be quite a major address. The president himself said it would be a big, big announcement, and they say that he'll be tinkering with the speech right up until he heads in to the East Room. We don't know exactly what claims the president plans to make in this speech, but we are getting a picture of some of the buckets that the president will be talking about. One is to reveal new information about foreign attempts to intervene in American elections, particularly China. So that's something to look out for.
The other area that the president plans to discuss is prospective vulnerabilities of election systems, including voting machines. Now, the president has been fixated on this issue for some time. He has spent the last, really, a decade trying to sow doubt in American elections. What he hasn't done is provide any proof of these claims.
And that seems to be what the White House says he will be doing tonight. You hear Caroline Levitt there saying that he will be providing evidence, and that will be, in turn, provided to people who are listening. Listen to a little bit more of how Levitt was describing this speech.
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[16:05:03]
LEAVITT: I think the American people will be relieved to hear what they are hearing from the President of the United States and his commitment to transparency and the focus on the integrity of our elections tonight. I think all Republicans and Democrats should recognize this should be a nonpartisan issue. If we don't have safe and secure elections in our country, we cannot have a country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIPTAK: So where is this evidence actually coming from?
You know, behind the scenes, there has been this effort for some months now on the part of the administration to go through classified documents, to go through intelligence, to find pieces that can be declassified to back up some of the president's claims here. There's been a task force that was led by the conservative journalist John Solomon. You also have Bill Pulte, who's the acting director of National Intelligence. He's been in the job for several weeks now working to go through those documents and to get them declassified.
Why is the president doing this now? Well, you also have him trying to rally urgency behind the SAVE America Act, which is that voting reform law that is having trouble making it through Congress. But obviously, this is all generating a lot of anxiety, both among Democrats who worry that the president is just trying to undermine confidence in elections writ large, but also Republicans who worry that the president is just diverting attention from what they want to be focused which is affordability and the economy -- Kasie.
HUNT: All right. Kevin Liptak, for us at the White House -- Kevin, thank you very much.
My panel is here in THE ARENA, CNN political analyst, national political correspondent for "Axios", Alex Thompson; political analyst and host of "The Blow Stack" newsletter, Charles Blow; Democratic strategist and former Biden White House director of message planning, Meghan Hays; and former Republican congressman from Louisiana, Garret Graves.
We are also joined by CNN political commentator and former Trump White House communications director, Alyssa Farah Griffin.
Welcome to all of you. Thank you for being here.
Alyssa, so let me start with you, because I know you've been thinking through this, talking about it. And of course, this all comes as it's being spotlighted that the president doesn't want to hear anyone around him ever say that he lost the 2020 election. We saw his nominee to be DNI, refused repeatedly to say that on the Hill. And then now, of course, it's looking like, and we're reporting, that they may be talking about foreign interference. et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
What does this all say about where we are, and what might it mean for the upcoming elections?
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So, what this feels like to me is the president has it in his mind that he wants to give this speech and he wants to relitigate the 2020 election, put forward whatever potentially new information we're going to see. And the fact that we have this new reporting that he may also talk about the economy in Iran, I think, is significant. To me, that signals that staff around the White House do not want him to be giving this speech. This is not where their priorities are. It's not where the focus should be in the year of our Lord 2026, relitigating the 2020 election.
So, I have a feeling that you're going to see him try to turn it into more of a catch-all where he addresses a number of issues, but certainly the central thrust is him wanting to say our election -- the election was not legitimate in 2020, and to try to rally the support for the Save America Act, which does not have the votes in the Senate.
But again, if you're a Republican going into the midterms and you have people saying, wait, we're in a war in the Middle East, prices are high, inflation is up, what are we doing, why is he talking about the election he lost rather than focusing on the election that he won in 2024? It's a hard sell for Republicans.
HUNT: Yeah, I mean, Congressman, the reality is Republicans won the Senate. They won the House. They won the White House in 2024.
So, you know, casting doubt on the elections process, generally speaking, seems at odds with, you know, what happened if you're a Republican. At that point, how are people who are not the president thinking about his fixation on this? I mean, does this do Republicans who are trying to hang on to their seats in your former chamber any good at all?
