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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
Trump & Top GOP Officials Blame Messaging For Midterm Woes; Trump Won't Rule Out Invoking Insurrection Act Before Midterms; WSJ: DOJ Reviewing If Prosecutors Mistreated Nixon. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired October 01, 2026 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:00]
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: He does like fun costumes and props and stunts for the morning show.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Yeah, just like a 98-size font.
SANCHEZ: He doesn't do that for us as much.
KEILAR: Oh, he knows props.
SANCHEZ: Oh, yeah.
DAVID GOLDMAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Oh, yeah. I got suspenders. Maybe I'll get a propeller hat and do this.
KEILAR: We're getting the hard rap now, David. Props tomorrow, buddy.
THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT starts right now.
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Breaking news, right now, President Trump heading to the red state of Texas with just about a month left before the midterm elections.
Hi, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. Welcome to THE ARENA. It's great to have you with us on this Thursday.
Right now, warning signs are flashing for Republicans all over the map, and the president is looking for someone to blame.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I think the press isn't covering this fairly. It was just announced we have the best economic numbers. of any president in the history of our country. And yet people don't know about it because the press won't talk about it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So, Donald Trump is far from the first president, facing a tough midterm to blame the press. But it gets at the core problem that he's facing right now. The president thinks the economy is better than ever. He's trying to tell voters that it is, but voters don't think that.
A new "A.P." poll released today finds that just 17 percent, 17 percent of people approve of President Trump's handling of the cost of living, 17.
But he is convinced that these numbers simply cannot be real. "Time Magazine" just released a lengthy interview with the president. It is worth reading in full.
At one point, they say to him, Mr. President, your polls have never been lower. Trump responded by saying, quote, "They're fake numbers. And I would beat anybody running today by 20 points. Your numbers that you have are fake. The pollsters are corrupt," end quote.
So, the economy is amazing. It's the media's fault, and the polls are fake.
But the president does seem to know he's got at least one problem on his hands, and he's starting to kind of maybe sort of take responsibility.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Costs are way down, and they're coming down further. We have inflation totally in control, and we've done a great job. And the thing I haven't done a good job with is explaining it to people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: It's not just the economy where President Trump thinks that he's right and that he just needs to do some better P.R. Take the Iran war seven months ago. He predicted it would last four to six weeks.
"Time Magazine" asked him, can you just explain, like, why it's taking so long? The president responded, quote, "Only because I wanted to go further. I took them out. I could have stopped them, but I wanted to go further."
Now, the president may not think that choosing to extend an unpopular war created a political liability, but his daughter-in-law, the Fox News host, Lara Trump, sure does.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRY COLE, THE SUN'S EDITOR-AT-LARGE: The timing couldn't have been worse for this conflict, really. I mean, from a political point of view, it could cost him his legacy.
LARA TRUMP, FOX NEWS HOST: Well, it could cost him these midterms. So, yeah, he really hates the way that things have gone with Iran. Absolutely does he wish that things had more swiftly happened. But you're right. The Iranians are absolutely holding out until these midterm elections.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So ever since he rode down that golden escalator 11 years ago now, Donald Trump's political fortunes have relied on his ability to know where voters are and tell them what he wants to hear. And his political instincts have often been good. They have delivered in victories that defied the polls and, of course, defied expectations. That brings us back to this president's interview with time and how he ended that conversation.
The president saying this, quote, "Well, I hope I get a decent story. I don't think, you know, it's hard to get a good story. Every question is a hit. I don't know what the hell's wrong," end quote.
All right, let's get off the sidelines and head into THE ARENA. My panel is here, but we're going to get started with CNN senior White House correspondent Kristen Holmes.
Kristen, always good to see you.
You talked to the president briefly as he was leaving the White House today. You can sense the frustration. Of course, he's blaming messaging, which, quite frankly, often happens when a president or party is frustrated with how things are going. But how would you answer the president's question, you know, what the hell's wrong?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: You talk to Americans every day. You hear President Trump saying one thing, and Americans are feeling very differently. And President Trump has long had this belief, and sometimes he is successful, that if he says something enough times, it can become true, that he can change the tide of the messaging.
