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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt

Final Hours Of Voting In Key Elections In Florida & Wisconsin; WaPo: Waltz & Staff Used Personal Gmail For Government Business; Now: Senator Booker's Marathon Anti-Trump Speech Tops 21 Hours; GOP Rebels Tank Johnson's Effort Aimed At Killing Proxy Voting. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired April 01, 2025 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:00]

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WAYNE WHITE, MAIL CARRIER: Go away.

Once I got out, they came after me. You saw me defend with the boxes and whatnot. And then when I got to the step, it's like, okay, here we are. We've got to get back, make a run for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And the turkeys just wouldn't give up. They followed him as he made several more stops along his route. Maybe he had a package they needed, I don't know.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We'll see how tough they are on Thanksgiving.

KEILAR: Yeah.

THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT starts right now.

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KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: It's the people versus the money and the power.

Let's head into THE ARENA.

Right now, the final hours of the first electoral test of Trump 2.0. Polls set to close in just a few hours in Florida and Wisconsin. New reporting this hour on how Democrats and Republicans are feeling.

Also this hour, the TikTok to tariffs, Wall Street falling into the red as -- as the president speeds up the timeline for sweeping tariffs ahead of his announcement 24 hours from now.

Plus, the senator's speech. Cory Booker entering the 21st hour of talking on the Senate floor, slamming President Trump and his agenda. This hour, his fellow Democrat, Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, will be here live in THE ARENA.

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HUNT: Hi, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. Welcome to THE ARENA. It's wonderful to have you with us on this election day Tuesday.

As we go into the air, voters are voting in Florida, Florida and Wisconsin, the first electoral test of the second Trump term. The first chances for voters to teach us something about how the country feels about all the things Donald Trump and Elon Musk have done so far.

Tonight, two Florida House seats in deep-red districts decided by special elections and a state Supreme Court seat in Wisconsin is also up for grabs.

Let's start in Florida, where the top headline in the "Pensacola News Journal", quote, Democratic turnout on the rise. This is Matt Gaetz's old house seat.

Now, no one expects the Democrat to come close to winning there tonight. No Democrats won there in over 30 years. And sometimes, they don't even field a candidate. But the six plus million dollars that Democrats have raised this time has raised some eyebrows.

And farther south, well, it's not Pensacola, but let's just say the home of the Daytona 500 is nobody's idea of a battleground. That's how Jonathan Martin put it today in "Politico". But it is turning into a fight for Republicans this time. And yes, it is partly a problem with the candidate that the Republicans have fielded in this race. In the final days, top advisers to President Trump have had to personally intervene, telling Republican Randy Fine to, quote, get himself together. Except they weren't so family-friendly about it.

Today, that candidate telling CNN how he's going to read tonight's outcome.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDY FINE (R), U.S. HOUSE CANDIDATE (FL-6): What it will show is intensity of anger on the Democrats compared to Republicans feeling like everything's fine because Trump and Elon are in charge.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Catch that? Trump and Elon are in charge. That has become the heart of the matter. That is who and what is on the ballot tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JON STEWART, HOST, "THE DAILY SHOW": You can really get a sense of the fraying of our democracy by tracing the arc of its symbolic headwear. It's still a tri corner, but it's not the same.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Not the same.

Elon Musk is at the very center of these races tonight, and not just because of how voters feel about what he has been doing here in Washington. No. The so-called first buddy has made himself the de facto face of these campaigns. He was handing out million dollar checks to petition signers in the Wisconsin state Supreme Court election, even as Democrats are spending millions of dollars on ads likening him to a hatchet man. I guess its chainsaw man, because they know that voters do not like him. Bureaucracy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELON MUSK, TECH BILLIONAIRE: We're trying to stop the Democrats from gerrymandering Wisconsin to remove two House seats. That's what this whole Supreme Court justice case is about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Musk and his money now much more than just a meme. Recent polling shows that Musk has as much name recognition as some of the biggest celebrities in the world. Only about 3 percent of Americans say that they haven't heard of him.

And for the 97 percent that have, let's just say everyone has an opinion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Does Mr. Musk have an effect on your vote?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: As Jonathan Martin writes, quote, Musk has turbocharged the backlash to Trump and accelerated the revival of demoralized Democrats and independents appalled by the billionaire's cavalier attempt to slash the federal government. If they don't push the White House to cut Musk loose, Republicans are tempting a replay of 2017 and 2018.

[16:05:02]

So, what happened then? 2017 was right after Trump was elected, the first time Republicans barely won races to replace Mike Pompeo in Kansas and Tom Price in Georgia. Deep red places that had voted overwhelmingly for Trump just months earlier. Republicans then went on to lose the House. And of course, in 2020, Trump lost the White House.