GARRET GRAVES (R), FORMER LOUISIANA CONGRESSMAN: Kasie, look, I think as long as we're focused on election integrity, then the answer to the question is yes. And I hope that the president is out there focusing on that issue. I hope that he does reveal new evidence that then would discount all of the comments and statements that folks have made previously and actually show his cards, show the evidence indicating that foreign countries are stepping in and trying to influence elections.
And look, this isn't far-fetched. We've watched China come in and influence U.S. A.I. policy, we've watched Russia come in and influence U.S. energy policy. It's not far-fetched, but the takeaway here is that these countries that are not our friends didn't want President Trump to be president of the United States.
CHARLES BLOW, POLITICAL ANALYST: But we've always -- we've always known that they tried to influence. The question was whether or not they tampered with the tallying of the vote, whether or not they tampered with any kind of mechanisms of the vote, and that is what the commission found that they didn't do. So, if he comes out and says what we already know, which is that foreign actors wanted to influence, they also, Russia wanted to influence on his behalf.
[16:10:03]
We all know that.
So, the idea that just figuring out -- presenting more evidence of influence does absolutely nothing other than to poison the American public's view of the election system in this country. And who benefits from that? The only people who benefit from that is Donald Trump and Republicans who are more likely to believe this than anyone else in the electorate.
GRAVES: And that's why I like what Karoline Leavitt said when she said that there was new evidence. So that's what I'm looking forward to hearing what the White House brings up. And I'll tell you something else that I hope he brings up. I hope he brings up voter ID laws at the show my ID to get on the airplane today, and I hope that he brings that up as well in terms of improving election integrity.
BLOW: You know, poor people never get on an airplane?
GRAVES: Okay.
BLOW: Because they can't afford it.
GRAVES: You know what they do, Charles? They go to the doctor. They go by --
BLOW: You don't have to show government ID to go to the doctor.
GRAVES: Actually, every time I go to the doctor --
BLOW: That's your doctor. You've been a poor person in America who had to go to the doctor. You do not have to show a government ID every time you go to the doctor.
GRAVES: We can --
BLOW: Just in case you don't know that.
GRAVES: Just -- if we're going to go through, Charles, if we're going to go through all the things you have to do to show an ID, there is absolutely no discrimination. There are ways to get IDs without causing financial harm.
BLOW: Pretending --
HUNT: This is a critical debate that, of course, is being had broadly, but I'd like to keep us focused on what we're going to see tonight.
Alex Thompson, one of the things, you know, as anyone who tries to report on what the president is going to say, risks a lot, because the president often freelances when he is in a situation like this.
And "Politico" actually reported that -- this is from a former Trump administration official to whom "Politico" granted anonymity to speak candidly. Quote, "The people that I talk to are scared shitless, It's not scared shitless about the text of what he's going to say, it's, what does he add to the text?"
ALEX THOMPSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, and it is telling that people inside the White House don't exactly know what Trump's going to say, and also Republicans on the Hill don't know what Trump is going to say.
The truth is that Trump is driving Republicans crazy. And this is not just about this speech. It is his behavior over the last several months where when Republicans try to focus on something like passing a bipartisan housing bill, then Trump is so obsessed with the SAVE America Act and the voting systems that he doesn't even sign the bill and Republicans can't even take a victory lap. Trump can't take a victory lap.
And if you look at you say like election integrity is important to Republicans. Look at what Republicans are actually running on in every single key district in the midterm elections. It's not election integrity. It's the economy.
That's what they're spending their money on. So, they're spending their ads on and that's just -- they are not focused on this. Every poll shows that it is not a top priority for voters right now. MEGHAN HAYS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Because I think the American people believe in our election system because Republicans are in charge of things. There are 43 lawsuits that were litigated about the 2020 election by Donald Trump and he lost every single one of them. And I firmly The White House is putting out that they are talking about Iran and the economy because they need the networks to cover it because they know, the networks know in good faith they should not be covering his lies and that is a way to keep networks tuned in so he can say whatever he wants and continue to lie to the American people.
And I just don't understand he cannot get over the fact that he lost his sleepy Joe Biden, and he'll never get over it as long as he lives. And why do the American people need to suffer? Why does Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock need to suffer and be called illegitimate because of his lies and things that have been proven that are not true? It is baffling to me that we are still talking about this six years later.
HUNT: I mean, Congressman, do you think that Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff are duly elected?
