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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
Day 2 Of GOP Midterm Convention As Trump Defends $5K Promise; Ex-Anthropic Researcher: A.I. "Could Kill Us All By The End Of The Decade". Aired 4-5p ET
Aired September 10, 2026 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LT. COL. WILLIAMS SWENSON (RET.), BOARD MEMBER, NATIONAL MEDAL OF HONOR MUSEUM FOUNDATION: -- of 9/11 and the post-conflicts that occurred afterwards, they need to look back at that history and understand that they have the opportunity with their generation to guide us to a better future.
[16:00:10]
And if challenged, if confronted, they too will do what my generation did and rise up and they will fight.
BRIANNA STELTER, CNN HOST: Lieutenant Colonel William Swenson, thank you so much for your service and for this discussion today. We appreciate it.
SWENSON: Thank you very much.
THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT starts right now.
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Breaking news, night two of the first ever Republican midterm convention is beginning right now.
Hi, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. Welcome to THE ARENA.
As we come on the air, final night getting underway. President Donald Trump and Vice President J.B. Vance will headline later. We'll see if they say anything to top this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Here is my promise: if the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them, because of our economic, tremendous economic success, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: $5,000 for everyone. That move would cost an estimated $1 trillion. promising Americans four figures to vote Republican. Not exactly a sign that you are confident in your party's chances as they stand today.
It's also a tacit acknowledgement that the Trump economy isn't working for everyone, and that millions of Americans really, really could use a financial boost of $5,000.
Of course, though, it raises the question, why not just give people that $5,000 right now? The president, naturally, blames Democrats.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Democrats can't do it, because with them, it's negative growth. With us, it's so positive. So, we're taking in $21 trillion. Nobody, no country's ever taken in anywhere near that. It's four or five times higher than the next. All because of that beautiful word that you and I love more than most others, tariffs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: And all of this gets at the central problem that faces President Trump. He wants Republicans to run on a message that everything is better than it's ever been.
Look around at your own life. Is it better? Because for a lot of Americans, it simply is not. Let's look at the facts. Gas rose 13 cents in just the last two days. Diesel is at its highest price ever and climbing. Mortgage rates are significantly higher than they were a year ago.
In the war with Iran, there's no end in sight. In fact, "The Wall Street Journal" reports that President Trump and his top advisors are privately discussing the possibility that the war will last years beyond the end of his presidency. So, the question going into tonight, will the lights, the speeches, the promises convince voters? Will any of it work?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They use the word affordability, right? It's fake, they are so fake, because It was them that caused the affordability, to use their word, crisis. And I'm bringing the prices way down -- way, way down. And food prices and almost every other item are rapidly going down. And by the way, oil would be going down as soon as we win the war with Iran, which is taking place right now.
The stock markets, all of them, have set 80 all-time records since the election. And unemployment claims have reached the lowest level ever recorded. I mean, we're doing well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right, let's get off the sidelines, head into THE ARENA. My panel is here, but we're going to get started with CNN senior reporter Steve Contorno. He is at the convention in Dallas.
So, Steve, what are you hearing ahead of the president's closing remarks tonight? Obviously, there was that $5,000 promise, and we're also set to hear from his number two.
STEVE CONTORNO, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yeah, we'll see if he can top that $5,000 promise. I think that'll be tough to do. And in fact, I've been chatting people all day about that proposal. And I think skepticism is the word that I would use to describe the reaction to it. Certainly not enthusiastic support for it.
In fact, I just spoke with one woman who said she would rather see that $5,000 go to deficit reduction, though she would gladly spend it if it landed in her mailbox. So that is, I guess, a sign that there are still some deficit hawks still left in the Republican Party.
But look, Donald Trump and his cabinet and vice president will attempt tonight to do what the president tried to do last night, which is try to nationalize this race and try to convince Republican voters that despite the names that might be on the ballot in front of you, the real name you need to remember is President Trump. And he is the person who you should be voting for. He is the leader of this party.
