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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
Midterm Anxiety Mounts For GOP As Dems Try To Expand Map; Katie Zacharia Fires As White House Press Secretary; Kelly Clarkson's Feud With Brooklyn Magic Shop. Kelly Clarkson's Feud With Brooklyn Magic Shop; Dow Has Worst Drop Of 2008 Financial Crisis; The Sunday Scaries Are Getting Scarier. Aired 12:30-1p ET
Aired October 17, 2026 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN ANCHOR: -- years before the book was even published. Perhaps, though, it does give the U.K. and the British Museum filled with contested treasures from around the world, a taste of its own honey.
That's all we have time for this week. Don't forget, you can find all of our shows online as podcasts at CNN.com/audio and on all other major platforms.
I'm Christiane Amanpour in London. Thank you for watching, and I'll see you again next week.
[12:00:38]
KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. Welcome to The Arena Saturday.
We're just 17 days until election day. And as Republican candidates sharpen their closing messages, they are sounding, shall we say, different than their President.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's a Golden Age of America, and the Iran war will end very soon. It's going to end very soon. Soon as I want it to end, it'll end.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Trouble is Republican voters, they don't feel so golden. This week, we learned that prices rose last month at their highest rate in years, and gas has been above $4 for more days than at any point under President Joe Biden. Just 18 percent of voters say that their families are better off now than they were two years ago.
So it's not surprising that on debate stages this week, Republican Senate candidates, instead of sounding like President Trump, sounded like this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are close to ending the war. Again, I think the President wants to end the war. I know he does. We all want the war to end.
SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R), MAINE: I agree that the President did not have a good plan. He should have anticipated the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We need to bring an end to the war in Iran. It's why I called for an immediate and successful end.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It needs to end soon. The energy costs are from this war are too high.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are gas prices coming down?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You may answer 30 seconds.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are they coming down?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Diesel prices are high. Diesel prices are high. The supply is coming. The supply is coming now, and the prices will continue to come down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're already coming down, but they're going to continue to come down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right. My panel's here in The Arena. Co-host of "The Interview" podcast from The New York Times and a CNN Contributor, Lulu Garcia-Navarro, Former Policy Director for Mitt Romney, Lanhee Chen, Former Senior Adviser at the DNC and a CNN Political Commentator, Xochitl Hinojosa, and Former Republican Congressman and Speaker Pro Tem, Patrick McHenry.
Welcome to all of you. It's great to see you. I can't believe we're basically two weeks out from this election.
Congressman, can you explain -- I don't think it's that hard to understand or explain why those candidates sound so different from the President. But, of course, the President's out on the trail trying to help them. It seems clear that his message does not line up with theirs.
PATRICK MCHENRY (R), FORMER SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE: That's true. Absolutely true. Verifiably true. And all of them are having nuance on the war with Iran. But we're here for a couple reasons.
One is the expectation that President Trump would bring back an economy that the American people experienced during his first term, and the idea that we have price stability and rising wages is what they -- what he delivered in the first term pre-COVID, and the expectation voters had firmly in their minds. That's not been -- that expectation's not been met, number one.
Number two, gas prices are a very close track for presidential popularity and the movement of the party in power. Right now, gas prices are high, and every time we have a move up or down, it does affect the political class in power, and those are Republicans. That is a very hard message to go into a reelection year for, but these are Republican states.
And the interesting challenge here is, how do you utilize President Trump to drive out the base even though the economic headwinds mean that the middle are activated against you? It's a complicated math for Republicans.
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. And Republicans right now, I mean, they're -- there's a problem in which the Republican Party fears that they're going to stay home. And you have places like Republican states, like Texas, where, yes, you heard a little while ago just how people were debating on the economy, but CNN had to have its own town hall this last week with James Talarico because they would not -- the Republican, Ken Paxton, wouldn't even debate him.
He doesn't want to have the debate on gas prices. He doesn't want to have the debate on his record and all of these things. And you're actually seeing that in several races where Republicans don't like what is happening with the economy. They don't have a good excuse for voters.
They're in charge. They're in charge in these red states, not just in the -- at a federal level, and they don't have a good excuse for the American people. And so, going to the polls, a lot of people start voting on Monday. This is going to be front of mind, the economy, and it's not getting any better for them.