So, what will happen tonight and what will we learn from it?

My panel is here, but first we want to get to our correspondents on the ground in Florida and Wisconsin.

I want to start with CNN's Omar Jimenez. He is live at a polling location in Wisconsin.

So, Omar, Elon Musk and allies, more than $20 million poured into this Wisconsin Supreme Court race. What impact is that having? What are voters telling you about this?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. So, what I've heard from voters to this point, it's been a little bit of a mixed bag. I think the bottom line that I heard from basically everyone we spoke to is that they wanted this election to be over. And by that, they wanted to be done with the ads. They wanted to be done with all the outside visitors and everyone coming in to sort of gin up hype as part of this race. They were ready for that to be over, especially coming so quickly after the November 2024 election.

Now, to give you an idea, we're in Elm Grove, Wisconsin. So, this -- this particular polling location voting is in the lower level. We're at essentially the public library here.

And what's interesting is this is a suburb of Milwaukee in a county that Trump has carried significantly and pretty consistently for years. But in this particular area, this is an area that Kamala Harris carried just by the slightest of margins this past election.

So, when we asked some of these voters what they think of Elon Musk and his involvement. Take a listen to what they told us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Maybe he should be taking care of his own business instead of everybody else's.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You get used to it -- used to it for -- after 50 years of participating in this stuff, Elon is giving $100 bills to people, I guess. I mean, he won't come here because this is a strong Republican. But how much is Gorge Soros given? How much is it Koch brothers? I don't really care about it. You know, he's a national hero.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: Now. He was talking about the space-led mission to bring back some of those astronauts and to point out, while Soros and people like Governor J.B. Pritzker, for example, out of Illinois, have donated a lot of money to this race as well, it has not been to the same degree that we've seen from Elon and Elon Musk-associated entities. Bottom line, though, I think people were excited to let their voices be heard on the other side of what they've been drowned with ads and so many things of that nature, even since the November 2024 election leading up to this one.

HUNT: Yeah, the tightest swing state in all of America.

Omar Jimenez, thanks very much for that report. Really appreciate it.

Let's go now to our Steve Contorno. He's been following the special election in Florida's sixth congressional district. Of course, that seat previously held by now national security adviser Mike Waltz in the news for other things that we will get to a little bit later on in the show.

But, Steve, it's great to have you here. And I know you've been talking to voters as well. Give us a sense, you know, how does this race feel to you on the ground? What are you hearing from them? STEVE CONTORNO, CNN REPORTER: Well, Elon Musk is quite a polarizing

figure here as well, Kasie. And you would think in a state that has so many seniors, so many veterans, so many military families, that what he is doing at DOGE would be resonating with a lot of voters here. But what we found is that if you are a conservative and a Republican, you're very happy with what Elon is doing. If you are a Democrat, it's one of the reasons why you are showing up to vote in this special election.

Take a listen to what a few of them said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP

CONTORNO: Does Mr. Musk have an effect on your vote?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I -- yes. And I -- when I have called my senators, I have said that I -- that it makes me extremely angry that we have an unappointed, unelected person going in and making. And these aren't smart cuts with a chainsaw, instead of a scalpel.

CONTORNO: And as far as what Donald Trump is doing so far, what Elon Musk is doing, what are your thoughts on the direction the country is going in?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All on board, all this horrible waste? This is our taxpayer money. They're just throwing away.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CONTORNO: Now, I'm standing right now in front of the Full Moon Saloon, where the Democrat in this congressional district will be holding his watch party tonight. His name is Josh Weil, and he sent shockwaves through the party from Florida all the way to Washington by announcing that he had raised $10 million for this race, causing Republicans quite a bit of panic.

Now, they have been encouraged so far today by the turnout and the voting so far, and Democrats are just looking for a narrowing of the margin here. Although when I talked to Weil yesterday, he said he's not in it for any moral victories. He wants to go to Washington -- Kasie.

HUNT: All right. Steve Contorno for us on the ground -- Steve, thanks very much for that.

All right. Our panel is here.

Jonathan Allen, senior national politics reporter at NBC, senior political correspondent for "The Hill", Amie Parnes, they are the authors of the new book "Fight", which is why John is here today, of course, and not elsewhere.

Also here, former Democratic Congressman Mondaire Jones and Republican strategist Matt Gorman.

Welcome to all of you. Thank you, guys, for being here. Matt Gorman, you are our resident expert on these special elections,

having to work on several of these, these house races in difficult situations. What are you looking for tonight? What do you think is going to -- what can we learn from the results that are going to tell us the most about the state of the country?

