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State of the Union

Interview With Former U.S. Commissioner of Labor Statistics William Beach; Interview With EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin; Interview With Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO). Aired 9-10a ET

Aired August 03, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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

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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST (voice-over): Backlash. President Trump gets his trade war and clamps down on dissent, firing an aide who published a poor jobs report.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I believe the numbers were phony. I fired her.

HUNT: My next guest was appointed by Trump to that same job and calls the move dangerous. Will it undermine faith in U.S. data? Former Commissioner of Labor Statistics Bill Beach joins me.

Plus: climate reversal. The administration looks to roll back scientific consensus on climate change, as the world inches closer to the point of no return. What does it mean for our future? EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin joins me live.

And all in? Kamala Harris says she will wait and see as more Democrats test the waters ahead of 2028.

SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ): The Democratic Party needs a wakeup call.

GOV. JARED POLIS (D-CO): The American people want progress.

HUNT: Who can inspire voters? Democratic Governor and potential presidential candidate Jared Polis ahead.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HUNT: Hello. I'm Kasie Hunt in Washington, where the state of our union is getting a price check.

Buckle up, because it's hard to know what's next. President Trump is realizing a decades-long dream this weekend, imposing high tariffs on U.S. trading partners, in the hopes it will remedy trade imbalances. It seems many countries, as well as the stock market, were caught off guard by that news. Now the real test for Trump is here at home, where consumers could

soon see rising prices. And, on Friday, a warning sign for the U.S. economy. A government report showed a lower number of U.S. jobs created in recent months, a potential sign of economic slowdown.

That seemed to infuriate the president. He promptly fired the economist who released that report, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erika McEntarfer, accusing her on-TRUTH Social with no evidence of having -- quote -- "rigged" the numbers for political purposes.

The firing sparked an outcry and criticisms from both sides of the aisle, including from the man that Trump himself had previously appointed to that job, Bill Beach, who called the firing -- quote -- "totally groundless" and warned that it destroys public trust in U.S. economic data, as the president faces new questions about whether he will tell Americans the truth about the state of the economy and more.

And joining me now is the previous commissioner of labor statistics, Bill Beach. He was nominated by President Trump during his first term.

So, thanks so much for joining us today.

WILLIAM BEACH, FORMER U.S. COMMISSIONER OF LABOR STATISTICS: Great to see you. It's really great to be here. Thank you.

HUNT: Can you explain to us -- the president said that the BLS commissioner rigged these numbers.

BEACH: Yes.

HUNT: What do you think?

BEACH: There's no way for that to happen.

The commissioner doesn't do anything to collect the numbers. The commissioner doesn't see the numbers for -- until Wednesday before they're published. By the time the commissioner sees the numbers, they're all prepared. They're locked into the computer system.

The only thing the commissioner does on Wednesday is to kind of do the edits on the text. So there's no hands-on at all for the commissioner. I was commissioner, and I was sometimes locked out of the process of actually -- where the people were working in the building. So there's no way for doing that.

But what I think really upset the president on Friday were the revisions to May and June, big revisions. But that's because, like every time we publish on Friday, there are revisions to the previous two months. This is a survey. And a survey has sample returns.

People have done surveys. You answer your phone. You're...

HUNT: It's basically like a poll.

BEACH: Yes, like a poll. HUNT: OK.

BEACH: Not everybody in the country is asked the question, are you working or are you looking for work, just a handful, and businesses, about 600,000 businesses.

Well, they don't all get their returns in on time. I would like them all to come in on time, but BLS keeps the door open for two more months to get more information. So what you saw on Friday was the effect of trying to do a better job, getting more information.

And let me just end with this. Studies show that BLS is getting a -- doing a better job now than they did 20 years ago, 20 and 30 years ago, in estimating the first number. So, even though it's revised two more times -- that 73,000 will be revised two more times.

[09:05:11]

And that's -- they're more accurate now than they were 30 years ago. So, I said groundless. I don't know that there's any grounds at all for this firing. And it really hurts the statistical system. It undermines credibility in BLS.

