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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
New CNN Analysis Expands Senate Battleground Map To 10 Seats; Vance Claims Taxpayer-Funded Ads Praising Trump Are "Not Partisan"; NBC/Telemundo Poll: Latino Voters Swing Away From Trump & GOP. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired October 05, 2026 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:01]
JEFF BENJAMIN, K-POP COLUMNIST, BILLBOARD: And it's worth maybe, you know, missing out on a Grammy this time.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Yeah, and they have so many fans, right? Fandemonium.
Jeff Benjamin, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.
And the new -- and 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 great to have you with us on this Monday.
We're now less than a month out from Election Day. And a widening Senate battlefield has Republicans playing defense across the map.
Right now, President Donald Trump is traveling to Nebraska? It's a state he won by more than 20 points two years ago. He's going to have a rally tonight, and Vice President J.D. Vance is heading to campaign in Alaska.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Very interesting state. In very deep red years, Alaska is competitive. I think that whether this was going to be a blue wave or a red wave year, you're going to have a competitive Senate race in Alaska. That's been true historically, and I suspect it's going to be true this year, too.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So, the shifting picture as we approach Election Day, leading to a big change in CNN's analysis of the 10 Senate seats that are most likely to flip. Already, Republicans are fighting to keep seats in North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and beyond. Today we added another state to the list, Kansas. A new poll from "The New York Times" finding that in five races, Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio and Texas, Democrats are either leading, tied or well within the margin of error. One Republican member of Congress from one of the deep red states that
the president has visited recently telling CNN's Jeff Zeleny this, quote, "This is a five-alarm fire. We always welcome the president, but I don't know if he's aware of the feelings out here," end quote.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Just pretend that I'm running. Because if we do, and if you draw the people, you're going to win. Just get out and vote. If you do that, we're going to win, and we're going to win big. And we're going to shove it up their ass.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: OK, let's get off the sidelines and head to THE ARENA. My panel is here, along with CNN correspondent Arlette Saenz, who helped write that analysis for us.
So, Arlette, what else are you seeing here? Walk us through the map.
ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kasie, nearly four weeks out from the election, the Senate battleground map appears to be expanding, and that is because there are a lot of improving signs for Democrats in many of those red-leaning states.
Now, for the first time, we've expanded this list to include 10 states, and that is adding Kansas. Kansas is much more competitive than people perhaps have predicted at the very start of this cycle. As Adam Hamilton, the Democrat, is running a very close race against the incumbent GOP Senator Roger Marshall. In fact, the Senate leadership fund, one of the top Republican super PACs announced at the end of last week that they are shifting $14 million into the state that they had not planned to spend it for this final stretch. So that is why that state has come onto the map in a very real way.
Now, if you take a look at our rankings of the state's most likely to flip Carolina is at number one that has been pretty consistent since we've started this. These rankings. SLF has also paused some of their spending plans for the state for the rest of the month there as well.
And then two, three and four or five. That's where you see a lot of movement here. Ohio has jumped up two spots. "The New York Times" recently had a poll showing that Sherrod Brown, the former senator, was running very close against the incumbent GOP senator right now, Jon Husted. Other polls have had Brown up quite a bit.
And Brown has really leaned into attacking Husted on data centers. That is an issue that is very potent, particularly in that state. That's part of the reason that's moved up.
You've also seen Alaska move up. A "New York Times" poll had former Congresswoman Mary Peltola, the Democrat, up seven points over the GOP Senator Dan Sullivan, who J.D. Vance, the vice president, will be campaigning on behalf of today.
And then Maine is another very competitive race that shifts down a little bit because of those other contests. Senator Susan Collins is still considered to be the most vulnerable Republican senator on the map, and she is running in a state that former Vice President Kamala Harris won in 2024. She's locked in a very tight reelection battle there.
And then the state of Texas has moved up to spot number five. Texas has really garnered a lot of attention in this race. The Democrat, James Talarico, is running a much stronger campaign that people might have thought a Democrat would be running in Texas. He is up six points in that "New York Times" poll. And we've seen Republicans really surge in cash into Texas to try to save Texas's Attorney General Ken Paxton's campaign. That has been a big discussion as the GOP has shifted resources to that state in this final stretch.
Now, it's important to note that Democrats are feeling quite good about the landscape. They feel good about the mood. They feel good about the environment. President Trump's approval rating is low, and the frustration with the high costs, gas prices, the Iran war, that is very palpable for voters.
