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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
Vance: Republicans Should "Stop Whining" About Ramaswamy Ad; New CNN Poll: Trump's Approval Hits New Low Ahead Of Midterms; Trump Renews Push To Change New Mexico To "New America". Aired 4-5p ET
Aired October 21, 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: Oh, Shimon's her friend. Shimon's her friend. He got swept up in the summer of Knicks or whatever, but we're passed that now.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: You got to move on, buddy.
SANCHEZ: It's a new year. Heat in three.
THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT starts 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 Wednesday.
As we come on the air, just 13 days until Election Day, the Trump administration coming out in support of one of the ugliest attack ads of this election.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: After a campaign season, where I've watched, and I've known Vivek for a long time, he's a very good friend of mine, where I've watched the Democrats lie about his family, where I've watched the Democrats call him a murderer. And now the media and the Democrats in the state of Ohio are obsessed because guess what? Vivek Ramaswamy had the audacity to run a TV commercial which calls it out like it is and calls Amy Acton a liar.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Vice President, J.D. Vance, in his home state of Ohio today defending that new attack ad from Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. The ad features the mother of his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton, calling her daughter a liar and urging voters to reject her.
Acton says she's not seen her mother in decades after her stepfather was arrested for raping her when she was a girl.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) AMY ACTON (D), OHIO GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: I was removed from her at the age of 12. My brother was nine for child abuse and neglect. That got bad enough, we were actually living in a tent. in the middle of winter. She was eventually arrested.
It's awful to see this. It's awful to see her this way, and it's even more incredible to see that my opponent has taken advantage of someone who is -- who's clearly not well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Late yesterday, the Ramaswamy campaign confirmed they are behind the ad, saying they plan to spend $4 million airing it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VIVEK RAMASWAMY (R), OHIO GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: It is an ad from our campaign. And the thing that I want to say is that I would love for this race and this election to be about the substantive issues that impact Ohioans. And unfortunately, Amy Acton has been hiding from those issues.
REPORTER: Do you see this as a petty move, Vivek?
RAMASWAMY: Excuse me?
REPORTER: Do you see it as a petty move?
RAMASWAMY: On behalf of her mother to speak out? Her mother chose to speak out. She spoke out several years ago. That's between Amy Acton and her mother.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Between Amy Acton and her mother.
Now, thanks to him and his campaign, it's also between them and the voters of Ohio. Already, though, we have seen some Republicans join Democrats in condemning the ad. One member of the Ohio governor's cabinet saying this, quote, "We can disagree on plenty of things without losing our sense of decency," end quote.
And another campaign stop last night, Ramaswamy was confronted by a voter who was furious about the ad.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RAMASWAMY: We're ready to do this.
[05:05:00]
Excuse me, excuse me. You're going to leave this room if you're --
PROTESTER: Why did you platform Amy Acton's mother, who let her husband rape her? She let her husband rape her as a child. RAMASWAMY: Sir, if you want to be patient and you want to ask a
question at the end, you'll be free to do that. Thank you for making your contribution today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right, so why is he doing this? Why is Ramaswamy putting this out there? Why is the Vice President defending it so forcefully?
Let's take a look at the latest CNN poll of polls where Acton is leading Ramaswamy by six points. Republicans facing the real possibility of losing races across the map from Ohio to South Carolina to Alaska, potentially even Texas. And so, it seems anything goes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VANCE: But I have to admit that I'm a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the Congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America.
Politics is a tough business and my message to my fellow elected Republicans is if you actually believe in the things you say you believe in, stop whining about an advertisement and go win the race in 13 days. Next question.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Go win the race, right? Not like that is not something that a winner puts out. Something you do because you're losing.
All right, let's get off the sidelines, head into THE ARENA. My panel is here.
Co-host of "The Atlantic's" flagship podcast, "Radio Atlantic", Adam Harris; former advisor to President George W. Bush and Senator John McCain, Mark McKinnon; CNN political commentator, former DNC senior advisor, Xochitl Hinojosa; and CNN senior political commentator and Republican strategist, David Urban.
Welcome to all of you. Thank you for being here.
Mark, let me start with you just on the big picture here. The ugliness of this is at a level that I feel like is perhaps not unmatched, but there's a small short list of things that are this indecent in politics, and that's saying something.
MARK MCKINNON, CREATOR, "THE CIRCUS": Believe me, this is unmatched. I mean, this is what I've done all my life professionally.