The problem when you're talking about the economy specifically, you cannot change the way people feel. You cannot change the bills people have to pay. You cannot change the fact that people feel like they can't afford gas. And that is something that his team told me back in 2024 when he was running for office, that that's why they were really pounding the economy because no matter what Biden was saying at the time, they couldn't change the way Americans were feeling.
And that is the same predicament that President Trump finds himself in right now. Now, what's really interesting about his travel, he says he's going to be traveling the better part of 32 days leading up to the midterms.
[16:05:05]
He's going to Texas and Oklahoma today. Those are hugely red, deep red states. It's not going to these swing states. It's going to Alabama tomorrow. Part of that, he says, is because he wants to thank his voters. He wants to make sure that his voters know that he is very thankful that they voted for him.
But there's also this interesting thing happening in Texas, which is the fact that Ken Paxton, who is obviously running for Senate there, is deeply unpopular. President Trump endorsed him in the primary, much to the chagrin of Republican politicos across the country, and now he has to help carry him across the finish line.
Paxton himself was caught on leaked audio saying that Trump's convention hurt him, Paxton, politically. So, I asked President Trump if he had spoken to him about these remarks. He said he hadn't.
Likely, I can imagine that's going to come up today. But on top of that, he was asked by someone else, and this was after this kind of conversation he had about thanking the voters, why he'd still go to Texas if Paxton is saying that he's hurting him politically.
And this answer was much more frank. He said that there is a big election there and we Republicans have to win it. which goes to show you that there is still some concern that even in deep red Texas, the Republican candidate cannot pull it off in the Senate.
HUNT: All right, Kristen Holmes for us at the White House -- Kristen, thank you as always.
My panel is here in THE ARENA, the co-founder of "The Dispatch" and CNN political commentator Jonah Goldberg; co-host of "The Interview" podcast from "The New York Times" and CNN contributor, Lulu Garcia- Navarro; former senior advisor to the Biden and Harris presidential campaigns, Adrienne Elrod; and former RNC communications director, Doug Heye.
Welcome to all of you. Thank you so much for being here.
Jonah Goldberg, I want to play for you something that Brit Hume said on Fox yesterday. Let's watch it. We'll talk about it. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: I would say that the Republicans don't have much going for them this cycle. The polls all suggest that. The mood of the country suggests that. I don't think much is going to change on cost of living over the next month. It could change a little, things have turned around a bit in the Strait of Hormuz.
But I think this -- Republicans have to worry about is that opinions have solidified and not in their favor. And that number suggests that that may be the case.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: The delivery there. The Republicans don't have much going for them this cycle.
JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it's a little unfair, only insofar as the Republicans have a lot of money. They have a lot of money to spend. And Karl Rove says their get-out-the-vote operation is better than I would have thought. It's just the rest of it. Like, this is -- it's -- you know, other than that, Mrs. Lincoln.
No, but the problem is, like, there's this weird sort of consensus that you get from the mainstream media and from the people who hate the mainstream media that the mainstream media is the only thing that shapes the political attitudes of the country, right? So, Trump thinks the only reason anyone thinks anything is going wrong is because the media is not being positive enough.
And the reality is, is like Trump is the most overexposed president in human -- he's the most overexposed person in human history, right? He gets his message out on true social. He has -- he -- his sound bites go all over the place. He -- people are making up their mind by what they see in him regardless of you know whether the media is covering him fairly or unfairly, I don't think it's particularly covering him all that unfairly.
But -- and the thing is is that people might listen to the media whatever however you defined it about the macro economy, but people don't need to listen to the media about the microeconomy that they live in. And everyone's an expert about their own pocketbook and about their own finances. And that's what's showing up in the polling. And if "Time Magazine" had given him the most lavish, fawning article, it would not have moved the polling one point in any direction.
HUNT: Yeah.
Lulu?
LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I mean, just look at the news today. We saw interest rates on mortgages go up to 7.5 percent. I mean, this country has a housing crisis. These are the issues that really affect people, not feelings that Donald Trump seems to, not vibes, but like actual numbers that affect their credit card bills and if they can afford to buy a house and if their mortgage payments go up. You know, these are the things that just, they don't get moved by the president going on a blitz. And in fact, I think the more you see of him, perhaps the less people are going to want to hear from him.