[16:05:04]
But one -- some of the challenges for Democrats here is they're running in very red states, and Republicans are trying to turn out their voters in this final stretch. And then there's also a huge spending disparity. In fact, in eight of these 10 races that we've highlighted, Republicans are set Democrats there in eight of those 10. So that is something that's worrying some Democrats as we really see this flood of GOP spending coming on the board in this final month of the campaign.
HUNT: All right. Arlette Saenz for us -- Arlette, thank you very much for that report.
All right. My panels here in THE ARENA, CNN political analyst Alex Thompson, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist David Hume Kennerly. He spent six decades documenting the American presidency and is the author of the forthcoming book "In the Room: 60 Years on the Frontlines of History". We're going to talk about that later on in the show.
We are also joined by CNN political commentator, former DNC senior advisor Xochitl Hinohosa, and former Republican Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry.
Welcome to all of you. Thank you all very much for being here.
Alex Thompson, I'm interested to know what your latest reporting is on how Democrats are feeling about this map, because this is going to be the huge question on election night. Are they able to actually take the Senate? I mean, how bullish are they right now? And are they thinking about it in the same order we've got it out here?
ALEX THOMPSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I mean, sort of pinching themselves. They're sort of cautiously optimistic, in part because they've been disappointed in so many recent elections. But I have to tell you, they're --
HUNT: Xochitl, you can come next.
(LAUGHTER)
THOMPSON: They're beginning to really believe they're like the -- you know, Texas is always the Charlie football Lucy everything else but in this case Democrats are really believing that they actually might be able to turn Texas blue and even if they don't Republicans are now having to spend tens of millions of dollars not just in Texas but in Kansas and Nebraska, I even have some reporting that there have been discussions that Republicans might have to spend a little bit in South Carolina where Lindsey Graham's sister is underperforming what was expected.
So, you know, if you're Democrats, you feel good because Republicans are having to spend money in places they didn't expect to before.
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah, if you ask Democrats at the beginning of this cycle, they would say the map is really hard for the Senate and they would start with that talking point and say, but we have some really great candidates. We've recruited some. There are some vulnerabilities with Paxton and other people. The Republican Party in the base is not motivated, et cetera. But again, it's a really hard map for us.
Now, the battlefield is red states and it is forcing Republicans to have to spend everywhere. Now, yes, Democrats are being outspent and they'll continue to be outspent in all of these red states. But if you're looking at Alaska, Ohio, Texas, all of these places where Democrats typically do not do well, there are also some really good candidates.
And I think that the other part about this is we know that the voters care about the economy. We know that they see gas prices going up. We're all talking about this. The rally is, though, in a lot of these states, in my home state of Texas where my sister's running for governor, they're running ads about culture wars. And the culture war ads and about how like whatever the name, the issue of the day in the culture wars, those are not resonating with voters and it's actually not moving the needle towards Republicans the way that they thought it would like in 2024 when you had all the trans ads in Texas and Texans, we lost a lot of House seats.
That same thing is not working this time around --
HUNT: Because they're not in charge.
HINOJOSA: Because --
HUNT: Democrats are not in charge.
HINOJOSA: They're not in charge. And also, it's if you're mongering tech, they're like, wait a minute, What about our gas prices? You are not addressing that.
So I think that is one of the issues that is confronting Republicans.
PATRICK MCHENRY (R), FORMER SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE: Well, the map is very favorable for Republicans if you go back two years in time. So I agree with you completely. The environment is atrocious for Republicans. And this is -- the election right now is a referendum on the Republican Party in the presidency of Donald Trump. This is the reason why President Trump is out working these states intently.
The goal here is to stem the tide. And it is definitely a tide that is quite favorable to the Democratic Party. Why? Because inflation.
This was a problem for Biden, not easy to conquer. In every country around the world that experiences high inflation, the people hate their government. We are part of that.
Now, here's the interesting thing about this map, is you have this subtle undercurrent, like in Minnesota and New Hampshire, where you have something else going on. And that is also going to be an interesting story coming out of election night.
Overall, though, the travel of President Trump and the spending by Republicans tells the exact same story that we're hearing out of the Democratic Party, which is Republicans have a major challenge, Texas being the center of that, and huge malfeasance on the Republican Party, huge ineptitude, that have put us in the position of spending about $300 million to save somebody who doesn't wish to be saved.
THOMPSON: I mean, to your point really quick --
MCHENRY: Which is Ken Paxton.