Suppose that they get a new commissioner, and this person, male or female, are just the best people possible, right? And they do a bad number. Well, everybody's going to think, well, it's not as bad as it probably really is, because they're going to suspect political influence.

So this is damaging. This is not what we need to have.

HUNT: So, a couple of follow-ups for you. But let's start on the revisions piece. One of the things that the president posted about, he says this.

"This is the same Bureau of Labor Statistics that overstated the jobs growth in March 2004 by approximately 818,000 jobs, and then again right before the presidential election."

Now, he's talking about the overall year in that first bigger number, right? Does he have any point here when he says that, well, things looked politically better for my opponent back at the time than they actually were?

BEACH: Well, I don't think the timing is right, even if that were a good argument.

The first revisions were announced, the preliminary estimates, were announced in August. And in August, right in the middle of the campaign, the Democratic candidate was faced with much fewer job growth than expected.

I suspect the candidate, Harris, would have liked to have run on 818,000 more jobs in the economy. And then the final revision came out as 600,000. And here's another thing. We always revise -- every year, we revise the numbers. HUNT: Yes.

BEACH: When I was commissioner, we had a 500,000-job revision during President Trump's first term. And why do we do that? Because firms are created, or firms go out of business, and we don't really know that during the course of our -- of the year until we reconcile against a real, full count of all the businesses.

We do that once a year. Once we do the reconciliation, like reconciling your checkbook...

HUNT: Yes.

BEACH: ... you find out whether you have got as much money or you have less.

HUNT: So, just tell us, tell our viewers in a straightforward way.

This woman has been fired.

BEACH: Yes.

HUNT: There presumably will be someone new. Will you believe the numbers coming out of the BLS after that?

BEACH: I will, because I know the people who work there. They are some of the most loyal Americans you can imagine. They have worked in every kind of political circumstance. They are completely devoted to producing the very best gold standard data possible.

And that's why BLS is the finest statistical agency in the entire world. Its numbers are trusted all over the world. So I will trust those numbers. I do believe, though, that the president's attack on the commissioner and on the bureau is undermining that infrastructure, could undermine that trust over the long term.

So that's why I'm so kind of upset about this, and I want the president to back off on his rhetoric.

HUNT: Do you think that this post should not be a political appointment?

BEACH: Well, some of the statistical agencies are run by nonpolitical people, but everybody serves at the pleasure of the president. I think that's the way. That's my own view. That's the way it should be.

And here's why I think it should be a presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed position. Because you're able then -- I was able to sit in meetings with the secretary of labor or with the White House folks, and get a sense of, what were their priorities?

Then I would take that back to the bureau and I say, well, we need to produce more information about indigenous people. We need to produce more information about Pacific Islanders, because President Biden was very interested in that sort of thing.

HUNT: Yes.

BEACH: And he was elected. The statistical system should reflect as much as it can.

HUNT: All right.

BEACH: That's what it's all about here in Washington.

HUNT: All right, former Commissioner of the BLS Bill Beach, thank you very much for being with us.

BEACH: Thank you. My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

HUNT: Appreciate it.

All right, we have got huge news on the climate front this week. President Trump wants to roll back regulations on greenhouse gases. The EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, joins me exclusively next.

And then: After some tough economic numbers, President Trump fires the messenger. A Democratic governor and potential 2028 presidential hopeful joins me to respond ahead.

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[09:14:08]

HUNT: Welcome back to State of the Union.

It's called the Endangerment Finding. It's a landmark scientific determination that planet-warming pollution from fossil fuels endangers human health. And, since 2009, it's formed the bedrock for the EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

But that's set to all change after the Trump administration announced plans to reverse that ruling, effectively gutting the federal government's ability to combat climate change.

Joining me now is EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, who has been traveling the country in part to promote this move.

Mr. Administrator, thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate your time.