[16:05:00]
I've made some pretty bad ads myself. I've seen the worst ads. This is absolutely the most outrageous, indefensible ad I've ever seen in my life. And there should be some accountability for it. I'd like to know who made this ad. I mean, the notion they say that the mother chose to speak out, think
about this. Somebody had to go, let's go find the mother who abandoned her when she was 12 and see if we can talk her into doing an ad about the fact that the conditions -- the mother doesn't say she lied about the father raping her. She says that she's lying about the conditions under which she was living at the time.
And by the way, when you see the mother on television, she's clearly not well. I mean, she's older and, you know, I don't know what else, but it's taking advantage of a woman in bad circumstances, I project, to make a desperate -- desperate play for attention.
They're getting the attention, but I think this is going to backfire in a big, big way.
HUNT: David Urban, why is J.D. Vance defending this this way?
DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't know, to Mark's point, this makes Willie Horton look like a Hallmark movie, right? It's really bad. I'm not sure when you screen that, you think, oh, we're going to pick up these folks. This is the target demographic we're going after in this act.
If anything, it makes Amy Acton, you feel worse for the woman when you find out the backstory. Initially when you see it, you think, oh, wow, it's pretty bad. Her mom's saying this. And then you read the notes.
Now everyone's heard about it, but you say to yourself, wow, that poor woman went through all this as a kid. It makes her more relatable.
And so, I think it's backfired completely. And whoever did it, it shouldn't be proud of. They should be a shame that they were not -- they didn't think ahead three steps. If we do this, this is what the reaction is going to be.
ADAM HARRIS, PODCAST HOST, THE ATLANTIC: I think that's the bottom line is that there'll be a lot of compassion for Amy Acton. And I think a lot of people learned about the circumstances that didn't --
URBAN: Listen, I'm not defending Amy Acton. She may be a terrible politician. There's plenty of things you can disagree about with her own policy. You know, I wouldn't vote for, but nonetheless, she's going to be more compassionate because of this ad.
HARRIS: More relatable.
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah. Vivek Ramaswamy's political career is over. I mean, like, there is no way that he comes back from it. To your point, it is all of us who did not know about her story. I was one.
URBAN: Yeah.
HINOJOSA: I was texting with a bunch of women, Democratic operatives who were -- who saw the ad like, what is this? We started Googling. We found out about her past. Now you're seeing J.B. Pritzker's wife M.K. Pritzker donating $500,000
to Amy Acton, and now there are a bunch of women coming out who are furious.
Guess what, Vivek Ramaswamy? You need women to win. There is no path to victory in Ohio if you don't have women.
And so, this was just a bad political move. It is disgusting. And I mean, he deserves for his political career to be over because nothing like this should be in politics.
HARRIS: And like I was saying, right, if you weren't paying attention to the race before, if you're just going back to the And you're saying, I'm going to go and vote on November 3rd. This is now something that you know about. You read about the back story. You hear that Amy Acton was assaulted when she was a child.
And the CDC data found that one in seven people, one in seven children in America today have been assaulted or. abused or neglected by an adult figure.
HUNT: Yeah.
HARRIS: And so it's a -- it is a story that now resonates with people that they may not have known about.
HUNT: And talk about also giving voters the chance to look at her in a light that shows, wow, she's here. She's a Democratic gubernatorial nominee. She overcame so much to get there.
Let's watch a little bit of what some voters who our Eric Bradner talked to today in Ohio had to say about this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KARI FREUDENBERGER, OHIO VOTER: I don't care if Ramaswamy's policies are the best. That shows just a judgment of character that I don't want to see anymore in politics.
SHERI VORHERR, OHIO VOTER: I would never say that about one of my children. And to do, to go to that point, to do that, she must feel very strongly about something. I don't think it reflects well on Amy Acton, but I also don't think it reflects well on her mother.
CHERISE WILSON, OHIO VOTER: I feel bad for Amy in the sense that she was truly a victim, and that's not right. But I also don't want somebody running in the city or state of Ohio who's a victim and who's in victim mode because that makes the leadership seem like victim, and that's not good.
But I don't also want somebody who's going to be a complete -- can I say ass?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: I mean, David? URBAN: Yeah, so I listen to these women and it's clear they're kind of Republican women. But Amy Acton didn't choose to make this an issue. She didn't bring this up. She wasn't running like -- she wasn't flouting the victim card here.
I mean, if anything, this was sub-rosa. Nobody in the campaign mentioned it. She didn't make an ad saying, look where I've come from. You know, I struggled and scratched to get here.
Again, I'm not defending Amy Acton. I would vote against her in the state. I'm just saying this is a bad ad. It should be denounced. And you don't double down.
The first rule of holes is stop digging, right? And so, they're just continue to dig deeper and deeper.