THOMPSON: Well, I mean, Democrats are surprised by the fact that they feel better about some of them feel better about Iowa, Texas, North Carolina and Georgia, than they do Maine, New Hampshire, Michigan, and Minnesota.
[16:10:03]
So, it is like a strange map in many ways.
MCHENRY: Well, also, candidate quality drives these Senate races. I'm happy that it doesn't drive House races. It doesn't matter, right? We just get we get --
HUNT: It's all the weather.
MCHENRY: It is the weather. It's the wave. If you're really adept as a House member, like Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania, Lawler in New York, you actually have a paddle. Like, that's all you got, though, in a big wave.
So, candidate quality for Senate does matter, and that has shifted the map. And kudos to Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gellibrand for their candidate recruitment.
HINOJOSA: Yeah, and I also just want to say that the Democratic Party brand and the Republican Party brand are atrocious. If I was looking at polling, and, like, the brand of the Democratic Party --
HUNT: Atrocious is the word of the day.
HINOJOSA: -- is terrible.
And the fact that these Senate candidates have been able to run races in red states apart and away from the Democratic Party brand and honestly, they've created their own brand. I think it's a huge signal for the Democratic Party. If you want to win in 2028, you better start working on your brand that is separate and apart from the Democratic Party brand, because that thing ain't getting better.
MCHENRY: I don't want to be kumbaya about this. This has been way too kumbaya. But the obvious thing is when you're getting your face kicked in, you have to acknowledge it. Right now, the beginning of October, Republicans are acknowledging it. For Republicans and Democrats, Democrats have not made a brand change this election cycles. Bad news before --
HINOJOSA: Yeah.
MCHENRY: But the candidates don't have to. All they have to do is ride on the environment. And so, you have a couple candidates that are different. Roy Cooper in North Carolina, for instance. Where's the North Carolina money for Republicans? In Texas. and across the map. If the map were normalized, you had high-quality candidates in some of these dependable red states, then it's a different map, even if the environment's different or a little less bad for Republicans.
So, that shift in the map really does make a difference, but in a few outlier states where the candidates have been able to have a branding advantage above the parties.
HUNT: Right.
Well, and you mentioned Ken Paxton. So, the latest in the saga of Ken Paxton attempting to run in Texas is that more audio from him was leaked, here he was talking about his own campaign.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEN PAXTON (R), TEXAS SENATE CANDIDATE: I've never been raised where I felt less control over the campaign and like what issues are going to matter because it's all coming, you know, from D.C. and I don't control the message or what we're doing and I can't, I have no, I don't have the ability to change anything. So, I have to live with whatever I've got.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Patrick McHenry, go.
MCHENRY: Bozo.
(LAUGHTER) MCHENRY: Who is going to win for the dumbest candidate this election cycle? Ken Pax -- Ken Paxton is saying every day, hold my beer. This won't be the last leak. These things get dribbled out, and how many -- we don't dribble out with two pieces. This is the second leak.
There'll be three leaks. Why? Because things come in threes. Whatever comes next will be dumber than the last two that we've just heard.
THOMPSON: Well, the reason why Ken Paxton doesn't have control of his campaign is because he didn't fundraise after he won the nomination. He has no money, and so as a result, he's having to be bailed out by Trump and Elon Musk, who are probably going to have to spend over $100 million trying to drag him across the finish line.
DAVID HUME KENNERLY, PULITZER PRIZE WINNING PHOTOJOURNALIST: I think he spent it all on his clothes.
(LAUGHTER)
HUNT: So, let's talk for a second about the role of President Trump. And, David, I want to get you to weigh in on this because, of course, voters have been telling us this entire time what they're concerned about, right the economy, inflation, affordability, the cost of gas, et cetera, et cetera. President Trump has been focused on a whole litany of things. many building projects here in Washington, D.C.
But over the weekend, his focus was on Tom Cotton, the senator from Arkansas, who he views as holding up this bill that would give us permanent daylight savings time. Cotton has said that Arkansans in his state would not be happy about that. This caused the president to Truth Social, tweet basically, Tom Cotton's personal cell phone number.
This was how Senator John Kennedy addressed this action by the president over the weekend, again, a month out from the midterm elections. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): Tom is a rock star senator. If you get between him and what's best for Arkansas, he'll devour you like a light snack.
President Trump's also my friend. He feels strongly about it. The president, as we know, can be sometimes -- he exists loudly. He can be tempest tempestuous. He can go from zero to A-hole in about three seconds.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Zero to A-hole in about three seconds.
