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State of the Union

Interview With U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin; Interview With Stephen A. Smith. Aired 9-10a ET

Aired June 14, 2026 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:00:37]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST (voice-over): Goals, from the World Cup to the fight on the White House lawn. What are the security challenges facing a Homeland Security Department already handling massive ICE operations and the run-up to the midterm elections?

MARKWAYNE MULLIN, U.S. HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: We're not going to fail on the mission.

HUNT: Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin joins me ahead.

Plus: knockout. As President Trump celebrates his 80th birthday with a cage match, he's picking a fight with one of sports's most recognizable voices with growing political clout.

STEPHEN A. SMITH, ESPN ANALYST: I will be happy to show up against President Trump.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You need a high I.Q.

HUNT: Has Trump met his match? Stephen A. Smith joins me ahead.

And in the balance. Are Iran and the U.S. ready to end the war? Plus, Elon Musk becomes the world's first trillionaire. Should that be celebrated?

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): People are just hanging on by their fingernails.

HUNT: Our panel weighs in ahead.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HUNT: Hello. I'm Kasie Hunt in Washington, where the state of our union is watching sports, as we wait to see whether the U.S. and Iran have come to an agreement to end the war and move on to negotiations on key sticking points. From the World Cup, to the Knicks' NBA title, to tonight's Ultimate Fighting Championship on the grounds of the White House, Americans seem to be looking for a little escapism. Perhaps it's no surprise that President Trump wanted a piece of it too.

Tonight, he's hosting a bloody, brutal spectacle of men fighting in a Giant metal cage on the White House lawn, all in celebration of his 80th birthday.

My next guest is helping oversee security for tonight and for the president's big July 4 events, while also managing a sprawling agency that touches immigration enforcement, airports, cyber, and election security.

Joining me now, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

Mr. Secretary, thanks very much for spending some time with us this morning.

MARKWAYNE MULLIN, U.S. HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Absolutely. Thanks for having me on.

HUNT: I want to talk about the World Cup and security there, but, first, there may be some breaking news with Iran this morning, this memorandum of understanding set to potentially be signed. It does include potential economic concessions to the Iranians in the event that they agree to some of our other terms.

Are you at all concerned that those economic concessions could contribute to a heightened, more difficult security environment here in the United States?

MULLIN: I wouldn't call it concessions.

The president has made it very clear what he wants to do is tie the entire Middle East into the Abraham Accords. We understand that economic ties keeps countries from fighting among each other. When your economy is tied together, you're less likely to destroy your economy because of your dislike for someone's religion.

And so the president has made a very good deal here, if the Iranian regime, and I say if, will accept it. The problem is, the Iranian regime is a regime you can't trust. They have a tremendous amount of rhetoric public-facing. Behind the scenes, they seem to try to be a little bit more cordial, if you can say that.

But the truth is, no one could have this deal that's going to bring peace to the Middle East and hopefully to the world unless President Trump was the one leading it.

HUNT: But you're confident they wouldn't use that money to try to attack the United States?

MULLIN: Well, we're not talking about using the money. We're talking about tying their economy, allowing them to build their economy with the entire Middle East. HUNT: Republican

MULLIN: The Abraham Accords is the link to bringing peace to the Middle East.

You can see how effective it's been with UAE and in Israel. You can see where they have had maybe not the accords signed, but where they have had economic ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel and how it's brought down the temperature with Jordan and Israel, Egypt and Israel.

If we're able to bring in other countries to it, we believe the economy is the only thing that can bring in peace to that region.

HUNT: Let's talk about what you have been doing in your role as homeland security secretary. You have got the pin on for the World Cup. You...

MULLIN: Yes.

I would have never thought I'd be wearing a World Cup pin because I'm not really what you consider a soccer fan. My first game to was the L.A. kickoff for FIFA in the United States. And, wow, it was exciting.

HUNT: We are hosting the World Cup. It is a massive security undertaking.

MULLIN: Yes.

HUNT: Are we prepared for that? Are there specific threats against the World Cup?

[09:05:05]

MULLIN: There's not specific threats. There's a threat because of the amount of people coming in.

We have five to seven million visitors that's going to be here over the next 30 -- it would be 35 days now. So there is always a threat of that. Are we safe? Yes, we're going to have a safe and one of the best World Cups in the history of this event.