HUNT: Well, and also the question is, what exactly is the president offering, okay, when he is talking to the American people, whether it is via the mainstream media, via his own platform, meaning he actually owns a social media platform that he can use? He has plenty of ways to control his own messaging because the reality is a lot of the time he's talking about things that are not mortgage rates or affordability or all of the things that other people in his party would like him to talk about.
[16:10:07]
Here was Karl Rove talking about what voters do and don't want to hear about making this point.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KARL ROVE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: What has the last month been? We started off with, you know, the Trump dividend. We had the son getting the party paid for by the Russians. Team Trump needs to have a message of the day that it pushes every day and stops as much of this extraneous stuff. We don't need to hear about the president saying, I'm going to tear
down the Kennedy Center if I don't get recognition. We don't want to hear about the -- I got the great triumphal arch.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Who does Karl Rove look for again? I was a little confused there.
HUNT: I'm not sure he's the most in-the-tank person for Trump in the Republican Party.
But, Doug, what do you make of it?
DOUG HEYE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: It's exactly right, and it's what Republicans who are on the ballot are saying privately, some now a little more publicly, more and more. And the cover of the "Time Magazine" tells us exactly what the problem is.
What do we see? We see his helipad. So, we spent a couple days on the helipad, the Kennedy Center, as Karl Rove talked about, the reflecting pool, and all these other ancillary Trump could be saying, here's what we've done to lower prices and here's what we're going to do in the future, and instead he focuses on these just bizarro world issues that just don't connect with voters.
HUNT: Yeah, I mean, and Adrienne, I think it's worth remembering why Donald Trump wants to do an interview with "Time Magazine". He wants a cover, right?
ADRIENNE ELROD, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: He's been doing that for a long time.
HUNT: "Time Magazine" covers framed in his office, but this was how he talked to the team that interviewed him, he said this, quote, "You haven't asked me one effing positive question. All of this. What about this? What about that? What about that? What about this? All negative."
ELROD: Yeah, because his policies are all negative. I just saw what David Chalian put on the screen, which is poll after poll shows the American people think his economic policies are what is causing their economic pain, 17 percent approval rating, I mean, I can't remember, guys, when a president had that low of an approval rating on the economy.
But I want to touch on something that Jonah had just said.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Biden?
ELROD: I think, no, this is a lot worse than Biden. Biden never got under, like, 30 percent.
HUNT: Well, we'll ask the control room.
ELROD: They'll come back with us on that. But something that Jonah has said about money, yes, that's exactly
right. The Republicans, the one advantage they have on us is they have more money. Trump is sitting on, what, $400 million-plus in MAGA PAC. He really has not touched it.
But I think we are getting to a point, Kasie, where this election is getting baked in. We've got early vote in at least 12 to 15 states, I think happening right now. People are feeling this economic pain. And just like Brit Hume said, I don't see. anything changing over the next month when it comes to the economy getting better for the American people, people can see through this.
You can throw ads on TV, you can splatter every single ad on television trying to tout the Republicans that people are seeing what's in their pocketbooks and they are not happy with it.
HUNT: Yeah, so speaking of that early vote, we can put up some of the data that we have now about early ballot requests in some of these states and in places that are firmly swinging You know, Pennsylvania firmly swing state. Democratic ballot requests are up four points. In Iowa, up 13 percentage points.
North Carolina and Maine also seeing increases, obviously early data.
But I mean, Jonah, there's a sense in any election of which way the momentum is going, right? And the way that the curve of that line crests as we hit Election Day often determines, you know, the size of a wave like this.
Where are you on the direction we think we're going? Is there any way for Republicans at this point to kind of blunt the momentum that Democrats are clearly feeling right now?
GOLDBERG: I honestly, I don't see it. That said, I don't necessarily trust all the polling. When I look at polling, I think about it in terms of momentum, right?
HUNT: What direction are the numbers going?
GOLDBERG: And there are a lot of people who I think Trump has probably more voters who are harder to poll than other people. But if you just look at the broad sweep of it, you don't see a direction going the other way anywhere that should give Republicans a lot of hope. The real hope is in the nature of the map right now, which puts a pretty hard ceiling on the number of seats Democrats could possibly win.
HUNT: Yeah, that's fair.
All right, coming up next here in THE ARENA, the new story out today suggesting a Watergate gate. Yes, really. The Justice Department is now looking into whether Richard Nixon got a raw deal in one of the most infamous presidential scandals in history.