You've seen a lot of presidents in moments when they were going to lose an election like this.
KENNERLY: Yeah. HUNT: What is this president doing?
[16:15:00]
KENNERLY: Jeez, I'm supposed to be like a non-political person. I'm going to, by the way, predict Becerra wins in California.
HUNT: Bold prediction.
KENNERLY: I'm pretty sure. It's going to shock your audience. Well, the idea that he didn't endorse Cornyn in Texas was astonishing. If he really wanted to win, he would have done that.
And then he was talking about Ken Paxton's clothes. And I mean, he makes fun of the guy. And then the guy makes fun of himself. You know, they're telling me what to do. I mean, that's really the guy I'd like to vote for.
MCHENRY: Well, back to Alex's point of fundraising, Paxton thought getting the nomination would force the party to bail him out. That's actually becoming true, unfortunately.
But the reality of the situation was the original sin here was that John Cornyn won, even though his polling was so atrocious that he was the only Republican who could lose to Ken Paxton, the bozo.
So, this is a complicated tale here. And Cornyn still owns a significant piece of this bad decision in Texas.
HUNT: All right. On that note, coming up here in THE ARENA, we're going to talk with the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Congressman Jamie Raskin, now asking for answers around the taxpayer- funded ads that feature the president.
Plus, the high court hypothetical that could very well turn into reality what top Democrats are saying they'll do if they control the Senate and if a Supreme Court seat opens up after a new comment from one of the court's most powerful conservatives.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SAMUEL ALITO, SUPREME COURT JUSTICE: It's something I think that somebody at my age has to think about every term. But I thought that I could still make a valuable contribution, which is why I became a justice and a judge in the first place. So that was basically it.
INTERVIEWER: So you'll be kind of reconsidering this probably every year, rethinking it.
ALITO: Yeah, I think I have to.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't think there's anything unusual or unorthodox about it. I'm sure that some people probably don't like it, but if you look at the message of those advertisements, they're not partisan. They're not, you know, it's not like we're advocating for a particular candidate. We're trying to tell a story I think about how great the United States of America is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Vice President Vance today defending that batch of controversial taxpayer-funded campaign style ads that have been appearing on airwaves over the last week, including during NFL games over the last two weekends. Now a pair of House Democrats are demanding that two federal watchdogs investigate how those ads came to be, which they call, quote, "desperate pre-election propaganda that," quote, constitutes illegal use of taxpayer funds.
One of the lawmakers who sent that letter joins me now, Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland is here. He is the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.
Congressman, it's great to see you. Thank you so much for being here.
So let me just ask you for an update on that. Any word or response to your letter?
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Well, we just got that response from Vice President Vance. And, you know, he asks the wrong question when he says, is it partisan? Of course it's partisan, but that's not even the legal question.
The legal question is, is it propaganda? And that is specifically banned by Congressional Appropriations Acts.
And also, you cannot have federal government workers paid for by the taxpayers working on political propaganda and blatantly political commercials. One of those commercials was literally a 2024 campaign ad that Donald Trump did that they just dressed up as a government public service announcement.
I mean, a PSA -- we know what that is for example. They should be running PSAs about the fact that the measles are back and are an epidemic now in parts of Pennsylvania and people need to get vaccinated but it's not about that it's about essentially trying to vaccinate the public against the incredible political change that's coming to America on November 3rd.
HUNT: I mean, Congressman we are a month from the elections and these ads are airing, right, in big audience places, NFL games. What can you do to stop it if it is illegal, as you say?
RASKIN: Well, we wrote that letter to the GAO and we wrote the letter to the Office of Special Counsel, which regulates Hatch Act violations. They could move quickly. We've demanded answers about where the money is coming from. It turns out that they've diverted it from, you know, immigration enforcement in other places in the government. Again, totally against Congress's control over appropriations. They've spent $20 million, apparently.
And Trump, I heard him say on TV, well, if somebody complains about it, I'll just pay for it. Well, I'm complaining about it, so he should just pay for it. He's made $2.4 billion at least on the side in his first year in office. He could afford to pay for his own bad political propaganda ads.
HUNT: What do you say to disaffected voters who might look at this and say, great, like, we've sent more letters? That's not doing anything at all.
RASKIN: Yeah, well, it's their opportunity to come out and change the equation on November 3rd, and that's why I've been all over the country. I just got back from Florida. I was down there with Angie Nixon. I'm going to Maine, to New Jersey with Rebecca Bennett. I'm going to New York.
