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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt

Trump: USS Lincoln Deployment "Not Nearly Long Enough"; Mangione Pleads Guilty In Fed Court, Admits Shooting CEO; Trump Asks Supreme Court To Approve White House Ballroom. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired August 14, 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]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: That's fair. That works. We got like 10 seconds to fill. We'll leave it at that.

Brian, it was great to have you here. Thank you so much for joining us.

THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT starts right now.

(MUSIC)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone. Welcome to THE ARENA. It is Friday. Kasie Hunt is off. I'm Pamela Brown.

And as we come on the air today, President Trump is pushing back on reports of poor conditions and low morale on board the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier key to the war with Iran.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: The family members of U.S. service members are concerned about the conditions onboard the USS Lincoln.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, no, that ship is moving. No, they're not. That ship is moving right now, or very shortly, and it's being replaced with another very similar ship.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: A really striking moment there. The commander-in-chief being told that service members' families are concerned, and he simply insists, no, they're not.

To be clear, some family members, they do have questions. I've spoken to some of them. They have expressed some worries.

Earlier today I spoke with the father of one service member aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, and here's what he told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FATHER OF U.S. SERVICE MEMBER ON USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN: I want them to come home. And all of us as parents have some questions about the length of time that it's taken and the distribution of military assets. Obviously, I -- humbly, I cannot speak to that because I don't know anything about it, but we would love to see a situation where relief can come in a timely fashion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: We are now more than five months into a war that the administration predicted initially that would last four to six weeks, and there are very real questions about how and when this will end, which is why this new comment from Vice President JD Vance is so interesting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I know that oil is down today and it's way down from the highs in the early days of the conflict. That's goal number one, keep oil and gas cheap for Americans all over our country. And then, obviously, goal number two is ensure that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon. I feel confident we're accomplishing both of those goals.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So now the number one goal, apparently, of the war with Iran is cheap oil and gas.

For the record, when President Trump announced the start of this conflict, not once did he mention oil or gas prices. At the time, gas was under $3 a gallon. Now, as you see, it is above $4.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt later tried to clean that comment up, saying that cheap gas and Iran's nuclear program were both equally important to the president. But the question remains, if bringing gas prices down is a top goal of this war, how much longer will American service members be deployed? And that brings us back to the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Has the deployment gone on too long? Are you worried about the mental health concerns?

TRUMP: No, no, no. Not nearly long enough. Thank you, everybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So, let's get off the sidelines and head into THE ARENA. My panel is here.

CNN legal analyst, former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams; chief Washington correspondent for MeidasTouch Network, Scott MacFarlane; Democratic strategist, former White House director of message planning, Meghan Hays; and Republican strategist Matt Whitlock.

We are also joined by CNN senior military analyst, former NATO supreme allied commander, retired Admiral James Stavridis. And, Admiral, I want to start with you to get your perspective. Just

moments ago, President Trump said something about the future of this war. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: After we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated, pretty soon I'll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States.

(END VIDOE CLIP)

BROWN: What's your reaction when you hear that?

ADM. JAMES STAVRIDIS (RET.), CNN SENIOR MILITARY ANALYST: I just don't understand. Clearly, the Strait of Hormuz is an international strait. It's an international body of water. It needs to be open to all nations to go back and forth. So, if we're going to object to Iranian control of it, the idea that we are going to suddenly become the owner and operator of this strait flies in the face of everything that we have stood for in terms of international law and particularly international maritime law.

But let's go back to Abraham Lincoln for a minute, the carrier. I spent about a year embarked in that carrier when I was a Navy captain. And these are extraordinary machines of war. You know very well you were embarked just a week or two ago.

And it's 5,000 people on the carrier, and it appears it's under a pretty pronounced level of stress that's coming across from the crew and the crew members. As you and I have talked about, you were there. It's 5,000 people.

[16:05:00]

It's a small town and there are going to be differing views on what they're doing. So bottom line, I think what the Navy ought to focus on right now is finding out exactly what the conditions are on the carrier, number one.

Number two, get the carrier home because they've been out to sea setting records. And I'd invite everybody on the panel, anybody listening, just think where you were last November 21st when they deployed, and think about all the holidays, the birthdays, everything that you would have missed. And oh, by the way, they've been at sea. They're not pulling into port.

So, it's a situation that requires the Navy to take a hard look at what's going on, get the carrier back. I think the Navy's moving in that direction on both sides. But I'll leave it to the political panel to discuss the back and forth. But that's a bit of perspective on the naval side of things.