MATT GORMAN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: I mean, obviously, there's some surprise results right now. I think conventional wisdom has hardened into a way, as you kind of said at the opening, where the Florida seats are going to be Republicans and Republicans, and by the end of the night tonight.

I'm watching the margin. But even the expectation on that have grown and differed in recent days. It was -- this could be a tossup, it could be single digits. And now there seems to be double digit territory where people are kind of predicting. I think that's a pretty safe bet, and in terms of the Waltz seat, is what I'm talking about.

The Wisconsin special -- the Wisconsin Supreme Court, I really don't know where that's going to go. I've only seen one poll with Schimel, who's the Republican or de facto Republican candidate, tied in that race. The rest have shown Crawford, the de facto Democrat ahead. So, I think maybe we're trending -- that might be trending away from us, but we'll see how that goes.

But in terms of this special election is not predictive. But they're pain points, they're stressful. They cause a lot of resources, suck up a lot of money. And, you know, I think at the end of the day, they get a lot of outsized media attention as we see right now.

HUNT: Yeah. So, Mondaire Jones, let's talk about Elon Musk for a second, because he, of course, you know, put himself front and center, right?

MONDAIRE JONES (D), FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: He can't help himself.

HUNT: With dancing with the cheesehead cheese hat on his head. Is that something that's helping Democrats at the end of the day or -- I mean, how do -- how does it cut that he's out there doing this?

JONES: I think -- I think it cuts horribly for the Republicans. And it's to the benefit of Democrats. You know, when you -- when you learn about Elon Musk, the average rational person is horrified by him, what he represents, and certainly what he's been doing to seniors in particular over the past several months.

I say this as someone who. Elon Musk spent more against than any other House challenger in America last cycle. I wish that people knew more about him at the time, because we certainly would have made an even bigger deal about it. Instead, he was able to purchase a congressional seat in New York's 17th congressional district.

I think -- I'm optimistic, along with many other Democrats, about the Wisconsin Supreme Court race tonight. Thats what I'm looking for, a victory there. When it comes to these special elections in Florida -- obviously, the odds are against Democrats as they would normally be, given how ruby red these congressional districts are.

It's the margins. It's the proximity to victory that's -- that's going to be really instructive, I think, for the 2026 cycle.

HUNT: Yeah. So, Jon Allen, Amie Parnes, first of all, congratulations on the book. We're going to talk more about it later on in the show.

But both of you covered the ins and outs of the Trump campaign and the Biden campaign as well for the book. And Elon Musk is, of course, a central character here. John, how do you see you know, what -- what he did during the campaign, what he's doing now. And this idea to and I was starting to pick it up as well. J-Mart captured it well, I think in his story today that Republicans here in Washington are getting a little tired of Elon Musk's act and would prefer to see him kind of exit the stage sooner rather than later.

I think they may be dreaming if they think that that's actually what's going to happen. But I'm curious what you think.

JONATHAN ALLEN, SENIOR NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER, NBC: Well, so look, I think there's a trajectory here, certainly a at least a line, which is Elon Musk spent about a quarter of a billion dollars to try to elect Donald Trump president, by far the most money I've ever seen by an individual in a presidential election. And now you see him $100 million in a Wisconsin state Supreme Court race. I mean, it's just -- it's mind boggling what's going on here.

And I think that -- I think that there's going to be a question about whether voters get upset that if they feel like they're being bought, or that their votes should be able to be bought. But as far as the members of Congress and getting tired of him and others getting tired of him, I don't think he's going anywhere anytime soon. He is the world's greatest heat shield for Donald J. Trump right now, for the president. Until that changes, or until President Trump sees his own numbers coming down as a result of Elon Musk, I think Musk will -- will stick around for a while.

AMIE PARNES, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, THE HILL: That's when it changes I think. I think when -- when Trump does see that, you know, up until now, as John said, he's been this guy who has kind of, you know, done a lot of what Trump wants him to do. But I think once he starts to tank and the headlines start to get bad, you know, Trump really cares about this kind of thing. He loves the image of things.

So, when he starts to become problematic, he's gone, I think. But sources tell me inside the White House, they're good right now. So he's not going anywhere.

HUNT: But it's going to have to get really bad to give up those billions and billions of dollars for sure.

[16:15:01]

And I will just leave we're going to wrap up this conversation, but it is worth noting, "The Times" reported part of why Elon Musk might be so interested in this. The conservative -- if the Wisconsin Supreme Court were to be controlled by conservatives, they could issue a decision that is friendly to Elon Musk's Tesla. There is a lawsuit pending around his electric car company.

