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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt

U.S. Strikes Iran Hours After Army Secretary Resigns; Now: Democratic Voters Weigh In On Markey Verses Moulton Senate Primary; Whistleblower: USPS Ballot System "Rushed" & "Untested"; Just In: Jurors In Clancy Murder Trial Finish Another Day Of Deliberations After Telling Judge They're Deadlocked. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired September 01, 2026 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:02]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Bill Weir, thank you so much for that reporting.

Thank you so much for sharing your afternoon with us. A lot of news to follow.

THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT starts right now.

(MUSIC)

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

Right now, new airstrikes on Iran, new threats from the president, and new questions about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's leadership.

This afternoon, the U.S. Central Command announced the beginning of new airstrikes targeting Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. Tehran says they will retaliate.

This escalation coming as the U.S. Army is without a civilian leader, following the departure of Army Secretary Dan Driscoll.

A source telling CNN that in his resignation letter, Driscoll shared his concern that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is blocking efforts to improve Army readiness by firing the generals who are supposed to be carrying it out, upsetting even some Republicans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DON BACON (R-NE): I mean, I know some good people who get fired for no reason. No reason given, anyway. And the secretary has a -- maybe constitutional right to do this, but it doesn't make it right or morally right. It doesn't make it wise.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Do you think he should stay as secretary of defense?

BACON: It wouldn't be my choice, but the president, if I didn't get elected, the president did, that's his choice, right? I would have not gone down this direction.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Secretary Hegseth's firings and his heavy focus on political and cultural issues have led to speculation that the former Fox News host might be weighing a White House run of his own.

That speculation only growing this month when he visited the all- important state of Iowa to campaign to boost a Republican Congressman's reelection campaign there.

President Trump this week is not dismissing the idea out of hand.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I think he's doing a fantastic job, but it's very early to talk about that. We have to get through the midterms first. And I think he's a very good guy, but I'll bet there's a lot of people considering it. Right now, all he loves and all he cares about is the military.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right, let's get off the sidelines. Heading to THE ARENA, my panel is here.

CNN contributor, host of "The New York Times'" "The Interview", Lulu Garcia Navarro; CNN chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny; former senior advisor, policy director for the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, Josh Orton; and CNN political commentator and Republican strategist, Shermichael Singleton.

We're also joined by Michael Scherer. He's a staff writer at "The Atlantic" and is on the byline of the inside look the magazine took into Dan Driscoll's resignation.

And, you know, on that note, Michael, let me start with you. What exactly is going on behind the scenes here? Because Dan Driscoll, you know, this he ran for Congress up and coming person inside the Trump administration and we haven't seen in this second Trump term some of the same things we saw where you had military officers clashing with President Trump, some of them resigning.

That has not been a theme so much in this second Trump administration. And really remarkable that Driscoll would go straight to the president himself and then essentially drop the mic and resign.

What else have you learned about how and why this is unfolding and what it means?

MICHAEL SCHERER, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: Well, the tensions between Driscoll and Hegseth have been long running and very well reported. We've all known it for quite a while. Our reporting shows that when Driscoll did go to the White House last week and spoke to the president about his plans to resign, the president was a little bit surprised by some of these tensions. It wasn't clear that the president had been fully briefed on this, that he was surprised by the turnover in the senior ranks in the Pentagon.

Now, that said, President Trump is very happy by all the reporting I have with the job Hegseth is doing with his performance of secretary of defense. And President Trump did want someone to come into the Pentagon to sort of break the place in his second term. And he's been very successful at that, Hegseth has, in sort of remaking it and making it so that it's a building, it's a bureaucracy that now very much answers to the president's whims on all kinds of issues. through Pete Hegseth.

So, it's not clear whether Driscoll's complaints to the president has changed the president's view of Hegseth or what's going on at the Pentagon, but it clearly was a clear marker to have someone more junior at the Pentagon come to the White House and tell the president directly about real concerns under Hegseth.

HUNT: Michael, what did your reporting say about U.S. readiness, national security readiness, especially in the Army, based around what Driscoll is saying?

SCHERER: Yeah, I mean, this has also been something we've been reporting about for months. You know, we had a story a couple of months ago about Vice President Vance, shortly after the Iran war began, expressing concern that the president wasn't getting the full story about the munitions situation.