GRAVES: Haven't gone and studied the elections, but I haven't -- Let me be clear on that --
BLOW: That should be easy -- that should have been an easy --
HAYS: There were three -- there were paper ballots that were counted three different times. How can you not say that they won their place?
GRAVES: Because I haven't studied the Georgia election --
HAYS: But there were paper ballots. Let me answer the question that I was asked. I was asked the question if I believe that they were elected. I haven't seen anything to the contrary. So, I've never, ever said that there was anything in question about those folks being elected.
When did we get to this point? And do you think it's good for America that the answer to I mean, like You're a politician, right? I mean, you've conceded -- you've won. You've lost races, right?
GRAVES: No, never lost.
HUNT: So, have your opponents then conceded to you? They called you and said, hey, thanks for a good race. Congratulations. You won.
When did it get to be so hard, right? Like, sporting events are won and lost. So are elections.
GRAVES: Hey, I'm going to agree with you. I think that politics is -- and look, we're from Louisiana, where it's a blood sport. I think it's gotten out of hand. I'll be the first one to say that. I think closed primaries have absolutely made it worse, including in our home state.
But I don't think that the president coming in and presenting, as I heard them say, new evidence is something that we should all be afraid of. Let us look at the evidence, let us judge it, and then decide if it's something that's actually -- that we need to take seriously and find safeguards to protect and prevent from happening.
HAYS: Where is this evidence in the 43 lawsuits that he litigated and lost? So why are we doing it now?
GRAVES: Have you ever found new things? Have new evidence ever popped up?
HUNT: Isn't politics about the future?
HAYS: Yeah.
GRAVES: No, because let's be clear, if we found a way that a foreign government was influenced influencing our elections and caused outcomes to be distorted, that's something every American, regardless if you're liberal or conservative, should be concerned about. Integrity in elections is critical. They have new evidence.
BLOW: Define cause, define cause outcomes to be distorted. Because there's a very technical issue here. Just saying that somebody caused an outcome to be distorted, influence can do that. That's very different.
Everybody already says that influence is already an issue -- influence can do, let me finish, influence can do that. Changing any part of the electoral system, changing votes, changing tallying, that is the question that -- and that is what Donald Trump has been suggesting, and that has never, ever been found.
And I find it personally upsetting about Georgia, because I voted in that election where Warnock and Ossoff won. There was no influence that was making me say, oh, I'm going to just -- just these two lines are cheating, but the rest of the votes are legitimate. That's insane.
HUNT: All right. I want to give Alyssa Fair Griffin the last word here.
Alyssa, apologies, things here have -- please, go ahead.
GRIFFIN: Well, I just want to mention I was advising the Georgia Republican Party in 2020 on those elections. I wanted Perdue and Loeffler to win. They did not win. They lost fair and square to Warnock and Ossoff.
But I'd also note this: Donald Trump was legitimately elected in 2016. The Obama administration was overseeing the federal government. In 2020, we, the Trump administration, was overseeing seeing the federal government. In 2024, when he won, it was the Biden administration.
So, he's basically saying that the failure to administer, at least at the federal level, the elections, the failure to stop these interferences, only happened under his watch, when our now-CIA Director John Ratcliffe was the director of national intelligence.
Like, if he really wants to open this can of worms, I don't think it's the flex for the Trump administration that he thinks it is. The one election that was stolen 2020 was when he was in power as president. HUNT: That's a point to wrap up on.
Alyssa Farah Griffin, thank you very much. Really appreciate you being here.
The rest of our panel is going to stand by.
Coming up next in THE ARENA, some news just coming in on the attorney general nominee, Todd Blanche, confirming he will meet with Epstein survivors this hour as a key senator makes it a demand if he wants to get his support for confirmation.
But first, the tale of the teleprompter. A longtime presidential aide now under investigation for allegedly pulling in nearly six figures from bets he made online using his inside knowledge of the president's speeches.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEAVITT: This individual will no longer be here. He'll be on paid administrative leave-- I'm sorry, without pay. The administrative leave is unpaid, to be very clear. That was a decision by the president, so I think that speaks for itself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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[16:22:15]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I have a guy, Gabe, he's excellent. I've had some real bad ones, but I have Gabe. Some of the bad ones, they go so fast. You know, I will go and bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. I say, "Slow the damn thing." No, a good one is really like gold, right?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Gabriel Perez, President Trump's longtime teleprompter operator, is under investigation for insider trading on the prediction market Kalshi. The trades that Perez made were on what are called mention markets. That's where users can bet on which words and phrases that public figures, including President Trump, will say at speeches and events.