They write, quote, Mr. Musk began to show interest in the Wisconsin court election eight days after Tesla filed the lawsuit in January. There it is. Yeah. So, you know, take that for what you will.

All right. Coming up next here, breaking news coming in from "The Washington Post". They have new details on the national security advisor Mike Waltz and his use of Gmail for official government communications. Hmm.

Plus, an embarrassing defeat for House Speaker Mike Johnson. But you know what? A victory for moms and dads everywhere. Nine of his own members voted against him in a standoff over proxy voting. We'll be live on Capitol Hill. We'll explain.

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HUNT: All right. Welcome back.

We have breaking news here in the arena. "The Washington Post" reporting just a little while ago that national security advisor Mike Waltz and his staff used Gmail -- I'm sure you're familiar with it -- for official government communications. According to "The Post", a senior Waltz aide used their Gmail account for, quote, highly technical conversations about a, quote, ongoing conflict. The paper also says that Waltz had potentially exploitable information sent to his Gmail.

Here's what the NSC spokesperson told "The Post". Quote, Waltz didn't and wouldn't send classified information on an open account, end quote.

But this is raising even more questions about security practices coming just a week after "The Atlantic" reported that Waltz had added their top editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, to a Signal chat about a U.S. attack plan in Yemen.

Our panel is back.

Jon Allen, "but her emails" became quite a refrain that I know you also covered quite extensively. This is clearly something that has been popping up over and over again, in our conversations here, this coming on the heels, of course, of Signalgate.

It's worth noting that it's not necessarily prohibited to send unclassified material on your as a government official, if you make sure to send it also to an email address that's going to copy it as a presidential record.

How problematic is this potentially?

ALLEN: Potentially? It's, you know, career fatal for Mike Waltz in the -- in the Trump administration. I'm not jumping to that conclusion. I do think it's hard to see if this is, in fact, true, if in fact, there's highly sensitive information, the kind of information that shouldn't be out there passed to his account without him stopping that from going on. If people who are working for him continue to have this problem, I think it's hard for him to survive.

I think that Signalgate was basically two strikes on Mike Waltz. You know, in terms of -- in terms of getting close to a strikeout, but let's see. I mean, you know, this is just broken. We need to find out more information. It may be that -- it may be that all the things in the story are true, and also they are not as bad as they sound. Or maybe that it's just as bad as it sounds.

HUNT: So are -- my colleague, Jeff Zeleny, was just pressing Karoline Leavitt recently on Mike Waltz's status. And as Jon notes here again, these details very new to us. This is "Washington Post" reporting.

But there is this question hanging over Mike Waltz's future. Watch the exchange that Jeff Zeleny had with Karoline Leavitt.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: What's the status of that review, and what is the status of national security adviser Mike Waltz?

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: As the president has made it very clear, Mike Waltz continues to be an important part of his national security team. And this case has been closed here at the White House as far as we are concerned. There have been steps made to ensure that something like that can obviously never happen again, and we're moving forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So, Amie Parnes, I mean, he has had his job, although there was also reporting that the president was very not pleased and had some choice words for Mike Waltz as well.

But point is, he's still in his job. Is this the kind of drip, drip, drip -- that can end up being a real problem?

PARNES: Exactly. I mean, we know that Trump is going to his advisers and saying, what should we do? What should we do? Do you think I should fire him? So, this is very much on his mind.

And we know that, you know, he also likes to combat the media. And he thinks that this is a media-driven story. So, it's going to be about what he wants to do in the moment right now. I think a couple of sources of mine are telling me that this could go either way. But if -- if this continues to become a problem, as we talked about earlier, image is a huge thing to Donald Trump. If he becomes a problem to him, then I think he's gone.

HUNT: What about this, this side of the table? Obviously, everything is politics these days, right? No matter. No matter what. Because I've had a lot of Republicans sit down and plausibly, you know, try to claim that they would not be calling for the head of the Democrat who did this in a Biden administration.

And like, I'm sorry, Matt, I love you guys, but I don't believe it, right? This has become extraordinarily political. But I mean, what do you think about what this means for Waltz?

GORMAN: Well, first of all, it's the must be the curse of the first competitive special election of every Trump presidency. Because if you remember the last -- the first competitive special election, a -- Kansas, it was -- wasn't really a technically competitive seat. Neither was Montana. The one was in Georgia was Tom Prices seat.

And he didn't last that long. He was the first cabinet member ousted during the first Trump presidency.