The truth is, though, with the Democrats defunding ICE and CBP for 115 days and DHS for 76 days, it made it tough. Our MOUs that we had with our local law enforcement, the reimbursement was behind. So they had a tremendous amount of expenses coming out because we can't do this without our local partnerships.

The amount of security that brings in with this is unending, from the teams coming in to secure their base camp to the host cities. We have, keep in mind, 78 Super Bowls in 38 days throughout the United States and 11 different host cities. Today, we're in Dallas, Houston, Philadelphia, and Monterrey, Mexico.

Each one of those had to be treated like a Super Bowl. Each one of those will have a bigger audience than the Super Bowl. And DHS has the lead in security. We feel very confident on our posture in each one of these places, but it is -- it put us at a disadvantage because of the Democrats playing games with it.

HUNT: It sounds like you would be ready to blame Democrats if something went wrong?

MULLIN: No, I'm not blaming Democrats. I'm just saying the truth is we were unfunded for 76 days, and ICE and CBP, which CBP is leading five of these facilities, we were shut down for 115 days.

When we are shut down, even though our men and women at Department of Homeland Security, which I have the greatest privilege in the world to lead, are willing to do their job for free, that's great. The problem is that our local law enforcement that we have to partner with, that we have to give grants to, they weren't able to be reimbursed.

Now, all of them can handle that, but they were willing to work too. We're playing catch-up on getting the funding out. We're ready, but I feel positive that we could have been even in a better position if we weren't having to deal with the gamesmanship of the Democrat Party through this whole political theater of keeping the Department of Homeland shut down.

HUNT: I want to ask you about airports here in the United States, because there have been suggestions, you have made suggestions that airports in states that don't cooperate with federal authorities on immigration policy could face having planes that come into their international airports rerouted elsewhere because of customs officials.

You, of course, oversee customs officials. The transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, said that we shouldn't shut down air travel in a state that doesn't agree with our politics. What do you say to him?

MULLIN: Well, Sean and I are really good friends. And his question and the way that we're answering is two different things, because Sean and I are very much in agreement with this.

What this comes all about is that you deal with what's been happening up in New Jersey, deal with what's happening in Seattle. When we call for local law enforcement to come in and help, which, mind you, we can protect our local facility. We're not in charge of the city and state streets.

When we have protesters that are closing down the streets, not allowing our employees to have access to the facilities, attacking our employees when they're leaving, damaging their personal vehicles, that's not federal. That's state. That is their responsibility once they get off the federal property.

And we have individuals like the mayor or the governor of the state saying, hey, we don't have the resources to respond. Well, I'm going to have to get the resources. And the most logical way for me to get the resources is to go to the CBP, which is our Custom Border Protection at the airport because they're trained to deal with large crowds.

I will go get the resources if they don't. As long as they're cooperating with us and responding when we need actual law enforcement to respond and don't give us this story that they don't have the resources, then we won't have to worry about this.

But if we have to get the resources to keep my employees and plus the detainees safe coming in and out of the facility, then we will go get them and the most logical place to get them is the airport.

HUNT: And you think those customs officials that are used to dealing with nonviolent, non-kinetic situations inside airports are the best people?

MULLIN: Every one of them are trained to deal with crowds and every one of them are trained to deal in unfortunate violent situations if they have to.

But we're talking about crowd control. We're talking about pushing these rioters, not protesters. We're talking about pushing these rioters away from the employees. They're law enforcement. Every one of these CBP officers are law enforcement. And they know how to do their job and they're willing to do their job.

This won't even be an issue though, Kasie, if the mayor and the state will simply do their job and not play politics with enforcing the law. We're not doing anything but enforcing our nation's laws. They can also enforce their own city and state laws too.

[09:10:04]

HUNT: On the upcoming midterm elections, of course, the Department of Homeland Security has historically played an important role in protecting our elections.

The president recently signed an executive order to build a state-by- state citizenship list of eligible voters. What is your department, what is DHS going to do with voter information?

MULLIN: Well, we're going to make sure that our Constitution is upheld, meaning that only citizens of the United States are voting. That's the most important thing we can do to protect the integrity of our election, our federal election cycle. It's the most important thing we can do for America.

It's what saves America, which is why the SAVE Act is so vitally important. What we want to make sure is that every vote actually counts, that we're not having games like you might see in sanctuary cities. I'm not saying they are. I'm just saying, but why wouldn't we want to make sure that it's safe?