But first, what the commander-in-chief says he's not ruling out when it comes to the midterm elections. We're going to talk to Democratic Congressman Jason Crow about the president's threat to invoke the Insurrection Act.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:19:14]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You have a thing called the Insurrection Act you know that right you know that I could use that immediately, and no judge can even challenge you on that. But I haven't chosen to do it because I haven't felt we need it.
NORAH O'DONNELL, CBS NEWS CORRESPONDENT: So, you're going to send the military into American cities?
TRUMP: Well, if I wanted to, I could, if I wanted to use the Insurrection Act. The Insurrection Act has been used routinely by presidents, and if I needed it, that would mean I could bring in the Army, the Marines. I could bring in whoever I want.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So ever since he returned to office, President Trump has repeatedly teased the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act, the 1807 statute that allows the president to deploy the military on U.S. soil. And now he is not ruling out using it around the midterm elections this fall.
Asked in a new "Time Magazine" interview if he would rule out declaring a state of emergency in the lead up to the midterms absent widespread violence. Trump told the magazine this, quote, "I don't rule anything out or in. We'll see. You mean the Insurrection Act?" "Yeah," the interviewer answered.
"No," Trump continued. "I've never used it. I could use it. A lot of people think I should use it sometimes."
Joining me now in THE ARENA is Democratic congressman from Colorado, Jason Crow. He sits on the House Armed Services and Intelligence Committees and is a former Army Ranger who deployed to multiple tours in the Middle East.
Congressman, thanks for being here.
You, of course, faced federal investigation over the video that you and some colleagues put out saying that troops should not obey illegal orders. Is this something that you think falls into that category? How concerned are you about the way the president framed this here?
REP. JASON CROW (D-CO): Well, everybody should be concerned about how the president framed this. Let's actually just break down what he's actually saying. He's saying he'll never rule anything in or out. Any president and every president, whether you're a Democrat or Republican or independent, anybody should always rule in following the law and should always rule out disobeying the law and disobeying the Constitution. The fact that he's not unwilling to do that tells you everything you need to know.
And the second thing he's saying here is, wow, the Insurrection Act, this thing that's designed for emergency, for crisis that pops up. And the reason why it was created is because an emergency by definition is something that you can't go to Congress for. You have to respond immediately saying maybe there'll be an emergency. I'll decide if there's an emergency whether or not I win the election. Again, telling you everything that we need to know.
HUNT: Congressman, there had been a number of behind-the-scenes conversations among Democrats about the possibility that the administration was laying the groundwork to declare an emergency that would essentially allow them to invoke some of these powers. Where are those conversations today, especially as polling seems to indicate that a blue wave may be bigger than perhaps initially anticipated?
CROW: Well, there's no doubt in my mind, Kasie, that there are people in the administration, including the president and people close to him that would love to try to steal this election, that are already trying to suppress votes, who disregard the will of American voters, who understand that their policies have failed, and America has now realized that in large numbers, which the polling reflects, and they're willing to do anything to hold on to power, which, of course, is the sign of an autocracy or people that don't care about democracy, which they clearly don't.
Where does that leave us, though? Where that leaves us is the need to win big, right? Our greatest defense is a large margin of victory here.
I'm the battleground chair for House Democrats. And for the last 18 months, I've been recruiting and mentoring candidates, building out our battlefield around the country. I've been to 11 different states. I'm working with dozens of candidates. I've held dozens of events, roundtables from Wisconsin to Michigan to New Hampshire to Virginia to Arizona to California and everywhere in between.
And what I can tell you is something big is happening here. We have incredible candidates. Americans right, left, and center are joining together to retake their country, and we're going to win. So, we're going to have a large margin of victory, that is my hope, which will limit their options to try to steal this election.
HUNT: Using the language steal the election echoes what Republicans have said. Do you think Democrats using that rhetoric helps build faith in the system?
CROW: Well, there's a difference between the actions of a runaway presidency and someone who doesn't care about the Constitution in what is an extremely safe and secure election system, right? Our election system is very safe. It's very secure.
