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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt

America Marks 25 Years Since The 9/11 Terror Attacks; Trump Warns Republicans "You Go To Hell" If You Don't Vote. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired September 11, 2026 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Such heartbreak, but it's not heartbreaking as Patrick Snell's reports where you're always having the very best time. I love it, Patrick. Thank you so much for that update.

PATRICK SNELL, CNN WORLD SPORT: Appreciate it. Thank you.

KEILAR: And "THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT" starts right now.

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

It is a somber Friday because today, our nation marks 25 years since the terror attacks of 9/11, with solemn ceremonies across the country, honoring the thousands of lives that were lost that day and the thousands more who have died of related illnesses since.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This just in, you are looking at obviously a very disturbing live shot there. That is the World Trade Center and we have unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Everything changed that Tuesday morning in 2001. And the images from that day are still so difficult and so disturbing to watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The World Trade Center tower number one is on fire.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: As we all watched the World Trade Center come under attack, as we watched the Pentagon, the heart of America's military might, burn. And as we learned that a fourth plane had been forced down near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

I remember where I was. I think many of us do. I was in a classroom in high school watching live the second tower fall and thinking about immediately what would come next and what did turn out to come next is that the men and women around me, many of them, would end up fighting the wars that came afterward, getting hurt, giving enormous parts of themselves to it.

But today, there are now 100 million Americans who are too young to remember that day. They're too young to remember how the world rallied around us and how we, Americans, rallied around each other.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace.

The resolve of our great nation is being tested. But make no mistake, we will show the world that we will pass this test.

This is a unity of every faith and every background. It is to join together political parties in both houses of Congress.

The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Wow. President George W. Bush. rallying the country together, including, as you see here, when he visited a mosque just six days after 9/11 while there were still fires burning in New York. The commander-in-chief trying to unite the nation as it prepared to go to war.

Now, 25 years later, we know how the wars that we launched then stretched on, and we know how much they cost us. Fast forward to today, the United States is fighting another war. in the region. And now, we are bitterly, bitterly divided along partisan and almost cultural lines.

Just one symbol of that on display today, the sitting president did not join all of his living predecessors at the World Trade Center Memorial. It was due in part, our sources say, because he wanted to break the memorial's policies and deliver remarks. He instead spoke from the Pentagon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In the generation since 9/11, American sons and daughters have traveled to the darkest corners of the Earth and done battle with a shadowy enemy so that our children might once again know carefree days in cloudless skies. We salute the service members working right now to ensure the world's number one sponsor of terror, the Islamic Republic of Iran will never ever have a nuclear weapon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Sitting here today, it's hard not to wonder if that unity that America found as the towers fell, whether it'll ever be within our grasp again. Could we rise as one nation and embrace each other in grief and solidarity? Or would we immediately splinter, retreat into our corners, turn our knives on each other?

My panel is here in THE ARENA. CNN contributor, host of "The New York Times'" "The Interview", Lulu Garcia Navarro; CNN special correspondent Jamie Gangel; CNN political commentator Xochitl Hinojosa; and former senior advisor to the Trump 2024 campaign, Bryan Lanza.

[16:05:08]

But I want to start today on this momentous day with CNN military analyst, the retired Admiral James Stavridis.

The Admiral was inside the Pentagon when American Airlines Flight 77 struck the building. And you can read about it in this op-ed he's written in "Bloomberg". It's called "I was in the Pentagon on 9/11, and here's what I learned."

And, Admiral, I'd like to start just with your personal remembrance, because I was deeply struck by it, not realizing how close it was you were to the site that the plane hit.

ADMIRAL JAMES STAVRIDIS (RET.), CNN SENIOR MILITARY ANALYST: I was about 150 feet off to the side on the wall of the Pentagon that was struck by the aircraft. I actually glimpsed the airplane as it hit the side of the Pentagon. And I'm here today because the airplane hit the second deck of the Pentagon going down, obviously, and I was up on the fourth deck, so I was spared.

Like every Navy person, every military person, we all kind of ran for the fire to try and help. We had no equipment. We had no ability to really fight the fire from inside the building. So, we did evacuate Kasie.