People say that we're -- I mean, the Democrats always want to throw out the Constitution all the time. Well, great, let's throw out the Constitution. It's very clear that -- I mean not throw it out, but throw it out as an argument.

But -- sorry. I'm glad you had that look on your face.

HUNT: That did make me raise an eyebrow, yes. MULLIN: No, I know. I know. I meant throw out the Constitution as an

excuse, is say that if we're going to actually live up to the Constitution, which is what we all swore to uphold, then one thing that is vital that we can't argue about is the only people that should be voting in federal elections are the true American citizens.

That is clear. And so what we're -- what the president is doing and what we're wanting to do is make sure that those individuals are the ones that are the only ones voting.

HUNT: I mean, The Heritage Foundation has documented a total of 25 instances of prosecution for voter fraud where citizenship was an issue, just 25. I mean, has this ever actually affected an American election?

MULLIN: Well, 25 is 25 too many. It's kind of like one illegal death, one individual that dies from the hands of an illegal is one too many. It's all preventable. One person voting illegally is one too many.

We shouldn't have to worry about even one. What we're saying is, let's have the most secure and most trusted elections in American history coming up in the midterms.

(CROSSTALK)

HUNT: But you agree it's not -- it doesn't happen very much?

MULLIN: No, I'm not saying it doesn't happen very much or not. We have looked at -- we -- I mean, if you start looking and scrubbing at some of these rolls, we see thousands of individuals that are registered to vote that has had mail-out ballots to them that are passed away.

We see incidences where we're having 20, 30 ballots being mailed to the same address.

HUNT: But those people who have passed away, they may have received a ballot. That doesn't mean that they're able to send it back.

MULLIN: Well, it doesn't mean that it's not being used either. We're saying we're going to make sure.

HUNT: Are you explicitly trying to curtail mail-in voting?

MULLIN: No. No, what we're saying is make sure that they're legally able to vote. That's it.

If you're illegally able to vote, we want you to vote and we want to make sure you can trust it. We do this in Oklahoma. My wife and I voted just actually yesterday. We flew back to Oklahoma just to be able to vote in our -- in our primary coming up. And we walked in there. Everybody knows me.

We go in and I still have to show my I.D. She has to show her I.D. You know what? Perfect. I'm glad they had to make sure that we're registered to vote. Wonderful. What is wrong with that? Nothing's wrong with that. That is saying that we have a secure election.

And all of us, regardless of Republican or Democrat, we should all agree that we want to have a very secure election and only American citizens, regardless of your party, but only American citizens are voting in our federal elections.

HUNT: Briefly, at your hearing recently, you didn't rule out sending ICE agents to the polls in the midterms. Are you willing to rule out sending ICE agents to the polls?

MULLIN: No, what I said is that we would only be there if a threat is arised. But...

HUNT: So you're not ruling it out?

MULLIN: No, keep in mind, why would ICE be there? Because the only people who should be voting there is American citizens. There shouldn't be any immigration enforcement. So this should be a mute deal for any Democrat.

HUNT: So why would there be a circumstance where you would need ICE agents?

(CROSSTALK)

MULLIN: Keep in mind, ICE agents are there to flex if we need to. So you saw ICE at TSA lines, not processing, but in the soft areas.

If a threat were to arise, for whatever reason, at a polling station, say a bomb threat would be called in, our ICE agents are more than just immigration And custom enforcement. They're also trained to have SRT, which means that we can have an emergency team respond quickly.

The only reason why we would be there is not for voter identification.

HUNT: Yes.

MULLIN: It'd be because The law enforcement is needed, and the local law enforcement would be part of that conversation. So we wouldn't show up on our own. We would be getting asked to show up...

HUNT: All right.

MULLIN: ... but not for immigration purposes, because, as I said, the only people that should be in line are American citizens. So there should be no reason to have any type of that.

HUNT: I don't want to cut you off, but we're out of time.

MULLIN: That's fine.

HUNT: And I do want to ask, are you going to the fight tonight rain or shine?

MULLIN: I am.

HUNT: Yes?

MULLIN: Well, it's because -- yes, rain or shine, but it's my wife and I's also 29th anniversary. So it's the only date we're going to have.

HUNT: Happy anniversary.

MULLIN: Thank you.

HUNT: Is it all going to go well? I mean, could you imagine fighting outside?

MULLIN: I have one time, and I swore I'd never do it again.

(LAUGHTER)

HUNT: OK.

MULLIN: It's tough, and much less the humidity in Washington, D.C., Can you imagine how bad it's going to be? They got -- they got things set up.

