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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

US Deploys Carrier, Adding To Massive Buildup In The Caribbean; White House To Deny Report That President Trump Will Name New 90,000 Square Foot Ballroom After Himself; White House Posts Derogatory Comments, Photos About Clinton, Obama, Biden On Official Website; Reagan's Daughter Patti Davis On East Wing Demolition; Trump's $300M Ballroom Just The Latest WH Construction Project; Pres. Trump Embraces AI To Post Mocking Videos; Atlantic Writer Worries AI Tools Cheapen Creative Process; Johnny's Silva's Incredible CNN Career. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired October 24, 2025 - 20:00   ET

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

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Bernie Sanders and the progressive wing are all in for Mamdani, while most other big name Democrats are hitting the campaign trail in support of a far more moderate direction.

PETE BUTTIGIEG (D) FORMER TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: Everything about her turns the GOP narrative about who Democrats are upside down.

ZELENY: Barbara Lee is among the voters we met, who is often frustrated by her fellow Democrats.

BARBARA LEE, VIRGINIA DEMOCRAT: Let me tell you about the Democrats.

ZELENY: Yes, tell me.

LEE: We just have too many people to please that's why it's so hard for us. We are being attacked from all areas, not just Republicans but from our own party. So, let's get that out of the way and go on with the next.

ZELENY: Jeff Zeleny, CNN, Charlottesville, Virginia

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Thanks for joining us. AC360 starts now.

[20:00:41]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Tonight on 360, bringing out the big guns in a major escalation, Defense Secretary Hegseth says the country's newest, biggest aircraft carrier toward Latin America while the President considers targeting what he says are cocaine facilities inside Venezuela.

Also, first, they demolished the East Wing, now, they built in sleaze to the official White House website, pictures and scandals to troll Democrats.

Later, if you thought TikTok was soul sucking for your kids, wait till you see what this new avalanche of online A.I. slop is capable of.

Good evening, thanks for joining us. We begin tonight with breaking news, which puts the country one step closer to being on war footing with Venezuela. Tonight, the aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford and its accompanying battle group are under orders to head to the Caribbean.

Now, this would add enormous fire power to a region already being patrolled by at least three destroyers, a guided missile cruiser and more than 2,500 Sailors and Marines. The Pentagon press secretary today said the strike group would be, "in support of the President's directive to dismantle transnational criminal organizations and counter narcoterrorism."

Now, this comes just hours after Secretary Hegseth revealed a 10th strike on small boats in the region. Also, the first that we know of at night. He says all six were killed aboard the vessel, which he says was being operated by a foreign terrorist organization.

This is just the latest in a string of attacks which began last month. They've now killed at least 43 people. And tonight, U.S. officials tell CNN that the President is now weighing plans to target alleged cocaine facilities and drug trafficking routes inside Venezuela, but has yet to make a decision.

He has, however, made it clear in the starkest of terms that he won't be asking Congress to sign off on it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I don't think we're going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war. I think we're just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, okay? We're going to kill them. You know, they're going to be like dead.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: It's not just a declaration of war they aren't asking for. According to conservative Republican Senator James Lankford, the administration isn't even sharing with him or other members of the Intelligence Committee any details about who they're targeting and why.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JAMES LANKFORD (D-OK): If this was happening with this level of insight under the Biden administration, I'd be apoplectic.

HOST: Yes, let's think about the President --

LANKFORD: And I would say, hey, listen, I serve on the Intelligence Committee. He serves as the senior Democrat on defense. This is typical consultation. It's not permission, but it is, hey, I want to let you know this is happening and here are the details of what's happening and here's why and what. And here's what we know. Here's what we know about each one of these incidents that has occurred in the people that are there. That's important.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Important and he's not getting that information. Sources tell CNN that some administration officials are also pushing for the ouster of Venezuela's President, Nicolas Maduro.

Now, the catch to all this, which the administration appears not to care about, is that, according to the United Nations office on drugs and crime, Venezuela is not a cocaine producing country, and a DEA report from earlier this year did not mention the country in its pages on cocaine trafficking, citing instead Ecuador, Central America and Mexico.

Now, late today, President Maduro alluded to that, accusing the United States of "... inventing a new eternal war. They promised that they would never get into a war again," he said "And they are inventing a war."

Joining us now, CNN military analyst, retired Army Major General James "Spider" Marks. So, General Marks, how big of an escalation is this in your view? What does it signal?

MAJ. GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS (RET), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Pretty significant, Anderson. We don't routinely see a carrier strike group in the Caribbean and then certainly in the on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal, just as a matter of routine, that's not where they routinely go. However, it belongs to different combatant commanders. And so, there is certainly an opportunity and the freedom to maneuver in those areas, staying outside of territorial waters.