BROWN: I just want to drill down a little bit more into that because when I was over there, the thing that stood out to me was just certainly, there was a psychological toll to the fact that they'd been out at sea for so long. They had limited port visits compared to typical deployments. And so, I pretty much asked everyone I spoke to over there, sailors, commanding officers, what has it been like? How are you managing that?

And I want to play this sound from the commanding officer of the destroyer, the Frank E. Peterson, Jr. By the way, it's not just the Abraham Lincoln that's been out to sea for nine months. These destroyers, these submarines as well, but they should not be forgotten.

But I want to listen to what he told me then and then talk on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COMMANDING OFFICER OF FRANK E. PETERSON: So the biggest challenge is the people, the sailors who haven't been home, you know, for a while. We've been out here, very special situation, always on ready to go, always ready to take action. And that's wearing on a person, you know, very honest, I think assessment of it.

And we try to really have ways to vent that. We talked, you know, we have various behavior therapy groups, right? We have bull sessions. People can come in and say, this is how I feel. And we just try to really give everybody a chance to vent that feeling.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: I wonder what you think about that, just as someone who has had to manage crew morale and just the uncertainty. I think that's been very hard too, just the uncertainty of when they'll be home.

STAVRIDIS: I think you put your finger on it. It is the fact that it just keeps moving on and on.

During the forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, our soldiers, our army soldiers deployed into combat, ground combat for 12 months, but they -- they had an end game and they knew that was coming. There wasn't this sense of it just goes on and on like Sisyphus rolling the boulder up the mountain --

BROWN: Right.

STAVRIDIS: -- knowing that it's going to roll back down on you.

Very, very challenging piece of this. I do want to commend that commanding officer. I've been the captain of Navy destroyers. He's doing exactly what we want a captain to do in that scenario. He's upbeat, he's positive, he's going to continue to press to accomplish the mission. We ought to be proud of this carrier and these escort ships.

And oh, by the way, when they come off station, I hope the first visitor is the President of the United States who lands on the deck of the carrier and awards them a Presidential Unit Citation for their excellence in combat and this record-setting deployment. BROWN: Yeah, I mean, they deserve to be commended, that is for sure. I want to follow up with you with one quick thing, Admiral. I've been hearing from a lot of sailors on board the ship, and I've been hearing different things. As you pointed out, it's basically a floating town of 5,000 people, right?

One sailor reached out to me and said this: It's been very difficult. It feels like our leaders who sent us out here were making no efforts to bring us back. Neither did it feel like they were considerate of our lack of supplies and mental exhaustion.

Now, again, It's not a monolith. But I guess my question to you is, when you hear that, how do you square that with what we're hearing from the president and the secretary versus what the actual sailors themselves are saying?

STAVRIDIS: It's a disconnect, clearly. And that's why I think it would be best for the acting secretary of the Navy, retired Navy captain Hung Cao, the acting undersecretary of the Navy, retired Navy Captain Bill Tote, both Naval Academy graduates, or perhaps the master chief petty officer of the Navy, get an outside look at what's going on that isn't media but is part of the civilian chain of command.

I think there's a follow-up that could be good for the crew, good for the Navy. I hope that happens in the next few days and weeks.

BROWN: And what does it all mean for the USS George Washington which is out in route to take over for the Abraham Lincoln at a time where the president is saying that the Strait of Hormuz is going to be U.S. territory. Wouldn't that mean that these carriers would just be out there indefinitely?

STAVRIDIS: Certainly, the Navy is capable of keeping ships in and around the Arabian Gulf. I'll use a technical term here "until the cows come home". We can do this.

The question is the long-term impact on retention, the long-term strategic impact on the Navy as you stretch those carriers and those escorts and keep them endlessly at sea. There's a bill to be paid eventually. We ought to be mindful of that in the present.

BROWN: All right. Admiral, stand by.

I want to go to you, Matt. You heard the conversation I had there with the admiral. But that is the backdrop. I want to listen to the sound of what the president said in February about the goals of this war. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime. We are going to destroy their missiles. We are going to annihilate their navy. We are going to ensure that the region's terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world. And we will ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon. (ENBD VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: And then you recently heard J.D. Vance, vice president, say now that one of the top goals is to lower gas prices. And the president just talked about gas prices moments ago, so let's listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: So, for you to pay a tiny little bit more for your gasoline, just remember, you're doing it so that a very evil country cannot have -- a country really is the number one state sponsor of terror in the world. We don't want to have them have a nuclear weapon. So remember that.

When you have to pay a little bit more, you're at $4. It's OK. I mean, it's -- I'm not -- I'm not -- I'll never apologize. I did the right thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Do you think that's the right messaging in this moment?