Obviously, there's been a lot of reporting since then about how bad the munitions situation is in the military, reporting about the long deployments for sailors on some of these ships and the wear and tear on all branches of the military because of all these conflicts that we've engaged in.

Again, though, this is a Pentagon, there's a government that answers to one person, and it's not clear that the President has internalized this or decided to make a change on these fronts. And his response when asked about this, and Hegseth's response is basically nothing to see here, this isn't a problem, we have what we need, we can do what we want, even though it's obvious that there are limits now to what the U.S. military can do because of munitions shortfalls.

It was interesting when Vance confronted the President and other senior White House people about these munitions concerns. He was very careful before of also not making this a personal thing with Hegseth, because again, it's very well known that the president's happy with the job the Defense Secretary is doing.

HUNT: Lulu Garcia-Navarro, I mean, that speaks to what performance means to this president as opposed to potentially actually executing. They're not always the same thing except for Trump. The performance usually is the execution. Now we've got U.S. national security on the line.

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Why would President Trump be unhappy with Secretary Hegseth when Hegseth is actually executing the whims, and I'm quoting here, "of the president of the United States"? And that is exactly what he was placed there to do. Now, the larger context is this. We are engaged in a war, and we are

at a very volatile time globally. you know, with oil prices, with conflicts happening all over the globe, there was just an alleged attack by Russia in Germany, a drone attack. I mean, Russia is pushing to see what will happen with NATO if NATO will rise to the defense of Europe. There is a lot of things there are many things happening. And the question is, of course, what does the U.S. gain by this when you are cutting off the top leadership of the Department of Defense.

And at the end of the day, we know, and I've covered so many wars, we know that things are not going well when the generals start getting fired.

HUNT: Well, and, Jeff, some of this is reportedly about that Hegseth felt threatened by Driscoll, right, from a personal perspective, that maybe he was in line to take his job.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: I mean, that certainly is possible, and also threatened potentially by his closeness with the vice president. I mean, that is one sort of underlying factor. One thing that we know is true that J.D. Vance and Driscoll are extraordinarily close, and we have every reason to believe that that will remain going forward here.

So that is another very interesting point of this. So even though the president, by all accounts, is very happy with his defense as secretary, that does not mean everything is happy overall and everything is running smoothly, because clearly it's not. This is a central issue.

Spending time out on the road this week with a few candidates who are running who are military veterans, it is clear that there are deep concerns. What Don Bacon was saying there is sort of amplified and repeated many members with the military experience.

So, look, I think at the end of the day here, it is the -- it's certainly not the last we're going to be seeing of Secretary Driscoll, but it's extraordinary. 18 months after coming in, resigning in this way certainly is a sign of something.

HUNT: Yeah. Well, and Josh Orton, I mean, some of this is a lot of this is Hegseth talking about. I mean, he came in saying he wants to get rid of the woke in the military. Right?

Let's watch a little bit of this is a sampling of some of the comments Hegseth has made. It's not comprehensive. But let's watch that. We'll talk about it. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses. Frankly, it's tiring to look out at combat formations or really any formation and see fat troops. No more beardos.

We negotiate with bombs. It's the same old tired playbook, TDS in your DNA.

The biggest challenge, the biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless, and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans.

I'm authorizing a new screening program for testosterone deficiency.

What President Trump needs is rock-ribbed, solid, Bible-believing, red, white, and blue-waving congressmen who have his back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: And, Josh, it's worth noting part of the problem reportedly that Driscoll had with Hegseth was that he wanted him not to promote or to, you know, punish essentially Black and female officers who Driscoll seemed to have deemed had the experience for the promotions they were up for right.

[16:10:00]

JOSH ORTON, PRESIDENT, DEMAND JUSTICE: I think that's right. And I also think look to some extent I agree Trump got what he paid for here he got a lackey who's willing to go on TV yell be strong, attack what he considered to be the conspiratorial woke left. But there's deep problems with his leadership and with this current Pentagon, especially in election season, I think for two reasons.

One is because people don't believe anything this administration has to say about the Iran war anymore. They don't believe the Strait of Hormuz is going to reopen. They don't believe it's going to end, even though the administration keeps saying it's going to end.

And the second thing I'd point out is this is an era where people are becoming much more aware of the cyber and A.I. threat environment. Does anybody who looks at Peak Head Seth say to themselves, you know what, this is a guy who's on the cutting edge of technology and understands the threats America's facing? No, he's a TV host and he's playing that role.