Primarily, we haven't seen this most recently because of conflicting priorities elsewhere, certainly in the Indian Ocean, as we can imagine in the Gulf Region and certainly elsewhere in the Middle East and in Asia, you know, during the what I would call the INDOPAC preparations for potential contested areas in and around Taiwan. So, it's not unprecedented, but it's not necessarily routine.

COOPER: So aircraft carrier, you think about fighter jets. Would that -- how would they be used targeting alleged cocaine facilities?

[20:05:16]

MARKS: Well, when you look at carrier strike group and all that it comes with, you know, subsurface surface, certainly the air strike capability and all the intelligence downlinks and capabilities to have this situational awareness and immediate targetable intelligence, that array of aircraft on those carrier strike groups can go after any number of targets. I mean, the capability exists. Absolutely, the intelligence exists and the ability to combine those two very, very quickly, instantaneously is something that that commander of that carrier strike group has available to him.

But I would think those strike decisions would have to be made at the four-star level, and then it would have to be delegated down to that commander. COOPER: I mean, how sustained, I mean, if you actually want to eliminate the flow of drugs from Central and South America into the United States, it would seem to be a -- I mean, how long a sustained conflict would you actually need? I mean, there's constant anti-drug operations in many of these countries to eliminate, you know, cocaine producing sites in remote areas. Colombia has done that for decades. Obviously, there's corruption in a lot of places but this is a -- I mean, is this a winnable war, just the war on drugs in all of South and central America.

MARKS: As we were saying in the military, this ain't it. This is not the way to go about trying to arrest or at least decrease significantly the flow of drugs into the United States. This is analogous to tank plinking. The term we use often in Desert Storm, where you go after individual combatant tanks. That's great at the tactical level, but that doesn't change the decision calculus. You've got to wrap all that together.

And so, what I see this administration trying to do, and I don't speak for the administration, but I -- I think they're trying to it's like a hockey goalie. They want to get out of the net. They want to go forward. They want to put as much capability as close as they can to where they think the issue exists. And this really, in my mind, without a stretch, is kind of the latest version of containment. What we live with for almost 80 years or 70 years before the collapse of the Soviet Union is to, you know, to combat the expansion of communism.

This is the same thing, I think, where you want to get forward, you want to resist where our vulnerabilities are and our weaknesses and this clearly is a weakness for the United States.

COOPER: Yes. General Marks, appreciate your time.

Perspective now from National Security and politics analyst, Paul Rieckhoff and former Republican Congressman, retired air national guardsman Adam Kinzinger. Paul, you say this is the most important story happening right now. Why do you think that?

PAUL RIECKHOFF, NATIONAL SECURITY AND POLITICS ANALYST: I think it's the most important story in the world because Donald Trump right now can do whatever he wants with the most powerful military the world has ever seen. Nothing is stopping him.

Recently, in his administration so far, he struck Yemen. He struck Iran. He's deploying troops all across America, and he's not in consultation with anyone, no guardrails are stopping him. Congress has failed. The Democrats have failed. Republicans have failed.

COOPER: It's incredible to me that Lankford, who's, you know, as conservative as it gets and is on the Intelligence Committee that they are not even being given information about, well, who's actually in these boats? Are these boats actually carrying anything? Where is the evidence on this? How effective is this? That's incredible.

RIECKHOFF: Trump's got his pedal to the metal and he's gaining momentum and nothing in Washington or within his own party is stopping him. And I think this is more than just about whether or not he wants to kill bad guys. He owes the American people an explanation, because every time you send our troops to war or even conflict, you're putting Americas sons and daughters in jeopardy. American troops can die. American troops can be killed and maimed. And he owes an explanation to the American people and to the parents and families of those troops as to why they might die in the waters of Venezuela.

COOPER: Congressman, you know, it's no coincidence they are releasing the images of these, you know, of these strikes. It's obviously to send a message to kind of show that they are doing something. If they destroyed one of these boats every single day, would that make a dent in the flow of drugs into the United States?

ADAM KINZINGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No, and the crazy thing, Anderson, is, look, if the goal here is regime change in Venezuela, like I'm not a hundred percent opposed to that, but the President has to make the case. The fact that they're using drugs, I mean, really, the drug problem in the United States is not tied to Venezuela. There may be drugs that come from Venezuela, but if you were serious about stopping drugs, where would you go? Well, you'd go to Mexico.