[16:10:01]
You should have said it was a bad ad. We made a mistake. We're moving on. We want to talk about the issue.
MCKINNON: There's also sort of a consultant culture, David, you know, in these campaigns, and it's gotten like who could be, you know, who how negative can we be? How far can we go? And I think we've clawed our way to the bottom. This is it. This is the worst ad ever made, ever, period.
HUNT: The worst ad ever made, Mark McKinnon.
HINOJOSA: Also, if you're running for governor as a woman or any elected office, you don't put stuff out like this for the reason that you were just judged in a different way than men. And in order to run as a woman for statewide office, you have to just end up swallowing a lot of this, putting it behind you, and you can't seem like a victim in many sense.
And I am assuming that was a calculated decision by her campaign. Now she's not only forced to relive all of this, but yes, she has to talk about somewhat of her past when I am sure, yes, it is benefiting her, I would say, but she also wants to talk about the economy and costs and other things as well.
And so, I do find it interesting that she did not bring this up because women just have to do things different when they run for statewide office.
HUNT: Well -- and to that point, I mean, one of the things that is also here and you can see, I think, reflected in the choices and the way that they're going about fighting back against this, some of the point that Xochitl is making about how it can be more difficult to be a woman candidate. She had a brother who was in this situation with her, and they put the brother out there to defend Amy Acton.
And let's watch that just because I think it, again, underscores here is a man who is validating where she is coming from.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AMY ACTON'S BROTHER: I received a lot of abuse, but Amy always got the worst of it. She continued to receive that abuse because she knew she had to protect me from that and that if she hadn't done that, who knows where I would have ended up. And she was 11 and 12 years old. And to think that that's somehow a talking point, shame on Vivek.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: David?
URBAN: Yeah, I mean, look, when you watch that, what do you feel, you feel sympathy, you feel empathy, right? Again, she may be the worst politician in the history of the state of Ohio, right? She could have the worst positions, but all of a sudden, you watch that ad and you feel for the woman, right? I don't know, she could be terrible, but you feel for her, right?
And if Vivek wants to talk about issues, you should spend $4 million talking about how she's a really terrible candidate and here's why. Here are the policy reasons that I disagree with her and why she's going to make things more expensive in Ohio and she's going to be a worse governor than I could ever be.
But he's not. He's going to triple down on this. That would be --
HUNT: I want to go to the Congressman a second, but quickly, Mark. Frank Luntz, who was part of a consultant pollster, said to Playbook, this may prove to be the most memorable ad of the entire election cycle. It's devastating, but I would have held it until the final weekend of the campaign. With this much time before the election, I fully expect the Democrats to have an equally devastating response.
What is this an example of?
MCKINNON: Frank Lutz has lost his mind, too. Save it until the last week. The only thing you should have done with that is just buried it from the moment that anybody mentioned it and fired whoever had the idea.
HUNT: All right. I want to bring in Democratic congressman from Ohio, Greg Landsman.
Congressman, it's great to see you. And, of course, for our viewers who are not extremely familiar with the redistricting situation in Ohio, you are, of course, on the ballot. Your district is more Republican than it's been in the past. You had in some ways expected a tough fight, but you have proven, according to "Cook Political Report", to be in a different position than perhaps you expected to be.
My point is, you're in the thick of this. You are hearing from people who are deciding in this swing state who to vote for, for governor, for Senate, for you, or your opponent in the House.
What is your reaction to this ad? And what are you hearing from Ohioans about it?
REP. GREG LANDSMAN (D-OH): Yeah, the ad is the worst thing I've ever seen. I think Mark's right. I appreciate him saying that. It's the worst thing I've ever seen in my entire life as a political person watching these ads. Despicable.
It's probably the thing that made me the most emotional when I watched it. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. And it just says Ohioans, like, we pride ourselves on being decent people and, you know, caring about one another, Republicans, Democrats, independents. And we see something like that and we think, what a horrible human tragedy.
And somehow Vivek saw it and thought, oh, I'm going to use that. I'm going to use that for my campaign. So I just was-- I was beside myself. I couldn't believe it.
And he is known, whether you like his policies or not, some people do, as one of the most unlikable people ever. And this just reinforces that as people look at that and say, I would never do that. I would never do what he did.
HUNT: I want to play actually a moment from Nikki Haley when she was on the debate stage with Vivek Ramaswamy, because, of course, he ran for president.
[16:15:04]
Let's watch that. We'll talk about it. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RAMASWAMY: She made fun of me for actually joining TikTok while her own daughter was actually using the app for a long time. So, you might want to take care of your family first.
NIKKI HALEY (R), FORMER SOUTH CAROLINA GOVERNOR: Leave my daughter out of your voice.