[16:25:01]

I don't think that's going to happen this time with Waltz, actually I think I think the point rings very, very true that Trump 2.0 is far less likely to give a scalp to the media, in his view, than 1.0 would have. I think the greater sin, if you look at conservative circles, the fact why is Jeffrey Goldberg even in your phone? That was what I'm seeing a lot more of conservatives kind of go after on this point.

And I think also Jon hits something to I want to understand, you know, you had a characterization by -- by the author of "The Washington Post". What does that mean? Technical conversations about an ongoing conflict. I think if emails, actual emails leak or there's some more kind of substantive explanation that could be more interesting, but that's a vague definition.

JONES: Well, it looks like the reporting says that this is information that could have been exploited by our adversaries. So, so that alone is cause for alarm. But so is the use of a private -- of a -- of a private email account to conduct government business like this.

It is all obviously even more alarming in the context of all of the resources spent to -- to criticize Hillary Clinton some years ago. Turns out, in bad faith, many of us knew it was in bad faith at the time. Unfortunately, it helped swing an election. And here we are.

This should not be about politics. This is about national security. This is about American lives abroad. This is something that Republicans, if they found themselves in the in the opposite position, would have absolutely called for the resignation of the defense secretary on down. Really, every single person in that Signal chat should resign because not a single person said, hey guys, this is really inappropriate.

I've been on a number of congressional delegations abroad. I keep my personal phone on the actual plane on the tarmac, and it's in like a little pouch because we don't want you know, any of our, including our allies, frankly, to hack into our phones as soon as you connect to the to the -- to the network. And we certainly wouldn't be conversing about this stuff in a in a commercial application like Signal, you go into a SCIF to discuss. HUNT: Yeah. And now, to be clear, we're talking about Gmail, which is

-- and, Amie Parnes, I mean, part of this is and we saw this, you know, this is part of how, you know, there were separately from her, the Hillary Clinton issue with private servers. There were also campaign hacks, right?

And John Podesta, for example, you know, his email was kind of swept up into these things. The point is that this is a commercial platform that is easier to get into, that is harder for -- than the government to figure out who got in, right to see what has gone on. And there is a distinction between classified and sensitive information.

But when they say exploitable information, right? I mean, this is what intelligence services around the world spend millions of dollars trying to do, right, figure out what Mike Waltz is talking about in his private email.

PARNES: Right, right, right, right. And we saw what happened to Hillary and how much it became a big scandal because of the drip, drip, drip. So, if we find out that he's doing more of this, I think that's when it becomes a problem. If -- if advisors around him are doing that, it becomes more of a problem. And so, they want to avoid the drip, drip, drip right now. And that's what's happening.

HUNT: All right. Coming up next here, Senator Cory Booker is still talking on the Senate floor. You may have seen him shortly after we got off the air last night. It has been 21 straight hours. He's been talking, protesting against Donald Trump.

Is he getting that message out loud and clear? His fellow senator, his wingman, really, Chris Murphy, who's been by Booker's side on the floor, will be our guest here.

Plus, stunning new details from Jonathan and Amy's book on who Biden felt had his back and who he will never forgive.

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[16:33:06]

HUNT: All right. Welcome back.

We're following breaking news. "The Washington Post" reporting the national security advisor, Mike Waltz and his staff used personal Gmail accounts to conduct government business. The paper reporting that Waltz had potentially exploitable information sent to his Gmail. Like his schedule and other work documents, and that emails show a senior Waltz aide used Gmail for conversations with colleagues at other agencies involving sensitive military positions and weapons systems.

The NSC spokesman, Brian Hughes, said he saw no evidence of Waltz using his personal email as described, and that, quote, Waltz didn't and wouldn't send classified information on an open account.

Joining us now is Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who, of course, is also here to discuss his colleague Cory Booker's ongoing speech on the floor.

I'm going to get to that in just one moment, Senator, but I just first like to start with your reaction to this reporting from "The Washington Post". Was it appropriate? Would it be appropriate for Mike Waltz to use Gmail in this way?

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): I don't know. I have actually been on the Senate floor with Senator Booker for 20 straight hours, so I haven't read these reports and don't generally comment on them without being able to look at them myself.

I mean, listen, it's not shocking. These guys are Keystone Cops. They have shown no seriousness about protecting classified information. They work for a president who has shown no seriousness about protecting classified information.

I mean, we hired a weekend anchor on Fox News with a serious history of public drunkenness and personal family abuse to be our chief national security official. So, it also should not be more broadly surprising that things aren't going well at the Department of Defense and the National Security Council.

So, it's really dangerous. The consequence most immediately to the signal scandal and perhaps these revelations about Gmail usage are that our allies are just going to stop sharing top classified information with the United States, and that ultimately could lead to Americans getting killed if we don't have access to the most sensitive data about our adversaries and enemies.