[09:15:00]

HUNT: Dana White is very worried about the gnats, the bugs.

MULLIN: Yes. Well, when you're getting hit in the face, the last thing you worry about is a bug. It doesn't matter.

(LAUGHTER)

HUNT: Fair enough, sir.

Secretary Markwayne Mullin, sir, thanks very much for spending some time for spending some time with us.

MULLIN: Thank you. Appreciate it.

HUNT: He's a widely popular cultural figure with crossover appeal who really seems to want to be president. Sound familiar? Stephen A. Smith joins me as he feuds with President Trump next.

And then: Is America entering a new Gilded Age? Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUNT: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.

My next guest, Stephen A. Smith, has known Donald Trump for years, and this week he picked a fight with the president. Now, I do want to send my congratulations to Stephen A. on his big Knicks win last night. We spoke ahead of that victory.

[09:20:03]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) HUNT: And joining me now is the host of "Straight Shooter With Stephen A." on YouTube and SiriusXM, among other things, Stephen A. Smith.

Sir, I'm so grateful to have you on the show today. Thank you so much for joining us.

SMITH: Thank you for having me.

HUNT: And I really was interested to talk to you about this really highly anticipated UFC Freedom 250 event that is planned at the White House.

I think my question to you is, why do you think the president's doing it? Is it a good look?

SMITH: Well, it's not a matter of it being a good look where he's concerned. I'm quite sure he thinks anything that he does has a good look to it.

But he's also personal friends with Dana White, the president of the UFC. And it goes back decades. I know Dana White very well. He's a friend of mine. I've known him for many, many years. And the president has as well.

And the president was one of the original individuals who invested in Dana White, showed a lot of faith in him. And now he's turned the UFC into a multibillion-dollar conglomerate. So, because that's the reality, it's one of those situations where he's in the White -- he's back -- Donald Trump is back in the White House right now.

The relationship with Dana White has remained rock-solid. Nothing political about that, because Dana White doesn't really involve himself in that stuff. He's all about his business in the UFC. But he is a personal friend of Donald Trump's who feels incredibly indebted to Donald Trump because of the level of faith and -- that Donald Trump has exhibited in him throughout the years.

And Donald Trump being in the White House, constantly synonymous with sports, which is a true thing, whether it be basketball, football, pursuing football ownership in years past and things of that nature, hosting boxing events and fighting events at his casinos and stuff like that, this is not foreign territory for the president of the United States.

He's done things like this throughout his career as a business mogul. This is the latest venture, as far as he's concerned.

HUNT: So you talked to Dana White about why it was that Trump liked it so much.

SMITH: Yes.

HUNT: I want to play a little bit of that exchange and we will talk about it. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA WHITE, PRESIDENT, ULTIMATE FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIP: There has to be those days where you wake up and you're just like, what am I doing? Am I doing the right thing and all this?

And I think that every time if he ever felt that way, he would come to a UFC event and he would walk out of that tunnel. And I'm telling you, in all the years that I have been in the fight business, the entertainment -- I have never seen anything like it.

You walk into something like that and it recharges you and realize, you know what? The whole world doesn't hate me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Is that why the president's doing it?

SMITH: That probably has something to do with it.

I mean, if he's going to get booed incessantly and people are not welcoming him, then he's not inclined to frequently be associated with it. But that is clearly not the case with the UFC. Dana White loves him, and then not only that. Several of the fighters, you see them paying homage to him at every turn, including Jon "Bones" Jones, who is one of the, if not the elite fighter in UFC history.

And so you see a lot of stuff like that going on, and Dana White is absolutely right. When he goes to -- when Donald Trump goes through a UFC event, he receives far more love than I have seen him receive anywhere else he has been in the sporting world. Absolutely true.

HUNT: Certainly, he did not receive that kind of love when he attended the Knicks game, which you have gotten into an extended back and forth with the president about, to the point that the president has now called you low-I.Q. in the wake of that.

SMITH: Yes.

HUNT: Why is that the label he threw at you?

SMITH: Because his vocabulary is limited when it comes to insults that he chooses to throw out at people, and that's assuming he wrote it himself, as opposed to having somebody write it for him. I mean, that's his default position it appears to be.

I'm certainly not challenging his intellect or saying that it's limited for no reason. I'm saying that's all he ever says. He's called Hakeem Jeffries low I.Q. He's called Representative Jasmine Crockett and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, along with a bevy of other politicians on the right, whether it's Rand Paul, whether it's Thom Tillis, or anybody else.