One source told CNN that Perez made more than $90,000 in profits from the trades in question. However, those profits have been frozen. Kalshi referred its findings to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Perez is said to be cooperating with the investigation.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says Trump thinks it's a quote disgrace.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) LEAVITT: I'm aware of the report. The President is, too. I spoke with him about it. He believes it's deeply unfortunate and, frankly, a disgrace. And the individual that was cited in that report is complying with the CFTC but has been put on paid administrative leave. So, there will be a teleprompter operator tonight, of course, but it will not be the one, unfortunately, in that story.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Worth noting, Leavitt later corrected herself he's been placed on unpaid administrative leave. And we should also note that CNN has a partnership with Kalshi and uses its data to cover major events. However, CNN editorial employees are not allowed to trade on prediction markets.
CNN contributor, host of "The Rip Current" podcast, Jacob Ward, joins our panel.
Jacob, thanks very much for being here. I want to talk in a moment with our political panel about some of the stranger aspects to this story and how it impacts the president itself. But I know this is something that you cover, this is kind of a brave new world. in a lot of ways. And pretty remarkable that it has come this close to one of our top public figures in this way. What would you point out about this story?
JACOB WARD, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I would point out, first of all, Kasie, that the original academic concept of giving people the opportunity to bet on the outcome of, let's say, a political race was supposed to access the wisdom of the crowd, that if you give people the chance to put a little bit of money on a thing, they tend to bring their best self to analyzing that thing, and we will get better wisdom as a result.
That's a pretty well-established academic idea. But that has been perverted, in my opinion, into this deeply predatory race to the bottom it comes to the prediction market world that we are now in. You've got Perez as the latest example, but you have U.S. Army Master Sergeant Gannon Van Dyke the guy who traded on Maduro and his capture because Van Dyke was in on the operation.
[16:25:05]
You've got Google employees trading on which search results are going to be most popular. You even had three congressional candidates betting on their own races. Now, we can argue in good faith whether this stuff, you know, actually affects the outcome, but Perez, this person, the president's teleprompter operator, is as close as we've gotten to a non-sports instance in which the person making the bet actually has some influence on the outcome. It isn't just insider trading, but that guy runs the machine through which the president says what he says, right?
So, then we're in this place that's very much like the sports scandals that we're seeing, because now that, public that betting on sports has become so popular. and legal in the United States. You know, a recent study found that as many as 20 percent of athletes at the Division I college level are being regularly harassed by bettors, seeking to influence the outcome of the competitions they are in.
And so, I think we're in a world that was at one time supposed to be a very smart way of understanding the future and has now become a very predatory industry, Kasie.
HUNT: Jacob, you mentioned three congressional candidates that bet on outcomes of their own races. Can I just ask you, because I'm trying to wrap my head around what the laws and rules are around this. If you're one of those candidates, and you go into the field with an internal poll that's not public, you're paying to generate information, and then you use that information to bet in favor or against yourself, are you committing insider trading? I mean, in theory, any person could pay a commission, a poll, but the reality is they haven't. I mean, how does a case-- some of these cases are just mind-blowing to me.
WARD: They are, right, because it's so beyond the pale, I think, right? Our grandparents would fall over to think that this is sort of normal, right? But this is absolutely normal now. You know, in the case of the congressional things, the weird thing, Kasie, is that that one's a relatively innocent one. These are people betting like 200 bucks on whether or not they win. You could imagine this as like a friendly way of sort of patting yourself on the back for your chances.
But in one case, one of those candidates actually bet on whether he would declare, and that's a case in which he actually can influence the outcome. Now, is this illegal? No, but Kalshi has made it against their rules now because their terms of service are changing every day, essentially, as people come up with new ways to manipulate the system.
You can no longer bet on your own campaign. That kind of stuff is all changing, but, man, they're having to change it so fast.
HUNT: Huh.
All right, so Meghan Hays, you've worked in the White House. Can you walk us through -- this person, Gabriel Perez, is a very remarkable figure in that he has been with Trump since, I think Alex, you'd reported 2016. So this man and anyone that's covered Trump knows that and honestly anyone that's worked with a teleprompter actually can understand it is actually very important when you are in a public performing role and I think the fact that this person has been with Trump for so long underscores the importance of the relationship in fact possibly the primacy considering the importance of Trump's public performances to his own kind of political aspirations.