HUNT: Shermichael?

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, Kasie, what I'm worried about, the munitions shortages, that's a very real threat. The Chinese in particular have increased their military spending significantly over the past decade and a half. They're able to build drones cheaper than we are. There are advancements with hypersonic missile technology. We're still roughly five to seven years behind, according to some military analysts, including some we've had on our very own network.

And so, for me, I think the chief leader of the Pentagon, of our military armed forces, has got to be focused on what does the next 20 to 50 years look like in terms of military technology and a potential conflict with China in the South Chinese Sea, or maybe even over Taiwan. Again, according to most experts, if that were to occur today, the munitions shortages put us at a real severe disadvantage.

HUNT: All right. Michael Scherer, I want to say thank you to you. Really appreciate your reporting and your being with us today.

Joining us now in THE ARENA is Republican Congressman from Nebraska, Don Bacon. He sits on the House Armed Services Committee and spent nearly three decades in the Air Force, retiring as a brigadier general.

Congressman, always great to see you. Thank you very much for being here.

REP. DON BACON (R-NE): Thank you.

HUNT: I saw, of course, the comments you made to our colleague, Manu Raju. But I wanted to talk to you about what we saw with Dan Driscoll, his resignation, and, of course, the conflict he's having with the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth. Does all of this put us -- I guess the question that I really have is, is the United States Army ready to fight the ultimate war if it needed to, or does all of this show us that it's not?

BACON: Well, we have a great military, we have great personnel at all ranks, but I think we should all be concerned when the secretary fires so many senior general officers and admirals, three stars, four stars, and not only three and four stars, he's redlined, which means he's crossed out a lot of one-star promotees and two-star promotees, and it's a significant number.

And yes, the Constitution gives him that right to fire and hire who he wants, but it doesn't make it morally right, and it doesn't make it wise, and so right now in the Army, we're missing a secretary of the Air Force now -- or excuse me, secretary of the Army, and the Army chief of staff, so the top two leadership positions are vacant.

And like when the Cyber Command commander was fired, he wasn't replaced for 10 to 11 months. So, we're seeing a lot of vacancies and a lot of, I would say, inertia because you don't have someone in there able to make tough and hard decisions for whatever service they're leading or whatever organization.

But I think Americans, we want someone to get fired if they're not performing or if they did something wrong. But to fire this huge number of people with no explanation, I know some of these guys. I asked him, why did you get fired? He says they didn't give me an explanation. No reason why.

I think most Americans want more decency and I would say respect. Respect is -- you should give a person a reason why if you -- if you're going to fire them. And that's not happening here.

HUNT: You just laid out criteria for firing people, including performance. Do you think Pete Hegseth is performing to a standard that he should be fired?

BACON: You know, I would say he's serving at the -- you know, it's following the president's orders. It followed his wishes. The president selected him to, I guess, execute what he wants done.

But I would -- he's not -- he wouldn't be my choice, I'll just say it that way. My choice would be -- I'm much more in the Secretary Mattis type of leadership and transparency.

And so, I have concerns. I have concerns with these firings. I think Americans want an explanation. You fire someone, you should tell them. And I think at this kind of number, the American public deserves to know why this is going on.

Secondly, I think some of the media things that have been done are not wise. Getting rid of a lot of the top media out of the Pentagon and to claim that they did that because they were working around classified information.

[16:15:00]

Well, I worked in the Pentagon twice, and when you have classified information, you work in a vault, media's not welcome in there. Now, they do walk the halls, they go to the cafeteria, and they're in public areas, but they weren't having access to classified information.

The Pentagon has a history of a much more healthy relationship with the media, and this has been, I guess, harmed in the last couple years. I had concerns with Signal-gate, he was mad at the journalists for doing the story. and not himself for putting classified information on Signal.

And most people like me would say, if you make a mistake, you own up to it. Say, I made a mistake, I learned my lesson, and it's not going to happen again.

But that's not what we heard here. He was blaming the reporter who put out the story. And ultimately, we should all know we don't put classified information on an unclassified application or telephone. And that's what happened here.

So I've been critical. I'm not saying he's -- he's failed across the board, but there's certain areas where you would expect better from the secretary of defense.

HUNT: Sir, there also have been rumors circulating that he's considering a run in 2028 for president of the United States. The reports were circulated about this over the weekend. Would you take that seriously?