I sit on the Intelligence Committee, Armed Services Committee, and what I can tell you is it remains safe and secure. And our intelligence assessments right now, under this intelligence community, is telling us that it remains safe and secure. And in Colorado and other places around the country, we have high rates of voter participation, we have mail-in voting.
So that's not the issue. The issue is whether or not you have a president that will disrespect that and ignore the will of the voters. That's the difference. And that's what we're trying to combat right now.
HUNT: One of the other pieces of this conversation, too, behind the scenes has been questions about how the Republican, the current Republican majority might use the rules and procedures in the House or change them or try to alter them if, in fact, they lose, to try to perhaps not seat the next Congress appropriately.
There are a lot of hypotheticals there, of course, but I'm interested to know what you have heard or what you are hearing among Democratic leaders about laying groundwork to potentially prepare for that.
CROW: Well, hope is not a plan, right? I'm a military guy --
HUNT: Of course, not.
[16:25:00]
CROW: -- so military people plan for every contingency.
We red team things, we war game things. We're looking at everything. We're leaving no stone unturned.
We have an incredible task force and group of people in the house. We have a litigation plan, a communication plan. We're looking at every potential, and we're not going to just hope things go our way. So, number one, again, our greatest defense is a large margin of victory. The bigger our margin of victory and the deeper we go into red territory, the fewer options they have.
But we're going to be vigilant. We're going to be prepared, if necessary, to defend Americans, to defend Coloradans, to defend the rule of law.
That is our job. That's what the Constitution requires, and we'll be ready for it.
HUNT: Of course, should this blue wave be as big as some are predicting or hoping that it will be, Democrats are going to have a group of candidates on the far-left, some of them affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America. They're already potentially calling themselves the bloc. We, of course, have seen factions like that really disrupt governance, mostly on the Republican side with the Tea Party and the Freedom Caucus.
But I'm interested to know if you think Hakeem Jeffries, who's the likely next speaker, is up to the task of handling that?
CROW: Yeah. Well, absolutely he is, number one. Number two, that's not a controversy, actually. That's the beauty of our caucus. Everyone's like, oh, controversy, infighting. You know what's great about that is that we're not a lockstep party,
that we're not like the mega Republicans now who lack ideological diversity, who lack ideas, who lack independence, and just do what this president requires them to do. I never want to belong to any organization, a political party, anything that requires singularity, that requires moral bankruptcy.
We are a broad tent. We have ideological diversity, which is why we're stronger, which is why we have better ideas and why we're going to win. So that's number one. Number two is, again, as a battleground chair, I'm working now with over 40 candidates who are pragmatic folks, who are fighters, who are former sheriff's deputies, small business owners, combat veterans. nurses, doctors, scientists, people that worked for NASA, people that were DOGEd by this president who said, My time in public service isn't up. I'm going to serve in a different way.
That's the story of this election. These patriots have stepped up to defend our country, and they're going to come in to this caucus. They're going to make a hell of a big difference, and they're going to help us build something new and better.
HUNT: All right. Congressman Jason Crow, thank you so much for being here. Appreciate your time today.
CROW: Yeah, thank you.
HUNT: All right. Coming up next here in THE ARENA, the family of Renee Good is now suing the federal government over her death and naming some people close to the president in their lawsuit.
But first, was Richard Nixon framed? What a Republican lawmaker is saying today is the DOJ is being pushed to revisit Watergate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD NIXON, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I welcome this kind of examination because people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:32:27]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NIXON: I blurted it out. And I said, I'm sorry. I just hope I haven't let you down. Well, when I said, I just hope I haven't let you down, that said it all. I had.
I let down my friends. I let down the country. I let down our system of government.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: The Trump Justice Department is now looking into whether former President Richard Nixon got a fair shake during the Watergate investigation. A "Wall Street Journal" report out today revealing that a known Watergate revisionist gave a two-hour presentation at the DOJ titled "Watergate as Lawfare". The department now reviewing whether the special prosecutor's office that handled the probe over 50 years ago committed misconduct.
A DOJ spokesperson tells "The Journal" that the presentation, quote, does not constitute an investigation. Still, the department's trip down memory lane comes at a time of renewed interest in Nixon's legacy. You may have heard the term -- I hadn't until recently, but you may have heard the term Nixonmaxxing. It was thrown around this summer.