And so, we are out there actively trying to change the equation. But yes, the Republicans control right now the House, the Senate, the White House, and effectively the Supreme Court. So, if you like the way that things are going in terms of the war, inflation, tariffs, corruption, and healthcare in America, then that's your team.
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But if you're with the vast majority of Americans, go out and vote on Tuesday, November 3rd, and we're going to start to turn this thing around.
HUNT: So, of course, should Democrats take back the House of Representatives, you are in line for the very powerful post chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and of course, that comes with the power of subpoena. What are your top, top priorities in a role like that? Who is your first subpoena?
RASKIN: Well, you know, with 30 days to go before the election, we probably have 30 more scandals and episodes of corruption that are about to erupt, so I can't give you a precise ranking.
But look, we're investigating all of the corruption, the pay-to-play pardons that have eventually been for sale, where $1.7 billion was forgiven to criminals who were let out of jail that they were supposed to pay back to their victims or pay back to the taxpayers in the rip- offs. That's something we're looking at.
We're looking at all of the government contracting fraud that's taking place and the fact that the Trump family is making hundreds of millions, billions of dollars from contractors, from foreign government contracts, from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, from Qatar, the $400 million jet from Qatar.
So, look, they've turned the entire executive branch of government into a moneymaking operation, and we're going to expose every facet of the corruption. We've been trying to document it the best we can without the subpoena power, we will be in a much stronger position to go after it and to stop it once we get back into power. HUNT: Of course, this all does require winning. And then the other piece is there are, of course, mechanics to seating the Democratic Congress.
I want to play for you something that Kamala Harris said earlier this year, raising concerns about the way that process might play out. And then we'll talk about it. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Let's be prepared because if, as many predict, we win the midterms, if we don't win by substantial numbers, I can see a situation where they find some reason to refuse to seat Democrats who win.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Is that a realistic possibility in your view?
RASKIN: Well, in the Trump era, anything is realistic, but of course they have no authority and no right to stop duly elected people who've been certified by their states from being seated in Congress. I think. the former vice president is absolutely right that the best insurance policy against a stolen election is a landslide, something that is simply too big to rig, too real to steal, we like to say.
But, of course, we are out there with teams of lawyers all over America defending the integrity of the election. Somebody asked me when I was down in Florida, can you guarantee us a free and fair election? I said, look, if you want to guarantee, you buy a toaster. If you want a democracy, you go and fight for it in your community and we're asking everybody in America to go and be vigilant about having integrity in our elections.
HUNT: So, one other relevant to your job on the Judiciary Committee, as well as, of course, the role you play as a constitutional lawyer, is this question about the Supreme Court. You raised, of course, the conservative majority on that court. We heard from Justice Samuel Alito in a rare public interview talk his own plans or some information about his own plans for potentially retiring. I want to watch that. We'll talk about it on the other side.
Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
INTERVIEWER: What made you decide to stay on?
ALITO: I thought about it.
INTERVIEWER: You did. You considered it.
ALITO: I will continue -- well, it's something I think that somebody at my age has to think about every term.
INTERVIEWER: So you'll be kind of reconsidering this probably every year, rethinking it.
ALITO: Yeah, I think I have to.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So, Alito is 76 years old. My question for you, if Democrats do control the Senate, would you urge your colleagues in the Senate, would you expect your colleagues in the Senate to refuse to fill a vacancy that might be created if Alito or another justice were to leave the court while President Trump is still president?
RASKIN: So, if you mean if he were actually to try and resign right after November 3rd, if the Democrats take the Senate back, so the --
HUNT: What Mitch McConnell did, right, where he was waiting for the election.
RASKIN: Look, there would be absolute outrage in the country if you have a lame-duck president essentially barreling through in a matter of eight weeks the nomination of a Supreme Court justice so a lame duck Senate can approve and confirm that person.
Remember, they held up my constituent, Merrick Garland, for 11 months when he was nominated Senate.
HUNT: Right. So that's what I mean. And if the Democrats do take the Senate and they are -- you are in charge of the Senate and a conservative justice steps down while Trump is still president, should Democrats do something similar and hold the vacancy open for a long period of time?
[16:30:06]
RASKIN: Oh, I see. You're talking about for the next two years. Well, of course, all of that would depend on who he nominates.