But this isn't how it's normally done in the White House. How is it normally done?
HAYS: That's correct. So, the White House has a operation called the White House Communication Agency, WHCA is what we call it. When we're there, it's run by military. There are some civilians there. They do all of the secure communications, the AV, the teleprompter. And they're the ones that are in charge of doing this. They take over when you are the president-elect. I mean, they met us
in Delaware when Joe Biden won. They go through the specs of the podium and how tall the microphone is. If you notice the microphone is different for Trump than it is for other people. They are the ones that run the teleprompter.
I don't think, correct me, I might be misremembering, but I don't know that anyone has run a teleprompter outside of Trump for a president besides someone in the military or in WHCA. since, for 50 or 60 years.
HUNT: Well, they have the possibility that it has happened, but in your experience in the White House, the Biden White House, it was the military that was running.
HAYS: That's correct, and they do all the secure communications. They have someone that travels with the president. They connect phone calls for secure operations. They are the ones that are in charge solely of making sure that the president is able to communicate to the American people, whether it is on a teleprompter or any way, shape, or form that they communicate, they are in charge, and they are part of the military.
HUNT: Yeah, go ahead.
THOMPSON: There is so much self-dealing in this White House that even the teleprompter guy is now getting in on it. And there is some irony of the Trump White House finally putting down and finally drawing a line in the sand and said, no more. When you have Howard Lutnick's son, Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff, all having conflicts of interest as far as the eye can see, and Trump making tons and tons of stock bets with -- on companies that he directly regulates and is having relationships with, and yet it's the teleprompter guy that eventually gets thrown under the bus.
HAYS: So, the unique --
(CROSSTALK)
BLOW: He's not saying no more. He's not saying no more at all. He's just saying, not this guy.
THOMPSON: Yeah.
HAYES: But the unique thing here is his title is deputy assistant to the president, which means he is commissioned officer, which means he is very senior staff. There are 24, I think, assistant to the presidents.
[16:30:01]
Then there's a ring under that are deputy assistants. This is very, very senior staff. It comes with a military commission for the time you're in the White House. This is not some junior staffer that doesn't know anything.
HUNT: Yeah, I mean, Alex, when you said, I mean, when I was reading the reporting and if you look at what Karoline Leavitt said and the president said to be disgusted by all of this -- I mean, is the line that it's OK for him and for people that are close to him to do it, but not for people that are too far out to profit off of him? Like, is that the issue?
THOMPSON: I mean, Trump has long had a lot of frustrations and expressed anger when he feels that anyone is taking advantage of him. In fact, lots of people get in his ear. I remember during the 2024 campaign, Corey Lewandowski was talking in Trump's ear, being like Chris LaCivita, Susie Wiles, he's with the senior officials. They're taking advantage of you. They're spending too much of your money.
This has always been a trigger for Trump. And with a lot of things with Trump, you can't always predict what's going to trigger him and what's not. There's not always consistency.
HUNT: Interesting. All right. Jacob Ward, thank you. Always love having you. Come back soon.
The rest of our panel is going to stand by.
Coming up next here in THE ARENA, Democratic congressman, member of the Oversight Committee, Suhas Subramanyam is here with us live as Attorney General nominee Todd Blanche is about to meet with Epstein survivors as he tries to win over some still undecided Republican senators in his quest for confirmation as attorney general.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:35:43]
HUNT: All right. We are back now with breaking news. Todd Blanche expected to be meeting now with a group of Epstein survivors here in Washington. This meeting happening literally just hours after Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who is one of two GOP lawmakers that could derail Blanche's nomination to be attorney general, basically demanded that the meeting happen if he was going to win his support.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): Mr. Blanche said very quickly yesterday that he would meet with the victims, the Epstein victims, today, if it could be arranged. I expect that meeting to occur before I'm willing to vote out of this committee. And I'm trying to get to yes, but this is a very important part of getting to yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right, joining me now, Democratic congressman from Virginia, Suhas Subramanya. He sits on the House Oversight Committee.
Congressman, thank you so much for being here.