MATT WHITLOCK, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: I think that there's been a bit of a buzz saw or a whipsaw I should say back and forth where the president said originally he's not thinking about the economy, he's not thinking about gas prices and what J.D. Vance is saying there does suggest they're thinking about gas prices particularly because pulling in support of this conflict has been tied very closely to the rise and fall of gas prices. There was a time a few months ago when it looked like we were really close to a peace deal where gas prices dropped a little bit and suddenly there was less pulling tumbled around this and now, they're going as you said back up again which I think is a huge challenge, but I think it is more important that they focus on the well-being of these troops.

You hear those stories and you just think this sacrifice is incredible. I've got two little sons at home. If I miss them for a weekend, I'm devastated. I can't imagine being out for nine months as I hope they'll focus their communication on what our timeline is, what our real objectives are and how we're going to get out of here because that's what voters going into the midterms are really going to be thinking about.

BROWN: Yeah, what do you think about the messaging here?

MEGHAN HAYS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I mean, I think that J.D. Vance is going to run for president in 2028. He realizes that the economy is around his neck as well and that Donald Trump saying that he doesn't care, and he's never going to apologize and you have to pay more for gas is not a winning strategy for him. It's not a winning strategy for Republicans heading into the midterms, as Matt suggested.

But I agree that we need to be focused on these troops. It's unconscionable what we're doing to them and what we're expecting out of these folks. I think it's also going to impact people in the midterms, because people are going to see these stories and think, why are Republicans not standing up? Why have Republicans in Congress not done anything to get these troops home, to get this war ended? And I think it's not going to impact Donald Trump, but it is going to impact Congress.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I would also note, at the time that this all started, I think the estimate coming out of the White House was that this whole conflict would take four to six weeks, and it was, well, maybe it might be eight weeks. It's still kind of six weeks, sort of, if you're rounding. And now, here we are at near the end of August.

And in that time, the rationales have shifted multiple times, like as we saw the president saying, whether it's regime change or whether it's oil or whether it's gas prices or whether it's the nuclear weapon. And I think, particularly as you were both saying, as we're heading into an election year, that's the kind of uncertainty that just makes voters uneasy and will.

BROWN: What do you make of, Scott, this gap between what we're hearing from the president and what we've heard about the economy isn't the number one factor, and what you just heard from J.D. Vance?

SCOTT MACFARLANE, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, MEIDASTOUCH NEWTORK: This is going to cut through both the economic reality and the reality of what's happening on the USS Abraham Lincoln is going to cut through. A lot of what Trump does is beltway controversy invisible to the public. This is anything but invisible to the public. We're getting messages from service member families in Appleton, Wisconsin, Akron, Ohio, Phoenix, Tacoma. This is an impact your local community type of issue. So is the economy.

It feels to me, as Admiral Stavridis said, it's a long time since last November. It is not a long time until this November, and they are squandering precious political time by being off message, and it seems to be off base really important realities.

BROWN: They -- CENTCOM yesterday posted this. I want to show this. It was a denial of reports of poor conditions, including an Iranian media report falsely suggesting that there was a deadly brawl on board.

[16:15:02]

So, you see what they posted right there. And this comes after Secretary Hegseth had this reaction to the reports.

Let's actually listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Completely misrepresented. Listen, we make sure at every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment. Some deployments are longer than others, and I have more respect and gratitude for those sailors than anybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BROWN: Do you think he handled that moment the right way, Matt?

WHITLOCK: I like how he ended it with respect for the sailors. I would have loved just more of the focus on what we're talking about. The gratitude we have for what they're doing there. If we believe this mission is as important as the president has laid out, what are we doing to help them understand that there's a path to get home, that there's a path to finishing what we started there? Because I think the communication has been a little bit muddled over the last few months.

And I know there's objectives to sort of find the peace deal and find the agreement that there's not going to be nuclear weapons, but in the last couple weeks alone, I think there's been a little as I said before, a whipsaw between what our focus is, what our main objectives are, and how we're going to get this done.

BROWN: All right, lots more to discuss. Stay with us.

Coming up in THE ARENA, a new test for the Supreme Court. What President Trump is asking the justices to let him do after lower courts have repeatedly told him no.

But first, Luigi Mangione sharing chilling new details about his plot to kill an insurance executive as he pleads guilty in federal court. And defense attorneys now move to get the New York State case against him thrown out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAREN FRIEDMAN AGNIFILO, LUIGI MANGIONE'S DEFENSE LAWYER: He believed that the system had failed him and destroyed his life. Despite this being a single isolated event, Mr. Mangione has been unfairly treated since the outset in every way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:21:08]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMIE MCDONALD, U.S. ATTORNEY FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK: We live in a civilized society governed by the rule of law. We debate. We disagree. We protest.