I do want to start with the fundamental question that's at the heart of all this. I mean, do you accept the overwhelming scientific consensus that these greenhouse gas emissions are the biggest drivers of manmade climate change?

[09:15:08]

LEE ZELDIN, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY ADMINISTRATOR: Well, it's great to be on with you.

First, it's worth pointing out that all eight or so images that you just posted on the screen have nothing to do with this week's announcement. What was the 2009 Endangerment Finding had to do with was with regards to mobile sources, vehicles.

This week's proposal to rescind the 2009 Endangerment Finding was with regards to mobile sources, vehicles. CNN has been using a lot of photos where they show smokestacks of stationary sources like power plants. That's not what we proposed.

Now, going back to 2009, the science that they were reviewing included both optimistic to pessimistic scenarios. To reach the 2009 Endangerment Finding, they relied on the most pessimistic views of the science. The great news is that a lot of the pessimistic views of the science in 2009 that was being assumed ended up not panning out.

Hey, that's great. We can rely on 2025 facts, as opposed to 2009 bad assumptions. The other thing too is that, at EPA, we don't just get to creatively make the law whatever we want it to be. The Supreme Court ruled in Loper Bright overturning the Chevron doctrine, in West Virginia v. EPA, Michigan v. EPA that agencies like the EPA can't just use vague language in statute and try to make it be whatever we want it to be.

The major policy doctrine also says that, when you're going to reach something like an Endangerment Finding and then have trillions of dollars of regulation, that's something that should be decided by our elected members of Congress in passing statute.

And, if you don't mind, the 2009 Endangerment Finding, while it's simply summed up now as saying carbon dioxide endangers public health and welfare, that's not what they did back in 2009. They had a lot of mental leaps. They say carbon dioxide, when mixed with a whole bunch of other well-mixed gases, in some cases, not even emitted from mobile sources, they say that that -- it contributes to global climate change.

Doesn't say causes, contributes. How much, they don't say, but it's north of zero, not much more than zero. And then they say that global climate change...

HUNT: So you're sounding pretty skeptical of this overall scientific consensus that these greenhouse gas emissions are the overwhelming manmade climate change driver.

ZELDIN: That is -- that might be your way to try to twist my words.

But what I'm saying is, is that we get our power at EPA from what the law states. And the Supreme Court in recent cases have been very clear. So what I was just describing with all the mental leaps used in the 2009 Endangerment Finding, Section 202 of the Clean Air Act doesn't allow all of these different mental leaps, as the Supreme Court made clear in recent years.

So I'm not going to get creative with the law. We're going to read the plain language. And if Section 202 of the Clean Air Act gets amended by Congress, then we will follow that new law.

HUNT: So, sir, first of all, I don't want to put words on your -- put words your mouth or twist your words or anything like that. I just was trying to clarify kind of where you were coming down on my initial question.

And I will say that you, as the Trump-appointed EPA administrator, you sound a lot different from the member of Congress. And I, of course, covered you when you were in Congress. But, back in 2016, here's what you had to say about climate change broadly. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZELDIN: Our climate is changing. We need to do more to be better stewards of the air, the land, our water. The key is to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, to become more environmentally friendly and pursue alternative energy, clean and green energy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: What's changed for you?

ZELDIN: Nothing. The climate has always been changing.

We should -- we should not be relying on all these foreign sources of energy. We should be unleashing energy dominance here in this country. We do it better for our environment than so many other countries do for theirs and for the rest of the world. It's better for our economy, our national security, and our environment.

And I will tell you, over the course of my first six months on this job, the announcement that I enjoyed putting out the most was, on the 100th day of President Trump's term in office, we released 100 environmental accomplishments that we did in those first 100 days.

We're very proud of our historic wildfire cleanup in Los Angeles. We increased water quality standards in Southeast Pennsylvania into Delaware along the Delaware River Basin. Just last week, I was in Mexico City announcing an international agreement with Mexico to advance a permanent 100 percent solution to resolve the Tijuana River raw sewage crisis that's been plaguing millions of Southern California residents for decades.