The Oversight Committee, of course, has conducted an extensive investigation into the Epstein allegations, the Epstein scandal. Can you address why, or kind of behind the scenes, what was your understanding of why Todd Blanche wouldn't do this before? Why is this demand for Thom Tillis what is getting Todd Blanche to take this meeting?
REP. SUHAS SUBRAMANYAM (D-VA): We got a different answer every time we asked. It's a very simple thing to meet with the survivors of these heinous crimes. Yet he'd said it's inappropriate. Oh, I don't think it's necessary. Oh, well, there's investigations going on. They always had an excuse.
And so, if he was legally barred from meeting with them, that's one thing. But there's no law saying he can't meet with survivors of a heinous crime. The opposite. They should be talking with them regularly and working with them on protecting information, for instance.
But instead, he's shirked that duty until now, until it politically benefits him through this confirmation, until a US senator says he won't confirm them until they do. So that's why this is happening now.
HUNT: What has his role been in the Justice Department in terms of following the law that Congress passed to release the Epstein files?
SUBRAMANYAM: Remember, we had Pam Bondi in front of the oversight committee, and we asked her about the Epstein files handling. She said Todd Blanche's name at least 30 times. We counted it. And she said Todd Blanche was in charge of the Epstein files.
And Todd Blanche, remember, was the president's former personal attorney, right? So, it's no wonder he was put in charge of the Epstein files. And so, there's a lack of trust in Todd Blanche, in his handling of anything, much less the Epstein files. And if he becomes the attorney general, there's a worry now among all of us that he's going to use it as the president's personal attorney to enact political retribution against political opponents.
That is a real problem, and that's something that needs to be resolved. I do not think he should ever be confirmed.
HUNT: Just to stick on the Epstein question for one second, and then we can talk more broadly, Todd Blanche met with Ghislaine Maxwell, and she was eventually moved to a less unpleasant prison, shall we put it that way. Do you feel like your committee got a full accounting of what happened at that meeting?
SUBRAMANYAM: We asked Pam Bondi that question and she said well Todd Blanche went down there for six hours remember he didn't visit with survivors, he visited with Ghislaine Maxwell, right? And for six hours talked to her and then all of a sudden was transferred to a minimum security prison, right?
And we asked why was that? Who made that call? She said, "I don't know". The attorney general of the United States said "I don't know. The Bureau of Prisons is in charge of that and by the way, they're doing a great job." That's the answer that we got.
It's pretty clear that Todd Blanche, there's a cause and effect there. He's the one that was involved in that transfer, whether or not he wants to admit it.
HUNT: Well, I want to play something that the vice president, J.D. Vance, had to say when he spoke with Joe Rogan. This interview was released yesterday. Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Say this with all candor. Like, we absolutely screwed up the comms of the Epstein files, like we just did. But do I think the reason we screwed up the comms is because we were trying to hide something? No.
If people want to say we mishandled the Epstein release, guilty. We did mishandle, especially the communications of it.
JOE ROGAN, PODCAST HOST: What do you think should have been done?
VANCE: I think that we should have just dropped everything at the very beginning.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Were you surprised to hear him say that?
SUBRAMANYAM: I was not surprised to hear him say that because I believe that's what this administration feels, that they didn't handle the comms of this.
[16:40:02]
The reality is they didn't handle everything about this. They didn't handle the truth about this, the transparency that was needed.
They're still hanging on to two million files. And so, if they think it's just a comms issue, then that's just shirking their responsibilities to the American people.
HUNT: Vance seemed to go further when he was talking about Epstein himself. Rogan was pressing him about where exactly or who, exactly, Epstein was connected to. I want to play another piece of this interview.
It's got a lot -- it's got a lot of attention online. Let's watch it. I think you'll see why. We'll talk about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VANCE: I'm, like, one of the O.G. Epstein conspiracy theorists.
ROGAN: Most people think he was Mossad.
VANCE: Yeah, Mossad or CIA or some other deep state, whether in America or Israel or another country.
ROGAN: Or both. VANCE: Or both. You know, look, he clearly had connections to the
upper -- the highest levels of American intelligence. He clearly had connections to the highest levels of Israeli intelligence.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Have you ever -- has your committee ever come across evidence that supports what J.D. Vance was saying right there?
SUBRAMANYAM: No, not quite. And now he's an OG cover-up person on the Epstein files. So, I actually didn't see that before.