BACON: Well, I think he probably is seriously considering it. I am much more interested in finding a Reagan-type Republican for the party in 2028. We have some great people who have more of a traditional conservative principles, a peace through strength. They know that our alliances are important, like NATO. And instead of undermining key alliances and not really standing up to, say, Putin and Xi, but being tougher on our allies, I think the traditional Republicans know that's not a good way of improving our national security. We are better when we have strong alliances and trust with our

friends. We're also stronger when we have clear principles that we say, hey, Putin invaded an innocent country, bombing citizens every night. These are war crimes. We should have a moral clarity to our national security.

And what we're seeing in the Pentagon right now is the policy is called flexible realism, but flexible realism to me means we don't have any true principles or values. It's all about what's in it for us. And it may work one day that we're going to do this, but the next day we're going to change our mind. That's flexible realism, that's how I hear it.

We're a much better country where we have values of free markets, freedom, and that we build our friendships around these values, and also our interests, it should be both. But right now, I see a value- less foreign policy, and it's clearly being articulated that way in the Pentagon.

HUNT: All right. Congressman Don Bacon, thank you very much as always for joining us. I really appreciate your time.

BACON: Thank you.

HUNT: All right, coming up next here in THE ARENA, the new report out today warning of, quote, "catastrophic failure in the midterms". What a postal worker is telling Congress about the Trump administration's plan for mail-in voting, why it could leave tens of thousands of ballots uncounted.

Plus, can Ed Markey do it again? The Massachusetts senator again facing a primary challenge from an opponent who is going directly after his age and calling on Democrats to embrace generational change.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Eighty years old, what you thought about his decision?

MICHAEL GUNKO, DEMOCRATIC VOTER: I'm 80 years old. I wouldn't be running for senator. But it's nice to know that, well, he's persistent and he is energetic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:23:07]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ED MARKEY (D-MA): I am going to provide a progressive vision in action on the floor of the United States Senate. And that's -- that is Medicare for all, it's a Green New Deal, it's taxing billionaires.

REP. SETH MOULTON (D-MA): With costs skyrocketing, we need new solutions to old challenges. And then we need a new generation of leadership to take on new challenges like A.I. that unfortunately the senator doesn't even understand.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: It's primary day in Massachusetts, and the ideological and generational questions facing the Democratic Party are on full display, but not necessarily how you would think.

On the one hand, you have 80-year-old Senator Ed Markey, who's defending his seat by pitching himself as a progressive anti- establishment candidate. On the other hand, there is 47-year-old Congressman Seth Moulton, a moderate who staked his campaign on generational change, hoping to tap into the momentum fueling his party's increasing appetite for fresh ideas and new leaders.

So, the question, will Moulton's argument for a new generation outweigh Markey's progressive bona fides?

My panel is back.

Josh Orton, this one to you. Moulton, of course, has been arguing, it's time. You know, it's time. Markey is one of our older senators, although there are people who are older than he is in the Senate. It is an aging body as a general matter.

Where do you think this race stands, and what do you make of -- I mean, it is not a clean cut necessarily primary that we've seen elsewhere.

ORTON: I think it's interesting because it sort of raises the question of, is this movement about how old a candidate is exclusively, or is there a substantive underpinning to this? I think, as you pointed out, the interesting part of this is this is not someone who's running to Markey's left. This is someone who's running from the center.

And I think, let's set aside the fact that Moulton does not have a great electoral history at running for higher office. You'll be forgiven if you forgot that he ran for president last time.

[16:25:00]

I think the question here is, is this about something besides just generational politics? And I think Ed Markey may be sort of proving the exception to the rules, someone like him or Bernie Sanders, so long as they seem attuned not just to particulars of technology, which I think is on the fringes of things, But to the particular power dynamic that the younger generation cares about, they see corporate power, they see being sort of under the rubric of corporate corruption. If Markey can show that he stands up for that, he'll win.

HUNT: So, let's watch, people have been alluding to, and you saw Seth Moulton there talk about this. Josh referenced it. There was a debate between Moulton and Markey at which A.I. was raised, and Ed Markey's answer was quickly turned into a Moulton ad.

Let's watch the ad, and you'll see why.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MOULTON: I'm Seth Moulton, and I approve this message.

REPORTER: Senator Markey, do you personally use A.I. platforms like Claude or ChatGPT in your work?