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And that is a pace that motivates us to keep up. We are very proud of all of the accomplishments. As you pointed out, I'm currently traveling around New England visiting Superfund sites that are getting cleaned up.

And EPA over the course of years and decades has been doing an amazing job as it relates to the Superfund cleanup and the Brownfield cleanup. We're advancing cooperative federalism and getting state implementation plans done. We're getting through our backlog we inherited in pesticide review and new chemical review.

There are amazing, dedicated employees at this agency all across this entire country doing important work. And we're very proud of that work. And we're going to continue to keep that pace up.

HUNT: So one way that you have defended the change you want to make in terms of the Endangerment Finding and saying that the government is not going to regulate carbon dioxide fundamentally is to say that this is going to help consumers save money, basically, pay less for their cars.

My question to you, though, is, what do you say to people who live in a state like Florida? Farmers Insurance has pulled out of Florida entirely. State Farm basically threatened too. It's getting harder and harder for people to get insurance at all, let alone pay for people that have insurance. It's so much more expensive.

How is this policy, this change that you're making going to help those people?

ZELDIN: Well, a few things.

First off, as you look at the 2009 Endangerment Finding, and I referenced that it was to combat global climate change, that was their justification, what EPA had done previously under Section 202 was to look at local and regional impacts.

The problem for EPA in 2009 was that they didn't have the science to be able to reach that justification. That's why they had to expand it to this new approach of combating global climate change. We have a first -- and I would also point out that what we put out this week is a proposal.

We're now going out to public comment. We will make a final decision after that public comment. Now, as far as the National Flood Insurance Program and congressional debates and votes, that's something for members of Congress to talk about how to fund insurance programs.

As it relates to carbon dioxide, I think it's important for people to note that there has been a greening of the planet that's been taking place. It's important to note that emissions have been down. And part of your question was also with regards to the amount of money that's being saved.

We at the Trump administration promote consumer choice. We don't believe that states and the federal government should be advancing any form of an electric vehicle mandate. This proposal on top of a proposal to rescind the 2009 Endangerment Finding is a proposal to rescind the greenhouse gas emissions on vehicles that followed, light, medium, and heavy-duty, and the off-cycle credits like the incentives for the hated start-stop feature and other aspects that we have heard from Americans from across this country.

So there's a lot that goes into it. We're going through a public comment period. We want to make the right decision afterwards.

HUNT: So...

ZELDIN: But for people who want to sum up the 2009 Endangerment Finding as if they studied carbon dioxide as an endangerment on human health, they did not do that.

(CROSSTALK) HUNT: I want to bring us back here, though, to the present day, because a lot's changed since 2009.

Do you think the federal government should have a role in trying to combat climate change?

ZELDIN: It's a great question. And I'm at the EPA and running an agency.

The Supreme Court made it very clear that I have to follow the law. I have to follow the plain language of the law, and I can't get creative. So, when you read through the 2009 Endangerment Finding, they say that, where there's silence in the law, there's gaps, that I should just be interpreting that as my own discretion.

The Supreme Court has made it very clear that that is not what is a problem that I have. This decision is a decision for Congress to make. If they want to amend Section 202 of the Clean Air Act and say, hey, EPA, we want you to regulate the heck...

HUNT: But, sir, with all due respect, power -- a power that you have is to rewrite a regulation. You are taking an action. You could just leave it alone.

ZELDIN: The power -- no, the power comes from the law. I don't get to just make up the law just because a predecessor decided to fill in vague language in the law, to do many mental leaps to try to justify an electric vehicle mandate and trillions of dollars of regulation, to strangulate out of existence entire sectors of our energy economy.

You were posting earlier a whole bunch of photos of stationary sources. Well, the Biden administration did do a whole bunch of regulations to try to make, for example, the coal industry get regulated out of existence. There are people out there who like wind.