And who could forget Vice President J.D. Vance's comments downplaying the Watergate scandal earlier this year?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think that his historical legacy is enjoying a bit of a renaissance, but I think deservedly so. As I joked with Robert backstage, if Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story. Like the idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy.
And by the way, if you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon, it's not all that different from what the same groups of people, the same institutions tried to do to Donald Trump in the first Trump administration. There is a parallel.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: OK, CNN presidential historian, former director of the Nixon Presidential Library, Tim Naftali joins our panel. He knows the revisionist historian who gave that presentation at the Justice Department.
Tim, it's always great to have you on the show. Thank you very much for being here.
Nixonmaxxing, can you explain why the DOJ is suddenly seemingly dabbling in this?
TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, the president and his closest associates and the vice president are to some extent attracted
to conspiracy theories.
[16:35:06]
HUNT: To some extent, doing a lot of work for you.
NAFTALI: They have lumped the Nixon-Watergate story into that. And there are people who have argued for some time that that the CIA, by not assisting the president in the cover-up, as the president hoped, the CIA constituted a deep state. If you think about it, that's really odd.
The CIA and the FBI both decided not to violate laws for a president, and we should, instead of supporting that approach to our Constitution, we're supposed to criticize them for not helping a president engage in a cover-up, but that's the basic theme of some of the revisionist histories about Nixon and the deep state.
HUNT: Yeah. So, Tim, I mean, what J.D. Vance was saying there where he posited that this would have been a brief story had it happened today and said that it was crazy the way that it took down the presidency. Can you just put that in some context for us?
NAFTALI: Well, In that instance, the vice president, I'm not sure if he understood the irony, but the -- well, I mean, he understood it. I'm not sure he intended the irony, but the vice president was saying something says a lot about our current political culture. President Nixon knew that it was wrong to use federal power to go out to your enemies. He did not publicize the enemies list, it came out afterwards.
The president understood that it was not right to use the IRS to audit people he didn't like. President Trump has been very straightforward about his desire for retaliation and vengeance and for using federal power to achieve that. And that seems to have gone over with very little reaction.
But in 1974, Richard Nixon's tapes, Nixon after all framed himself, Nixon's tapes gave evidence of this kind of retaliatory behavior, and Republicans didn't like it as well as Democrats.
So, J.D. Vance is right that probably that kind of information wouldn't lead to impeachment today, but that isn't something to celebrate. That's not a sign that Americans did wrong by Nixon, but it's a sign that we as a political culture are not as careful about protecting our constitutional liberties now as we were in 1974.
HUNT: So, Jonah Goldberg, I mean, the way that this has, I mean, J.D. Vance is not the only one. I mean, let's watch this congressman from West Virginia, Riley Moore, talking about, it's a Nixon Foundation 2026 Grand Strategy Summit.
Watch what Congressman Moore said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. RILEY MOORE (R-WV): People are coming now to the truth, and that truth being that Richard Nixon was absolutely couped out of office and was framed, all of this was fake, and we now know more about the deep state and its power and its ability to literally change things at the top.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Joan Goldberg, uh-huh?
GOLDBERG: Okay, there are a lot of different things going on here. Part of it is this deep state conspiracy sort of John Bircher -- John Birch Society adjacent kind of like this proves the deep state's been around for a long time nonsense that's part of it the paranoid stuff.
Part of the Nixon maxing stuff is actually because Richard Nixon, as one of his former aides put it, was the last liberal Republican and was a very big government guy, created the EPA, wages and price controls, did all sorts of things, and had a very expansive view of executive power that J.D. Vance likes as an idea for when he one day, hopefully never, becomes president of the United States.
And then I will just say that I think there is actually reason to believe that some of the prosecution misbehaved or you can look askance at some of the things about the context between Judge Sirica and other people, that doesn't mean Nixon wasn't guilty, right? I mean, like on the principle that you can frame a guilty man, Nixon clearly did wrong things.
But the Trump people, in particular Trump, likes this idea that you can just brazen it out, that you can like that no outside institution can impinge upon his absolute freedom of action. And that's what they like about it.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Can I just say my favorite thing is Jonah having to explain this? Because he's like, okay, have you seen this meme with like the guy in the spaghetti thing and there's lots of names? You know, this is like, he is like that meme in action right now. So, there's this group, and there's this group, and this one.