MARKEY: I use whatever is inside of my iPhone and my iPad, whatever comes up. I don't know what companies my iPad might be using, but if it does in fact provide me with the information which I've been asked, I'm asking the device to give to me, then of course I'm using it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT; Jeff, how much do you think that matters?

ZELENY: I think very little actually at this point it seems. I mean, I think -- again, to Josh's point, I mean, if there was a challenger from the left, if like Ayanna Pressley or someone would have decided to challenge the senator, he, I think, would have been facing a far different race.

But look, he had the support of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and others. And so, Moulton is in the middle. There's no doubt about it. So, I'm not sure that an ad like that, as stinging as it is, and it's kind of painful to watch.

A lot of people like, okay, well, I don't really know what all these things are either. Maybe I'm not that concerned about it. I don't know. I think that this would not be -- this is not going to end his campaign.

By all accounts. Even some people who really believe in Seth Moulton, they are not very confident today with just a few hours left with the polls open in Massachusetts. So, I think in a different race, it may have been a deal breaker. But in this particular one, since ideology was really not the central issue, and age was not apparently an issue.

He's a young 80. I mean, I guess we'll say that. He certainly looks better than Joe Biden did, even President Trump, perhaps, so --

HUNT: Well, and he does, as has been pointed out, have support from progressives young and old. Since we played a Moulton ad, all's fair in campaign war, here's a Markey ad that features Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Ayanna Pressley, the sort of progressive slate. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): Ed Markey is not now and never has been for sale.

MARKEY: Bosses, billionaires, no one tells me where to stand.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA: When it comes to big banks and corporations driving up costs, Ed Markey doesn't back down. REP. AYANNA PRESSLEY (D-MA): When the rules aren't working, we change

them to protect the vulnerable, fight for Medicare-for-all, and abolish ICE. That's Ed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Sort of interesting, Lulu, I mean, which of those ads feels younger?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Absolutely. One is very dynamic. You've got all these elderly people, except for Anna Pressley, like stomping through the halls and looking pretty vital.

I just came from my mother's 88th birthday and she was, you know, dancing salsa. So, I will say that, you know, 80 is the new 70, perhaps.

But beyond that, I do think in a very blue state like Massachusetts, what you're seeing is people moving to the left, right? And so, Ed Markey has a very strong sort of legacy of that. He has a lot of support from very known quantities.

And I think Seth Moulton, some of the attacks against him are about, does he take corporate PAC money? Where does he stand on some of the issues that really matter to us? He can't kind of bring that fire. His big, big point is, hey, this guy's old, and I don't think that in this particular race is going to win it.

SINGLETON: You know, this is a bit of my skepticism about this modern left. You have an 80-year-old member of Congress who's been there for 50 years. Now, I would argue this is someone who's the antithesis of the type of change that these young progressives are demanding.

This is someone who effectively, I would argue, is a part of the establishment. You don't get it re-elected over and over again.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Or his time has finally come. Maybe this is his moment. He's been fighting for this for so long.

SINGLETON: You're not a part of the establishment.

And to me, Kasie, merely because he's saying the right things is why this guy is doing so well. He's moving further to the left, to Lulu's point. I live up in that area. My wife is from Massachusetts. I know the politics there very well.

And again, to me, I have a lot of skepticism about this. Seth Moulton, more independent, more to the right, versus someone who is extremely progressive, but he's been there 50 years.

He's the guy to take on the establishment. Give me a break here.

ORTON: Yeah, but I think this fundamentally misses the point, which is that the young people and the people who want generational change, they want people who take on power.

[16:30:00]

And Seth Moulton's problem, to Lulu's point about taking corporate PAC money, this is not about who's most fluent with an LLM. Like, if Markey gave this very detailed answer about how he compares LLM answers against each other and plays them off and has built these series of agents, I think actually people would have trusted him much less. They care that he's willing to take on the companies that are trying to build data centers in their backyard not whether he's fluent on Claude.

SINGLETON: The guy who's been there for 50 years has taken on power? You don't -- you don't see the skepticism in that argument that you just made?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: But that's like --

(CROSSTALK)

GARCIA-NAVARRO: What I what I tried to say is that Bernie Sanders has been pretty consistent throughout his entire career with one message which are billionaires are bad and we need to do more to empower working class people.