[09:25:12]

HUNT: Yes.

ZELDIN: I come from a state where the governor says that New York is a substitute for baseload power. It's not. In order to make America the A.I. capital of the world...

HUNT: Right.

ZELDIN: ... in order to unleash energy dominance, to protect the jobs, to bring down energy costs, we are not going to regulate out of existence entire sectors of our economy, and we are not going to interpret law in whichever vague, creative way allows us to give ourselves maximum power.

HUNT: All right.

ZELDIN: The power comes from the law and from Congress, not from our own creativity. HUNT: All right, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, I'm grateful to have

you on the show today, sir. Thanks very much for spending some time with us.

ZELDIN: Thank you.

HUNT: All right, my next guest says his state will still meet its climate goals, despite what you just heard. How will they do that?

Colorado Governor Jared Polis on that and the brewing political debate inside the Democratic Party -- up next.

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[09:30:29]

HUNT: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION. I'm Kasie Hunt.

As Democrats try to figure out their way out of the wilderness, a handful of governors see themselves as best positioned to lead their party forward. They are also on the front lines of a new struggle inside the party over how and when to oppose President Trump.

Joining us now is Democratic Governor of Colorado Jared Polis.

Governor, thank you very much for being here.

You just heard, of course, us speak with the EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, proposing rolling back these regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. How will this impact your state?

POLIS: Well, look, what's called for in these times -- and we're seeing the impact of climate change, by the way, in Colorado, the three largest fires in the history of our state all this last decade, across the country, increased hail, weather event damage. It costs homeowners money and endangers lives. So that's clear.

You really need an all-of-government approach. Rather than trying to use legal language to squirm out of taking action on climate, we should be looking at what each agency can do to improve climate and reduce our emissions. Like, what can we do, for instance, on transportation?

Our Department of Transportation is looking at transit. How can we reduce traffic, reduce emissions? When you look at housing, how do you make sure that people can have affordable housing near job centers, on transit lines, rather than further out, where the only option to get to work is a single-occupancy vehicle?

Of course, air quality, Department of Health. So we really should be asking ourselves these questions in everything we do. How can we reduce emissions, live more sustainably, cleaner air, do our part on climate to reduce some of these costly impacts that we're all feeling?

HUNT: One, of course, other major area where the Trump administration is changing the lives of Americans is with tariffs. We're seeing this regime go into effect after months of delay. And

there is -- there are some signs that many of the warnings economists had about it haven't come to pass. There is revenue coming in. There are manufacturers who have committed to building factories in the U.S.

Do you see any upside to President Trump's tariff strategy?

POLIS: Well, there's certainly no upside. I mean, I do still hear some Pollyannish conservative economists that think that what Trump is doing is negotiating to get better tariffs rates, get them down to zero.

That's the opposite of what we're seeing. With Europe, we have historically had a tariff rate of 2 percent to 3 percent. This new deal is 15 percent, five times higher than it's ever been, Americans paying 15 percent more for many products on the shelf, and, of course, discouraging manufacturing from even setting up in the United States.

I'm hearing from manufacturing companies that want to establish and invest overseas to avoid our tariffs on the parts and materials they need to make their products. So there's no upside.

There is uncertainty. Obviously, we can all hope that President Trump is actually playing some master game to get to zero tariffs. But he seems to like tariffs for the sake of tariffs. They're a tax. They're a regressive tax. They hurt our economy.

HUNT: Again, on this big picture question of how and where Democrats should push back against President Trump, and if there are areas where he should -- his policies should be embraced, you in some ways have broken with others in your party when you posted about RFK Jr. being tapped to lead the Health and Human Services Department.

And since he's taken over that job, he replaced the entire CDC vaccine advisory committee. Considering how you felt about him initially, do you feel the same way now?

POLIS: Well, to be clear, I have always said I don't agree with him talking about vaccinations in ways that are not true and in many ways could be dangerous, discouraging people from getting vaccinations.