And that's when the real heroes of the day arrived, the first responders, those magnificent firefighters, police, EMTs that really helped pull all that together. All of us did what we could. And on that day, since my car keys, my wallet, everything worked back in my burned out office, I started walking home, finally got home early in the evening. when I knocked on the door because I didn't have a key to it. That was the first time my wife knew that I had not been killed in the strike. She knew exactly where my office was in the Pentagon.

So yeah, deeply personal day. But your remarks are so powerful and right on. And I was so struck when President Bush said, I think correctly, this is a test for the nation. We will rise in unity together to respond to it.

We did that. I think just five years ago in the pandemic, we did not unify. At this moment, as you correctly point out, we are not unified. The most important task for our nation is to try and recapture at least an ability to come together above our policy disagreements and find a path out of this dark forest of acrimony into which we have wondered. HUNT: Admiral, President George W. Bush, former President Bush, spoke this week in advance of this anniversary, and he talked about periods of isolationism in our history. I want to play this for you, and we'll talk about it on the side. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: Our nation occasionally goes to isolationist periods. Where the attitude is we've got too many problems at home. Therefore, who cares what happens overseas, which? Really means to me they just don't pay attention to the lesson of 9/11 because what happens overseas matter to our national security at home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: And we mentioned, of course, that there are 100 million Americans who don't remember 9/11. Have we forgotten the lessons that it so harshly taught us?

STAVRIDIS: I think we have. And the lessons I think President Bush was talking about, not only the positive lessons of unity that came out of 9/11, but if you go back to the calamitous 20th century where the world truly tore itself apart, partly that was the result of America stepping back from the world at the end of the First World War, a big pandemic, by the way, perhaps not a coincidence. and the isolation and trade and tariff barriers of the late '20s and early '30s.

That's what dropped the plumb line to the rise of fascism. So, I think President Bush is entirely correct there. By the way, we should point out he's being interviewed by Condoleezza Rice, an extraordinary diplomat, fellow Republican with the President, and those are two pretty powerful voices on this subject, I think.

HUNT: Admiral, you wrote in your Bloomberg op-ed, of course, that you had assumed in many other situations in your military career that perhaps you were not safe, but it was in fact the Pentagon and what happened on 9/11 where you actually were not. And you also point to what our allies were able to do for us in that moment, what you actually were not. And you also point to what our allies were able to do for us in that moment, what they did do.

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And I was wondering if you could reflect for a moment on what they did then. And as we think about what our landscape and our relationships with our allies looks like now and how -- if this were to happen again, if something like this were to happen again, it seems like it might be very different.

STAVRIDIS: I think it would be, and that's deeply unfortunate.

As to your first point, yeah, I was in the Pentagon and quite relaxed for a military guy because, let's face it, I was in the safest place in the world. You know, I was in this massive concrete building guarded by the strongest military on earth and the capital of the world's richest country. By definition, I was safe, right? Nope. And the lesson of that is things change forever, in an instant, as you

pointed out in your read-in. Be ready when the moment comes. Have a plan B. Recognize intelligence is far from perfect.

To your second point, what I remember in the days immediately after we were all scrambling to get ready for what we knew was coming in terms of responding but extraordinarily, NATO, for the only time in its entire history up through today, activated Article 5, an attack on one shall be regarded as an attack on all.

And there were Germans and Brits and French aircraft and ships in the waters off the east coast of the United States. And the Europeans came with us, and they fought and they died alongside us in Afghanistan because we were attacked and because we were in an alliance with them.

We ought to remember that in these moments when we denigrate them and call them freeloaders and disregard the fact that collectively, Europe has the second largest defense budget in the world after the United States and ahead of China and ahead of -- ahead of any other country, any other individual country, including Russia.

So, Kasie, we ought to do some rebuilding of our alliances because in the end, you reap what you sow. And we ought to respect what NATO did in the days after 9/11, not denigrate them, and try to work with them effectively into the future. I think that's a challenge alongside the one of unity here at home that we discussed a moment ago.