Now, you know, I saw him castigating even Justice Kavanaugh. He loves Alito, who I think voted with him 93 percent of the time in the shadow docket, and I believe for Kavanaugh was 89 percent, and that wasn't enough. And Trump was saying, you know, these are not the people who appeared in my office. They're not voting the way I thought they were going to vote, and so on.
I mean, if he wants to appoint Donald Trump Jr. a Supreme Court justice, I am certain that I would hope that every Democrat -- every Democrat would try and stop that from happening.
HUNT: But the leadership would -- if the Democratic leaders controlled the floor, you would be open to them confirming a Trump justice if, in fact, that person was suitable? or you think they should refuse to seat anyone?
RASKIN: Well, look, I mean, they will render advice and consent according to their constitutional duty, and I fully expect the Democrats to do that, not just at the Supreme Court level, but at the appellate court level and the district court level. We're coming through a period of massive court packing, right-wing court packing by MAGA, by Mitch McConnell, just like they kept, you know, Merrick Garland off of the court by denying him a hearing. Then they barreled through the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died.
I think she was confirmed, Barrett, like eight or nine days before the election took place. When they started that process, around two months before the election, early voting had already started.
HUNT: So you're saying Democrats shouldn't use those tactics, even though Republicans have been willing to?
RASKIN: I think the Democrats should do whatever they can do and whatever they must do to guarantee that we have a real Supreme Court where there is public integrity and we can restore the reputation of the Supreme Court.
It is -- you know, Republican tactics like Mitch McConnell to say, well, we're not even going to allow a hearing, we're not going to allow a vote. The Senate Democrats have got to do whatever they can to try to restore some balance to the Supreme Court.
And then we have to look at the whole question of them not having a binding ethics code. It's the only Supreme Court in America. We got 51 of them. It's the only one that doesn't have a binding ethics code. They're taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in trips all over the world from their billionaire sugar daddies.
So, there are serious problems on the Supreme Court, and we hope that our colleagues on the Senate side will bear down on that. And we will have a lot to say about that, too, in the House Judiciary Committee.
HUNT: All right. Congressman Jamie Raskin, always great to see you. Thank you so much for coming. Really appreciate it.
RASKIN: Yeah.
HUNT: Coming up next here in THE ARENA, inside the new numbers that show one key group moving away from the president and Republicans after voting for them with big margins just two years ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Before we talk about The incredible Hispanics. You know, there's lots of different names. Latinos, they call them so many different names. But I've used Hispanics when I got elected, and I got a big majority of your votes, so I'm going to keep using the same way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:37:30]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We really need your help with the Latina voters, so whenever you're ready, sir, okay? And action!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello, and hola. Midterm elections are almost upon us. I have a message for my fellow Spanish speakers about President Trump.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (translated): Oh my God! He tricked us!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: "Saturday Night Live" there, poking fun at the Trump administration's efforts to reach out to Latino voters ahead of the midterm elections.
This as a brand-new NBC News/Telemundo poll shows just how much President Trump and the Republican Party have lost ground with this key voting bloc. The president's approval rating with Latinos now stands at 27 percent, with 69 percent saying they disapprove of his job performance. That dissatisfaction also extending to the president's party, 59 percent of Latinos say they want Democrats to win control of Congress in November versus the 35 percent who say they prefer Republicans.
My panel is back.
Xochitl Hinojosa, of course, I mean, Latinos are not -- the word Latino is doing a lot of work.
HINOJOSA: Yeah.
HUNT: It's covering a lot of different communities and a lot of different places with a lot of different interests, backgrounds, national origins, et cetera. However, the president did tout extensively the gains that he made in these communities in various places, and it is clear that it's eroding. How do you understand it?
HINOJOSA: Well, it's the whole reason why Republicans redrew the lines in Texas, because they said that they had made such big gains with Latino voters in 2024 that they believed that they needed to redraw the lines to reflect the 2024 election. Now what we're seeing is that Bobby Pulido's district, for example, which is in South Texas with Trump won by 18 points. Talarico is there -- there is over a 20-point kind of sway towards Democrats in that district and it's 81 percent Latino.
And when you talk to voters in places like South Texas or Nevada. You are often hearing, one, Trump asked -- he said that he would deliver on the economy. He didn't deliver on the economy. And the second part is, yes, on immigration, but I want to be very careful.
Latinos also wanted borders that were secure.
HUNT: Yeah.
HINOJOSA: They wanted -- that's why they voted for Trump. They said -- he said he would secure the borders. They wanted that.