Of course, if he's talking about the dangers of processed foods and sugar, trying to ban Red No. 5 dye, reduce consumption of soda, candy, I'm all for that. I mean, anybody should. It's fact-based. The American people have higher obesity rates than almost any nation. We need to reduce chronic disease.

So I think, with any part of what the president is doing, if they do something right -- I mean, even a stopped clock is right twice a day -- by all means, let's jump on it, support it, and make it happen. At the same time, that actually gives you more credibility to oppose the devastating things that this administration is doing.

HUNT: So, big picture here, we have been talking a lot about how Democrats find their way back, right?

[09:35:06]

And the reality is, right now, the party is more -- much more unpopular than it was at this point in the first Trump term, right? There were big Democratic gains in the midterm elections in the first Trump term, but the party was relatively popular. It's not right now.

What is your diagnosis for that? What's different now? Why are voters unhappy with you?

POLIS: Well, I'd say two things.

Ultimately, the goal of any political party, hopefully ours, is to win. That means getting to 51 percent. I hope 55, 58 percent gives you a little cushion. That means that you have to provide an outlet for people's frustrations from across the ideological spectrum, right?

The Democrats need votes from everybody from never-Trump conservative Republicans to disaffected socialists, to moderates, to progressives, to liberals. They're all part of the Democratic coalition if we're going to win with 55, 58 percent.

And, at the end of the day, what most Americans want to see is a vision for making life better. And that's where Democrats can bring people together. How do we reduce costs? How do we improve the quality of life, make health care more affordable, improve the air quality that we breathe, strengthen our economy, get rid of these costly tariffs that are already costing people as they're shopping for back- to-school items hundreds of dollars for their kids on top of what they'd otherwise have to pay?

These are simple, commonsense solutions that make a difference in the lives of everyday Americans. And I think Democrats can get to 55, 58 percent if we stick to those basics.

HUNT: So one of your fellow Democrats, Kamala Harris, who, of course, was the party's nominee for president in the end in the most recent election, she just announced she's not going to run for governor of California, which leaves the door open for her to potentially run for president again.

Considering what you have laid out about what Democrats need to do, is Kamala Harris the right person to be the Democratic standard-bearer in 2028?

POLIS: Well, it's about the message and what they run on, right? I haven't talked to Kamala about what her plans are.

I think what we need is the ability to make sure that we can build that coalition of 55, 58 percent, win, win decisively, turn our back on this divisive Trumpian era of politics and move forward with an era of prosperity and opportunity for the American people.

And I think it's great that many people will hopefully run to be able to audition to see who has that voice and who's able to get that done and win and, of course, govern effectively to improve our quality of life. HUNT: I'm tempted to ask if that's you, sir.

POLIS: It's not something I have looked at. I'm focused on governing.

(LAUGHTER)

POLIS: That's my job. I have another year-and-a-half as governor of Colorado. We're going to do everything we can to make life even better here.

HUNT: Fair enough.

Governor, thank you very much for time today. I really appreciate it.

POLIS: Thank you.

HUNT: All right.

An influential political voice says Democrats need a change agent to shake things up, and you will never guess the name he's floating. Our panel's next.

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[09:42:25]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Recently, I made the decision that I just -- for now, I don't want to go back in the system. I think it's broken. For now, I don't want to go back in the system. I want to travel the country. I want to listen to people. I want to talk with people. And I don't want it to be transactional, where I'm asking for their vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris sitting down this week for her first interview since losing the 2024 presidential election and shortly after she ruled out running for governor of California.

So what is her plan for the future?

Our panel is here.

Thank you all for being here.

Kate Bedingfield, let me start with you. The system, she kept saying, I mean, it almost sounded like prison or something.

(LAUGHTER)

HUNT: What do you make of how she has gone about handling this? Yes.

KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.

Well, she's tapping into something that people across the country are feeling, which is that the system, perhaps for lack of a better word, but institutions, people don't feel like they have their back. So she is -- you can see her kind of trying to tap into that.