HUNT: Admiral, of course, out of the response to 9/11 came -- what came to be known as forever wars, wars that went on and on in Iraq and Afghanistan and that were incredibly difficult for the U.S. to get out of so that, of course, it was the Biden administration when we had that calamitous final withdrawal from Afghanistan, and here we are 25 years after the initial attacks.

Now, this administration has gone to war with Iran, and all reports seem to suggest that that's actually degraded some of our traditional military response capabilities in terms of how many missiles we have at our disposal, how fast we can make them, et cetera.

What do you think the war with Iran says about what we learned or didn't learn about the region and the experiences that we had there in terms of what the future looks like and our ability to actually -- I mean, if 9/11, God forbid, if something like 9/11 were to happen again, could we even launch the types of attacks that we did in the wake of it to try to respond?

STAVRIDIS: I think we remain without question the preeminent military power in the world, full stop. Our defense budget, $900 billion, is vastly larger than that of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea combined. And we have allies, the Europeans, who spend $400 billion.

So, Kasie, the capacity is still there. You're correct to point out in specific areas now as a result of Iran, there are some shortfalls, precision-guided weapons, air defense weapons, a couple of other areas. But others should not mistake that specific set of shortfalls for an overall failure of U.S. military capability. But here is what we ought to learn from 9/11 about the war in Iran.

First, overconfidence can hurt you deeply. And I think we were overconfident of reaction on the part of the Iranians. We thought they would curl up into a fetal ball when we started dropping bombs. Far from it.

I think secondly, expect the unexpected. Look at how they have used drones. Look at, by the way, at how the Ukrainians have used drones against Russia.

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That changing face of warfare, expect the unexpected.

And then third and finally, as we talked about a moment ago, it's like Winston Churchill said, it's so frustrating to go to war with allies. The only thing worse is going to war without them. So, continuing to tend the gardens of alliances, in my view, makes a lot of sense. 9/11 ought to teach us that as well.

HUNT: Wise man, that Winston Churchill.

Retired Admiral James Stavridis, thank you, sir, very much for joining us. I really appreciate you offering your personal reflections to us today.

All right. The rest of our panel is going to stand by here.

Ahead in THE ARENA, the panel is going to be here with their memories of the day that changed America 25 years ago today and what their thoughts are on where we are now as a country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: I was in a classroom listening to a little child read. And Andy Card, which were my second plane is-- I knew the first plane hit the tower like you. I thought it was an accident. And second plane hast hit the-- second plane has hit a tower, and America is now under attack.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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BUSH: I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people --

(CHEERING)

BUSH: And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.

(CHEERING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right. More now on the 25th anniversary of September 11, 2001, and the terror attacks that occurred that day.

As Americans across the country reflect and remember that solemn day, we wanted to ask all of our panelists who are joining us the question that we posed at the beginning of the show: Can America, can we unite as we once did in the wake of September 11th, especially if, God forbid, something so awful were to happen that it would demand that of us?

CNN presidential historian Tim Naftali joins our panel now.

And Tim, I'll start with you because this is -- 9/11 for me was a seminal moment as I was just becoming -- as I was becoming an adult in the world. I probably wouldn't be sitting here today if this hadn't happened. It shaped so much of my life because of how old I specifically was when it happened.

And there are other moments throughout history where that's true for others. This one was so tragic, so complicated, and that moment of unity was relatively brief.

But I was wondering what your reflections are in terms of kind of the arc of history and where it's taken us since then and what that says about where we're capable of going.

TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, Kasie, you're never quite sure where the arc will lead you, because the first time in the modern era that we were surprised at a nation by an attack was Pearl Harbor. And that led to the kind of unity that we all witnessed those of us old enough after September 11th.

Pearl Harbor led to our involvement in World War II, and World War II was a unifying experience for Americans. It was a unifying experience for the American political class. In 1967, 59 percent of the House of Representatives was World War II veterans. And so even though they disagreed with each other, there was a certain level of respect that these members of Congress had. And as a result, bipartisan compromise on really big issues was possible in the 1960s and '70s.