And just because voters that despite the names that might be on the ballot in front of you, the real name you need to remember is President Trump. And he is the person who you should be voting for. He is the leader of this party. And just because he is not specifically on the ballot doesn't mean that his second term is not at stake.
And clearly that a concern for Republicans that those people are not tuning in, that they're not paying attention, and that they are not ready to vote for Donald Trump, just as in the numbers they showed up two years ago. So, we're going to hear from the vice president, from RFK, Jr., from House Speaker Mike Johnson, try to continue to make that case.
Also, some somber moments we expect tonight. There will be a 9/11 remembrance. which for the ahead of the 25th anniversary tomorrow, as well as a moment to recognize Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist who died one year ago today -- Kasie.
HUNT: All right, Steve Contorno for us in Dallas. Steve, thank you very much for that.
All right, my panels here in THE ARENA, CNN political analyst, White House correspondent for "The New York Times", Zolan Kanno-Youngs; CNN political director and Washington bureau chief David Chalian; Democratic strategist Meghan Hays; and CNN political commentator, Republican strategist Brad Todd.
Welcome to all of you. Thank you so much for being here.
David Chalian, this $5,000 proposal from the president, what does it tell you about the landscape he's facing and what they're thinking?
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR AND WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: Well, it's so classic Trumpian. It's not even the first time he's offered money.
HUNT: I mean, is it not just a straight bribe, by the way? CHALIAN: I don't know that it's a straight bribe.
Politicians promise voters all kinds of things. They offer tax cuts or free health care --
BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTTOR: Or welfare.
CHALIAN: So, politicians do that.
HUNT: Fine.
CHALIAN: But clearly it is a gimmick. And the question is, will this work for some people? And will they be intrigued for it? Perhaps. Do I think this is like, I will be surprised, I should say, if this is a game-changing event for the midterm cycle. I think it is, you know, it gets a lot of attention.
It helps Trump try to sort of sell something. But I don't know that this is moving a lot of votes given the nature of the political environment and how much of it is baked in at this point.
HUNT: Well, and Zolan, so much, I mean, "The National Review", I feel like they've not always been on Trump's side, obviously, but often they have.
Charles Cook wrote this, "No, no, no, no, no. Did I mention no? The Democrats who have condemned this idea are, of course, ridiculous for in trying to trade votes for cash. Trump is merely adopting their approach, but that's not the defense of the move, which is in every sense possible catastrophic."
Rep Chip Roy, who you may remember used to stand in Trump's way on some of this stuff, would say, I would like to know how they would plan to pay for it back of the envelope well over a trillion.
Asa Hutchinson says the GOP should vote it down, like, not a thing in the party that others are supporting.
ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah, and we've seen that pushback from Congress when he's offered similar proposals as well, tariff checks as well if he faced pushback. It's also widely thought he would need congressional approval to do something like this as well, so that might be a problem if he's for this promise.
That skepticism as well that we were talking about in the opening that some voters are expressing here, I do wonder if that's an acknowledgement that we have been here before with President Trump. And when you continue to make promises, remember DOGE dividends, that was a thing at one point, tariff checks as well, those didn't come to fruition. So how much weight does something like this even carry when you've promised before repeatedly to give Americans direct cash assistance and you haven't done it?
I remember after the tariff checks my colleagues and I were in the Oval Office with President Trump and we asked him, when are Americans going to get those tariff checks? And his initial reaction was almost he was surprised that we even brought it up. He was like, did I do that? Right?
And then he followed up later after prodding in saying that he promised it would be by the end of this year. Do voters even in his base really think that's happening at this point?
HUNT: I'm waiting for a refund from FedEx for a tariff.
TODD: He can deliver. He has no taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime, no taxes on Social Security. You can deliver on these things that you can do in the tax bill.
And I suspect this would probably come in the tax bill as well. I would prefer, and I think it would be better for our coalition, if he would tie this economic windfall to, hey, we're going to lower your taxes. And if Democrats win, they're going to raise them.