[16:40:00]
GOLDBERG: This is what I daydream.
(LAUGHTER)
HUNT: Sometimes people know too much.
I mean, listen, to Tim's point, OK, the question about how Nixon himself thought about it, let's watch what Nixon himself told Barbara Walters in 1980 about the tapes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARBARA WALTERS, HOST: Are you sorry you didn't burn the tapes?
NIXON: The answer is, I probably should have. But mainly, I shouldn't have even installed them, because Johnson's system was there. I had it taken out, and I should never have put them in the first place.
WALTERS: If you had it to do all over again, you'd burn them.
NIXON: Yes, I think so, because they were private conversations subject to misinterpretation, as we have well seen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So he would have burned the tapes, perhaps? (LAUGHTER)
GOLDBERG: Mistakes were made.
(LAUGHTER)
HUNT: Yeah, Tim, jump in. Go ahead.
NAFTALI: Let me say -- I can -- Richard Nixon was in the hospital with pneumonia just before Alexander Butterfield was going to testify before the Senate that there was a taping system. He had gotten a head -- they had gotten a heads up.
And there was a discussion about what to do with the tapes. And the problem was there were too many to burn.
(LAUGHTER)
NAFTALI: And Nixon did -- Nixon did turn to Haig -- General Haig told me this, that he turned to Haig and said, Could you get this person or that person to do it? And Haig didn't want to -- didn't want to put himself in jeopardy and said no.
And in any case, you would have had -- you would have had a fire that might have brought down the old executive office building if you tried to burn them all.
HUNT: Wow, quite an image.
All right, Tim Naftali, thank you. Always appreciate you. Come back soon.
Our panel's going to stick around. Ahead here in THE ARENA. The new lawsuit against the Trump administration from the family of an American woman killed by an ICE agent in Minnesota.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BECCA GOOD, RENEE GOOD'S PARTNER: Every morning, she is my first thought. I think about how the kids are growing up without their mama, and how I'll grow old without the love of my life. I think about how we should have had 40 or 60 more years together. But I also think a lot about what she wanted, would have wanted after all of this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:46:37]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRENT GANGER, RENEE GOOD'S BROTHER: What happened to Renee was completely senseless. And the fact that there's been no accountability, no investigation, no expression of condolence, no change in policy is completely mind-blowing. What happened to America, something must change now. It is our family's hope that today's lawsuit will accomplish our goal for Renee, accountability. Our family has waited, our country has waited, and we will not wait any longer.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: The family of Renee Good has filed two lawsuits against the U.S. government and top Trump officials, including Kristi Noem, Tom Homan, and Stephen Miller, over her death. Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on January 7th. The suit against the agent and top administration officials alleged -- alleges that the immigration operation was a, quote, "carefully planned, coordinated effort to interfere with the civil rights of Somali and Hispanic Minnesotans and to silence their allies and neighbors."
The second suit, which lists the U.S. government as a defendant, seeks unspecified compensatory damages for Good's partner and her family. A White House spokesperson told CNN the Trump administration intends to vigorously defend these baseless civil lawsuits, their words.
Today, for the first time since Renee Good was killed, her partner spoke out publicly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOOD: I don't hate the people who took Renee from us. But what I want them to understand every single day they get to look at their children. And their wives and their sisters and know what they took from our family. They took a mother away from her children. They know that, and they will carry it forever.
Caring for each other shouldn't cost you your life. It doesn't take extra to care. What takes extra is holding back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right, my panel's back.
Lulu, incredibly emotional to hear from her partner for the first time. In fact, let's know a little bit more about what she had to say, and then we'll resume our conversation. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOOD: We are here today not out of anger and not out of hate. We are here because Renee's love and legacy demand a better world for her children, for this community, and for this country. What happened to our family should not happen to any family, regardless of who you are, who you voted for, or what you believe. Today, we are taking a step to build the world Renee would have wanted.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Lulu, I mean, this obviously was followed by the killing of Alex Pretti when Renee Good was killed. We have also since seen violent incidents across the country and a lot of questions about how ICE is doing its business under the Trump administration policy. Where do you see this lawsuit going and impacting the debate?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I think lawsuits are very hard when you are suing the federal government in particular, so I'm not -- I'm not exactly clear how useful it will be for the family. But what it does do at a crucial juncture is remind people what happened.