This is what he has done by habit, followers or people that have supported him in the past, the Megyn Kellys of the world, the Tucker Carlsons of the world. This is what he does. And so I'm in deep company when it comes to that, because I'm not the first. I'm not going to be the last that he's -- whose I.Q. he has challenged.

It definitely crosses racial lines, because he says it about black folks a lot, but he also says it about a lot of white folks that don't support him. He seems to be anti-anything that's not really, really pro-Trump. That's who he is. And so that's his default position. That's what he's going to say.

And there are certain things that you can take seriously coming out of his mouth and there are certain things that you can shove aside. I could shove it aside, particularly on this particular subject, because I was talking about the New York Knicks.

[09:25:04]

I wasn't talking about his policies. I wasn't talking about his politics. I wasn't talking about the wars in Ukraine and Russia or the war with Iran or the inflation seems like it's inching up on us, the economy, gas prices, oil prices. I wasn't talking about all of those things.

I'm a die-hard New York Knick fan. I'm a native New Yorker, born in the Bronx, raised in Queens, New York. So was he, raised in Queens, New York. He's also a lifelong New York Knick fan.

And I thought him showing up to game three or the NBA Finals, knowing how congested New York City is, 8.5 million people, with the fervor and the momentum and the rabid following it has, outside of Madison Square Garden with thousands of people who couldn't afford to get inside, were looking forward to enjoying themselves and having a party of a lifetime, I felt that him injecting himself into that mix was selfish.

I thought it was narcissistic. I thought it was thoughtless. And I said so. And it's days later and I'm not backing up one bit. He showed up, they lost. He compromised the mojo. He didn't show up for game four. They won. You do it. You decide what that's about. It is what it is.

So he could say what he wants. He could feel what he wants. He's entitled. He certainly takes his amount of insults. So he's more than entitled to dish it out. And I certainly can take it.

But I meant what I said. I really, really felt that he compromised the momentum of the New York Knicks. And that played a role in why they lost. And I made it very, very clear that, if the New York Knicks had lost this game and they end up losing this series, I was going to blame him. That is how I felt for the last few days.

HUNT: Fair enough.

One thing that you had also said to the president is that he was sleeping. You said that he was sleeping at the game. And then I was watching what you had to say further after he posted on TRUTH Social about you, and you noted that he is 80 years old.

Do you think that he is still sharp enough to hold the job that he has based on these events?

SMITH: Well, I don't know anybody that would associate the word sharp with him, because he doesn't seem that sharp with some of the decisions that he makes sometimes, to be quite honest with you.

But I'm not here to denigrate or insult the president of the United States in that regard. He is certainly an upgrade from what we were seeing from Joe Biden in terms of his alertness and what have you. I certainly would say that. I would not accuse him of that. But I'm not going to insult the president.

What I would say, however, is that he showed up to a Knick game, and he was caught on camera. This isn't me saying it. You saw it on camera. He was caught napping, OK? And the owner of the New York Knicks, James Dolan, was sitting right next to him and he didn't look awake either.

And so that's it. Just pointing it out. It is what it is. But he is the president. He's got a lot on his plate. He certainly gets up early enough in the morning and he certainly has time to post tweets on his TRUTH Social platform. He's always in front of the camera.

I'm certainly not going to denigrate or insult him in that way by questioning his intellect. I'm in no position to do that. But when he wants to sit up there and question my I.Q. and talk to me about people that would smoke me in a debate, well, why don't you do it yourself? Why defer to anybody else?

Because I'd be more than happy to sit across from the president and debate some of the decisions that he's made. And I'm not interested in running or anything like that. I like my job. I like my money. And I'm not giving it up to campaign for higher office, where most people in politics are trying to get where I'm at, monetarily, that is.

But I would certainly say that, if you really, really want to be serious about questioning somebody's I.Q., put me at the same table as you and we could have a discussion in front of the masses about some decisions that you have made on behalf, supposedly, of the American people.

And we will see where my I.Q. lands then.

HUNT: I have heard you say repeatedly that you don't want to give up what you have got to campaign for the presidency.

My question for you is, if somebody were to offer you a slot on the ticket as their vice president, which only requires potentially a half -- months...

SMITH: Never. Never.

HUNT: Never? No?