SINGLETON: This guy's now a millionaire.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: No, no, but my point --

SINGLETON: With multiple houses. I mean, Lulu, come on.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: My point is, they've been making a consistent argument. And now we are at a moment where that argument, especially among young people, it resonates and they want to empower those people. And so, Markey is benefiting from --

ZELENY: He's lucky he's running against who he's running against, bottom line. Had there been some like upstart who was. really lefty or progressive, I think it might have been different.

SINGLETON: Well, my skepticism and critique is I just question the legitimacy of the claims from Ed Markey and from Bernie Sanders. They're taking on the establishment, they're against wealth, they're against capitalism, yet it's all of these systems that they have benefited from for decades.

ORTON: Well, Bernie wrote a book, and he has a cap -- like, let's not go overboard here. The Republican caucus is deeply rich. They are -- people deeply suspect the corporate influence on Congress, and to say that, well, because Ed Markey was in the Senate for a long time, he shouldn't be trusted. People look at their record. They look at what positions they take, not just how long they've been there.

And I think that's ultimately --

(CROSSTALK)

ORTON: If Moulton's going to lose, I think that's going to be his downfall is that he took money from the corporate powers that the younger generation of people no longer trust.

HUNT: All right, coming up next here in THE ARENA, new details from inside court as jurors tell the judge they're struggling to reach a verdict in the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy.

But first, the top Democrat on the oversight committee, Congressman Robert Garcia, will be here live as a new whistleblower report accuses the Trump administration of violating court orders around mail-in voting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. VAL HOYLE (D-OR): Where are my colleagues? History will not judge this cowardice well. Where the hell are you?

Stand up. Uphold the Constitution. You took a damn oath.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:36:53]

HUNT: All right. New today, a major warning ahead of the midterm elections. An anonymous USPS, that's the United States Postal Service, whistleblower is alleging that the Postal Service's mail in ballot verification system is at risk of a, quote, "catastrophic failure" that could, quote, "derail" the midterm elections.

The new whistleblower report, which was released by Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, describes a hastily assembled system that's not gone through the normal testing process. The result? One bad barcode could cause entire batches of ballots to be rejected, the whistleblower says. Internally, some describe the whole thing as a S- H-I-T show.

The unusually tight timeline comes after President Trump signed an executive order in March giving the agency new mandates around vetting mail-in ballots.

Joining me now in THE ARENA is the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Congressman Robert Garcia from California.

Congressman, thanks very much. I always appreciate you being here with us in THE ARENA.

So, the Supreme Court right now is weighing the legality of the president's executive order here. Based on this whistleblower report, is the damage already done, regardless of how the court rules?

REP. ROBERT GARCIA (D-CA), HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: Look, I think that there's always damage done when you're bringing in ideas and essentially using vote by mail to politicize an election. And right now, Donald Trump is trying to, I believe, discourage people from voting by mail and picking and choosing which ballots were actually going to count. Now, the Oversight Committee met with this exact same whistleblower

last night. And what I will say is that we have very credible evidence and credible testimony that Donald Trump is creating a system within the Postal Service that essentially gives the administration the ability to interfere with how ballots are counted and how essentially these lists that he expects states to create, how they actually match up with voter files and other information about certain voters.

And so, this is a highly illegal and unconstitutional action by the president. We continue and will continue to release more information from this whistleblower, but everyone should be alarmed, especially the courts.

HUNT: So, what more can you tell us about the nature of this operation? Who has control over it? I mean, how might the president use it as a lever?

GARCIA: So, one, I think people need to understand that the president and the administration were ordered through court order to not implement the initial executive order. And we now have testimony and evidence from the whistleblower that USPS was moving forward to implement and create these systems in defiance of what the court actually said. And so that is critical for Congress to know.

Look, I'm also right now calling on James Comer, the chairman of the Oversight Committee. The USPS is in the jurisdiction of the Oversight Committee. We need to have immediate hearings.

I'm also right now calling on James Comer, the chairman of the Oversight Committee. The USPS is in the jurisdiction of the Oversight Committee.

We need to have immediate hearings. Bring in the Postmaster General, bring in folks from the Postal Service, leadership there, to understand who is giving the direction, who is trying to gain access to vote by mail, and trying to essentially rig the election in the midterms and in 2028.

[16:40:13]

How can the president of the United States have access to control what ballots get counted?

And what I will say also is we believe there will be additional information that we'll be able to release in the days ahead. And hopefully, the whistleblower and others will continue to shed light on the complete illegality that is happening right now at the USPS.