HUNT: Yes, I will say Ken Paxton does seem like a uniquely flawed candidate, Lanhee.
LANHEE CHEN, FORMER MITT ROMNEY POLICY DIRECTOR: That might be worth a conversation. We are such a polarized country that, frankly, I think what this is all going to come down to is how do you feel about President Trump? What do you think of what he's done? Do you like it or not like it?
[12:05:09]
Now, most Republicans are going to stick with their party. Most Democrats will stick with theirs. I think the challenge for the President, as the Congressman pointed out, is that when you have gas prices as they are, when you look at other prices as well, when you look at the overall state of the economy and just how people feel about their economic conditions, it's going to be an uphill battle, I think, for a lot of Republicans.
Now, that doesn't mean that basic demographics won't still make a difference, which is why I still think that Ken Paxton, as flawed as he might be, will win in Texas, but it's going to be hard -- HUNT: You do.
CHEN: -- for a lot of Republicans.
HUNT: I actually think the other end of the table, I don't think either of you agree.
MCHENRY: Oh, no, I would say Texas wants a Republican senator. Ken Paxton is doing everything in his power to force the Texas voters to vote against a Republican for Texas, for Texas's voice in the U.S. Senate. Yes, to say he's a new, a uniquely flawed candidate is the understatement of the year.
HUNT: Thank you.
MCHENRY: His -- but this dates back to John Cornyn running again. He was the only person who could lose in a Republican primary to Ken Paxton, and gave us the gift of this absolute mess that Republicans are now, to the tune of $300 million spending in Texas when it could change the rest of the map across the country in a more favorable direction.
LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: And it's not just to the tune of $300 million, it's the tune of Elon Musk, providing half of that who has a base in Texas, who is literally the richest man in the world funding the Republican candidate who is, again, yes, indeed, uniquely flawed.
So, you know, everything about this midterm I think is going to be studied after this, and I think we're going to have a lot of answers about how much money -- what can money buy you in politics? Can it buy you Ken Paxton, who has been charged with corruption, who has been dancing in Dubai with felons? You know, will it buy you getting him into the Senate seat?
And also, how partisan are we? You're right, we are a very polarized and partisan country, and we talk about these swing voters, among which are certain demographic groups, Latinos. This will be a really good answer, I think, about how partisan we really are.
CHEN: I mean, I look at that ad of Ken Paxton's ex-wife. The one --
HUNT: I had that thought too.
CHEN: -- that she cut, where, by the way, does not -- I mean, it's clear her last name is Paxton. She does not mention the name of the Senate candidate.
HUNT: She does not use the name of her ex-husband.
CHEN: She does not use the name, but all she says is, "Hey, vote Republican. I'm going to be with the team." That is the argument. That --
HINOJOSA: No.
CHEN: -- just shows you how polarized we are.
HINOJOSA: No. No, no. OK. I'm from Texas, and I, full disclosure, my sister's running for governor there. But the interesting part about that argument is that the Republican Party actually did away with straight ticket voting in Texas because they were worried that Democrats were benefiting.
This is the year that it's actually going to hurt Ken Paxton because they no longer have straight ticket voting. And I think that Lulu brings up a really good point about Elon Musk. The message that you heard from Talarico in the town hall this last week was, I am not going to be the senator for Democrats.
He also had a very clear argument about it is us versus a few billionaires, and everyone else getting rich off of their -- what, their --
MCHENRY: This is the Bernie Sanders line as well.
HINOJOSA: -- position in office, like Ken Paxton. It's -- but it's working. It does --
MCHENRY: The millionaires and billionaires.
HINOJOSA: But it's not --
MCHENRY: And then you eliminate the millionaires and billionaires.
CHEN: Except for the billionaires who support James Talarico.
HINOJOSA: But James Talarico is more moderate, and I will say, it is now working.
MCHENRY: But this is the challenge.
HINOJOSA: Because the culture wars are not working in Texas right now.
MCHENRY: This is the challenge of the Senate map, which CNN's I think has one of the greatest pollsters around to convert all this stuff. These are Republican states, so the Republican needs to be a Republican, and the Democrat needs to not be a Democrat. So you see this playing out across the map except in the state of Michigan, where El-Sayed has to do is be a Democrat and not be so repugnant as to force Democrats to not vote for him.