But that's a very dangerous and tough thing, it is a neighbor. So, I worry here that they're striking these boats to look tough, like, just so that they can say they're tough. But I also worry that the goal -- the stated goal, would be to somehow destroy all of the cocaine manufacturing. I thought fentanyl was the big issue, by the way.

Anyway, I worry about that, and if it is regime change, again, I think most Americans, if they hear the case for it, the guy who was, you know, not elected et cetera, et cetera an important country, they may be willing to support, but hearing that the Intel Committee is not even briefed is insane to me because when I was in Congress, every strike basically that happened would at least go to the Intel Committee and, for them not keeping them up is -- it's crazy and it's actually a self-inflicted wound down there

[20:10:42]

COOPER: And, Congressman, just to be clear, the Intel Committee, I mean, you know, you can make an argument. Well, if you give this information to every member of Congress, it can leak out. I mean, the Intelligence Committee, Senator Lankford is a serious person. This is not somebody who's going to, you know, go on a podcast and reveal these secrets.

KINZINGER: Yes, so the Intel Committee is both on the House and Senate. I think the Senate is the same way, at least in the House, the Speaker and the Minority Leader handpick people. It's called a Select Committee on Intelligence. And so, they always will pick generally the most serious people in Congress, the ones they can trust not to leak, because, again, Intel Committee members, they have, like all the secrets, basically.

In many cases, they're almost as read in as the President on this stuff. So, you have to be willing to trust them, honestly. But leaks don't come from the Intel Committee.

COOPER: I mean, Paul, in your opinion, the President owes the American people, particularly military families, an explanation.

RIECKHOFF: He does. I mean, what's the goal? What's the strategy? What's the timeline? What's the budget? I think the parallel between the war on terror is a really important one, because it's really easy to start wars, and it's hard to finish them. The last time we went to war against an amorphous enemy in multiple countries, it took two decades, right? I mean, that was Afghanistan, that was Iraq, places that that Kinzinger and I fought.

COOPER: I recall, there was a war on drugs in this country for a very long time. A lot of people were arrested. A lot of people were incarcerated. You know, and the drugs continued.

RIECKHOFF: But I think it's a part of a larger strategy by Trump and by Hegseth to consolidate power and to drive things forward with The Pentagon. This is interconnected to their agenda with the National Guard on the streets to doing things potentially in other parts of the world.

And this is happening on a parallel track with the same time where they remove The Pentagon Press Corps. So there is no accountability inside The Pentagon. The press corps has been shoved out and they've replaced CNN and Fox and others with the MyPillow guy's television network, right?

That's what's happening. So, they're consolidating a propaganda machine so they can actually try to drive what is true, right? Whether or not this is necessary, whether or not its warranted, and how the American people see it. Too many people say, yes, go ahead, go blow up some bad guys. But the larger context and the larger consequences are not being fully explained to the American people. And that's maybe what's most dangerous.

COOPER: Paul Rieckhoff, good to have you, Adam Kinzinger, as well, thank you.

Coming up next, will the massive new ballroom that the President demolished, the East Wing for, will it be named after Donald J. Trump himself?

New reporting on that and the White House response.

Also, the ugly new addition to the White House made to its website, turning parts of its own history into a rose gallery trashing Democrats.

And new reporting from Tom Foreman and some badly needed perspective from historian Doris Kearns Goodwin on how the building has evolved over the years, but why this time is different.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The normal process is to treat the renovation like it is a community project, like it is not the decision of one man.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:17:58]

COOPER: Will President Trump name the 90,000 square foot ballroom after himself? If it's not a question on Polymarket already, it probably will be soon. The White House is reacting tonight to new reporting that the ballroom being built where the demolished East Wing stood for 123 years, will likely be named after him.

According to ABC News, citing senior White House officials. People inside the administration are already calling it the President Donald J. Trump ballroom and that the name, "will likely stick."

Tonight, when asked about the reporting, White House spokesman did not deny it, saying only that any announcement made on the name of the ballroom will come directly from President Trump himself, and not through anonymous and unnamed sources.

But if administration officials are being reticent for the moment about the name of what will rise from the rubble, they are loudly praising the President for what he's doing, comparing the destruction of a storied piece of American history to a city beautification project.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN MILLER, DEPUTY CHIEF-OF-STAFF FOR POLICY AND HOMELAND SECURITY ADVISER: The scandal is how Democrats and the left have scarred the landscape of our country with grotesque, so-called modern art that celebrates ugliness, that celebrates defacement. The Republican Party under President Trump celebrates beauty again and beautification again, just as President Trump has beautified Washington, D.C., scraping off the graffiti that has been all over our nation's capital, had been all over Union Station, our areas of transit and work and recreation.