But the war on terror did not create unity. It does not -- it is not a parallel to World War II. It did not create or help create a political class in Washington that understood the importance of respect and compromise. And so, I think a lot about what it was about the war on terror that divided us as opposed to unifying us after a trauma.

And I think part of it is the way in which the war on terror ended, the long bleed of Afghanistan and Iraq, the very fact that Iraq really was a war of choice. Saddam Hussein is a very bad human being, but he wasn't a co-conspirator of Osama bin Laden.

Those two wars, I think, left people with an uncertainty about the way in which our institutions had dealt with the trauma of September 11th in a way that wasn't true after Pearl Harbor. And so, we're living with that division and that uncertainty.

Other things have shaped us the pandemic the Great Recession. I'm not saying the reason we're so we have such a sour political culture today is the nature of how we fought the War on Terror.

In fact, with the fact that we called it a War on Terror, I'm not. But a path and it divided us. It didn't unify us. And today we're living with the consequences of the fact that we grieve together and yet we can't compromise together 25 years after 9/11.

HUNT: Lulu Garcia-Navarro, I know you spent so much time -- also, your professional life, so much of it was driven by the events that followed, September 11. I mean, what are your reflections 25 years after this all began, as we now live in a world where 100 million Americans don't remember that day?

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LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: My reflections are about exactly what happened after. I wasn't -- I had my first job at that point as a journalist when it happened, but I wasn't inside the country. I was a foreign correspondent for many years. And so I saw it with the eyes of how the world was looking at this event.

And I was very quickly brought into the wars on terror. I went to Afghanistan in 2001, and then I spent a decade in Iraq. And so, I think one of the things that always strikes me when this horrible day comes around is the seeds of what we're living now were made there.

After -- I mean, we look at that and we say we all rallied together, but did we? There were already conspiracy theories about what happened there. Alex Jones was already going out and talking about it being a false flag operation in Texas.

All the things that we are dealing with now and have been supercharged by social media and by the things that we've experienced since, they all found a kind of nexus. It was the beginning of this poisonous modern era.

And so, I would like on 25 years in for us to look at that day with a little bit more clarity, because it did -- from that was born a lot of the things that we're experiencing now, most of them unpleasant.

HUNT: Jamie Gangel, I want to -- I do want to play what George W. Bush said this week, reflecting on that visit that he took to the mosque a handful of days after. September 11th was a time when a lot of Americans, Islamic Americans, felt a lot of fear. It was a very difficult time for them.

And the president thought it was important that he go to a mosque and say what he said there. Let's listen to his reflections 25 years out.

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BUSH: So one of the things that I did, and I think you were very much involved in this decision shortly thereafter, was to go to a mosque. And I did so because I was deeply concerned about stories of women of cover being harassed at shopping centers, particularly in Michigan. You know, it became clear to me that if this is an ideological struggle, which is what I viewed it as, and we forego one of the most important parts of our ideology, which is the freedom to worship the way you want to worship, all of a sudden, the enemy has won a victory.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: And Jamie Gangel, and this is, I mean, leadership, right? Leadership matters to people. And we've seen that in the way this president has led the people that support him to believe things that he says are true.

The leadership that President Bush displayed in that immediate aftermath, and yes, to Lulu's point, there were divisions that came later, but that moment, that decision, he took his shoes off. He read from the Quran. He was saying to Americans, we can all be in this together. Just because this happened doesn't mean that we need to hate each other because we are going to make assumptions about each other.

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: So to your point about things that have happened since then, absolutely. But I think it's important to look back at the days and weeks that followed. What President Bush did, night and day difference between what we are seeing now. Some of you may remember people were scared to get on planes, and there was terrible economic fallout from this.

So, President Bush asked his parents, former President Bush 41 and Barbara Bush, to get on a commercial plane and take a flight and say it's safe, go out there, another example of leading by example and pushing forward.

And I also do worry, you know, we talk about that day people running toward danger. They really did. Not just firefighters and first responders and police, but regular people did that. And to see where we are today, I really do worry that, as you said, heaven forbid, if something like this happened, would we see that same kind of rallying?