You're in the same position, not with the anti-Semite in Michigan, but the same position with Paxton in Texas. Hold onto the Republican coalition and you're a senator. Can you just shut up and not do any more harm to yourself in the meantime?
I mean, that should be the own funding element --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Well, he shut up.
MCHENRY: -- for him to stay in his house and not talk to people. GARCIA-NAVARRO: Well, he doesn't talk. I mean, this -- all the -- I mean, he doesn't go out, he hasn't given any -- audio keeps leaking, but it's not like he's going out in public and saying anything.
CHEN: How far we've come in American democracy that this is the standard, just don't say anything. I mean, it's remarkable.
MCHENRY: From time to time, we have a lot of -- we have candidates like that, that are best to stay at home --
HUNT: Not uncommon. Yes.
MCHENRY: -- and not talk to voters.
HUNT: All right. Coming up next here in The Arena, talk about whiplash. President Trump's new press secretary abruptly fired after just days after starting at the White House, and just hours after going on an interview blitz in an effort to save her job.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[12:10:03]
KATIE ZACHARIA, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: It's going to be a wonderful journey, and we have a lot to look forward to as a country. And there is no better president to work for than President Trump. He is just the most hardworking, incredible man. And I'm grateful to be here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Katie, do you -- and it's a tough question, do you think you still have the confidence of the President?
ZACHARIA: I --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ZACHARIA: I consulted for a very long time many people in the field. Is it OK and acceptable if I label myself lawyer, not attorney at law, not Katie Zacharia Esquire, but lawyer, and provide legal analysis, not legal advice? And they said absolutely across the board. You can call yourself a lawyer --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[12:15:12]
HUNT: It was Katie Zacharia's first week on the job as White House press secretary, and it turns out it's her last. After just one press briefing that White House officials described to CNN as, quote, "brutal and awkward," Zacharia was then forced to defend her previous claims about her own legal qualifications.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: OK, there's a report out tonight that showed 15 social media posts where you identify yourself as an attorney.
ZACHARIA: I think they were retweets, and I corrected the record and said that that's not endorsing the title. They were retweets of a title that had been given.
HANNITY: Why not just say, "I went to Pepperdine Law School, and then took a different career path, and I took the bar once and didn't pass it"? Why get into this long, drawn-out definition between the difference between a lawyer and an attorney?
Why only three questions in 14 minutes? And what might you do a little differently going forward?
ZACHARIA: I would love to build a relationship with all of those members of the press corps so there is a substantive component to us having an ability to interact. And I will be very prepared, Sean.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: The distraction that Zacharia became for the President quickly raised questions about whether she could remain in the role. And then yesterday, one week after her hiring had been announced and just five days on the job, Zacharia was fired.
So that brings us to our quote of the week, what she told Sean Hannity the night before she got the boot.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Katie, do you -- and it's a tough question -- do you think you still have the confidence of the President?
ZACHARIA: I'm standing here, and I was able to travel with him through all of the midterm convention, or excuse me, the midterm rallies, and I hope to be able to build the trust and confidence of everyone around me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: And, of course, that was on Fox just hours before she was fired on Friday.
My panel is back. Congressman, what happened here? This is, I think, I don't know, half of a Scaramucci maybe?
MCHENRY: Well, there's one person happy right now, and that is Anthony Scaramucci. This is -- well, it's, first of all, it's terrible to be a Republican right now on TV and try to explain this because there's no good explanation.
The President had -- has had two spokesmen from the beginning of the second campaign, you know, second rise back to the White House, that he had confidence in. They went out, they defended him well. They had enough rapport with the press that it was not a complete disaster just to operate and function for the White House, and actually served the, the President well, candidate Trump and then President Trump.
Once again, this was a huge mistake. Major blunder to take somebody who is unproven, and put them in this spot in short order. Mistake to say yes to the job under those circumstances. But a real service to Anthony Scaramucci to increase his credibility.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Not -- no, no, no.
HUNT: He did tweet records are made to be broken, by the way.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Well, this is the thing. She now -- we will always know her name because she will now live as the person in any kind of quiz that you will do about politics, who is the shortest serving press secretary of the White House, and we will now all know her name, Katie Zacharia. So I think in that sense, she will have quite a legendary career.