We do not commit murder. No grievance, political belief, or ideological cause can ever justify murder. There can be no celebrity in assassination.

Mangione attempted to send a public message through violence. But the message that emerges today is very different.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: In federal court today, Luigi Mangione pleaded guilty to stalking charges in the 2024 killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Mangione spoke quickly and used few words, telling the court in part, quote, "I shot Mr. Thompson and he died. I knew what I was doing was illegal."

His plea setting a legal fight over whether the 28-year-old defendant will be able to be tried for murder in state court.

Joining us now from right outside that courthouse is CNN correspondent Kara Scannell.

And you were in court today when all of this was going down, Kara. What more can you tell us about how it all played out?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Pamela, Luigi Mangione was calm. He was direct. He was matter of fact when he said that he had suffered back -- a broken back and navigated the health care system. He said he was frustrated with it. He said he reached out to UnitedHealthcare. When he found out about the investor conference, posing as an investor managing more than $50 billion in assets, said he found out the location, then he traveled to New York.

He made a 3D printer gun, he walked up to Brian Thompson, shot him. He said he died. I knew what I was doing was illegal.

It was so calm there was not a glimmer of remorse from him and as he said it, Brian Thompson's family was sitting in the front row of the courtroom. You could see the emotion rippling down that row his widow was wiping tears from her eyes she was clutching the with the person sitting next to her. The family clearly feeling the moment here when Mangione just saying so coldly what he did and why he did it.

Now, his legal team is saying that they are going to try to get the state charges thrown out. The Manhattan District Attorney's Office, which investigated this case, said that they are planning to litigate this. They want to ensure that Brian Thompson's family gets justice here, but it does set up this showdown because Mangione's lawyers say that there's double jeopardy under New York law where he can't be tried for the same crime twice. That is going to be something that will be decided by a judge.

But for Mangione, the next immediate step here will be continuing that fight in state court, and then he will be sentenced by the federal judge in December. And prosecutors say they expect to seek the maximum sentence of life in prison and expect to hear members of Brian Thompson's family address the judge at that hearing in December -- Pamela.

BROWN: I bet that'd be very emotional.

Kara Scannell, thank you.

And I want to bring in CNN's chief legal analyst, Laura Coates, and criminal defense attorney Joey Jackson.

Mangione notably didn't receive any concessions in exchange for this plea. So help us understand why his team went ahead with this guilty plea.

LAURA COATES, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: There was already a huge concession in the sense that the death penalty is off the table when you're talking about what's happening federally. But many people were struck by the decision that last week he wanted to have his case televised in the state court. He wanted to not only have the opening and closing, everything in between. He had been adamant about whether it was a manifesto or otherwise wanting to get his story out, it seemed, and now a shortcut to a plea.

What's fascinating here is that either way he was likely facing the same length of sentence. But all's well if it ends well does not mean the same thing for a victim's family. They wanted, I'm sure, the opportunity to have pure accountability.

This may have been the fast-track way of doing so, but New York is so different than most places. Double jeopardy, we all know what that that means. But in terms of this, it was -- although the federal and the states are normally separate sovereigns.

[16:25:02]

If the same set of facts are why the person is pleading guilty, then you can't try him in both contexts.

And that's why you heard his phrasing that he said, you know, I shot him and he died. Remember, the feds wanted stalking charges. The state said a pure murder case. But it could essentially kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, by having that particular allocution to cover the same conduct and, in the end, a sentence.

BROWN: Do you think they successfully got rid of the state trial?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: So, I do believe that based upon the law that the state trial goes away. I do think that this double jeopardy argument is real. Why?

In the event that it involves the same sort of transaction and occurrence, the same set of facts and the evil that is eradicated at the federal level, meaning the law, stalking, resulting in death. What is the evil? You've killed someone.

If that is similar to what happened in the state, I think it goes away.

The real open question for me is that he took an open plea. What does that mean? It means that the judge made clear to him today that he could face the rest of his life in jail. So whether the state case goes away or not is not his immediate concern.

His immediate concern is that that sentencing hearing convincing that judge that, hey, I accepted responsibility. I'm a young guy. I've never done anything like this before. My back was in the state it was. I had my issues with the health industry, et cetera.

But the feds will be blazing, the federal government, to say, put him in jail forever.

Laura mentioned and referenced the family. The family is really serious about putting him behind bars forever.

BROWN: Yeah.

JACKSON: So, the question to me is whether the judge will do it.

BROWN: And the judge has a lot of -- I mean, look, you got to sometimes send a message with sentencing, right? And Kara laid out there how he presented himself with his words, but she also said there was no glimmer of remorse.