HUNT: Just to put a finer point on what you just said there, you met with this whistleblower last night on the oversight committee. You believe this whistleblower says that the president is trying to rig the midterm elections?

GARCIA: Those are my words. I believe the president has always tried to rig the election.

HUNT: So, you believe that the president has tried to rig the election based on what you've heard from this whistleblower? GARCIA: I believe not just based -- not just based on the whistleblower's reports, based on evidence of the president's actions. I believe the president has continued to try to interfere with the election in November. I mean, this is the same --

HUNT: Well, trying to interfere and rigging the election -- they're related, but they're not the same.

GARCIA: Look, when you have a president that is calling election officials in states, when you have a president that's trying to insert himself in directing who -- what mail -- what mail-in votes get cast, when he's trying to limit the amount of polling places, all of that is about diminishing the ability of people to cast their ballots in a way that is fair.

So, absolutely, I believe the president has tried and will continue to try to rig elections. This is the same person that will not admit he lost an election to Joe Biden. And so, we should expect him to try to disrupt elections, and we should all be alarmed by what's happening right now.

The courts need to listen to this whistleblower and understand the seriousness of what's happening at USPS.

HUNT: Do you think that Americans can trust that if they mail in their ballot, it will be counted?

GARCIA: I believe that if the courts do the right thing and do not allow the president to implement this order, that the ballot system in this country is safe, and that registrars who conduct the elections locally will conduct them in a way that is safe and transparent. And I do believe the vote-by-mail system in this country currently works, and we should not disrupt it.

HUNT: Can you say anything more about what the whistleblower told you about the actual mechanism? We obviously talked a little bit in the intro about barcodes and what import that might have. But did this person outline exactly how a batch of ballots might be invalidated? And especially, did you get any information about how they might know who or what party those ballots were cast for and be able to actually make a decision about which ones to invalidate?

GARCIA: I think what I can say right now is that the system that was being put in place to actually do this verification that the president wants and is proposing the executive order and a matching of these lists, that system was and continues to be untested, unsecure, an enormous amount of errors and not ready for an election that's coming up in just here a couple months.

And so, that combined with clearly the administration trying to interfere and push what had in the past been -- the administration has never been involved in matters of the USPS. It's not that they shouldn't be involved in what's happening at the Postal Service. And so the interest and pushing of this new information system is causing this whistleblower to be incredibly concerned, but certainly yes in Congress as well. And we should be holding hearings on this right now this week.

HUNT: All right. Congressman Robert Garcia, thank you very much for coming on with us today. I really appreciate your time.

All right. Ahead here in THE ARENA, we're going to get a live report from outside court. What Lindsay Clancy's attorney is now saying when asked about the possibility of a plea as the jury goes home for the day after telling the judge they've deadlocked.

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[16:48:13]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUDGE WILLIAM SULLIVAN: I know that this was a long trial, all right? I know there were over 80 witnesses. There were over 300 exhibits. But because of that, I'm going to ask you to go back out, keeping in mind all of the instructions that I gave you, to go out and to continue your deliberations at this time, all right?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: After days of deliberations, the jury in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial told the judge they're unable to reach a unanimous decision.

This morning, the judge acknowledged the jury's difficult task, but urged them to keep at it to avoid a mistrial. They need to decide if Clancy, who does not dispute killing her three children, was criminally responsible. Her defense says she was experiencing postpartum psychosis and was overprescribed medications.

Joining us in THE ARENA to discuss the case, former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani and CNN's Jean Casarez. She is outside the courthouse for us.

And Jean, let me start with you there. The jury is done with deliberations for the day. Can you walk us through what happened in the courtroom this morning?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sure, all day. First of all, they've been deliberating about 45 minutes, which is not long. And the judge announces to the court that the jury has a note. And then the jury files in.

And one juror, according to our producer in the courtroom, was wringing their hands. Another juror was just looking down, wouldn't look up. It appeared as though there was an issue, and that's what was learned. I think you just played that. The jury said we're at an impasse. We cannot reach a unanimous decision.

And so, at that point, there were audible gasps in the courtroom in the gallery.

[16:50:00] And it's filled to capacity, that courtroom, because people want to be there. The public wants to be there. Of course, there's media there, but this was not unexpected, but it was -- it came out of the blue.