What they didn't want is the racial profiling. And when you talk to voters down there, if you look Latino, and you are a U.S. citizen, and you have a ladder on your truck, You will likely get stopped and detained.
And so now you have people not going to construction sites, U.S. citizens not working and who are terrified to leave their homes.
[16:40:04]
And so, it has now been this big sway back to Democrats in key states like Texas. With that said, Latino voters are not loyal to the Democratic Party and if the Democratic Party does not invest heavily and continue to talk to these voters ahead of 2028 or if there is a nominee that isn't putting in the time they decide to put their time into South Carolina and with Black voters in other places and forget about Latino voters, this could come back, and a J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio could definitely make inroads again.
MCHENRY: The biggest free agents in the coming election cycles are Hispanic voters. But let's just unwind this. Republicans have support this less than it was in the 2024 election cycle from Hispanic voters. That's what the poll says.
But the polling is still better than it was in '22 and '20 when Republicans made gains. The Republican majority, the current Republican majority in the House was built in the '20 and '22 cycles, with Hispanics more keenly aware counter to Republicans than now. So that's an interesting thing.
But I would say it wasn't just a question of immigration. It was a question of cost of living. So these are voters that you cannot monolithically talk about. As somebody from North Carolina would talk about in Texas, you would tell me that there's so much more going on, but even more going on when you talk about Florida.
The interesting thing and the major challenge for my party this cycle is not these statewide elections. It is the map. And you just outlined this. You built a map, a congressional map and redrawn map in Texas. around the assumption of Republicans doing fairly well among Hispanic voters. That is clearly not going to be the case.
And then Florida is then the second question here on those maps and what it means. We're going to see that pretty quickly on election night.
HUNT: Yeah. Speaking of Florida, let's watch the ad that Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar put out in the Miami area. She is -- the seat has historically often swung back and forth, but it went very strongly for Trump in the last cycle. And she is, of course, a Republican in a Republican Party criticizing Trump is not usually terribly well rewarded. This was her recent campaign ad.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR (R-FL): Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far. In July, 50 percent of the 50,000 people that were detained had no criminal record. Be careful what your advisors are telling you about immigration policies. The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: And I mean, Alex Thompson, even Senator Jim Justice, okay, who is from West Virginia, which is possibly the Trumpiest state in all of America, said this: Before you know it, you get people that get carried away in their job and whatever it may be, and all of a sudden, you're dragging people away that have lived on your street corner for 15 years. And I don't know that we need to be doing that stuff. To get better, the first thing you've got to do is admit you're doing something wrong.
THOMPSON: Well, this is what's driving Republicans crazy, because they still believe that Trump largely won the argument over immigration enforcement. I mean, there's a reason why many Democrats voted for the Laken Riley Act, a lot of reason why Democrats have backed off --
HUNT: Everyone's on board generally with the idea that you deport criminals to your point.
THOMPSON: Yes. Absolutely, and -- but where he lost a lot of the American people, and including some Republicans, is the way he went about his immigration enforcement. And that they are detaining people that are citizens, that haven't committed crimes.
And so, you know, it's one of those things that it feels like a self- inflicted wound to a lot of Republicans.
HUNT: Yeah. Xochitl, I want to show you something that the president said last week about -- well, I'm not even going to characterize it. Just watch what the president said last week, and then we'll talk about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You know, there's lots of different names. Latinos, they call them so many different names. But I've used Hispanics when I got elected, and I got a big majority of your votes. I'm going to keep using the same way.
There's a tunnel going to what will be, I think, the greatest ballroom ever built. You literally will be the first group ever to enter the premises. So be very careful. Don't fall over the edge, because it's a long way down. And only a Hispanic could survive that fall.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HINOJOSA: Well, there is also reporting, I think it was in "New York Magazine", that talked about how he's very concerned about his ballroom right now because there are Salvadorians who are currently building his ballroom. And so, he believes --
HUNT: And he's yanked TPS.
HINOJOSA: And he is yanked TPS status. And so whenever --
HUNT: Or he has.
HINOJOSA: Whenever the person, the contractor came to him and said, wait a minute, we might be in trouble with your ballroom, he said, OK, put TPS on hold for Salvadorians because I need my ballroom. And so, this is what we're living in and it's highly offensive. All of it is highly offensive.
[16:45:00]
All of this stuff will be used at some point to reach out to Latino voters and to blame ads, but the TPS thing was just mind boggling.