[16:35:10]

HUNT: Sir, let's turn to what you have been doing for the last 20-plus hours. We're grateful to have you. I know both of you have been up all night long. This is something that Booker did for you when you went to the floor and spoke about gun violence. Explain why now and what you think Senator Booker is accomplishing here at a time when it's been clear, it's been very difficult for Democrats to figure out how to push back against President Trump.

MURPHY: Well, you know, Senator Booker did help me in 2016 when I did a shorter filibuster 15 hours after the Pulse nightclub shooting. And that proved to be a pretty important moment. It was the sort of first moment that the anti-gun violence movement was on offense.

And I do think that a lot of progressives and a lot of opponents of President Trump have felt like the left and Democrats have been playing defense. And by commandeering the floor and sort of forcing people to pay attention to this narrative, the billionaire takeover of government, the massive cuts to Medicaid in order to finance tax cuts for the wealthy, and the corruption inside the White House, I think Senator Booker is centering the nation's attention on the story lines that matter.

And perhaps, maybe shaming some of our colleagues into thinking differently, at least about this upcoming vote that is going to be deeply, deeply politically problematic for them, which is this $880 billion cut in Medicaid in order to finance a massive tax giveaway for the wealthy.

HUNT: Senator, Senator Booker has had some really tough words for the Democratic Party as he has been on the floor. He has talked about how. Individuals, you know, other participants in the system, perhaps people that play for, you know, who are on your side politically have contributed to where we have ended up.

Do you agree with him in those criticisms that he's leveling?

MURPHY: Well, I mean, Democrats lost everything. We lost the White House. We lost the House. We lost the Senate. Democrats are unelectable in many states all across the country.

I think the only logical conclusion is that something is broken with the Democratic Party brand. Now, we still are the -- the true populist party, the party that actually has solutions that lift people up out of poverty, that restore economic mobility. We are now clearly the national security party, as President Trump abandons our role in protecting the United States, both here and abroad.

So, we have an opportunity to win back many of the seats that we lost. But I think Senator Booker is very right to point out both the thievery that is happening inside the Trump White House, the deep corruption inside the White House, but also the work that Democrats have to do to prove to people that if they put us in charge, we are actually going to clean up and reform democracy so that it's never again subject to this kind of abuse.

HUNT: The California governor, Gavin Newsom, has similarly had some tough words for the party. He's also invited people like Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk onto his podcast.

Do you think that's the right approach?

MURPHY: I mean, listen, I'm never afraid of having conversations with people I disagree with. I think you have to walk a fine line. You don't want to be appearing to legitimize or endorse some of the sort of worst, most racist, most divisive rhetoric and ideas inside MAGA and the broad right.

But, you know, part of I think what has plagued Democrats is our unwillingness to go talk to audiences that we just assume won't listen to our message. There are, frankly, a lot of folks out there who may be more socially and culturally conservative, but think the minimum wage should be way higher. They support unions. They don't like the way that corporate power has eroded people's personal economic agency and power.

So, I just think generally we need to be out there talking to more conservative audiences, because I actually think we may find some crossover support.

HUNT: All right. Senator Chris Murphy, very grateful to have you on the show today, sir. It's been a very interesting to also see you -- I saw your conversation with the New Yorker, et cetera. I really do hope you'll come back. I really appreciate your time. MURPHY: Will do.

HUNT: All right. Coming up next here, quote: You need to endorse me. Jonathan and Amie's new book revealing Kamala Harris's plea to President Biden. We'll have those details and more, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:43:55]

HUNT: All right, welcome back.

A revolt today against Speaker Johnson's leadership in the House. Nine of his Republican colleagues sided with Democrats in opposing a measure that would have allowed party leaders -- and this is what this is really about -- to block new parents in Congress from voting remotely when they have a baby at home. Some lawmakers bringing their children onto the House floor today for a vote on a measure that they say is anti-family.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. BRITTANY PETTERSEN (D-CO): I can tell you after being a mom here and being only the 13th member to have ever given birth while serving in Congress, voting member, I can tell you we have a long ways to go to make this place accessible for young families like mine. I -- when I was pregnant, I couldn't fly towards the end of my due date and I was unable to actually have my vote represented here and my constituents represented.

After giving birth, I was faced with an impossible decision. So, Sam and I made the trip out and this is our third time now coming to the floor for this vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[16:45:01]

HUNT: CNN's Manu Raju is live on Capitol Hill.