Now, he's repairing finally, an area of the White House that has been left in disrepair for decades.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, even as the wrecking ball swung, the administration was busy doing renovation work on the website, which for decades now has told the story of the White House. And it's not just run of the mill tweaking they're doing, the changes hit yesterday.

If you scroll down the section titled major events timeline in the history of the White House, it starts off normally enough. Images and entries explaining the initial design, the rebuilding after the British burned it down during the war of 1812. There's the addition of the North and South Porticos. The West Wing and Oval Office all normal.

Then you hit 1998 and a photo of President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky pops up. Then 2012, and an entry titled Muslim Brotherhood Visit. The photos of President Obama but the description omits his title, calling him just Obama. He's not greeting the Muslim Brotherhood. He is not at the White House. It was not taken in 2012. The photos from 2006, from a visit to Kenya near the border with Somalia. He was dressed by his Somali host as a tribal elder. Then there's this timeline entry titled cocaine discovered.

The photo is of a strung out Hunter Biden, apparently strung out Hunter Biden in a bathtub. And though the text refers to the bag of cocaine found in a West Wing lobby, a Secret Service investigation could not determine who left it there or how it got there.

[20:20:39]

Finally, there's an entry for President Biden hosting transgendered Americans at the White House and suggesting, inaccurately, that he established a Transgender Day of Visibility to fall on every Easter Sunday, it doesn't, it's every March 31st, apparently, Easter Sunday's date changes from year to year.

The page obliquely concedes this, while suggesting otherwise by saying that it fell, "on the same day as Easter Sunday in 2024". These kinds of historical web pages typically don't call for that kind of fact checking.

One other item on the subject tonight, this is new video taken at a local D.C. golf course. Now, you might be wondering, where is all that dirt from? It turns out the dirt you're seeing being dumped is from the East Wing demolition site. First term Trump Press Secretary Sean Spicer was apparently there, hoping to find mementos in it. A construction worker apparently shooed him away.

Joining me now, former Obama White House chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel, who also worked for the Clinton and Biden administrations.

So, Rahm, people shrug a lot off these days just as trolling. When you see what the Trump administration posted on this official White House website, does it seem normal to you?

RAHM EMANUEL, CNN AS SENIOR POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: I think the inflection of your voice reflects, no, it is not normal to do this. I mean, there's a respect that is shown not only to your predecessors but to the institution that you're renting. President Trump is renting it in the same way that President Obama, President Bush are there for a period of time and you pass on the baton to somebody else. This is a typical Donald Trump. When questioned, when criticized, he goes on attack against people, and that's what he's doing here.

I do think one other thing, Anderson. I kind of would look at, you look at this story where he's unilaterally doing something without consultation to the sources that are essential. You look at the fact that what he's doing in the story you talked about in the Caribbean against Venezuela, without any consultation of Congress or briefing of Congress, they all come from a spirit where he has decided he's not going to govern, he's going to rule. And these actions independent without any oversight, any questions or anybody around to question comes from an attitude that he is the sole authority and he can decide something with no congressional oversight, no court oversight, and act like he's ruling rather than governing, which is a totally different attitude and kind of a spirit that infuses the actions he takes, they're are of a piece.

COOPER: Yes and you know, a separate branch of government, you know, the congressional branch has, you know, the Republicans are in power and have completely given up. I mean, Senator Lankford spoke out about this, but you don't hear outrage from other people on the Intelligence Committee or, you know, if again, if this was, you know, President Obama, people's heads would have exploded.

EMANUEL: Their heads would explode. Look, there was a period of time we had bipartisan meetings. You met with congressional leaders, you briefed them on if there was a military action and intelligence action. You brought them in, and there was a sense of responsibility of this. While you may have your differences, you were collectively responsible for the stewardship of the country.

That is not how this administration or this President approaches their responsibility. And then to use an official website that kids in high school and otherwise will go on to attack your opponents is -- I mean, you know, it speaks to who he is and his character and this is not what we should be doing.

But, I do want to, you point this out, and this is very important. The Republicans in the House and Senate could decide to do something. They have abdicated their responsibility as an equal branch of government, whether that's on the financial side, the oversight side, the consultation side. They have abdicated and there's nothing in a as a speed bump to this President. And you can see it play out in a series of areas.

COOPER: The whole thing just seems sad. I mean, I remember when then President Obama once flew to Houston and former President George H.W. Bush showed up in a wheelchair to greet him because he believed that when the President shows up in your hometown, you show up to greet him.

Meanwhile, former President Biden, like him or not, is undergoing treatment for prostate cancer that spread to his bones and President Trump attacks him almost daily.