HUNT: Xochitl?

XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah. I think as you played President Bush's remarks there, one thing that stands out is I went to the Justice Department in 2009 for the first time, and we were still talking about post-9/11 backlash. That was a huge initiative. We were prosecuting cases of people going and firebombing mosques and targeting people.

And that was a huge -- a large portion of the work that the Civil Rights Division was doing at the time. And to think that the government really had to stand up for those Americans here at home for almost 10 years after 9/11 is -- I mean, just shows how there was a lot of discrimination that was still occurring.

[16:30:14] And the president at the time, Barack Obama, was very much on board ensuring everything we were doing everything to protect them. Then, I think, has come the Trump administration. And I do think that he's somewhat normalized going after the community again.

If you just look at what was happening over the last few days at the midterm convention, There was a lot of talk about that and how they as Americans do not. They should not be in our country trying to make it seem like they are all criminals of some sort and how far we've come from a government, both Republican and Democratic presidents saying no, it's not OK to discriminate. These are innocent people, to now it being normalized from our elected leaders that actually we do think that they're the bad guys.

And -- I mean, that division I think really is weighing heavily on a lot of Americans right now, too, because right now, because of the color of your skin, you're not accepted in this country.

HUNT: I do think, just to go back to the point about leadership, and I take yours about what we heard from the convention, but there are still some voices that are trying to offer a different way. This was Governor Spencer Cox of Utah speaking on Wednesday about the polarization that we now find ourselves facing. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. SPENCER COX (R), UTAH: We can't accomplish stuff if we hate each other. That's unsustainable. The experts tell me that we're on a path with this type of pernicious and affective polarization that we're seeing across the country, that there are other societies that have gone down this path and it hasn't ended well for them.

That being said, there have been worse times. There's also, I hope, people will come away with a really hopeful feeling about our country, and that we can turn this around, and we can turn it around pretty quickly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: The top there, Bryan. We can't accomplish stuff if we hate each other.

BRYAN LANZA, SENIOR ADVISER, TRUMP 2024 CAMPAIGN: Yeah, I mean, there's true. I mean, listen, we are in a deeply polarized era of American politics, and that has bled into our culture. But there's still hope. Just a couple weeks ago I was in Los Angeles and there was a very severe car accident that I witnessed on the freeway. I counted 13 cars pulled over to help.

A Rainbow Coalition as Jesse Jackson would say people came out to help those folks. So it exists. Our politicians just do a very good job of polarizing everything for us, whether it's movies, whether it's sports.

We used to be able to watch sports and it could be enjoyable. Now there's a political message in sports. I think we got to take the politics out of everything and just keep it in D.C., and we can go back to enjoying our lives.

But I've always said this, the reality is that's not going to happen. Social media has broken the seal of who we've become as a culture, and social media is toxic, it's a cancer, and the more and more people rely on social media as their main way to communicate, the more and more we're in this spiral of toxicity.

HUNT: All right. Tim Naftali, thank you so much, sir, for joining us. I really appreciate your reflections.

For information about how you can support first responders and families impacted by 9/11, you can go to CNN.com/impact.

We'll be right back.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. None of us will ever forget this day. Yet we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: President George W. Bush there, fulfilling his role not just as commander-in-chief, but also as consoler-in-chief, trying to comfort a nation wracked by grief and unsure about the entirely new world that lay ahead of them.

Joining me now, Democratic congresswoman from Michigan, Debbie Dingell.

Congresswoman, thank you so much for joining us today.

And one of the things that many of our viewers who are here regularly will probably know about you, but others may not, is the area of the country that you come from and what you know about Dearborn, Michigan. which was a place that was so deeply impacted by all of this.

And I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about what you remember about that community that you are a part of on that day and also what it means and feels like today, 25 years later.

REP. DEBBIE DINGELL (D-MI): So, Kasie, it's good to see you. It's been a day of a lot of remembrances. It's one of those days that you never forget for your entire life. I actually was in Washington, D.C. and landed at Washington Reagan Airport at 8:00 a.m. that morning.