HUNT: I will say, Lanhee, I talked to Scaramucci this week and he was basically like, "Yes, it was really bad at the time --
CHEN: Yes.
HUNT: -- but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise."
CHEN: Not so bad actually. Not so bad. No, I mean, look, it's -- what I reflect on, this is actually a really -- being White House press secretary is a really hard job, right? I mean, it --
HUNT: Yes, and it's an important one --
CHEN: -- it's an important job. It's a difficult job. You've got to have great awareness of a lot of different policy issues. You've got to understand what's going on in the world. It's very hard to learn on the job.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: So then why was she chosen? Is it because she's blonde?
CHEN: I'm not --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Is it because she was a Fox News contributor? I mean, it's -- there's something just that -- there's some kind of interesting symmetry here is that she was clearly chosen because she's a Fox News contributor, and then her demise politically in her job came about through Fox News.
I mean, I've never seen Hannity give a tougher interview than he gave to her. And I have to say the writing was on the wall once that interview went out because it said, Hannity's very close to the President, that he had, you know, been given the green light to grill her in the way that he did.
MCHENRY: That interview is just a normal set of circumstances that had I raised the same questions with you tonight, like, this morning, you'd be able to answer. And anyone should be able to answer if you're in a situation like that, and she couldn't handle it.
So, but the question here is the confidence the President want -- what the President wants is the optics to look right for the White House. The contents of how do you run that is really the ingredients of the staff to make sure that's considered. In this circumstance, it was not considered, and she didn't have the capacity to carry through.
[12:20:08]
HINOJOSA: Well, and also, if you think about previous press secretaries, I would say Jen Psaki is probably one of the better press secretaries that our nation has had. And when I was on the transition with her, she spent over a month prepping for this job, and that was because she had been State Department spokesperson at a podium previously, and that she still took the time to make sure that she was prepped and ready to go on day one. She ended up being fantastic.
Katie Zacharia should have demanded from the White House that she -- you know, "I've never done this before. I have never done a briefing from the podium. I need adequate training. Maybe I can do some gaggles on the plane first."
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Do you think that would've --
HINOJOSA: "Test some stuff out."
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Do you think that would've helped her?
HINOJOSA: That -- I'm not sure that would've helped her, but she should've demanded it. And the problem with --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: It wouldn't have hurt, but I don't know that it would've saved her job.
HINOJOSA: But going to your point, that's not what mattered. What Donald Trump wanted was a certain type of person at the podium. Not a man, not a person of color, you know, not someone from any other network. He wanted someone from Fox News who was blonde, who was a woman, who fit a certain type of person.
And this is what happens when you're picking someone who isn't qualified, and instead fits this sort of a -- this persona.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Consensual (ph) casting --
HINOJOSA: Yes, that Donald Trump wants.
HUNT: Well, I mean, Lanhee Chen, one of the other big disconnects -- I understand we're raising questions about what the President wants his press secretary to look like, and obviously as a TV producer by trade, that's clearly something that has always mattered to him. But Karoline Leavitt, her predecessor, was so much more than that, right?
CHEN: Sure. HUNT: I mean, she had run for Congress. And she -- while she was young, when she was given the job and some people were surprised, she proved herself immediately out of the gate.
CHEN: Yes.
HUNT: And she also had a reputation for being close to the President and being somebody that he actually was willing to listen to.
CHEN: Yes.
HUNT: None of that was true for Katie Zacharia.
CHEN: Well, and she had experience in at least one very hard-fought campaign, and that makes a big difference, right? That campaign training I think is really valuable to do this job. But, I mean, what it comes back to, again, is like these jobs and these roles, they're more than just staff jobs. They're more than just like a let's find someone we can throw into the job.
There's a real set of responsibilities. There's a real set of things that you got to know how to do. And I think it's a challenge when you ask someone to go from never having done it before to going in front of the entire free world to try and support the President's agenda.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: But can -- but this again I think speaks to this wider issue with the staffing that has happened in this administration, where we have seen the Pete Hegseths and others, you know, being put into these positions because they appeal to, you know, a kind of idea of what these people should look like, and they're not based on any credentials or experience that they may have.
CHEN: Well, look, the --
MCHENRY: Pete Hegseth actually created a rapport with President Trump, still has President Trump's support. What this is, is a misunderstanding of the role of the job. What we have now in Washington is a domination of the media and of really the optics around Washington are out gadflies.