I will say this, that if J.D. Vance wants to make things right, then he can work with Todd Blanche and the attorney general's office to release all the files. That's what the survivors want, and they want to make sure that there's justice. There's actual prosecutions for people who did things the wrong way, the people who are associated with Jeffrey Epstein and committed crimes. That's what the American people want, and that's why they're seeing it from their own base. That's why he's going on Joe Rogan and apologizing, essentially.
It's because even Republicans think that they've mishandled the Epstein files.
HUNT: Let's talk a little bit about the president's speech tonight. We expect it to be around election security, election integrity. We've been reporting it may be about potential foreign interference, new claims that they are going to make -- we also saw Jay Clayton, the appointee to be the director of national intelligence, refused to say straightforwardly that Joe Biden won the election in 2020.
What do you expect to hear from the president tonight? And what are the consequences of that?
SUBRAMANYAM: I expect to hear the same thing we always hear from the president, which was that the 2020 election was rigged against him and that he was the rightful winner of it, which is a lie. It's been proven to be a lie over and over again. And I don't expect to see or hear any evidence to the contrary of that, it was a lie.
And so, he can go on TV, he can try to change the subject and try to get the attention back on him. But the reality is he lost the election in 2020, and he was in charge of all the agencies overseeing the elections. And so, if he has anyone to blame, it's himself, but the reality is it was a lie.
HUNT: Has he or has the White House given any of the information they say that they have to Republicans on the oversight committee to potentially use it to look into things?
SUBRAMANYAM: We don't know. We haven't heard anything. All we know is what's been reported. And so, if he really has a problem with election security, he'll actually work with us in a bipartisan way to solve that.
But this isn't about election security. He sees an existential threat to Democrats taking over the House and actually investigating him and making him accountable for all the things that he's doing. And so he's trying to say that it's going to be rigged, and he's going to try to pass the SAVE America Act to try to undermine our ability to win in November, which we will.
HUNT: Are you confident, if you win in November, that the House Speaker and that the leaders in the House of Representatives will seat the Congress?
SUBRAMANYAM: That's something we've talked about. I'm not fully confident in that. And that's something we need to continue to consider carefully.
But in the meantime, we will certainly be fighting to make sure we have that majority so we can have that conversation.
HUNT: All right, Congressman, I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much for being here.
SUBRAMANYAM: Thank you.
HUNT: All right. Ahead here in THE ARENA, our next story brought to you by the letter T. We're talking about the policy being rolled out at the Pentagon.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIMMY FALLON, COMEDIAN: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth just announced annual -- he just announced annual testosterone screenings for service members. He's also going to test their urine to make sure it's 100 percent Monster Energy drink.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:48:25]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: I'm authorizing a new screening program for testosterone deficiency for our service members, ensuring you have the right testosterone levels to operate at your absolute best. Those under 30 can voluntarily choose to get the test as well. If treatment is recommended, it's entirely your choice to receive testosterone replacement therapy.
This initiative, it's not about artificial enhancement. It's about restoring and optimizing your natural capabilities.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: The Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, there debuting a brand new policy for troops over 30, yearly testosterone screenings. The tests will be mandatory and will be part of a service member's annual medical exam. However, Hegseth says treatment for those who are found with, quote, testosterone deficiency will be voluntary.
The announcement comes at a time when some Trump administration officials have openly advocated for men to have easier access to testosterone replacement therapies.
Dr. Jeremy Faust joins our panel now.
Dr. Faust, thank you very much for being here.
I am not 100 percent sure where to start, since I am not a medical doctor here. But I am curious to understand your perspective on this policy, whether it's necessary, and what the potential risks are.
DR. JEREM Y FAUST, ER PHYSICIAN: Thanks for having me. This policy strikes me as exceedingly unwise. I'm sure somebody thinks it's a very clever idea.
[16:50:01]
As an emergency doctor, let me just tell you, the one thing we see a lot of is complications from overtreatment. People who are getting medicines that they never needed, and the downsides were never really explained to them. And then they lose trust in medical systems, and they have bad outcomes. In this case, increases in broken bones and blood clots.
We've been down this road before. Estrogen can cause blood clots, and we actually saw that people -- women were getting doses that were too high early on, and they figured out how to lower that safely. But in fairness, you have to look at the benefits.