SMITH: Never. I'm not interested in being no vice president. I'm not interested in being number two.

HUNT: I thought that might be the case. But I thought I would ask.

SMITH: I'm not interested. I'm not interested. I'm not. I'm not interested in being the head of the Senate just to break a tie or to give speeches. No.

If I were to do something like that, it would be for the big -- for the big job. It would be for the presidency of the United States of America or nothing. I'm not trying to be number two at anything I do.

HUNT: OK. But you're saying you have fully ruled out trying to be number one, fully and totally?

SMITH: Yes, because they were -- because according to FCC rules, you have to give up your job in order to be on the debate stage because of equal time rules.

HUNT: Yes.

SMITH: So, because of that, by virtue of what I do for a living, I couldn't do that.

But if there was a way where I could be on the debate stage and still go back and do "First Take" in the morning and still do my SiriusXM shows and stuff like that, I would not hesitate to do it, especially if it were up against him, without question. I would not hesitate, even though I wouldn't be running as a Republican.

[09:30:11]

I would be running as a Democrat, because I think the Democratic Party is in shambles right now, because I think it's leaned too far left. And I think that it needs to come a bit closer to the center, so we can come across as a bit more sensible.

So I would definitely run as a Democrat. But the opportunity to be on a debate stage against Donald Trump, I would not love anything more. If he wants to challenge my I.Q., that's cool. That makes me laugh. I would love to be on a debate stage against him. I'd love to sit across from him and simply have an interview and a conversation about some of the decisions that he's made and the reasons behind it.

And I'd actually give him an opportunity to talk. I wouldn't even debate him. And I would -- and it would still be riveting, because guess what? You know what? There's a lot of questions that you need to answer. And beating up on reporters and insulting them and calling them all kinds of names and fraudulent and all of this other stuff, that might work with some people. It wouldn't work with me.

HUNT: All right, Stephen A. Smith, a true pleasure to have you on the show. Hope to talk to you again soon.

SMITH: Thank you. You take care of yourself.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HUNT: The president turns 80 years old today. My panel joins me next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:35:36]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WHITE: I'm sick and tired of hearing about the weather. We are fighting on Sunday night on the White House lawn, no matter what.

JOE ROGAN, HOST, "THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE": I think, if they canceled it and moved it indoors, it'd be better for everybody. I don't like it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: My panel joins me now on, of course, the president's 80th birthday.

We are set for fight night tonight. Markwayne Mullin was on with us earlier, said he never wanted to fight outside again, but that he was not worried about the bugs if someone was trying to punch you in the face.

So, Scott Jennings, this is quite a celebration for the president's 80th birthday. There are, of course, some critics of this. What do you say to them?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Critics? People are criticizing something Donald Trump decided to do? Wow, this is breaking news.

Look, it's the president's birthday. It's Flag Day. And we're, of course, celebrating America's 250th birthday. And I think it's a pretty cool spectacle. And to have one of the biggest rising sports entertainment industries in the world be part of it, for American culture, it's a pretty neat thing.

I don't -- and all week long, I have been listening to Democrats criticize a Reflecting Pool. They're criticizing having this UFC fight. I mean, virtually anything we're doing to do something cool in Washington, D.C., Democrats are against it, because I guess they want to live in misery. But this is fun and we should have fun.

JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't want to live in misery. And I don't really begrudge -- I don't begrudge the president for throwing a party.

You win the White House, you get to throw a party at the White House. That's fine. Now, we have some questions about how they're raising the money or spending the money and that kind of stuff. And people should sort all that out.

My question is about the president's priorities. It's not about the parties he throws. It's about the priorities he has. And I think the American people are paying attention to that, when they have got 4.1 percent inflation and gas prices are up.

Median household income in Detroit, where I'm from, is less than $40,000. Yet, in the Trump family, they made $2.3 billion off of crypto, which they're going to be advertising at the UFC fight. So I think that is much more a big deal than the party that he throws.

HUNT: And there's a new pull out from NBC that shows the president's approval is at 42 percent. You can see here this tracking it over time.

He is down considerably since he came to Washington.

BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think the politics is a big part of this.

UFC's audience is 68 percent male and most of it's under age 54. It just so happens that men under age 54 or under age 50 are a key target demographic for Republicans in this election. Trump won men by a dozen or so against Kamala Harris, but he only won young men by about one.

And they tend to vote infrequently in midterm elections. So Democrats can mock this all they want, but the UFC audience is the audience that the president needs to reach for Republicans.

XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I agree that you can love UFC and you can watch today's fight, although you can't watch it for free, which is interesting, given the fact that we're celebrating America's 250th.

But I think you can -- I mean, to Jamal's point, I do also think that you can still have worries about the cost of gas and the fact that the cost of the grocery stores aren't going down. And the thing that is happening also with men is that men are feeling it too.

And you would actually have a higher approval rating for the president of the United States and actually for Republicans in some of these states if they would just focus on costs. You brought the Reflecting Pool up, all of these issues.

I have yet to see the president deliver a speech on message on the economy. There have been speeches on the economy that have not been about the economy. And so I think that the -- what the White House really needs to focus on and I think Susie Wiles wanted him out there across the country ahead of the midterm elections, but not if he's going to just ignore the economy.

And he needs to learn a little bit from the Biden administration, where he did not talk enough about people's -- what they felt and the struggles that they were feeling. And he needs to talk more about how he's going to deliver for the American people on the economy.

HUNT: It does seem that there is a lot of focus right now on his legacy.

I mean, we just saw they had to take his name off the Kennedy Center in the last day or two. He had put it up there. You obviously have all of these events for his birthday. I mean, Scott Jennings, he turns 80 today. Trump, Bush, Clinton all born in the summer of 1946.

JENNINGS: Yes.

HUNT: I mean, could the country use some new blood?

JENNINGS: Well, I mean, we're going to get some in 2028. There's going to be a presidential election and there will be a new candidate. Well, there will be a new candidate for Republicans.

[09:40:03]

I think they're going to nominate Kamala Harris again. So we will see what happens. But a second...

HUNT: Well, she at least was not born in the summer of 1946.

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

TODD: Sold. Sold. Let's have her as the nominee.

JENNINGS: Well, she's no spring chicken either.

So, look, of course, the second term president is worried about his legacy. This Kennedy Center business Friday night, I couldn't help but laugh. You can't get the federal government on the phone on a Friday. And yet somehow they got the scaffolding up at 10:00 on a Friday night.

And Democrats and people like Jim Acosta were out there like live blogging. This was a -- he spent all weekend trying to take nuclear weapons away from Iran. And they spent the weekend scraping his name off a building. If you want to talk about priorities, those -- that display was ridiculous.

HUNT: And somehow it still was the dark of night. The camera shot was not there when they actually took the name down.

(CROSSTALK)

HUNT: All right, everybody, stick around.

Elon Musk just became the world's first trillionaire, so, of course, a sign of American ingenuity, but are we also experiencing American decline?

That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:45:26]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) WARREN: Elon Musk is officially the world's first trillionaire. Think about that. We're living in a time when more and more people are just hanging on by their fingernails to survive in this economy. And Elon Musk has more money and more wealth than anyone in human history.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Absolutely eye-popping amount of money, the world's first trillionaire.

The question that I keep coming back to is whether we in America are experiencing a second Gilded Age. The first one, of course, caused ultimately backlash that gave us the 40-hour workweek and a lot of our labor laws.

You are seeing on many sides of the aisle the divide between someone like Elon Musk, who has a trillion dollars, versus half of Americans who don't have $1,000 to patch a hole if their car hits a pot hole and they got to take it to the shop.

What is the political ramification of this? I mean, I -- covering Bernie Sanders' campaign, Sochi, he would rail against the millionaires and the billionaires, and now I guess he's going to have to add the trillionaires to the lineup, trillionaire, singular.

HINOJOSA: That's right.

And our country is for innovation and success. I think where the big question is, is our economy working when we have just produced a trillionaire, but that there are 330 million people who are not there and falling further and further behind and with wages being stagnant?

And I think that is the big question. The other one is one of access. Elon Musk is someone who gives money to politicians, et cetera. Now you have someone that has even more access and more power to influence American policies because of the money that he has.

And I think that is what's extremely scary right now, is now he can give money to influence our election and also the policies that Congress put in place. And I think that is going to be a big problem in the next few years.

JENNINGS: So I love this Elizabeth Warren video.

So you have a multi-millionaire sitting in the back of a limo screeching about someone who has just a little bit more money. It's a joke.

HUNT: A little bit more money?

(CROSSTALK)

HUNT: A lot more money.

(CROSSTALK)

SIMMONS: I take your point, but not a little bit.

(CROSSTALK)

JENNINGS: You believe that he has a trillion physical dollars?