They're not functionaries. They don't actually get anything done, but they seem to get things done. This is what we see on social media, this we see it on Capitol Hill. We see it all across the executive branch as well.
The substantive piece of this, how you actually get things done, the prep and that experiential piece of it, we've undervalued that in our politics over the last decade, and it needs to actually rise back. And the reason why previous press secretaries have been influential with President Trump is because they actually worked of the staff, which clearly was not the case here.
HUNT: Yes. Lanhee?
CHEN: Well, I was just going to say, I mean, look, the President, you know, can name whomever he wants to name. The example of Hegseth and others, Congress has got to do its job, too, right? Because they're the ones ultimately who have to say, yes, this -- I mean, in this case not, because the President can have whoever he wants to have.
But in the case of some of these other positions, what we have also exhibited or what we've also seen is that Congress has completely let go of its responsibility. The Senate has let go of its responsibility to say, yes, this person's qualified. No, this person's not qualified.
HUNT: All right. Well --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Bye, Katie.
HUNT: -- very short -- short-lived career there at the podium for Mrs. Zacharia.
All right, coming up next here in The Arena, enough politics for now. We're going to get into the other story everyone is talking about, the American Idol versus the Magic shop. Which side are you on?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ADAM RUBIN, CO-OWNER, ART OF PLAY: Kelly Clarkson has put us in danger. Not just are people showing up in person, but our neighbors are getting doxxed and review bombed. People are being threatened on the street.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[12:29:03]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the story that blew up over the weekend all over the internet.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: It's a showdown between a superstar and a small business, and apparently a talking bird.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They said that there was an item that Kelly was looking at. Now, this item was a singing bird.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After it gave her what she is calling the pretty woman treatment, and look, fans are divided as well.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Free Kelly Clarkson. Free Kelly Clarkson.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's always my girl.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's actually like a, "Don't you know who I am?" story. I mean -- UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, stop it. Stop it. I'm going to defend her right
here. You go, Kelly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: This week, the court of public opinion took on a new case, Kelly Clarkson versus a Brooklyn toy store. It is a long story. My guess is you actually probably know a lot of it already, because how could you possibly have missed it? It involves a bird, a tweet, and of course, Julia Roberts.
So here's CNN Entertainment Reporter Elizabeth Wagmeister to break it all down for us.
ELIZABETH WAGMEISTER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: This all went down last weekend when Kelly Clarkson was just enjoying a casual Saturday to herself. She said that she went all the way to Brooklyn to check out a novelty shop called Art of Play, and she was not happy with her experience at the store.
[12:30:12]
She took to her X account and she came out swinging, which I have to tell you is very rare for a celebrity to do so publicly in this day and age. On her X account, she said that she was literally, "Looked at as if I couldn't afford it." She goes on to say, "Wow, dude, you're an idiot," and just lost a huge sale.
Now, Kelly says that she was made out to feel like Julia Roberts' character in "Pretty Woman." Well, then the store Art of Play, they came out in their own series of social media posts, and they defended themselves by saying that the item that Kelly wanted, which is a toy bird named Molly, was not for sale.
Well, social media users were very quick to point out, if the item wasn't for sale, then why is there a price tag on the wall that says $15,000? This all escalated because podcaster and journalist Pablo Torre, he actually got his hands on the surveillance footage from inside the shop. And while we don't have the audio, you can tell that Kelly is not happy. It seems that there is some sort of disagreement, and on her way out of the store, she does not seem pleased.
Great news for you, Kasie, if you want to buy the bird, it actually is for sale now. The shop owner said that they have raised the price to $15 million, up from $15,000.
KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: OK, my thanks to Elizabeth for that. I have neither $15,000 nor $15 million available to purchase the bird. OK, who is on, like, I'm tempted to do a show of hands, like, who's on Kelly Clarkson's side here? And who's on the -- anyone?
PATRICK MCHENRY (R), FORMER SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE: So you want to say, are you on?
HUNT: Are you on Kelly's side or the toy store?
MCHENRY: You're saying a public person who has no discernible record of being nasty to anyone? I'm probably on her side.