And you know, we spent -- nobody understood what was happening at first. The first plane hit the second plane. My husband, John Dingell, who many may know was in Congress then I was not, was in the Capitol. And as the morning went on and we realized that there were many symbols that were targeted, they tried to keep the White House, the Capitol. They were unsuccessful at keeping the Pentagon safe.

[16:40:01]

John Dingell wouldn't leave the Capitol. He said, "I served in World War II. And nobody is going to scare me out of the symbol of democracy in the world." I remember being scared.

But then, as people began to understand what happened that day, people became very concerned about how we made sure America was America. What I remember about those days was how we came together and how we knew we were Americans first, that neighbors, community came together. We weren't allowed to fly home, so we drove home several days later.

John talked to President Bush. They were a lot about what was happening. We -- when the president gave his joint session of Congress speech, we stayed in Dearborn to be with that community to make sure that they were safe.

And people came from all over Southeast Michigan, of all different faiths and backgrounds to stand with community during that joint session of Congress, to show our solidarity as Americans. And the next night, John Dingell and Bill Ford led a vigil that thousands of people came to from all over Michigan with the candles lit, showing that what united us was far bigger than the differences.

People across faiths and ethnicity and all -- they knew our differences were minor compared to what it meant to be an American and supporting each other. There was a time in our country we knew what patriotism was, everything that flag stood for. And I just wish that we could find the way we built bridges back then. That spirit was one we could somehow find a way to reignite right now.

HUNT: What do you think it is that led to the ultimate splintering of that unity in the intervening 25 years, because we have seen a trajectory of separation, essentially since-- that's the most unified we've been in many ways in a very, very long time. What do you think the ills are? And can we fix them?

DINGELL: Well, I've spent a lot of time thinking about it, especially lately. We are normalizing violence, and that's unacceptable. I think social media has contributed, people feeling that they can be anonymous in the things that we say. But, you know, we -- hate is becoming too easy. What we cannot do is we've got to stand up to hate wherever we see it. And when it's just words on a page or it's a tweet or it's an X or it's social media, I think people don't understand what we're doing to each other.

I also think that people don't understand that there are foreign countries that are trying to divide us. And I think each of us has a responsibility. Whoever we are, wherever we are and whenever we see it, you got to stand up to hate, period. We can't let it seep in, we can't normalize it. It's really very concerning to me, and it's every last one of us that

has a responsibility to be doing that. And I don't care who that person is. I feel that way about every one of my Republican colleagues. I feel that about my neighbors, people of different faiths, people -- we just -- we got to stand up to hate.

HUNT: Congresswoman, I keep coming back to this question of leadership. I've always really believed that it really matters. And I'm interested to know if you think that it still does, considering how fragmented, how divided we are.

Is it fruitless for our leaders to try to take the road that you're describing in an environment that encourages, gives attention and clicks and money to people who do the opposite?

DINGELL: Well, first of all, you can't stop. I feel that leadership does matter. And I'm hoping that this period of time that we're seeing in the country may shift at some point.

I mean, I'm going to be -- I don't want to play size today because, you know, I'm just as horrified by the shooting of Charlie Kirk, whose year anniversary was yesterday. And I took a lot of grief for standing up and saying this violence was wrong, but I don't care. That's when you do when something is wrong.

But when you're someplace and people start saying, shoot them, that's wrong too.

[16:45:00]

We all have a responsibility to condemn violence, to stand up, to be there, to protect each other. And leadership requires that, and I think people should demand that of their leaders.

HUNT: All right. Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, thank you very much taking some time with us I always love seeing you.

DINGELL: Thank you.

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

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: You know what happens if you don't vote you go to hell, you know that. Okay? You go to hell. And I don't want that to happen to you, so please go and vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[16:50:00]

HUNT: Twenty-five years after 9/11, that is the political environment that we're all living in, that we have been for 10 years. President Donald Trump closing out the Republicans' first midterm

convention with a very striking message and a significant request of the Republicans in the audience.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Please raise your right hand. I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States, that loves us so much he can't even breathe. That I will go out with my family, my friends, I'll do it anyway. I don't care if I'm registered or not, I'm going to try and cheat like hell like they do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right, my panel is back.