HINOJOSA: His net worth is -- obviously.

(CROSSTALK)

HUNT: It is not liquid. That is correct, Scott. It's not liquid.

JENNINGS: And why is it not? Because he's building a company that employs thousands of people. And several thousand of them themselves have become millionaires.

TODD: You know what perplexes me about Elon Musk is, most liberals in America care about -- they say, about climate change more than almost anything.

Before Elon Musk introduced the Model S in Tesla of 2012, there had been 17,000 electric cars sold in a country of 300 million people. He literally invented the American electric car industry, as accepted by the customers.

He saved the space program. Most Democrats say they love science. It's crazy to me that he's become the whipping boy, when he has single- handedly accomplished so many things that Democrats...

(CROSSTALK)

HINOJOSA: I'm from Brownsville, Texas, where SpaceX is. He has trashed our beach and our community. And the city of Brownsville, Texas, I am telling you.

(CROSSTALK)

JENNINGS: We couldn't get a rocket in the air until SpaceX.

(CROSSTALK)

JENNINGS: He rescued the astronauts.

HINOJOSA: But I'm telling you, they are not picking up the materials at a beach where is -- that most people, lower income -- it is one of the poorest cities in the country.

And now they can't go and enjoy their beaches, because you know what he's doing? He is trashing them. So don't give me this about climate change or anything else when a city like Brownsville, Texas, is hurting.

SIMMONS: Yes. I'm not mad at anybody who makes money. This is America. People want to make money.

What I'm mad about is people who don't get to make money, right? There are so many people in America... (CROSSTALK)

HINOJOSA: But that's what I mean. It's like gas.

HUNT: Great for Elon Musk sending rockets to space, right? The American dream, fine.

SIMMONS: Yes.

HUNT: But the difference between where and how these people live versus the way most Americans are currently experiencing life is very different.

SIMMONS: Yes. And I think most Americans -- many of them celebrate Elon Musk making money. So they thought that was a very big deal.

But, again, where I'm from in Detroit, Michigan, $40,000 household median income, that's not enough to really raise a family on. Women who are trying to raise money, 2 percent of women founders are the ones who get to raise money in the capital markets. Among black women, 0.34 percent of black women are raising money.

Donald Trump made more money in crypto last year than all black founders combined raised for their companies. That is the kind of thing I think we've got to change in this country so that everybody gets to participate in this great American renaissance that you guys keep talking about.

JENNINGS: What does Elon have to do with any of that? Are you saying because Elon Musk exists and is a wild success that that is somehow to the detriment of all the people you're mentioning?

[09:50:03]

Elon is creating an environment where entrepreneurship, where success, where building is celebrated. The only reason anybody's mad about this, let's just be honest, is because he supported Donald Trump for president.

If Elon Musk had never gotten involved in politics, had never supported Trump, he'd be getting ticker tape parades right now for building this amazing company and sending rockets into space. It's all political. And the people who should love Elon Musk are the ones who hate him, for that reason alone.

HINOJOSA: But do you agree that one person should have control of American policy? That's what influence is. That's what money does.

JENNINGS: He doesn't.

TODD: He doesn't.

HINOJOSA: He still -- he does.

TODD: He invests in races and loses. He's like anybody else who donates money, like Reid Hoffman, like George Soros. (CROSSTALK)

HINOJOSA: It's all about access to the United States.

(CROSSTALK)

JENNINGS: So you're mad that he supported a candidate who won.

HINOJOSA: No, I'm just telling you, it's all about access. And it's not about just Donald Trump. It is about there are races all across the country where he has access on policy, like in Texas, like in Texas.

(CROSSTALK)

JENNINGS: Yes. Call me when you're mad about Alex Soros. Call me when you're mad about Soros.

HUNT: All right, we clearly could go on for a while, but we're out of time.

(LAUGHTER)

HUNT: Coming up next: a big city with a big dream. Reliving a truly amazing basketball series. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:55:43]

HUNT: As we wrap up this morning, some congratulations are in order, because the Knicks have done it.

After an epic comeback against the Spurs last night, the Knicks once again are NBA champions, Finals MVP Jalen Brunson leading New York to victory in game five and sending New Yorkers cascading into a state of sheer joy. It is the Knicks' third NBA title, but, of course, it's their first since 1973.

Thanks for spending your Sunday morning with us.

"FAREED ZAKARIA GPS" starts next.