[20:25:02]

EMANUEL: Listen, Anderson, I'll give you an example of that. My own career, I was coming back from a family holiday, and I heard that President Bush, 43, was going to be in my district to award a blue ribbon school from the Leave No Child Behind. We arrived at 5:00 A.M., I ran home, showered, got dressed and greeted him at the school, and he kind of went like this. Like, I didn't think you were going to make it. I said, you're the President of the United States. We'll have our disagreements, you're in my district to highlight a school and kids that are accomplishing something. We spent the whole day together. He asked me to be in his car with him driving downtown to a meeting. That is what you do.

You have a responsibility as these offices, you're elected to represent not only your constituents or in other situations, but you respect the office. You are literally there in a transitory way, and you respect -- I was responsible at that point for helping elect Nancy Pelosi, Speaker and win the majority. President Bush and I were on opposite sides. When I was on the opposite side, I actually passed the Great Lakes Restoration Act, and I'm trying to win the House and he signs it into law, totally different attitude.

COOPER: Yes, Rahm Emanuel, thank you. Have a good weekend, appreciate it.

EMANUEL: Thank you, Anderson, thank you very much.

COOPER: Coming up next, Patti Davis, the daughter of former President Ronald Reagan, on this remarkable moment in history and the destruction of it.

And later, what happens when a when you play around with A.I.? Well, that was me playing around with A.I. and this is what happened. My day was not that bad, we're going to dive into what's being called A.I. slop ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:31:25]

COOPER: As we've watched the destruction of the Oval -- of the East Wing of the White House this week, we've been talking to historians and people who worked in the White House in past administrations.

My next guest has a unique vantage point. I want to show you a photo of President Reagan with his daughter, Patti Davis. She's a writer and author, and it's a pleasure to have her back on the program.

Patti, thanks so much for coming on. You wrote a really lovely piece in the New York Times, and I want to read something from it. But first, I just want to ask you, I mean, looking at the, you know, these images that we have been seeing throughout the days and nights this week, what goes through your mind?

PATTI DAVIS, DAUGHTER OF FORMER PRES. RONALD REAGAN: You know, it's just been so heartbreaking. I literally have -- I literally have wept sometimes. Don't worry, I won't cry on your show, but I literally have. I mean, it's just nothing I thought I'd ever see, you know, that kind of destruction. I mean, it's gone. That whole wing of the White House is gone.

COOPER: Which is where your -- I mean, your mom had her offices there.

DAVIS: She did, yes, as did many first ladies. Rosalynn Carter was the first lady who established her own personal office there. But, I mean, there was so much history there. And, you know, I had to -- I wondered a few times, especially when I was watching this footage, what the people who were actually doing the demolition thought and felt, the people operating that machinery.

Do they -- maybe they didn't allow themselves to feel anything. Maybe they just thought, I know this is a job and I have to do it. I don't -- we'll probably never know. But I did wonder about it as they're ramming things into this building, and it's crumbling like this. I don't know. I just wondered what they felt.

COOPER: You wrote in The Times, you said -- you described the White House as, quote, "not just a building made of brick and plaster, it was the people's house. A building suffused with the spirit of the ideals that built it. It was a building that invited you to look beyond your own life, your own reality, to something bigger. A huge story we all inhabit. To stand in such a place makes you feel small, yet also larger than just yourself. It makes you aware of the continuum of history in a way that feels akin to sacredness."

I mean, first of all, it's beautiful, and you're a lovely writer. It's -- yes, I mean, I can't imagine having the personal experience. I know you didn't spend a lot of time there, you know, during those years. But you went back, I believe, when your dad died.

DAVIS: Yes, it was really -- it was so interesting, because when my father was president, I really didn't -- I didn't absorb everything that I wrote about, this sacredness of that environment and the weight of history and everything, because I was so pissed off at what happened to my life. This intrusion into my life, right, that I couldn't see past my own resentment.

I mean, you know, certainly intellectually, I appreciated the White House, but I didn't -- it couldn't get past, you know, my own drama, my own personal drama, right? So, after my father died and we were in Washington, D.C. for his service, my brother and his wife and I got an invitation to go into the White House, to go on a tour of the White House, which we did.

And, you know, it was sort of a perfect time for me to do that, because my father had just died. I was grieving. And, you know, grief kind of opens up the seams in you, in your inner being, right? You absorb things more deeply. You experience things more deeply.

[20:35:14]

And we went in through the East Wing. And I remember the minute I walked in there, feeling history, you know, brushing past me everywhere I looked, and feeling just really awestruck. And I'm so grateful that I got to have that experience.