COATES: Right, cold, cold. I mean, and we've seen the video, sadly, as a nation, as a world. He walked up behind a man and shot him. There was no conversation.

I doubt this man knew why he was killed. I doubt this man had any interaction whatsoever, and his beef was with the healthcare industry. And chose to pose, which we learned for the first time, pose as an investor to try to find out the location, did a 3D printed gun at every period of time you saw an opportunity for somebody to change their mind and still did not.

You talk about one of the goals of our justice system. There's always a fear of copycat crimes. We know there are a lot of grievances about various industries across the spectrum of business in America and beyond.

But to allow somebody to have a slap on the wrist would be unbelievably careless of any judge to do. I do believe that the book will be thrown at this person. I am curious, though, to your earlier question, as to why this was not done at any time until now. I mean, at one point, they were arguing potentially a reason by insanity defense that was gone 24 hours later.

Then you had the idea of live streaming. They didn't want that. So, I do wonder the back and forth here, because ultimately, he had every opportunity at every juncture to have this exact result, because essentially, he's pleading to the indictment.

JACKSON: Yeah.

BROWN: Yeah. And look, can we just listen to what his defense said after all of this? Let's listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AGNIFILO: He believed that the system had failed him and destroyed his life. Despite this being a single isolated event, Mr. Mangione has been unfairly treated since the outset in every way and has successfully fought off terrorism charges and the death penalty, while also fighting at the same time two simultaneous prosecutions in two jurisdictions who are trying to punish him twice for the exact conduct.

He's been treated differently from every other defendant charged with this offense in New York.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: She's trying to portray him here as the victim. Was that the right move?

JACKSON: Yeah, listen, every attorney and everyone does things differently.

I think it's important to note that the victim is Mr. Thompson. Mr. Thompson is dead. And that's what he was in court for today. And so, let's not forget that.

One quick issue regarding what Laura said and I'm concerned about that if I'm the defense attorney and that's the issue of deterrence. The reality is, is that when you look at sentencing, you look at deterrence as a very critical factor.

You look at punishment, deterrence, you look at rehabilitation. The defense will talk about rehabilitation, and the fact that he's still a young man, long way to go, et cetera. But if you want to send that message and you want to prevent copycats and deter anyone else who might think that doing what did because you're now a pop culture hero is good, I think the judge will have their opportunity to say it's not.

But again, when I listen to, treated unfairly, et cetera, I think it's --

(CROSSTALK)

[16:30:00]

BROWN: Let's stop forgetting that the death penalty thrown out.

JACKSON: Yeah.

BROWN: He has had concessions.

As you take a step back and think about Brian Thompson's family and the fact they were in that courtroom today hearing him say he murdered him in cold blood, essentially, and they were crying, he was very emotional, is what happened today an example of the system working or not? What do you think?

COATES: I think if you ask the family, justice would be their loved one back. That's never going to happen. And one of the cruelties of our justice system is that it is ever elusive. Hence the reason we're always pursuing it and very rarely catch it because your definition of justice and what you need to feel whole again is very different than mine, let alone the family.

But I do think this is an example of a continuous pursuit until a conclusion that holds somebody accountable. And in that vein, I think justice can be served.

We are still a long way away. He'll be sentenced. A lot will happen between men and that point in time.

They have to interview him. They're going to have victim impact statements. It might be just the family, might be other people impacted by this.

Remember, there was a huge spike in security requests among similar CEOs in the healthcare industry.

BROWN: Yeah.

COATES: I wonder if the judge will allow those sorts of domino effect of this impact. And also, there's a chance we might hear more from him, because at a sentencing, the judge does ask for that person.

Now, whether it will persuade the judge to do a different course of action is up to really the words of the judge. But we could still very much hear from Mangione, in his own words, in his last opportunity in the public square, in that setting to say why and what, but I do think given the fact that he, according to the defense counsel, they used his injuries, his experience in the healthcare industry to somehow, if not justify, explain murder, I think the judge will put a pretty tight muzzle on that.

BROWN: All right. Laura Coates, Joey Jackson, so great to have both of you here.

COATES: I'm with Joey Jackson.

JACKSON: No, I'm with you.

COATES: This is like --

BROWN: Oh, my.

All right, thank you both.

And everyone, be sure to watch "LAURA COATES LIVE" tonight at 11:00 p.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.

Coming up in THE ARENA, new reporting on a race that could decide which party controls the Senate. Ken Paxton scrambling to tamp down growing fears from fellow Republicans about this Texas campaign.

But first, why the Justice Department is telling the Supreme Court the government will suffer, quote, "extreme irreparable harm" if the justices don't allow the White House ballroom to be built.

We'll be back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:36:51]

BROWN: Welcome back.