MCHENRY: Well, this a group of -- this is a group of Hispanic supporters in the White House. What was cut off there from the end was the roar of the crowd about the joke he was making. And that was, I think, intended as a joke, and the crowd took it as a joke.
Now, the question of what are Hispanics or Latinos called? Well, it depends where you are in the country. And I think he now lives in South Florida and is hyper-aware of that.
Final thing is, this guy has built so many properties. He has so many properties around the country. He certainly understands immigration status as a businessperson would. And I think that's the pragmatism that America would want to see in an immigration policy that we haven't yet seen.
HUNT: All right. OK, coming up here, ahead in THE ARENA, behind the scenes of how a president reacts to self-described midterm shellacking or thumping. Someone who's seen it all is ready to discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:50:24]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM J. CLINTON, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: With the Democrats in control of both the White House and the Congress, we were held accountable yesterday.
GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: If you look at race by race, it was close. Cumulative effect, however, was not too close. It was a thumping.
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I'm not recommending for every future president that they take a shellacking like I did last night.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Thumping for W. Bush, a shellacking for President Obama.
As we barrel toward November, President Trump now has just four weeks to avoid what has become an experience shared by most American presidents who, in the second year of their term, can get a sobering report card from the American people about how their party is governing. And despite poll after poll spelling trouble for Republicans this fall, the president continues to insist he can defy that history.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: So, you know, all these fake polls, they don't account for one thing. They don't account for the fact that Trump is out campaigning.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Or do they?
All right, my panel is back, including David Hume Kennerly. He spent six decades documenting the American presidency.
David, it's great to see you, and congratulations on the new book.
We're going to be able to show our viewers some of your actually unpublished images from a president that you spent time with in 1974, during that midterm election. People may know the famous one of him smoking a pipe at that point, but there are some also behind the scenes in the Oval Office, and elsewhere. Take us inside the room. What's it like when the most powerful man in the country gets handed news like this they don't like?
KENNERLY: Well, in his case, he wasn't swearing about it, which I don't think I ever heard him do that privately. The photos you're looking at now, they're reading the good old-fashioned paper coming in with the horrible results. and with Mrs. Ford.
And it's very quaint, the four TV screens. I'm guessing the fourth one was PBS. I don't remember. It was like three nets and that. But he was -- he wasn't sanguine about it. He wasn't angry about it. But it was because of the pardon of Nixon. And people were really angry about that.
And they lost 48 seats in the House. leaving them with, I wrote it down, well, four -- yeah, they got, they lost, leaving them with 144 seats. And the Democrats had, I think, a veto-proof majority back then. But he -- it was a bad night. I mean, there's no question about it. You can see it in the photos.
I was there for so many things that happened in that Oval Office from the end of the Vietnam War to right before he went out and announced the pardon of Richard Nixon. And the book "In the Room", which is available, a Rizzoli book, has my career going from a 19-year-old kid in Oregon all the way through to right here. I'm still doing it.
HUNT: Well, and remind us. I'm sure many of our viewers are coming to this for the first time. I first met you covering a much later campaign. I'll date myself as well when I covered Mitt Romney in 2012. But the range of things that you saw, and especially the time that you spent in Vietnam.
KENNERLY: Right. I came from a little lumber town in Oregon, Roseburg, Oregon. And all I could think of as a kid, I wanted a bigger area to play in. And we moved up to Portland.
And I got a job at the Oregon Journal when I was 19 years old. And I've been an editor ever since. But what really interested me more than anything was politics. And Robert Kennedy made a visit to Portland in '66 campaigning for one of the first women or one of the few women in Congress, Edith Green from Oregon.
And I watched him get on this plane and leave that night, and this photographer was traveling with him, followed him up the steps, went inside. And it was that moment that made me want to do politics or history more than anything.
HUNT: Yeah. Well, you've taken two famous photographs of five presidents, a different group of men in each, one in 1991 and one in 2009.
[16:55:01]
The one from 2009, of course, is the cover of David's new book "In the Room". It's on sale now.
KENNERLY: Somebody asked why Trump wasn't in that. Well --
HUNT: He was president again.
KENNERLY: I agree with that, right?
HUNT: All right. On that note, we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HUNT: All right, thanks to my panel. Really appreciate all of you being here.
Thanks to you at home for joining us as well. We always appreciate it.
Don't forget, you can stream THE ARENA Live. You can catch up whenever you want. It's all in the CNN app. Just scan the QR code below.
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