COOPER: It's interesting that this destruction is in service of building a ginormous ballroom. I keep thinking of that iconic image of Princess Diana and John Travolta at a party at the White House given by your parents. I mean, in terms of glamorous evenings, it does not get much better than this. Seems like they had enough room to create some magical moments.

And I do want to say there's a couple of pictures from this, not this one, I think, but where you can actually see my mom way in the back, because your mom invited my mom to that night. Yes. And, you know, like, how iconic is this? I mean, that is glamour.

DAVIS: I know. I know. And, you know, what really makes me so sad is that there are kids growing up now, well, your kids will never get to go into that place and feel that history and feel, you know, experience all these women who made their mark on this country in that wing of the White House.

COOPER: Yes.

DAVIS: You know?

COOPER: Patti Davis, it's always lovely to have you on. I really appreciate it.

DAVIS: Thank you so much.

COOPER: All right.

Up next, a look at how the White House has physically changed over the years, that and why the demolition of the East Wing for the President's 90,000 square foot ballroom is like no other project there. I'll talk with Presidential Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, who I love.

Later, welcome to what's being called the golden age of AI-generated slop and mind-numbing fake videos like these. Some insights ahead from The Atlantic's Charlie Warzel on what it may be doing to kids and us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLIE WARZEL, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: Scrolling through them is, it's very weird. It's very disorienting, right? There's almost like a narcotic feel to doing it. You're just kind of get lost in this sort of slack job loop.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:41:59]

COOPER: The demolition of the East Wing this week to make way for the President's new $300 million ballroom is just the latest transformation of what's now the White House complex. There have, of course, been other changes over more than 200 years, both big and small.

CNN's Tom Foreman has a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Amid the rubble and rancor, Team Trump is digging out, calling public concern over the demolition fake outrage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Because nearly every single president who has lived in this beautiful White House behind me has made modernizations and renovations of their own.

FOREMAN (voice-over): That argument has a foundation, according to some who study the White House.

KATE ANDERSEN BROWER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: There's always been a lot of hand-wringing about any changes inside the White House.

FOREMAN (voice-over): And then, they say --

LUKE BROADWATER, NY TIMES WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The pattern, though, that we've seen over time is people tend to like the renovations.

FOREMAN (voice-over): Indeed, since the White House was built around 1800 with a focus on avoiding excessive fanciness, there have been many repairs and expansions. In 1902, Theodore Roosevelt added the West Wing as a workspace for presidents. About 30 years later, his distant cousin Franklin Roosevelt installed an indoor pool for his polio therapy.

And then, when World War II was raging, he built the East Wing to cover an emergency underground bunker. That's where Vice President Dick Cheney went during 9/11 and where President Trump was taken during protests in his first term.

HARRY S. TRUMAN, 33RD U.S. PRESIDENT: When you live in the White House, you live pretty high.

FOREMAN (voice-over): By the 1950s, Harry Truman was renovating the whole old, sagging place. And on it goes. Jackie Kennedy built up the Rose Garden Trump has paved over. Richard Nixon added a bowling alley and turned FDR's pool into a press room. Jimmy Carter put up solar panels. Ronald Reagan took them down.

Barack Obama converted the tennis court for basketball. Yet almost every change came with oversight by historians, outside experts, and both parties in Congress.

BROADWATER: The normal process is to treat the renovation like it is a community project, like it is not the decision of one man.

FOREMAN (voice-over): That's what sets apart the demolition of the East Wing's movie theater, traditional guest entrance, the hall where First Lady Melania put those red Christmas trees, all at Trump's sole command.

BROWER: There has been nothing like this because we have never seen a wrecking ball taken to an entire wing of the White House before.

FOREMAN (voice-over): And that has many critics saying even if Trump's plan for radically changing the People's House is not legally wrong, it's far from right.

Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Joining us now, one of my favorite guests, Presidential Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of a number of great histories, including "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln," which is celebrating its 20th anniversary.

Doris, as someone who worked in the White House, as you did and has written about it so much, I'm wondering what was it like to see the East Wing completely torn down?

[20:45:02]

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: There was something about that picture of destruction and the wrecking ball that really is more visceral than words could say. You know, you think of how many times a picture captures a moment. The sailor kissing the girl at the end of World War II was the spontaneous joy of World War II.

And with that destruction that we saw, without any previous planning, without educating us as to what was being done, why it was being done, in all these other cases, mostly, you had congressional appropriations. So they would have to go through an argument. There'd be debates. And you'd understand, why do we need this?

We did need a lot of those other renovations. That's absolutely true. Presidents have done this. But they explain to the public. That's what's so important. We need to understand.