President Trump today is asking the Supreme Court to intervene in his bid to build a ballroom at the White House. The president cited previous threats to his life, national security concerns, and architectural values as reasons to plow ahead with the $400 million project.

Now, this emergency request comes after lower courts repeatedly ruled that Trump needed approval from Congress to move forward with construction plans.

My panel is back.

Elliot, I'm going to go to you first. Solicitor General John Sauer wrote this in the filing, "The government will suffer extreme irreparable harm because this injunction threatens the security and safety of the president. The threat landscape against the president has evolved and become increasingly volatile and dangerous since the case was submitted."

WILLIAMS: Yes, Freud would say that sometimes a ballroom is not just a ballroom. And the question is, is this a ballroom or is this a national security facility? Now, the White House is making the argument that all the things under the ballroom, just national security infrastructure, is necessary for the safety of the White House. Now, I will note that there is a period of, I don't know, probably at this point close to two years, a year and a half of the president talking about the need for a ballroom and framing it in those terms.

And so, maybe it's both things But that is if you notice they have pivoted their argument in the last couple weeks to making this national security argument.

MACFARLANE: That's a huge problem because the appeals court and the lower court have both said you can keep going with the security work. You can keep going with the underground work this filing by John Sauer and the Solicitor General's office makes no sense to me because it's arguing a point that the appeals courts already conceded. It's the above-ground work that has halted that type of argument really is going to ring hollow.

BROWN: Let's talk a little bit more about the above-ground work, because I think that's an important point. These new renderings of the ballroom show at least two new large gold presidential seals on the outside of the building.

Help us understand, Matt, help us square these stylistic changes, and now they fit into the national security picture here.

WHITLOCK: Well, I do -- I appreciate the national security part of the conversation, and I think the challenge for the president is, as Scott laid out, that has been secondary to what the president wants to talk about, which is a big, beautiful ballroom.

Now, I'm of two schools of thought on that. On the one hand, I think that having a ballroom that future presidents of both parties are able to use that is safer and can be controlled is a good thing. And when you see Democrats like Chuck Schumer say we need to audit this because $400 million is too much, you have to consider they spent $500 billion on green tax credits, much of what went to companies that didn't even last through four years. And so, the cost part of that is tough to take Democrats too seriously on. But at the same time, I would love if we were talking about lots of things besides a gold-plated ballroom this close to the midterms.

I don't necessarily think a lot of focus on that is helpful to us right now. And so, I hope we can sort of move aside from that and focus on a lot of more important things that voters need to hear about.

BROWN: What do you say to his argument Democrats will have a leg to stand on here.

HAYS: Oh, I mean, I think Democrats absolutely have a leg to stand on. The American people are hurting right now. The American people have a short memory. They can't afford gas, they can't afford groceries, they can't afford their health care.

The government clearly wants to spend money on vanity projects. Donald, this is what, third or fourth vanity project, the Kennedy Center, the ballroom, the everything that he's trying to, the UFC fight, all that stuff is being paid by taxpayers.

[16:40:05]

And that's what's not appropriate here.

I am also on the notion that the White House did need a larger space for entertaining. There was not a space. Did he need to destroy the East Room and the security features underneath the East Room or the East Wing? Absolutely not.

So, some of this also rings hollow because we didn't actually need to destroy the infrastructure that we had. He could have built a ballroom, other places on campus. There's 18 acres on that campus that he could have found a place to put a ballroom.

BROWN: And as we talk about this, you do wonder, how much are Americans paying attention to this? Are we just inside our bubble in the beltway? Are Americans paying attention?

Well, there is this CNN poll that shows that 58 percent of Americans say they're angry or dissatisfied about the president's construction projects.

I wonder, Scott, are there any Republicans on Capitol Hill that are telling Trump that his focus on these construction projects and not the economy is not what they want ahead of the midterms, just like you heard there from Matt?

MACFARLANE: Have the opportunity throughout the summer to talk to Republican members of Congress. I'll let you know when I find one who's banging the drums saying, I love the idea of the reflecting pool and the White House ballroom. It doesn't exist. And the effective Democratic candidates, the ones who are synthesizing

the right message, not all of them are, but the ones who are, are trying to put together this focus on vanity projects while there's an affordability crisis and tying the two together.

I was in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, this week on the campaign trail. The Democratic challenger there against the Republicans, Scott Perry, is trying to do that. Put the messages side by side and see if voters will then coalesce around change.

BROWN: When might we get a decision on this?

WILLIAMS: Oh, my gosh. You're talking months, potentially, when you're talking about the Supreme Court.

Now, they can make preliminary rulings to stop work on something, whatever else, but it takes the Supreme Court a long time to resolve just about anything.