But here, it's really none. It's striking when I looked into this. People with low testosterone without symptoms, they do not benefit from supplementation and what I think is missing here is, and I'm wondering, does the secretary believe that there is some undiagnosed hypogonadism in our armed forces? And if so, I really think that's interesting, but probably it's caused by something else like obesity, diabetes, things that primary care can address.
HUNT: Yeah, I was going to say, you're going to need to translate that medical term for me, sir.
FAUST: Hypogonad is just the term for low testosterone with symptoms of low testosterone in in males and men. So, but -- I mean, generally this is something that can occur and people do need testosterone when they have it. But there's actually a whole medical debate about whether who should actually get supplementation even with low values of testosterone, because people even with those low values don't always benefit. And again, there are risks.
HUNT: So -- I mean, Alex Thompson, can we kind of cut through the noise here in terms of like, I mean, what is the secretary doing with this? I mean, it seems like he just wants to test everybody for manliness?
THOMPSON: I mean, he's doing exactly what Donald Trump wants him to do. Beyond just this policy, the reason why Pete Hegseth was plucked off a Fox News set and made defense secretary was for this reason, because his entire ethos, his entire persona was about restoring sort of a hyper-masculine army combatant state. And so, and you know, this is not just a Hegseth thing.
I mean, RFK, Jr. also regularly talks about taking testosterone. Trump has the most men in his cabinet of any president for going back at least well over a decade. This is part of his entire persona. It's not an accident.
HUNT: Let's watch what Dr. Oz, in September of 2016, just to flash back a little bit, talking about-- he read Trump his own medical records, and he did it this way.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. MEHMET OZ, THEN-TV HOST: My goodness. His EKG chest x-ray on April 14th was normal. A normal echocardiogram was done two years ago. And your testosterone is 441, which is actually -- it's good.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Congressman, is this going to increase our national security?
GRAVES: Look, I've worked with folks on how we get better nutrition for our troops, and it affects performance, it affects injuries, it affects recovery. If this is another data point, then I think it's something important for them to factor in.
No one has said that there's mandatory treatment. They've been very clear that if it's recommended, that they could pursue it. But look, if this is about improving the performance of our troops, then I'm in.
HUNT: This is how Adam Kinzinger, another former Republican member of Congress, put it. He said, you know, screening military members and worth noting Kinzinger's a vet himself.
You know, screening military members for low T isn't a bad idea, but making a video about it after you put on your makeup in your makeup corner in the Pentagon kind of is. Maybe just implement it quietly.
Meghan Hays?
HAYS: I mean, this is like the dumbest thing ever. We are literally at war, and we're talking about what we're going to test men for. I mean, this is like the kids called chadmaxxing, so I just don't understand why we're doing this and why we are not focused on a war.
HUNT: Charles, would you like to comment?
BLOW: I'm very interested in how high your testosterone has to be to analyze data, how high your testosterone has to be to operate a drone, how high your testosterone has to be to figure out how A.I. is being deployed in the military. The modern military is so much more than your physicality that we should be really focused on recruiting the smartest, best people, regardless of whether they're male or female, whether the testosterone is high or low.
You were just talking about a war that we've been in for four months. How many ground troops have engaged in that war that we've been in for four months on soil in Iran? None, because the modern military is a different animal.
And so, we're focused on this 1950s G.I. Joe model of a military where everybody needs to have rippling muscles and have a doll made out of them that the boys can play with. That is not a modern military.
HUNT: Dr. Faust, are there potential downsides? And we only have about 30 seconds here in terms of readiness.
FAUST: Well, one thing is it's a high-risk population for suicidality.
[16:55:01]
I have to say that. And in the big trials, people at high risk of suicide were excluded from the testosterone trials because of that fear. So, I worry about that. And I just think that it's really important that we keep our people safe. And I am kind of surprised that they're interested in what honestly amounts to gender-affirming care. But as far as that goes, you have to really make sure that it's necessary before you do that kind of thing and make sure it's done safely. And that's true in all situations.
HUNT: All right, Dr. Jeremy Faust, thank you, sir. Really appreciate your expertise. Hope you'll come back.
On that note, we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HUNT: All right, thanks to my panel. Really appreciate you all being here.
Thanks to you at home for watching as well.
Jake Tapper is standing by for "THE LEAD".
Hi, Jake.