RAMASWAMY: -- the next generation of Americans. The easy answer --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: I think that may underscore the point that you were just making about how Ramaswamy is viewed, and he is underwater in polling in the state. I mean, what kind of person is Vivek Ramaswamy?
LANDSMAN: I don't know. Based on everything I've seen is somebody who lacks empathy and decency, just basic empathy.
And, you know, this is I think an example unfortunately is as you've heard of what we're seeing or the kind of politics, it's the worst, but it does represent this moment. And I think most people hate the kind of politics that we've gotten. It's so toxic. It's so unhealthy.
This ad is a toxic ad. It is bad for us. That kind of behavior is bad for us and it's just -- it's something I think most people want to be done with. We want leaders across the board that get things done, that make things happen for us, and do so with some level of decency and kindness, and that's -- and that's not him.
HUNT: At the end of the day, do you think Amy Acton is now more likely to be the next governor of Ohio?
LANDSMAN: I do. And the one thing I'd add as somebody who knows Amy and has known Amy for years, Amy is a very special person. She is a remarkable human being and just so kind and decent and for her to come from what she did, what she doesn't bring up, you kind of have to find out on your own.
And then you do and you just think, how did she do this? She built this life. She got into medical school. She became a doctor.
She led the health department here in Ohio. She was a part of our lives for the better part of the pandemic. You know, like we went to her for all of these questions that we had in the worst moments.
And now she's running for governor. She's just an amazing person. And you just, you know, she's tough as nails, so she'll be fine, but it's hard to watch. She's a remarkable person.
HUNT: I think the emotion that you've put on display here likely mirrors a lot of feelings that are playing out as people start to learn this story and see what is at stake here.
So, Congressman Greg Landsman, thank you very much for your candor today. I appreciate it.
LANDSMAN: Thanks.
HUNT: All right, coming up next here in THE ARENA, the blame game already being played at the White House. New reporting on how aides and allies are preparing for what's being described as a post-midterm presidential rampage should Republicans lose control of Congress.
Plus, the numbers going from bad to worse for President Trump. New CNN polling out today on what Americans think of the man they reelected not even two years ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIMMY FALLON, TV HOST: You can tell Trump is worried about the midterms because he's currently on a nationwide campaign blitz, hitting seven states in seven days. The states are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, desperation, really desperate, and really, really desperate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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[16:22:43]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The president always loses for whatever reason to midterms. Whoever it is, Republican, Democrat, great president, lousy president.
For some reason, if I can get my voters, MAGA, Republicans, whatever you want to call it, if they get out to vote, we'll win in a landslide.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: President Trump claiming a landslide victory for Republicans is possible if his supporters get out the vote. Over 14 million Americans have already voted in this year's midterm elections, and while we, of course, don't know how people are voting, new CNN polling gives us a little bit of insight into how Americans are feeling.
President Trump's approval rating? Yeah, it's not a record low, 32 percent. It is down 15 points since February of last year. A majority of Americans disapprove of the president's handling of the economy, inflation, health care policy, immigration, foreign affairs, and election integrity.
The new data comes as CNN reports new fears of a post-midterm shakeup across the government as Trump finds aides to blame and others to weigh abandoning the lame-duck presidency at its lowest point.
All right. Mark McKinnon, these numbers for the president. I mean, this isn't just -- this isn't just things that perhaps he had weaknesses on before. This is the economy. This is immigration. These are like important things.
MCKINNON: Yeah, even immigration is a signature issue, which arguably he's done a lot on. Even that's upside down. And I'm, you know, as a longtime fan and guy who worked for George Bush, I'm glad to see that that low approval number, we finally broke the lowest. It used to be Bush, now it's Trump.
URBAN: By one point, one point.
MCKINNON: He broke the Bush line, which is great. But yeah, I mean, across the board -- and by the way, he said every president.
By the way, I was there with George Bush in 2004 when we won the midterms, and Bill Clinton won the midterms in '98. It doesn't happen often.
And you're right that Bush, it is stacked against the incumbent president. But on every metric possible, Trump is not doing well. And that's the tough thing for Republicans, because all they can do is defense. I mean, all they can do is defend and when you're on defense, you're losing.
HUNT: David Urban?
URBAN: Yeah, so the numbers I looked at the far are pulling two things to point out in the polling. One, it oversamples Democrats, right, 49 percent to 39 percent in this poll. But if you look at it and really peel back the onion, what this says is voters are voting more against Trump than for Democrats, right?