I will also note that, you know, just using the example of the fight that we've been having over this weaponization fund is a prime example of the president simply not listening to what American people and, quite frankly, his own party wants to be talking about in the run-up to an election.

I don't think -- this is Scott's point -- Republican members of Congress want to be about weaponization funds or reflecting pools or this National Security Center, if we wish to call it that, that it is ancillary to the kinds of things that voters are really hurting about right now.

But the president is so dug in on these things that affect him and not really voters, he's not going to get off.

MACFARLANE: But the clock is ticking for the Supreme Court. Apologies.

They have to have some decision potentially by next Friday. That's the deadline for the work to stop under the appeals court order, so they may get a little fire behind them on that.

HAYS: And the one thing that I think does ring true is people can see the reflecting pool, they can see the devastation that he did to the East Wing and that resonates with people. So, it's not just what we were talking about here. A weaponization fund is hard to materialize in campaign ads. They can show a destroyed a East Wing.

WILLIAMS: Let me ask you this, do people actually care about the East Wing? Like Americans --

HAYS: I think they do.

WILLIAMS: Like do they know where it was?

HAYS: I think they do because I think they look at it and they think why did you get to do that? Why did that -- that's the people's house, why were you the one that got to do that? They look at the reflecting pool and --

BROWN: They for Democrats?

HAYS: No, I think it's people across the country -- I mean, I just spent two weeks in California and people are like, what's going on at the White House? Why is it all destroyed?

Because you can actually physically see it. It's tangible. People can see that stuff. It's like the Kennedy Center, the reflecting pool.

When you can physically see something, you have a different reaction than just talking about it.

WILLIAMS: Even the Kennedy Center, though, which again, you're talking about putting someone's name on a memorial to a slain president, not just a theater. So, it's something much bigger than we even talk about here. But I just wonder how of all the things that people are hurting about right now, whether it's the economy, gas or whatever else it's just sort of Beltway chatter this -- whether it's --

HAYS: They're looking at it and they're thinking to themselves why are we paying for that instead of working on the cost of gas why are we working on that and we're fighting a war nobody asked for. So they're just -- I think that when you can see something tangible, they're wondering why Congress and the president are focused on these types of projects rather than lowering their costs.

WHITLOCK: That's the pain point, when it can be sort of used as a larger "they're focused on the wrong things". That's what senators were telling the president about the weaponization fund, about the ballroom things like that. It isn't just the White House and itself, if you were to ask people in a range of 30 things what they care most about, it's not the distraction to the White House, things like that. But when paired with those top 123 things, which some Democrats have definitely done, it becomes a pain point.

And so we have to be able to get back to the things people actually care about and making a case for. Our ideas are better than what the socialists are offering, and here's some actual tangible ideas that will improve people's lives. And if we're not focused on that, we're probably going to get rocked.

BROWN: All right. Let's talk about one of these big races coming up.

Ahead in THE ARENA, why a Republican Senate candidate in a red state is now admitting he still has work to do when it comes to getting voters in his own party to turn out in November.

We'll be right back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEN PAXTON (R), TEXAS SENATE CANDIDATE: Midterm elections tend to break against the party in power. That's just -- you can look at the history of it. I don't quite understand why, but it -- what happens in places like Texas, too, and in Republican states like Iowa and pick other, Kansas, and Nebraska, you have an enthusiasm gap because you have Republicans who are happy with their government.

[16:45:04]

They're happy that they got the president they want, and they tend to not be as motivated to get out and vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAXTON: And right now, he's been on TV because he's got a lot of money coming in from California and other liberal states. So, he had $30 million. When I finished my race, I had zero. We need help now because James Talarico has been spending $3 million or $4 million a week on TV for the last month. So, I want to compete.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton there saying the quiet part out loud that his campaign desperately needs money to compete against his Democratic opponent James Talarico in one of the country's closely watched races.

[16:50:02]

A recent Fox News poll shows that Talarico actually has a slim lead over Paxton with Democrats holding an enthusiasm advantage over Republicans. You see it right here on your screen.

Still, Republican-aligned groups are showing no signs yet that they're ready to inject cash into Paxton's campaign, while Republican strategists likening the situation to the famous meme of the three Spiderman characters pointing the finger at one another. I know these two know exactly what I'm talking about, saying, quote, "Everybody wants him to win, but nobody wants to go first."

All right. My panel is back.

Which I should go to? I'm going to go to you. What's going on here?

WHITLOCK: So, I've worked a lot of races in Texas, and I think that every cycle there's a Democrat that could be the great hope. He could be the one to finally do it. It was Beto O'Rourke. There's been several in the last few cycles.