[16:50:01]
And that was a real turning point for the administration and their immigration policy. We saw in polling exactly that being a fulcrum, right, a turning point that caused for the first time the administration to really kind of pull back. And now we've seen in polling that the president is underwater on what is his signature issue. We've also seen that people are now embracing the idea of reforming ICE if not abolishing ICE because of the overreach.
We've seen Republican politicians in places like Kansas, in places like Jim Justice in West Virginia talking about ICE and the overstepping of ICE. This has been a very deeply, deeply problematic issue, not to mention that we have seen Americans killed by federal forces, something that is just -- would have been unimaginable only a few years ago.
So, this continues to be a painful issue for this country and an unfolding one.
HUNT: We saw Renee Good's mother actually give voice to this idea of she was a Trump voter, she said. Let's watch that moment. She testified before Congress and talked about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONNA GANGER, RENEE GOOD'S MOTHER: I'm a registered Republican. I voted for President Trump under the impression that these agents were here to protect the citizens of the United States. Innocents, like our family, and the others here against terrorists, certainly not to accuse those of us here of being terrorists and take precious lives. This is madness.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: I mean, Jonah, it gives voice to what Lulu was saying about, you know, yes, Americans voted for a stronger border. Yes, they voted for the deportation of criminals. But the numbers show that they didn't vote for this.
GOLDBERG: Yeah, they also didn't vote for, you know, moms picking up their kids from daycare and being thrown on the back of vans, right? I mean, it's like -- you want to know why Trump is hemorrhaging support with Hispanics? Maybe that'll give you a clue.
I will say, I take Lulu's point about how lawsuits against federal government are hard. I've never liked people saying that this was -- you know, first-degree murder and she was deliberately executed, but it does seem to me perfectly reasonable to say this was a wrongful death and there should be legal remedies for that.
HUNT: Doug?
HEYE: Yeah, I mean, all we've seen are really sort of political ramifications for this and it's come at a point where we really started to see the worm turn for Trump. We had this, and then we started the warring around without much of an explanation from the president.
So, a lot of voters, people who voted for him, Mrs. Good being a good example, are saying, well, I can't support any of this anymore. And when it comes to that most personal example, it's a story that's going to be told time and time again.
HUNT: Yeah. Adrienne, do you-- I mean, when you look at kind of the last year, because, I mean, President Trump had a significant honeymoon period. He won the election in decisive fashion. Democrats were really back on their heels. And then, of course, the beginning of this year, we had this series of incidents in Minneapolis, killings, Renee Good's death, and then, of course, Alex Pretti.
I mean, is that when Democrats started to see things really shift?
ELROD: Yeah, I mean, Lulu just painted it perfectly. You really did see a shift when this happened because as everyone on this panel has pointed out, immigration was something a lot of people were frustrated with the Biden administration. They didn't feel like they went far enough or he went far enough on the border. They wanted to see more, but they didn't want to see ICE agents coming into communities and indiscriminately killing U.S. citizens. That was not something that they signed up for.
And you really did see a major, major shift. That's when you saw a lot of Republican voters, a lot of independent voters saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is not what we voted for.
I thought Renee Good's mother, to see that testimony again, really did paint the picture perfectly in terms of where voters were and where their heads were at and what they wanted on immigration, and then what they actually got. And this has continued to backfire. This was his signature issue.
And he's underwater on everything, including immigration substantially underwater, because you're seeing these ICE agents going into communities and, you know, killing U.S. citizens without cause.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: And do you know what the problem is with the immigration issue among many? The hypocrisy of the Trump administration, because I was just reading a report that that Trump is not actually rescinding El Salvadoran's TPS because it'll impact his ballroom being built because El Salvadorans, especially in Washington, D.C., we all live here, we know this, they are very heavily involved in the construction business, and so he has decided to not actually enact rescinding their temporary protected status because of the ballroom.
[16:55:00]
This is the kind of stuff that is unconscionable. This is using people as pawns. And when you put it in, you know, when we just saw this horrific testimony, you know, it just -- I think people see it for what it is.
HUNT: All right. On that note, we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HUNT: All right. Thanks very much to my panel. Really appreciate all of you being here.
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