It's not abnormal for somebody as they're thinking about potentially running in a few years to go on a listening tour, travel around the country. This is kind of the standard playbook, actually.

I think the thing is, for Democrats in 2028, the challenge is, it's both simple and incredibly difficult. They have to have a message that will get votes for people who did not vote for Kamala Harris in 2024. And can Kamala Harris be the messenger for that? Maybe. I'm not ruling it out. I think it's going to be a wide-open primary. I think that's actually good for the party.

But, fundamentally, the task is, can we win back voters who did not turn out for Kamala Harris in 2024? Can we put forward a message that resonates with those voters? Can she do that? I don't know. To be seen?

HUNT: Faiz, you have been something of an outsider, part of the party, but also worked for Bernie Sanders, kind of the progressive wing of things.

How do you diagnose the problem? I mean, how would you say Democrats need to move forward?

FAIZ SHAKIR, FOUNDER, MORE PERFECT UNION: Well, it's a great opportunity for anyone who wants to jump in.

And if you're looking ahead to 2028, if you're looking at the small- dollar fund-raising, by the way, AOC is leading it. Ro Khanna is leading it. You have got Pete Buttigieg doing fine. Cory Booker is doing fine. So there's a lot of voices right now who are gathering support, right, Chris Murphy.

So I'm hopeful that new voices will emerge, quite frankly. If she wants to run, I wish her the best of luck, but I'd like some new people to jump in. And if you're going to jump in, I hope that you will come with something to say.

Like, I think Democrats are hurting right now from a brand of saying, if I gave you power, Kasie, what would you do with it? And you hear from -- we struggle with it with Harris. We struggle with a lot of other people. They're not clear about what you would do. What problems would you solve with the authorities that would be vested in you to change the circumstances in America?

[09:45:12]

And until we solve that problem, right now, Democrats, quite frankly, are not campaigning on an agenda of doing five or six things to change America. They're saying out, we're the non-Trump party. And that's been the struggle about 10 years now for the Democratic Party. You got to be more than just the non-Trump party.

You got to say, these are five things I really want to do in the next election cycle.

HUNT: Brad Todd, you make a living electing Republicans over Democrats.

What would be your biggest nightmare in terms of a Democratic nominee?

BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I mean, first off, I'd love to have Kamala Harris back.

I think that if she gets through the stages of denial or stages of grief that she's in and thinking the system is the problem, instead of her and her ideology, maybe we can get her back.

I think, first off, a Democrat I would fear is a Democrat that reconciled where they're on immigration and cultural issues. They have gone too far. A Bill Clinton approach to culture, Bill Clinton era Democrat approach to culture, married up with some more populist things on economics, that'd be pretty hard to beat.

HUNT: Jonah?

JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, look, I think Kamala Harris is the answer to a question, like, nobody's asking.

(LAUGHTER)

HUNT: That's a sharp way to put it.

GOLDBERG: And she has -- she has good poll numbers in part because she has very high name I.D.

But, beyond that, for some of the reasons that Kate was saying, I don't how she's a solution to anything. I think her career had been -- basically been sort of sputtered out, and then Biden resuscitated it by picking her as vice president.

I agree with Brad. The -- a Rahm Emanuel type, I don't think it -- I'm not sure about Rahm Emanuel himself, but someone who could get through the progressive gauntlet, the -- I think would be the kind of thing that Republicans would hate to run against. I think Republicans would very much like to run against an AOC or Kamala Harris.

I just -- and I'm not saying an AOC or Kamala Harris wouldn't necessarily beat J.D. Vance or anything like that.

HUNT: Yes.

GOLDBERG: But they know how to run against them because of the vibe shift and the move of the center of gravity on cultural issues.

HUNT: So, of course, one of the big questions here -- and Donald Trump has driven this for the last decade -- is, are people really looking for people outside that system that Harris was talking about? Is it someone who is a celebrity? Is it some totally different profile? In that vein, here was Charlamagne tha God talking about who he wants to run for president. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: I would love to see Jon Stewart run in 2028.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh.

CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: If we're talking about like a change agent coming from the outside...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Interesting.

CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: ... that's really going to shake things up and somebody that I feel like can speak to all people, he'd be somebody I'd like to see really get in the race and disrupt things in 2028.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well...

CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: Maybe a Jon Stewart-Colbert ticket, because Colbert is not going to have a job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(LAUGHTER)

HUNT: Jon Stewart for president?

BEDINGFIELD: I'm not sure that Jon Stewart solves the problem that I was just talking about a minute ago, which is, does he reach, does he touch, does he connect with an audience of people who didn't already vote for Kamala Harris in 2024?

He's obviously a significant figure for people who love Comedy Central, for people who love "The Daily Show," who live in Washington, who live in New York. He has been a powerful advocate for veterans.

HUNT: Burn pit victims, yes.

BEDINGFIELD: For burn pit victims. I mean, he has done great work. I'm not diminishing Jon Stewart.

HUNT: Of course.

BEDINGFIELD: But I think the reality of the idea of Jon Stewart himself as the solution for the Democratic Party, I'm not sure I see that.

Now, the idea of somebody who comes from outside of politics, who brings experience that feels relevant to blue-collar voters who have walked away from the Democratic Party over the last 10 years, absolutely. I don't -- I don't know that that's a cable news host.

SHAKIR: Huge opportunity for labor leaders, faith leaders, business leaders right now.

HUNT: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

SHAKIR: I mean, people -- there's an anger towards the political system and those who've worked within it. And it's going to be hard for a lot of people to escape it, quite frankly.

And so I do think that the notions of Jon Stewart, what he would bring would be, I'm sure, excitement, small-dollar fund-raising. You would have to clear the bar on, do you know what to do with authority, the point I was raising before? Like, OK, you have got HHS under your command. You have got USTR under -- your trade representative. What are you going to do with authority?

I think people are going to be hungry after Trump, when he's decimated so much of government function. The next Democratic president is going to have to say, I'm coming in to reconstruct government and I know how to do it.

TODD: There's going to be a big move among Democrats to say, our problem is we don't have someone who's charismatic enough or celebrity enough. That's not their problem.

Their problem is, the ideology has drifted too far to the left. And it's going to take more than Jon Stewart to fix it.

HUNT: Would a celebrity type, though, help mitigate that ideological potential challenge?

GOLDBERG: Yes, look, I mean, look, I agree, as a policy wonk, about Brad's point about being on the wrong side of things.

I think celebrity helps a lot. A lot of us in 2016 would say, oh, Trump is -- can't last forever. Law of political gravity is going to kick in. And it took a lot of us a long time to realize Trump was not subject to the laws of political gravity. He's subject to the laws of celebrity gravity. And celebrity gravity works very, very, very differently.

[09:50:00]

A Tom Hanks, an Oprah Winfrey or one of those kinds of people I think would also not be fit to be president of the United States, much like I don't think Donald Trump is fit to be president of the United States. But I think they could overcome a lot of these sort of -- the things that we like to debate in the green room kind of questions.

HUNT: Yes, fair enough. All right.

So, this story next: Will they or won't they? Texas Democrats face a decision. Will they take the nuclear option to head off a political earthquake?

Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:55:08]

HUNT: Republicans in Texas are pushing ahead this weekend with their plan to redraw the state's congressional maps to try to preserve President Trump's House majority.

How will Democrats react? So they could try to flee the state to deny Republicans the quorum they need to pass their map. But that plan faces hurdles, possible fines and even arrest. And then, if Texas succeeds in changing its map, Democrats in states like California, New Jersey and Illinois will also have to decide, should they do the same thing?

It's something to watch in the hours ahead, as Texas gears up for a vote any time now.

Thank you so much for spending your Sunday morning with us. Don't go anywhere. "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS" starts next.