Now, it's a distinction without a difference, largely, but it does matter, right? The poll also suggests that most voters don't believe that Democrats have an answer. They don't think they're going to fix it. They don't have a solution. They just don't like Trump here, right?
So this is what you see, and this is why I continue to press Xochitl and all my other Democratic colleagues. Look, just tell me how Hakeem Jeffries is going to solve the Middle East crisis. Is the IRGC somehow that they like Hakeem Jeffries better than Donald Trump?
MCKINNON: Why should they solve it? They didn't start it.
URBAN: But they're going to end it, Mark. They keep saying, we're going to end the war as soon as we get in. Well, what are they going to do? They're going to fly to Tehran? They're going to fly to Tehran.
HARRIS: The primary -- I was just down in Texas last week, and it felt like everybody was talking about the price of gas. They were talking about the price of diesel. I have friends who are owner- operators of trucking companies, and it's expensive. People are having to literally --
HUNT: In some cases, almost twice as much.
HARRIS: Literally twice as much.
And think back to February 2025, how many Americans would have been able to tell you what the Strait of Hormuz was, right? It's impossible for Republicans at this point to be able to disentangle the president's policies from the way that they're experiencing the economy at the moment. And that is a really motivating idea for a lot of people, right?
The fact that, okay, these Republicans can no longer say that it was Joe Biden's economy and this is why I'm hurting when I'm going to buy eggs, to buy milk, right? Even if the GDP is up and some of the other economic indicators make sense, that's not in ways that people actually feel it. It's data centers, right, as opposed to actually buying a tank of gas.
MCKINNON: And the problem with that is my job as a communications guy was to try and persuade people on certain issues. You can't spin the economy. That's something that people feel, and they see the gas tank, they do it every day.
And so, the first thing you've got to do is acknowledge it. I mean, Bill Clinton was great at this. I feel your pain. Trump says your pain is imaginary.
HUNT: Well, and Biden had that trouble, too, I will say, with Bidenomics, et cetera. MCKINNON: Yeah.
HUNT: To pick up on the point that David was making, let's put up this is in the new poll. And again, David is claiming and I'd have to take into these numbers, but you say we oversample Democrats.
The opinion of the Democratic Party, unfavorable 47 percent, favorable 35 percent. OK?
So -- I mean, Xochitl, what does this say to you about like? Yes, this may be a blue wave, right? Democrats may win the House. They may win the Senate, but when 2028 starts when we wake up the next day, that's going to be some of a hard reality.
HINOJOSA: That is a hard reality for anyone who wants to run for president who's a Democrat in 2028. I will say that Democrats will likely do well in this midterm election, despite the terrible numbers of the Democratic Party and just the overall view of the Democratic Party. And it's largely because these candidates have been able to sort of form their own brands in their states in spite of the Democratic Party.
And because of that, and I'll point to the state of Texas where I'm from, my sister's running for governor there, is what you're seeing is because Talarico has his own brand, because Amy Acton -- everyone is sort of running, from running away from the Democratic Party brand and to the Democratic Party traditions on their own message is now we're seeing, just in the two days of early voting, record number of Latinos turning out, record number of young people turning out, record number of sporadic voters on the Democratic side.
What does that mean? People who vote in presidential elections but that don't vote in midterm elections.
HUNT: Right.
HINOJOSA: And all of these numbers are good generally. We can look at the polls and all that stuff, but we need to look to see what type of people are voting, and those are the types of people who are motivated to come out and vote. And I would disagree with you that they are not it is not just anti-Trump.
If it were just anti-Trump, I also believe that some of these people would just stay home, right? And they wouldn't and -- but they are truly want change. They want change in -- generally, they feel that cost of living is up and they do feel that somebody else can fix this for them and provide an alternative.
URBAN: This is what the polling suggests. The polling suggests it's opposition to Trump, not support for Democrats. That's our own polling. I'm not saying --
HINOJOSA: Yeah.
MCKINNON: One thing about that, too, in the polling, which is that I concur that the Democratic brand is damaged, but when you do a generic vote and you ask people, say, not this candidate or that candidate, but which party would you vote for, they vote for Democrats by 10- point margin more than Republicans.
So, they feel better about the Democratic Party than they do the Republican Party right now.
HUNT: Yeah, and we can put that up on the screen, too, the choice for Congress, which shows that Democrats are up by 49 percent to 39 percent here.
And I mean, Mark, what's the conventional wisdom is what, that needs to be eight points or so for it to really bear out?
MCKINNON: Well, it has to be substantial, and it rarely is. And I can't remember the last time I saw a margin this wide. And by the way, the other thing that's just, this is just an obvious simple fact is that -- you know, voting in presidential elections is much higher than a midterm.