HUNT: I got to tell you, I'm on Kelly Clarkson's side. Maybe that's going to be a controversial thing to say, and I'm going to get raked on the internet. But like, you know, I'm like thinking about Julia Roberts. Like, she walks in, she says, you refuse to help me, remember me? And then she goes, big mistake, big, huge, right? I have to go shopping now. And like, they treated her poorly and if that's what happened to Kelly Clarkson.
LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: No, I think it's a terrible.
HUNT: You disagree?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I disagree. Like, a lot.
HUNT: OK.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Big time. You know, I -- we've all had the experience of not being treated by staff in the way that sometimes we'd like to be.
HUNT: Well, I think we should be clear. This is the owner of the store. OK. That has the one who came out and said, we showed you in the teas who talked about the fact that the store has, you know, all of this has come down on.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: OK. But as you saw, it was a busy day. There were a lot of people. And he might've been rude. By the way, this is the author of one of my favorite children's books, which is "Dragons Love Tacos." And, you know, and that is unpleasant. And I felt angry and I may have vented on social media.
I do not have the social media following that Kelly Clarkson has. And I do think if you are a celebrity of this caliber, where you have millions of followers and people have parasocial relationships with you this seems like there was another way to sort this out other than just, you know, exploding on social media, because nowadays the repercussions of that are pretty big.
HUNT: So your critique of her is less that perhaps she had an interaction that she was unhappy with, felt she was treated badly, but rather what she then did with that.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Right. That's the thing. I mean, we all have interactions where we're unhappy. I think I have them like 20 times a day. I sometimes might be the source of an interaction where people are come away unhappy with the interaction. I mean, you know, life is full of conflict and little irritants, right? That is life.
If you are a celebrity, you just have a lot of power to get people to do this. We're all talking about it. We're all discussing it. And this at the end of the day is a store in Brooklyn. I mean, should they have sold the lady, the bird? Yes, sure. And if they'd known that she was Kelly Clarkson, you know, I'm sure they would have happily done it because then they would have gotten a lot of positive press. It was a dumb mistake. HUNT: Do you think it would have been different if she hadn't named the store? Like if she had just said --
HUNT: They would. Internet sleuths would have found out anyway. I just think, like, was it such a terrible thing that happened that you now needed to, you know, vent on this? I mean, I remember Oprah Winfrey doing this with Hermes in Paris at a certain point. And it would be good. No. And this is why and this is why it's funny, right? Because everyone was like, oh, my God, she was complaining. It became a big issue. And then and then and then like, who are the good people in that thing, right? Because it's like Hermes, you're like, I'm going to be on our messes side on this. It's like my point about this is --
HUNT: That's slightly different also, you know.
[12:35:00]
GARCIA-NAVARRO: No, but is this slightly different, I mean, for her, there was a racial tinge. There was a racial tinge in this and this one that clearly isn't. But like my point about all of this is all of these interactions is the people sort of like being like yes go Kelly. They're using her as like an avatar for all the times that we felt like we were treated badly and look she can punch back and we can get behind her, but I just feel like --
HUNT: Well, maybe that's the other side of it. If you're the celebrity and that's how you're making you're validating other people's experience in this way.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: But what is what is going to -- what is the plus for us?
LANHEE CHEN, FORMER MITT ROMNEY POLICY DIRECTOR: Can I make a confession?
HUNT: Yes, please?
CHEN: I didn't hear about the story.
HUNT: Well, he's like I have no idea what any of you were talking about.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Oh my God.
MCHENRY: Yes, the best part is like --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Give me your algorithm. Give me your algorithm.
CHEN: Until I got -- and I said to myself I probably should figure out what happened to Kelly Clarkson. I thought something had happened her and then I was like, you know, I can try to discern what the important policy considerations are with this one, but really there aren't any. I mean, this is really just about somebody --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Well, by the way, I love Kelly Clarkson.
CHEN: This is really just, you know, like --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: And we've all been Kelly Clarkson.
CHEN: You know what? I'll tell you what. The one issue that I do think about --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: At the end of the day like I just don't think this is a big deal.
CHEN: -- the one issue that really do think about is this, if you're a celebrity and you have a platform I do think you have a responsibility to use it wisely, I do think that's true. And I think in this situation we can have an argument about whether she used it wisely by going after the store. That's the only thing that I would think about.