Manu, clearly, Republican leaders have to feel very strongly about this because I'm sorry, that speaks for itself. And, you know, younger members of congress are doing it differently.

This has been led by Anna Paulina Luna, who has her own story to tell. Explain what happened.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. This is a bitter feud between House Republican leaders and some of their members, and has actually led to a pretty remarkable standoff here. The House Republican leaders are so concerned about this measure, they're so dead set against it that they actually sent Republican and Democratic members of the House home for the rest of the week.

The House is in essentially in a state of paralysis, and the leaders of the House, Mike Johnson, the speaker, and Steve Scalise, the number two Republican, are both indicating they plan to fight this, and they plan to push again and try to convince some of those nine Republicans to flip their votes and ultimately try to squash this effort to change the rules, arguing in their view that it's unconstitutional.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Let me just make this clear, that rule being brought down means that we can't have any further action on the floor this week.

REP. STEVE SCALISE (R-LA): Members, ultimately, you know, have to make some decisions about are they going to delay the Trump agenda or not.

RAJU: Why don't you just drop it? I mean, just give the concede on this, but do not win on this.

SCALISE: The whole idea of proxy voting is the concern is it's not only the constitutional issues, you know, it's the fact that it's not going to end there.

RAJU: And that was my question to Steve Scalise. I said, well, why not just concede that you've lost the majority of the House votes and supports this rules change? You saw Republicans defy you, but the Republican leaders are saying they are not going to concede, Kasie. They plan to bring this up again next week in some form or fashion. Try to add different sweeteners in there, try to convince Republicans to go along, and are warning that if those Republicans don't change their mind, that the Trump agenda could be stalled.

So, this feud only escalating right now between Republican leaders and the handful of members. And the question now, Kasie, is, will those members who defied the leadership change their mind, or will they hold firm if they hold firm? How far could this go and ultimately derailing the agenda for now? Kasie?

HUNT: All right, Manu Raju for us on Capitol Hill, Manu, thanks for getting up for us on this.

Just briefly, I want to talk about their book. But, Matt Gorman, why are they doing this? I mean, you could see -- I mean the pictures tell the story, right? The old white men are saying, no, we will not make accommodations to you, younger members of our own conference who are having -- who are doing it differently or having kids while they're doing this job, like, why die on this hill?

GORMAN: One of the things I was struck by, obviously, the person behind this Anna Paulina Luna is a very staunch Trump ally. Theres a big cross section of Republicans favoring this, including Wesley Hunt, who talked about how he had to fly back and forth to Houston when his son was in the NICU, and his wife was in ICU, to vote for Kevin McCarthy repeatedly for speaker.

The people who are behind this, a lot of them are very, very passionate about this. I see the tactic that Johnson's trying to do here. I'm not sure if it's going to really wane in a week. This has been percolating for a while. It's not like this just came out of nowhere. I was surprised about this.

HUNT: I got to say, I've talked to so many of the -- and I know you were in the House with some of these guys too, but it has been really great to see even the male young members of Congress who go out of their way to say, I am going to -- I'm going to be around, I'm going to see my family. Sometimes it's a hard political decision because they want to move their family to Washington.

I personally think that that's the right call for a lot of them when your kids are really little, it's a tough call to make. We're seeing it from a lot more young members. And I think this is this is part of this.

All right. Let's get now to this. Eight days after he was forced by his party to drop out of the 2024 election, former President Biden was both thankful and furious. Thats according to a new book out today titled "Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House".

And, of course, the authors Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, report on how Biden gathered with some of his closest allies and was identifying new enemies. They write this, quote: Aboard Air Force One with some of his closest political friends, Coons, Senator Chris Coons, that's Jim Clyburn and Al Sharpton among them. Biden expressed his gratitude for their firm support during his period of turmoil.

Al, you stuck with me, Biden said. You never tried to force me out. Mr. President, I was glad to, Sharpton replied. Biden told Sharpton he'd never forget the loyalty, and then he started naming the people he would never forgive for their betrayal. The first name out of his mouth, Nancy Pelosi.

Really remarkable moment, Amie Parnes, that -- I mean, we -- we were we got a little bit of a glimpse of this. At the time. You knew that this was happening behind the scenes, but you guys really explained exactly how this played out.

PARNES: Yeah. And it's still happening. There is still a lot of friction between the two of them. I mean, she really -- she went on air on another network and basically twisted the knife.

[16:50:04]

And he and his campaign aides were just in shock. They couldn't believe she went on air and said, you need to make a decision. We're waiting for him to make a decision.

He had already made a decision, and she essentially had her fingerprints all over this. The campaign knew it, he knew it. And I don't think there are -- there's going to be any love lost.