[16:30:06]
So, but even the casual voters vote in presidential elections. So midterm elections are, you know, not regular voters. So enthusiasm is key. And again, there's a huge enthusiasm gap in the polling between people who are excited to go out to vote for Democrats or not excited to go out for Republicans. So, I look at that generic polling number as significant.
URBAN: I would just say again, a caution, look at the numbers, look at the poll, pull it up, 49 to 39 is what the sampling is, 49 percent Democrats, we sampled the 39 percent Republicans, which mirrors that number.
HUNT: Which mirrors that number.
URBAN: So if we're, you know, if you're talking to, maybe it's zero, maybe it's those numbers, but if you're polling way more Democrats, you are Republicans, you're going to get way more Democratic.
MCKINNON: But that's not the only poll that should --
URBAN: No, no, I understand, Mark, but I'm saying there's oversampling. This is the Republican case here throughout this election, is that Republicans are being undersampled in these races. And that, to your point, Kasie, earlier, and Harry's made this on many occasions, Republicans outkicked their coverage six to eight points in all these swing states in all these elections. And so the numbers, if they're tight, On Election Day, Republicans may win and shouldn't be surprised.
HUNT: Yeah. All right. Coming up next here in THE ARENA, while the president is focused on keeping red states red, he's also thinking about trying to bring change to a blue state. He wants to change New Mexico's name. State's Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham is here live next in THE ARENA.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They've got to clean up their elections in New Mexico. We have great love in New Mexico, but it's -- the elections are so corrupt.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: President Trump has long claimed baselessly that New Mexico's elections are rigged. This week, he proposed an unusual solution, changing the state's name from New Mexico to New America. Quote, New Mexico should immediately change its name to New America, the president wrote in a Truth Social post on Monday. Adding the quote home values and incomes would rise and quote, maybe even the crooked elections that New Mexico is known for would become honest again.
New Mexico officials from both parties immediately threw cold water on this idea, noting that the name actually predates the United States itself.
Joining me is one of those officials, the Democratic governor of New Mexico, Michelle Lujan Grisham.
Governor, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate it.
GOV. MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM (D), NEW MEXICO: Thanks for having me, Kasie.
HUNT: Is this something that the president could attempt to do himself, as we have seen him do in other ways? And what steps are you and other officials taking given the president's comments?
GRISHAM: Well, it's a joke. He cannot do it. He has no possibility of doing it. He has no authority to do it. And no one in New Mexico wants him to do it.
It is another desperate attempt to distract people from the fact that he's a failed president and he's done nothing to deliver for either New Mexicans or Americans. And way before he came up with another Sharpie idea in the middle of the night on Truth Social about renaming New Mexico, he has long claimed any place that he handily loses has corrupt elections without a shred of evidence.
And I like to point out to folks that MIT does evaluations of the integrity of states' elections and offers suggestions for improvements, and New Mexico's ranked number one in election integrity and security.
So again, this is an attempt to distract us from all of the things that he cannot deliver with the Republican Party to voters during the midterms.
HUNT: So, let's talk about what you are seeing on the ground there in these midterm elections.
LUJAN GRISHAM: Yeah. HUNT: New Mexico, of course, a blue state. But, you know, we did see
Latino voters, of which there's a substantial population in New Mexico, move toward President Trump in 2024.
What are you seeing this time around, especially in the wake of the policies that we have seen from this president's Department of Homeland Security?
LUJAN GRISHAM: Well, I want to go to both issues, and you hit on one that most folks are not talking about in the midterm elections. When he proposed in his presidential reelect that he would do mass deportation, people said that's not what he really means. I said take him at his word.
And Hispanic voters, Latino voters are not going to like this, because this impacts both U.S. citizens, mixed-status families, people who are here legally, and you've seen how dangerous and you want to talk about corruption. Let's talk about corruption at Homeland Security.
They don't want this. Americans don't want this. It's cruel and ineffective.
They are turning against that -- seven in 10 Hispanic voters, Latino voters around the country reject this immigration policy. They want bad actors and felons addressed, and they want a pathway to citizenship for everybody else. And that's smart, common sense immigration reform.
But we were losing in New Mexico too, as you pointed out some, we saw a slide with Hispanic voters and it's economic issues. If you aren't delivering on affordability, you aren't creating that opportunity.
And right post-COVID, and New Mexico, you know, was like many states where we were very cautious about COVID issues, you didn't see a robust economy until after. Now New Mexico's got one of the top economies in the country.
[16:40:02]
Here's what else we have as a blueprint for America. Free universal childcare, free universal pre-K, free healthy and scratch cooking meals in schools, free universal college, which is changing our rankings and literacy scores. We have electricity and utility price protections.