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So also why is this now $15 million is my other thing is that's what I mean sits poorly with me is that why is Elon Musk and I now go in and like --
MCHENRY: You're on message. You're on message about Elon.
HINOJOSA: To be honest with that, I prefer for him to spend money on 15 mil -- you know $15 million on a bird than to spend $15 million for Republicans in the midterm.
HUNT: You might think that there's someone out there with $15 million to buy the bird and give it to Kelly Clarkson.
MCHENRY: Also what normal business person doesn't say look, I'm sorry you had a bad experience. We'd love to work with you before. I'm sorry, we had a misunderstanding. It's a crazy busy day. There's one way to handle it.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Well, they did. They did.
MCHENRY: And there's this snowflake business guy in Brooklyn who's going whoa, it's me.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: He did write that. He wrote on social media initially. He said I'm sorry that you had a bad experience et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, this is just like it has taken right --
HUNT: Right. But they said Molly is permanently attached to the wall and isn't for sale. This is their initial response on Instagram. Imagine our surprise when our small local business was suddenly attacked, fine. Kelly Clarkson then responds to this. She says that's cool. Cool. Sure. It wasn't for sale. That's the narrative they're going to go with. So the whole conversation we had when I asked if it was for sale while pointing to the price tag hanging on the wall with the title singing bird didn't happen as you elevator I'd me saying in a condescending tone, yes, it's for sale, but it costs $15,000. So if you'd like me to find something comparable for you, I can. So like, yes, they said that initially but then she says that that wasn't true.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: That wasn't true.
HUNT: Right?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes, then he might be --
CHEN: He's got a problem.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: He's got a problem. And this is where we are.
MCHENRY: Maybe he's a snowflake Brooklyn shop owner, maybe just maybe and maybe cut Kelly Clarkson is a pretty likable person.
HUNT: OK. Well, that's definitely going to be our most like intense debate all day today for the record.
Ahead here in The Arena, no election complete without an October surprise. We're going to look at one nearly two decades ago that jolted the race for the White House.
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[12:38:09]
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: The market free-falling once again. President Bush warning there won't be a quick fix to this economic mess and there's proof as stocks tank. Once again, look at these numbers, 750 points as of now. They're tabulating the final sales.
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BLITZER: But we begin with the breaking news, the continuing stock market turbulence and what a day it's been. The Bears are back in force full time on Wall Street today with a Dow Jones Industrials average falling about 740 points just seconds ago.
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HUNT: This week in history, the Dow Jones suffered its worst percentage drop during the 2008 global financial crisis. It dropped a massive 7.87 percent on October 15th, just weeks before Election Day, on the day of the third presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain.
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BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think everybody understands at this point that we are experiencing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. And the financial rescue plan that Senator McCain and I supported is a important first step. And I pushed for some core principles, making sure that taxpayers can get their money back if they're putting money up, making sure that CEOs are not enriching themselves through this process. And I think that it's going to take some time to work itself out.
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HUNT: If you flashback, Congressman, to that moment in time, you know, John McCain at one point had called off his presidential campaign. It's actually, if you go back and dig into is arguably in part why he lost the election, because people reacted to that looking, you know, as though he maybe couldn't handle a crisis like that. It also in so many ways is the moment that explains where we are today and the populism that we are experiencing across the board.
MCHENRY: We're in the post financial crisis era and that has been modern politics from that moment till really today. And that has encompassed the rise of the left and the rise of the populist right. We are living downstream of that. Now, that moment I remember vividly. I was a member of Congress at the time when Senator McCain said he's going to halt his campaign, go back to Washington to negotiate this Democrat, Democrat House and Senate and a Republican in the White House.
[12:45:15]
The idea here was he's going to come back and provide leadership to his party about what to do. When he met with congressional leaders, he had no plan. He asked what their plan was. He was responsive. So it was true. He didn't have an economic policy that was admitted earlier in the campaign. There's a national security, you know, that was his main skill set he's offering. So tough candidate to have in a moment of crisis like that and his immediate reaction there was rather poor.
HUNT: So you were on the floor at the moment, which, you know, is, you know, we have to fast forward a little bit in time to get there. But when they put the rest, the financial rescue package on the floor of the House the first time, and it failed, it went down. And I remember watching the Dow just plunge and Barney Frank, who was the chair, the committee you eventually chair at the time, I believe, sitting there in the House press gallery, basically trying to explain how and why we weren't all going to fall off a cliff. I mean, how did what happened next, explain what we saw happen then, explain where we are now?