But this one is unique in that I think Paxton has some unique vulnerabilities, and Talarico has an insane amount of cash. So much that he can put ads on TV talking about Ken Paxton stealing someone's pen and things like that.

At the same time, Paxton has a few unique hits that I think work really well against Talarico that I think speak to a pretty large part of the electorate. Things that Talarico said in the past about there being six genders and needing abortion care for our transgender brothers and sisters really do play well among the Republican base and independent voters he needs to reach.

BROWN: But why are these Republican-aligned groups withholding funding right now?

WHITLOCK: I think they want to see Paxton really put his own shoulder to the wheel and show that he's going to work hard on fundraising. That's been some of the criticism some Republicans have had that he's not raising money because he's not out there doing the work for it.

But when you see him on TV, things like that, I think asking for money at a little bit. So, the cavalry will come in on this and I think he'll end up winning, but it will be a very close race.

WILLIAMS: That's going to be absurdly expensive.

WHITLOCK: Absurd.

WILLIAMS: And I think that might be part of what's driving it. They know that if they start spending now, they're going to have to keep spending and it will be a staggering money.

HAYS: Greg Abbott has an extremely large war chest here and he and Gina Hinojosa are only one point apart right now in the polls and Greg Abbott is going to have to spend a lot of money to pull Paxton across the line with him. And so, I think because Paxton can't raise money, that's going to take away from Abbott's race and Abbott's candidates in Texas.

That does not bode well for Republicans. Regardless of the attacks, the economy is what people care about and the electorate is much more liberal than it has been in Texas in the past. This is the year. These are the candidates that really could turn Texas blue.

MACFARLANE: Sometimes it's more than the money. You mentioned the ad of the pen thief that the Talarico campaign has put out there. I'm actually told by the campaign that's a digital only ad. It's not on TV, but it's going to go farther and wider than a good TV ad will.

BROWN: We'll play it quick and talk about it on the other side.

MACFARLANE: Precisely.

BROWN: All right, let's do it. Thanks for the TIA.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AD NARRATOR: This is Ken Paxton. And this is Ken Paxton stealing someone's $1,000 pen.

Here's what happened. The incident happened at the Collin County Courthouse, the same courthouse where Paxton would later be indicted for investment fraud. Paxton walked up to the trays next to the metal detectors, rummaged through them, and came across someone else's expensive Montblanc pen.

He decided to take it for himself. The pen belonged to Joe Joplin, a local attorney who'd accidentally left him behind. It was a special gift from his wife.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: There you go.

MACFARLANE: So, you know how crazy expensive it is, right? To advertise in El Paso, Dallas, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Houston. Here you got a silver bullet ad.

I think sometimes it's more than just the money. I think you have a candidate here who is emerging with a talented team behind him that is helping his money go even further.

BROWN: Do you agree?

WHITLOCK: I do, and I think it's nice to have that much money. I think it's a tough contrast, though, to run the ads about stealing a pen while Paxton will put just a little bit of money behind ads saying this guy believes there are six genders and what voters are going to decide on.

So, I do think that it's created, and the digital only point is really smart. They're not having to spend a ton of money to get it out there, and it will get viral attention and attention like what we're talking about right here.

But I think the hits against Talarico works so uniquely against someone trying to run in Texas, some of the culture climate issues, but also things like we need to cut back on eating red meat to help climate change. Things that I think are uniquely tough in Texas for a Democrat.

WILLIAMS: I will say, though, the biggest knock, one of the biggest knocks against Paxon is character, and I think that is what Democrats are hammering him on.

This point specifically, it's so stupid and minor stealing a pen. However, when the knock against this candidate is the fact that this person is of shady character and has had brushes with the criminal justice system, it sticks with people's minds. And so, it's, you know, it's like sometimes, like it's a pen isn't just a pen. And here it's a much bigger story than that, I think.

BROWN: Do you think Talarico is taking advantage of this moment enough in this fundraising?

HAYS: Yeah, absolutely.

I think Talarico has raised an incredible amount of money. I think he has really capitalized it. I think that they've invited Paxton to debating and he won't debate. And I think that shows people of Texas, why won't you debate? Greg Abbott also won't debate Gina.

Why won't these people debate? Are they afraid of their policies where they stand and that people in Texas won't buy them? Because I think that Paxton is really tied to Trump, and I think that is going to hurt him come. Is it anti-incumbency election? I think people will see Paxton Justin as an extension of Trump.

BROWN: All right. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: All right, thanks to my panel. Thank you all for watching.

You can see more of THE ARENA tomorrow, and I will see you then for THE ARENA SATURDAY. That's at noon and again at 4:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN. Be sure to join us.

"THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER" starts right now.