Jamie Gangel, what did we just see there?

GANGEL: I don't think we say enough, This is not normal. You know, we've all become used to hearing people, well, that's Trump being Trump.

I would call that a confession. I mean, he says, He's going to cheat. He says go out and vote even if you can't register. I also -- I spoke to a Republican strategist who is not a supporter of Donald Trump, who watched it and texted and said to me, I don't know which is crazier, that he did that or that the people in the audience took the pledge.

HUNT: Bryan Lanza, what say you?

LANZA: I mean, I didn't take the pledge. I would say this, for now 10 years we've seen Trump take this tone and say these things that we feel outraged, but people are laughing along the way. He does try to add a humor component to this. I'm sure he was having a good kick out of saying this and laughing. The people were laughing, and the media tries to take it in a different direction.

To me, it looked like he was having fun, and of course we're here today saying that this is something serious, but I don't know anybody that's taken a pledge to Donald Trump, but I just thought he was having a good time.

GANGEL: Can I say why we take it seriously? And that is because of January 6th and because there is real concern about whether if the House goes to Democrats, if the Senate goes to Democrats, that President Trump will throw us into chaos again. I mean, their past is prologue.

HINOJOSA: Well, on the pledge issue, I think it also is just how the party has reacted to Trump over the last few years. And to your point about chaos, if Donald Trump wants to sow doubt into our elections, calls Mike Johnson and says do not seat the new Congress there is nothing in the law that says that Mike Johnson has to seat the new Congress.

And so I think that there is a lot of concern about what exactly happens not before the election what happens starting election day and to win the new Congress has to be seated and what kind of shenanigans can happen and we already know that he's capable of shenanigans. So --

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yeah, Bryan Lanza, I think the defense that he was just kidding is really about 10 years old now, and it just doesn't -- it doesn't fly anymore. He's the president of the United States, and if any other elected leader said to their followers, hey, take a pledge to cheat on this election, even with a big fat smile, even without the history of Donald Trump trying to overthrow a legitimate election, I don't think you'd be taking that same tone.

And so, I find it scary, and I find it sad. This whole thing that happened in Dallas was a pathetic attempt to try and sway these elections by offering money, by telling people they're going to go to hell. It was blasphemous as a Catholic.

You know, it's just sad.

HUNT: Your name was invoked, Bryan. You're welcome to --

LANZA: Yeah, clearly, she is sad. But listen, I would say the thing is, you're right. For some people it wasn't fun in year two. It's year three-year four, now six.

But clearly, some people find it entertaining. Those people who do find it entertaining were at the convention, laughing with him.

HUNT: Jamie, to the point that you were making, Michael Luttig, who's a judge, of course, appointed by George H.W. Bush, he actually wrote this on Thursday, to that point that you were making, quote, "America's only hope for saving its democracy and avoiding another crippling constitutional crisis on January 3rd is for the House Republicans to decide they are not going to betray their oaths in their country one last time for Donald Trump and telegraph to Trump and Mike Johnson that any unconstitutional plan they might be contriving to deny Democratic members elect their rightful seats in the 120th Congress would be dead on arrival January 3rd.

GANGEL: And I think, to that point, there is very little confidence that they will stand up. To Xochitl's point, there is this block of time between the election and January 3rd, and there are lawyers and strategists and many people who are worried about exactly this happening?

[16:55:07]

HUNT: I mean, the interregnum period before January 6th. Right. I remember the Republicans who told me when I called them, just let him have his moment. It'll all be fine. And then, of course, we ended up with what we saw at the Capitol.

All right. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUNT: All right, Thanks very much to my panel. It was a real privilege to reflect on 25 years after 9/11 with all of you. Thanks to you at home for watching as well.

You can watch much more of THE ARENA tomorrow. THE ARENA SATURDAY airs at noon, and again at 4:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN. I'd love to have you join us. You can also stream, catch up whenever you want in the CNN app.

"THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER" starts right now.