MCHENRY: Well, I mean, the response was tarp, which was bailing out the biggest banks in America, and then no taxpayer benefit for the recovery of these stocks, which can explain a lot of the rise of socialism. When you see that you're injecting public our tax dollars into these companies, no one sell the account, no one went to jail as a result of that for the corporate malfeasance and bad decision making. You still have today, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which was the, I would call that the accelerant for the financial crisis. They're still in --
HUNT: The gas on the fire. Yes.
MCHENRY: They're still owned by the government and run as government agencies today. So there's a massive amount that happened then. But the immediate bailout and the repercussions in the election, it benefited those that were adults in the room, and that was the Democratic Party. And that's why they're given the keys to the kingdom in 2008, in large part. HINOJOSA: Well, and fast forward, forward to now. Voters obviously punish chaos. Whenever you have voters who are feeling financial instability or worried about money, they are looking for stability in their leaders. And at that time, John McCain was not the stability, as you said he was not a leader in any way when it came to the financial crisis.
And so that is how Barack Obama was elected, et cetera. Now we are at the point where voters again are looking for stability and that stability is not Donald Trump and the civility is not Republicans. And so now we're seeing voters potentially send a clear message in this election that they want leaders who are going to provide some sort of leadership which is going to bleed into the 2028 presidential election. And I think instead of seeing sort of like big ideas, et cetera, you're going to see voters want leaders and they want to elect someone who is going to get something done.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I'm not sure I agree with her. Just as a final thought, I think the lesson of the financial crisis is actually a lesson that it did radicalize people, that they just feel like they can't trust the system, that the system is rigged against them. And you saw that with Republicans and you see that with Democrats. And so, in fact, I'm not exactly clear that stability is what people are looking for.
HUNT: It's certainly they have been voting for change pretty repeatedly ever since.
[12:48:34]
All right, coming up, something totally different. The growing is it different though? The growing epidemic of the Sunday scaries. They're familiar to me.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is my break. This is my chance. This is my boss.
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HUNT: Tomorrow, over half of us, like clockwork, going to experience that feeling. You know the one. It's the familiar mix of anxiety and dread about all the impending work, the tasks that are piled up waiting for you on Monday morning. They are otherwise known as the Sunday scaries. Are they soon to be the Saturday scaries? I'm sorry, what?
According to "The Wall Street Journal," it is not just you. The Sunday scaries are actually getting worse, so much so that they are starting to creep earlier and earlier into the weekend. According to data compiled by "The Journal," employees are now devoting 12 percent of their Sundays to work messages in an attempt to get ahead of the Monday morning flood, that is nearly double the 6.6 percent that they spent just three years ago.
So now if you would rather enjoy the football game instead of doom looping about how the weekend is basically already done, psychiatrists recommend trying the following, setting guardrails, avoiding work altogether, consider spending a little more time at work on Friday and try reimagining the Sunday scaries as a Monday maybe. Are we giving this a try tomorrow?
HINOJOSA: Do they know that the midterms are coming. I don't that that is a possibility.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I sent this article to my boss, actually, and then not on a Sunday. But we are, you know, I mean, I do a lot of work on the weekends and so.
HUNT: I have small children. I work all weekend, every weekend. In fact, Monday morning is actually a little more relaxed for me than my Sundays.
[12:55:02]
GARCIA-NAVARRO: But the reason people are feeling this, right, is because people are worried about their jobs because of A.I., because there's a lot more pressure on the workforce nowadays because it's harder to get a job. So there's like -- there's -- it's another sign, I think, of the collective anxiety.
MCHENRY: It's this thing where we're not disconnected, this little addiction machine. And Washington is the most addicted group in the world. This is the problem.
HUNT: The problem.
MCHENRY: And I love this idea. Study says, try harder. Try harder.
HUNT: It's an uniquely American combination of rugged individualism, work ethic and the smartphone.
All right, thanks to my panel. I really appreciate you guys. Thanks to you at home for watching as well. Don't forget, you can see The Arena. We're here every weekday at 4:00 p.m. Eastern on CNN. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. The news continues next right here on CNN.
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