HUNT: Jonathan Allen, talk about how -- I mean, one of the layers on top of this is, is and the reason why the betrayal was felt so deeply is because these two people had had a decades-long relationship in Washington.

ALLEN: It's such a great point you make, Kasie, and I know you haven't covered Speaker Pelosi back when she was Speaker Pelosi --

HUNT: I did.

ALLEN: -- with me on Capitol Hill. You know, you know a lot about her. And so, she and Joe Biden, they really have this commonality. I think it's fascinating.

They're born one -- a couple years apart, one on each side of the start of World War two. They grew up Catholic, not so far apart from each other in Wilmington, Delaware, and Baltimore, Maryland. They're both like sort of FDR Democrats who idolized JFK growing up.

And they both think that they played a serious role in saving the democracy from Donald Trump. That's their belief. Biden, by winning the presidency and Nancy Pelosi by going after Trump when he was president, by getting congress to certify the election in 2020, after the 2020 election, following the January 6th attack on the Capitol.

And so, they are really close in personal ways and sort of in their way of thinking until the moment when Nancy Pelosi decides that Joe Biden is not the person who is going to save democracy, but the person from whom democracy must be saved, that if he continues to run for election after that horrible debate against Donald Trump, that he is going to bring down the presidency, hand it to Trump, bring down the House, bring down the Senate. In terms of the Democratic control, they had control of the Senate, not the House, but basically give Republicans a trifecta.

This is her concern. And she -- that's her priority, party, and what she believes this country over anything else. Biden's priority was holding on to power. And when they come into that conflict, you see it, play it out over three and a half weeks. I don't think she relished it, but she was the only person with the courage among the Democrats who thought that was the right outcome to keep prodding Biden.

HUNT: So one of the other things you report on is how the dynamics with Donald Trump and his son Barron and the, quote/unquote, manosphere, right, played out, and how Barron became instrumental in convincing him, giving him you know, credibility and putting him on these podcasts. One of the things, I'm interested in now is that there the thing about some of these people is that they are not necessarily orthodox one way or the other. Republicans, Democrats, right?

So, Joe Rogan, for example, was talking on his podcast, extraordinarily popular, millions of listeners about some of these people that the president has deported to Venezuela. And, of course, there has been something of a conventional wisdom, even around tables in Washington, that, well, like the president and certainly Republicans will argue the president is doing something that average Americans are going to say, I voted for that, I want that.

But here's what Joe Rogan had to say. And it cuts against that.

Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE ROGAN, PODCASTER: You got to get scared that people who are not criminals are getting, like, lassoed up and deported and sent to, like, El Salvador prisons. That's horrific.

And that's, again, that's bad for the cause. Like the cause is let's get the gang members out. Everybody agrees, but let's not -- innocent gay hairdressers get lumped up with the gangs and then, like, how long before that guy can get out? Can we -- can we figure out how to get him out? Does everybody -- is there any plan in place to alert the authorities that they've made a horrible mistake and correct it?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: I mean, remarkable.

JONES: It is remarkable. And for what it's worth, which I think is a lot by way of undercutting conventional wisdom, I saw a poll today showing something like 70 or more percent of the American people think that there have been mistakes made in the deportation of people.

There's reporting today, or maybe it was yesterday that there were separate orders of removal against people who had no gang affiliation, who have -- have no criminality associated with them whatsoever. And this White House is just like without due process, among other things, deporting a whole bunch of people.

HUNT: All right. Coming up next here, my least favorite story today, punting on the tush push. We'll explain.

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[16:59:10]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JASON KELCE, FORMER PHILADELPHIA EAGLES PLAYER: What represents football? Physicality, toughness, will. We're going to fight for -- for half a yard. You know what's coming. We know what's coming. We're just going to bulldoze against each other like machine machines made of meat. Like I don't know what were -- it's like completely about football.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Physicality, toughness and will, elements of football that the NFL could ban in the coming weeks. I'm sorry? What?

The NFL today saying they are punting on a decision over whether to ban the so-called tush push. This is the innovative quarterback sneak play that brought my beloved Philadelphia Eagles to the Super Bowl. NFL owners decided to take a time-out and table it for now.

This is and I stress an extremely legal play. It has been largely unstoppable for the past three seasons. It has drawn ire from the Green Bay Packers and a handful of other teams, hmm. Those teams cite health and safety concerns of players.

Okay, but maybe it's just because their quarterback can't do this and squat 600 pounds, okay? Because if you can do that, it is perfectly safe, regardless. A final vote is expected in May.

Thanks to my panel.

"THE LEAD" starts right now.