As Lincoln said, you know, I'm just a temporary resident here. It is the People's House. So I understand the emotional reaction. And it could have been avoided, maybe, if they'd explained it ahead of time. Maybe not, depending on how it comes out.

COOPER: Yes. I mean, even though pictures were released, suddenly to see it being ripped apart without a lot of sort of consultation or explanation of like, well, this is, you know, this is how it's going to, you know, be a homage to this, or how it's going to relate to the other buildings around it.

I want to go back and just show some of those pictures of you in the White House. You're working with Johnson in the Johnson presidency. What was it like for you in the White House? When -- how old were you when you started? And I know you followed Johnson out afterwards. What was it like working in that house?

GOODWIN: Yes. I mean, it's still the most extraordinary experience you're going to have. The House of the White House, it's really a house. It's not like a palace. It's really a place where you feel connected to the other people.

You walk. I would walk over to see Lady Bird in the East Wing. My office was right in the West Wing. There's memories there. And also because I'm a historian now, I feel like I lived there with Eleanor Roosevelt. And she had her press conferences right in that East Room after it was built.

And they're just gone now. Poof. The memory that only women could come to those press conferences, an entire generation got their start because of Eleanor Roosevelt's press conferences. You need to be --

COOPER: Only women could come to them.

GOODWIN: -- sort of accustomed to the fact. It was -- yes, it was great. All over the country, stuffy publishers had to hire their first female reporter. An entire generation got their start. And right there in the East Wing, those memories just felt like they went, poof, with that wrecking ball.

COOPER: Wow. What was your reaction to the Rose Garden being paved over and filled with Mar-a-Lago-style tables and umbrellas? The White House refers to, I guess, the Rose Garden Club in official press releases now.

GOODWIN: Yes, you know, the interesting thing is that before the Rose Garden, President Eisenhower had put a 3,000-foot putting green out there so he could go out and play golf because he loved golf so much. And I remember my husband told the story when he first went into the Oval Office with John Kennedy. John Kennedy pointed to these pockmarks on the floor. He said, what do you think they are?

And Dick didn't know what it was. He thought, well, maybe this J. Edgar Hoover has a listening device there. And then Kennedy said, well, you see, Eisenhower would put his cleats on, on the chair there, and then walk out to the putting green --

COOPER: Wow.

GOODWIN: -- and he left these pockmarks on the floor. And then Kennedy said, well, I guess we all have our own means of relaxation. At least mine won't leave pockmarks on the floor. But those changes are understandable, that your bowling alley replaces, you know, a pool or whatever that is. But major structural changes, like Teddy Roosevelt made in 1902, they have to be explained.

They were making a whole new West Wing because the family had six kids. There were only five bedrooms, because in those days, the bedrooms of the private residents were right next to the president's office. This is before the Oval Office gets created, after the West Wing gets created.

And there was no space for all the dogs and the animals that they were bringing in. So they finally created the West Wing, which is now an iconic thing. It was seen as maybe costing too much at the time, but people understood why it was necessary.

He even created a press room at that time. He saw the reporters outside huddling in the rain. He felt bad for them. Oh, come on in. I'll give you a press room to you. Same thing with Truman, when he was making his huge renovations, which had to be done.

Evidently, the White House was just falling apart. The East Room almost collapsed. They decided they needed a new foundation. It hadn't been serviced in a long period of time. He was gone for almost four years while --

COOPER: Wow.

GOODWIN: -- the entire structure had a new foundation put in it. And, again, people thought it was too costly, but they explained why it was necessary, and they understood. And then he put the Truman balcony up, and people thought, uh-oh, it's changing the facade of the outside. But after a while, that's become a familiar and beloved part of the White House.

So these changes do become, if they are accepted over time, understandable, but it depends on why they're necessary. And I think the hardest thing is just, as we've all been saying, at a time when federal employees are having a hard time making paychecks, paycheck to paycheck, to have a $350 million -- billion ballroom that no ordinary person is likely to see.

COOPER: Doris Kearns Goodwin, it's incredible to have you on. And I can't believe it is the 20th anniversary of your remarkable work about Lincoln. I mean, it is as vibrant as the day you wrote it.

Thank you so much. "Team of Rivals" is the book. If you have not read it, it's still widely available and is a must-read.

Doris, thank you.

[20:50:04]

Coming up next, the President's penchant for posting so-called AI slop, and whether we'll all soon be seeing more artificially generated content in our social media feeds, and your kids as well.

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COOPER: Welcome back. There's endless AI-generated videos online, but it's about to get much worse. The President regularly shares images like this one posted over the weekend, imagining what it would look like if he dumped feces from a fighter jet onto our fellow citizens who are protesting. That's what it would look like.