So, the judge had them deliberate rest of the day. They did. We don't hear of any notes that they had at all. But they asked to leave early, 3:30 is when they requested to leave. Normally, it's four o'clock. They can actually deliberate until 4:30.

But when they came in, our producer saw wringing of the hands, a small little faint smile from one of the female jurors when the judge says we'll see you back here at nine o'clock sharp.

But obviously there is contention, but they continue to work. They are trying very hard.

HUNT: Neama, can you walk us through what happens if the jury can't agree? I mean, how long does this go on?

NEAMA RAHMANI, PRESIDENT, WEST COAST TRIAL LAWYERS: Kasie, I think we're looking at the very real possibility of a mistrial. Really, there's three steps to this. The first is the jurors will say they can't reach a verdict, and the judge will tell them to keep deliberating.

The next time they come back and tell the judge, the judge will issue what's called a Tuey Rodriguez instruction. That's a seminal case in Massachusetts. In other states, it's called an Allen charge or a dynamite charge to try to get them to break the deadlock.

But if they come back a third time, It's game over. They will say they're hopelessly deadlocked. We'll have to start this whole process over. It'll be hung during a mistrial.

And Jean talked about it a bit. There was a half-day deliberation on Thursday. Friday, they had a question. They wanted to see two pieces of exhibits.

And the court on both those days asked them if they're done deliberating. But yesterday, Monday, they asked to be discharged at 4:00 p.m.

Today, again, they asked to be discharged even earlier at 3:30 p.m. Believe me, if there was any possibility that they were close to a verdict, they would have continued deliberating until at least 4:30. I don't think we're anywhere close to a verdict, and we're really looking at the likelihood of a mistrial increasing significantly today.

HUNT: So, Jean, I mean, what happens to Lindsay Clancy if there is a mistrial?

CASAREZ: If there is a mistrial and the judge would declare that, then the prosecution would most likely stand up and probably not officially, but say, Your Honor, we intend to retry this case, and they would ask that she remain in custody on no bail, because that's currently what this is. This is a triple murder case, and even though she's in a state mental hospital, she is in custody, and there was never bail that was allowed in this case. It was a no-bail situation.

HUNT: So, Neama, can you walk through -- I mean, in this case, we keep dividing the jury, obviously, between the men and the women, nine women, three men here, and it's a case that's divided the country. in many ways. I mean, from your experience, how do you understand how a jury like that might struggle in a situation like this one?

RAHMANI: Kasie, that's absolutely right. Here's a case where the facts really aren't in dispute, except for a small vocal minority of folks on social media who believe Patrick did it. Everyone agrees that Lindsay Clancy killed these three children. But reasonable jurors can view this case differently. Some believe that she's a murderer and she should be convicted of first-degree murder as premeditated, it was cruelty, there was atrocity under Massachusetts law, and other people believe that she's not criminally responsible.

So statistically, the polls that are conducted on this case They're almost 50/50 down the line. So, it's going to be very hard to get 12 men and women to agree on the facts of this case, whether it's this trial or a retrial. I think the prosecution has its hands full.

The burden, of course, in Massachusetts is on the commonwealth to prove that the defendant is criminally responsible or sane beyond a reasonable doubt. And I don't think they're going to be able to get all 12, especially as this case is progressing now until full day four of deliberations.

HUNT: So, Jean Casarez, there are a number of options that the jury has here. It's not just one or the other. Can you walk us through kind of what that conversation has been like, what the options are on the table for the jury as they try to make this decision?

CASAREZ: There are -- there are a lot of charges. You've got first degree murder, which is the highest charge in Massachusetts, and there is no parole available based on two theories, either deliberate premeditation or atrocity or cruelty in killing the victims. So that would be in killing the three children.

Second degree murder is basically intent to kill murder. That is possible parole.

Third is manslaughter here, and the defense requested that. Manslaughter, it would be a conviction. It would be a homicide based on her actions. But her mental state is taken into consideration, and that can be used to have a conviction there, but also in the penalty phase. It's up to 20 years. It can be a probation.

Next, out and out not guilty. because she is presumed innocent by law, they must have not guilty on that verdict form, and then also what the defense wants, not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility, or as the instruction says, based on mental insanity.

[16:55:14]

HUNT: All right. Jean Casarez, Neama Rahmani, thank you both for joining us.

All right, on that note, we'll be right back.

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HUNT: All right, thanks very much to my panel. Really appreciate all of you being here today.

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