We have universal health care coverage. We subsidize you on the Affordable Care Act marketplace. And we covered people for SNAP and Medicaid reductions because this presidency, this Congress refused to do it.
We are seeing a return in Hispanic voters who want opportunity and security for their families. The American dream. That's the blueprint for democracy for the future. And I hope that this is what Democrats after the midterm are clear about delivering in America.
HUNT: So, as you outline all of that, the things that you all have done around Latino voters and big picture across the country. Latino voters and you see this in the Democratic primary, the presidential primary nominating process with New Mexico moving up to number four, there is this fight over figuring out how to win over Latino voters.
The Democratic Governors Association, which is led by Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, perhaps a 2028 hopeful himself he's come under pressure from Latino leaders to give more money specifically to Gina Hinojosa, who is running for governor of Texas.
And he has resisted doing that. What is your reaction to that? And do you think it is damaging his standing, potentially Democratic standing, with Latino voters?
LUJAN GRISHAM: So, I'm going to reject that he's not wanting to move both resources and support to Texas and other states.
HUNT: Well, Hinojosa's campaign, if you talk to advisors behind the scenes, they're frustrated with this.
LUJAN GRISHAM: And the letters -- yeah, they are. And I don't want to minimize the way in which you said that is accurate, but I don't see the DGA in that same context. The way in which you get resources to Texas is complicated, probably too much for the time I have today and moving money from other tight races.
But here's what Democrats and other campaigns have failed to do, which I described in getting New Mexico as an early pre-primary state. You cannot talk to Hispanic voters at the end of a campaign. We should be engaging Hispanic voters and minority voters at the front end.
Our old strategies, where it's all got to be on mainstream TV, and so you say, you make a calculation, look, we don't have the same amount of resources -- this is the RGA. We can't compete in Florida in the same way. We'll hurt all the other states. You can't compete in Texas.
We need to change that strategy. And I believe unequivocally that the DGA and Andy have embraced that. Spanish TV, radio, more of the door- to-door, and they have invested there and put money there.
And I'll tell you, the women governors have been pretty awesome about making sure that resources and more strategic influence is moving in to Gina Hinojosa's race.
I think this is a remarkable time to shift into a proactive mode, not a defensive mode. And you were just talking about Democrats being on sort of a defensive posture given the last presidential election. We have real opportunities. real gains, a dissatisfied electorate, an anti-Trump Republican movement, and states like New Mexico that are delivering on affordability.
We have a real opportunity, and I think the leadership that the DGA and the other big committees is clear about that. So, let's keep leaning in. I think it's an exciting time for America.
HUNT: All right. Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, thank you for joining us. I personally am looking forward to getting some green chili covering the Democratic presidential primary. That's going to be an upgrade from the past. So, thank you.
LUJAN GRISHAM: You call me, I will set you up with more chili than you will be able to get down your gullet. So I'm your --
HUNT: I can't wait.
LUJAN GRISHAM: I'm your contact.
HUNT: I can't wait, Governor. Thank you very much. We'll see you soon.
LUJAN GRISHAM: Thank you.
HUNT: All right, ahead here in THE ARENA why the president is bringing up the male body more and more at public events.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I looked at his ass. And then I looked at his legs. And I said, his ass is -- it's like a pile of muscle. Then I looked at his legs, and I said, Man, his feet are big. Then I looked at his shoulders, and I tapped him on the shoulder, and it actually hurt my hand. It was like a piece of steel.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:49:12]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I'm studying his body. I've never studied the body of a man before. It's not my thing. Nothing wrong with it, of course. Nothing.
I always proceeded by saying nothing wrong, but it's never been my thing, to be honest with you. But I looked at his ass and then I looked at his legs, And it might, I said his ass -- it's like, it's like a pile of muscle.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Your ears are not deceiving you. That was the president of the United States today. Last night, excuse me, not today, sorry, I'm a little discombobulated.
He was praising the physique of Ohio Senator Jon Husted during a campaign rally in North Carolina.
[16:50:00]
This is not the first time that President Trump has publicly gushed about the senator's appearance. In fact, remarking on the bodies of male politicians has recently become a common feature of the president's campaign speeches in the final weeks before the midterm election. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I looked at his ass and I looked at the whole -- and then I looked at his hands. Look at his hands. He's got these, like, claws. Would you give some of those votes to Andy?
I'm here to help him and to help some of your great congressmen. They're warriors. Thank you, fellas. Handsome people and a beautiful one.
I actually think Mike Collins is a good-looking man. And he's all man. He's all man.