[20:55:06]

By The New York Times' count, he's shared AI-generated videos at least 62 times on his Truth Social account since late 2022. But now there's a whole slew of AI-generated content that's being called AI slop. And if you thought your kids were glued to watching TikTok influencers, this slop makes that human-generated content feel ancient.

The headline from Tech Journalist Charlie Warzel's latest piece for The Atlantic on the subject reads, "A Tool That Crushes Creativity. AI slop is winning." I spoke with Charlie earlier.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: So Charlie, the term AI slop is a major theme in your piece. And I want to read what you wrote and just show some images of what we're talking about here for folks who are unfamiliar. You write, "To live through this moment is to feel that some essential component of our shared humanity is being slowly leached out of the world. Spend enough time online, and you will see that not only is this cheaply rendered synthetic content everywhere, it is quietly shaping culture. It's become a way that marketers advertise, that politicians produce propaganda. It's changing how people communicate with one another."

Can you just explain what AI -- what is slop? What is the content that you're talking about?

WARZEL: It's essentially anything that is produced very cheaply and quickly through a large language model, right? So there are all these tools, whether it's Midjourney or this app Sora, which creates videos. It's basically text to anything. So you can, you know, type something out, anything you can imagine, and, you know, the large language model renders it.

So you can do, you know, a short video of you and me dressed as pumpkins for Halloween running through the streets of New York City. You can, you know, do --

COOPER: I actually --

WARZEL: -- basically anything you want.

COOPER: I actually made one right before we came on. It's -- the -- it's from Meta's AI app, it's called Vibes. And I basically typed in, you know, a, you know, gray-haired, white-haired anchor with alcohol on his desk, freaking out, pulling his hair, and, you know, and Anderson Cooper-like, you know, frazzled anchor, and this is what came out.

But this stuff is everywhere now. I mean, what do you find, the experience of sitting there watching it? How did you feel after watching it so much?

WARZEL: So both OpenAI and, as you said, Meta have created sort of like TikTok clones and, like, social media feeds. But the, you know, the trick is that it's all this AI-generated stuff. So it's nothing that a human has made, even though they've kind of given the prompts.

And scrolling through them is, it's very weird, it's very disorienting, right? There's almost like a narcotic feel to doing it. You just kind of get lost in this sort of slack-jawed loop. And it's both -- it's incredibly like interesting on a one, you know, video basis, but the overall effect is like wildly unsatisfying. It's just sort of like, why am I doing this? Why am I spending my time? Because the people who created it didn't spend a lot of time.

COOPER: If a kid wants to be a comic book artist or a Pixar animator or something highly tech and creative, I mean, do we even know what the impact of this is going to be on a whole generation of people growing up? And maybe I just sound like an old man right now, railing against kids on the lawn. But it does it -- I mean, does it suck the creativity out of like, will a kid want to be an animator?

WARZEL: I think what is really insidious about this technology, right? It's not that like, you know, if people like Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, say this is going to be -- bring about a Cambrian explosion of creativity, right? And the idea is basically if you don't have access to movie studio quality tools or animating software or, you know, even reliable like art teaching, you can make and you can create these worlds and get your ideas illustrated, right?

And there's something to that. But I think broadly speaking, something else happens when you tie creativity only to the idea of an idea. Because it's a world that they're describing of creativity without craft, right? The act of craft, which is learning something, taking the time, trying, iterating, failing, feeling, you know, frustration and shame and pride and then ultimately joy when the thing that's in your brain, you know, comes out into the world in some way.

Like that's the experience of being human. That's the experience of doing anything. And I worry that these tools cheapen that, right? It's just this frictionless world. And then that's really scary, I think.

COOPER: Charlie Warzel, thank you so much. The piece is well worth reading in The Atlantic. Thank you.

WARZEL: Thanks for having me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Before we go tonight, a thank you to a good friend of the show. Johnny Silva, who's been with CNN since 1989, is retiring. He was our operations manager, which basically means he did a lot of everything. He's been our technical rock.

On 9/11, when CNN was located at 5 Penn Plaza, Johnny dragged cables up to the rooftop so Aaron Brown could anchor from there live for weeks. From New Year's Eve shows, to CNN heroes, to everyday productions, he's done so much during his career here, and we will miss him.

Johnny's lucky. He'll be spending time with his seven grandkids, and he says we're all welcome to join him at his family's home in Portugal, which sounds quite lovely indeed. Johnny, thank you. We will miss you.

That's it for us. The news continues. The Source with Kaitlan Collins starts now.