I actually think that Rick Jackson's a very handsome, distinguished, beautiful-looking guy.
I took Ed Galrein along with me. He's so great, that guy. Central casting.
We're going to elect Jon Husted to the Senate.
I examined his ass and then I looked at his shoulders. I looked at his feet. I looked at his hand. I looked at his jawline.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Okay, my panel has returned. Just to talk about this, David Urban, would you like to take --
URBAN: Listen, my goal is my goal is for something the president describing with such, you know, such vigor and such effusiveness. Look, the president likes people who look the part, right? I remember introducing him to one of my friends who was an astronaut, right? Commander International Space Station has a crew cut. Looks like something out of Apollo 13.
He grabbed him. He said, man, you look like an astronaut. You look like you should be commanding the space station. He likes it. He loves with that part.
And Jon Husted played football is a rock solid guy. He's trying to give him a compliment, to be funny about it. I like it.
Hopefully he'll describe me in such effusive terms someday. Broad shoulders, tough, good jawline. I don't know. What else could he say, Xochitl?
HINOJOSA: Well, what would you do if you were Ken Paxton, though?
HUNT: Well, yeah, hold on. All right. You know what? The sound speaks for itself. OK, let's watch more.
URBAN: I teed that up for Xochitl. I should have done it.
HUNT: Let's watch some more, because there's more. There's so much more. Here was President Trump commenting about other men.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Arnold Palmer was all man. When he took showers with the other pros, they came out of there. They said, Oh, my God. That's unbelievable.
President of El Salvador, another friend, Nayib Bukele. You were young and handsome. Now you're older and handsome.
I wish I looked just like Jackson. He's this guy. I said, Is he a male model or what? He's a handsome guy, like a beautiful guy.
I wish Tim didn't look that good. You know, he's a very handsome guy. I don't like that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Talking there about Tim Sheehy, who's running in Montana.
Now, of course, Ken Paxton has not received such generous feedback from the president of the United States as some others who are running this cycle. Let's watch that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Ken Paxton, you might not like the way he dresses. And I say this, it's so insulting to him, but I might as well say it. You might not like the way he looks. You might not love his look.
He may not dress right, he may not talk exactly perfectly, and he may not be the best-looking guy I've ever seen.
I'm not sure if I like your look. I'm not sure if I like the way you dress. I don't like the way you talk.
Because he could be a pain in the ass sometimes, I'll be honest. Is he here, by the way? Oh, there he is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Mark McKinnon.
MCKINNON: Well, first, I think we should check to make sure that John Barron doesn't have a Grindr account.
HUNT: Remind everyone who John Barron is.
MCKINNON: John Barron was the fake P.R. guy that Trump made-up when he would call reporters and say that it was actually Trump, but he'd say this is John Barron spinning stuff for Trump.
But the other thing, David, I think your point's good. First of all, he likes people that look good. But I think part of this is -- you know, first of all, he's, you know, his political days are waning. He's going to be a lame duck here. And I think he sees himself diminishing, you know, and so he's sort of
projecting to others as he's, you know, he's got the hand problem. He's got health problems. And I think this is part of him just kind of physically --
URBAN: But he's also a TV guy, too. Remember, he's a TV guy.
(CROSSTALK)
MCKINNON: Yeah. Oh, first. But he knows that he's not, that he's kind of fading.
HUNT: Hold on, Adam, so "The Atlantic" section, my very good friend, Ashley Parker, who wrote this under the headlines the King of Queens, a pun, about President Trump on May 28th. It says here, quote, "To be clear, Trump says he is attracted only to women, and in fact has been married to three of them.
But there's also little doubt that Trump has unabashedly embraced the aesthetic, the je ne sais quoi of a certain kind of gay man.
HARRIS: You know? You know, when, as everyone said, right, the president likes a person who looks out of central casting, and that's typically his line, right?
[16:55:01]
This looks like somebody who's just out of central casting. He hosts, you know, was the sponsor of a pageant, right? This is the way that he likes to talk about people, and I guess if you're looking at this in terms of the policy, right, not ahead in policy, then we have to talk about something. And so --
HUNT: I appreciate that you got us to policy in the context of this conversation.
MCKINNON: Not if there's anything wrong.
HUNT: Unfortunately, we are out of time. So, on that illustrious note, we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HUNT: All right. Thanks to my panel. Really appreciate having all of you, especially you, the handsome David Urban.
URBAN: Thank you.
HUNT: Thanks to all of you for watching as well.
Don't go anywhere. Jake Tapper is standing by for "THE LEAD". Also handsome.
Hi, Jake. We were joking earlier.