But he is really adamant about making it about tariffs, which also are in the tax code. And it's about three years' worth of tariff proceeds. I would rather win that argument on taxes. I think it puts the Democrats in a worse position. But a chicken in every pot is a pretty classic political strategy.
HUNT: Yeah. Meghan Hays, how much of this is just about -- I mean, and they've said this actually in a pretty straightforward way. They're trying to reach voters who don't otherwise aren't otherwise expected to vote. And this is the kind of idea that maybe breaks through on social media. What do you see as a Democratic strategist?
MEGHAN HAYS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Yeah, I think that when you're sitting at home and you're not going to vote and all of a sudden you're seeing TikTok or whatever that you're going to get $5,000 if you turn out to vote for Republicans. Some low propensity voters might do that. But to your point, I don't think it's going to be enough here to make a difference.
But it's also really easy to make a promise. You know you're not going to have to keep because they are not going to win. And he knows that. The math isn't there for him.
[16:10:00]
So, it's real easy to be like, we'll give you $5,000 because there's never going to be any $5,000 going out the door.
HUNT: Yeah, I mean, Brad, the other thing is this is all right. A bid for attention ratings, right? This whole production. The president, of course, was up against last night the Patriots Seahawks game. And he said this this morning, the Republican midterm convention in Dallas was a major sold-out hit.
Better, bigger, more important than anyone thought possible. It was really something, streaming all over the place. Really big numbers, despite going up against the NFL. The overall numbers beat the NFL. THE ARENA, which was really nice, beat its own attendance records. The place was packed. Now, worth noting, we don't have the preliminary numbers in yet. Would you take a bet that he beat? TODD: He's a real estate developer, right? You never sell a piece of real estate as this is a pretty good piece of property, right? It's always the best view ever. You know, so I don't hold him to that to be literal.
I do want to think that it's pretty notable that he's putting himself out there in this midterm. You know, a lot of Democrats grumbled that Barack Obama didn't do enough to campaign in the midterms of 2010 and 2014.
HUNT: I remember that.
TODD: And his party was washed out.
HUNT: They didn't really want him in 2014 as much.
TODD: But he wants your president to motivate the base. Your low- propensity voters in your base. And the Trump political organization is actually doing that. They're taking on that responsibility. Aside from the rallies and the events and the convention, he's taken a pretty active role in that.
And I think he's exercising his political capital to an extent we haven't seen an incumbent president do.
HUNT: Yeah.
CHALIAN: What's just so interesting about that is that the strategy mirrors what Democrats want to see, too. They want to see Donald Trump out there all the time, and you just don't usually see the opposing parties sort of aligned on a strategy.
TODD: Well, it's probably because there are very few swing voters in this environment.
HUNT: Right.
HAYS: And if we thought this was a winning strategy or the Republicans did, every single Republican would be at the convention, and we've heard overwhelming coverage that the ones that are in frontline districts are not there.
HUNT: Well, and even in this case, right, he's gone to Texas, right, where motivating the base is going to be such a critically important part if they want to beat James Talarico in the Senate race. So, Trump, President Trump, goes to Texas, and here's how he tries to help the Republican Senate nominee in Texas, okay, who he picked over Senator John Cornyn, who likely would have been in a stronger position against Talarico.
Let's watch what President Trump said about Ken Paxton.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: He may not dress right, he may not talk exactly perfectly, and he may not be the best-looking guy I've ever seen. But you know what he is? He's the greatest attorney general in America, and he deserves to be your next senator.
I'm not sure if I like your look. I'm not sure if I like the way you dress. I don't like the way you talk. But you're the greatest attorney general.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: David Chalian, with friends like these --
CHALIAN: This is something the president has become obsessed with. He saw the photo of Ken Paxton in a golf shirt. It went against everything he believes of how somebody should present themselves publicly. And he can't -- well, this is a, as you just showed, this is a daily talking point now of the president.
KANNO-YOUNGS: And Ken Paxton is hoping that he continues to get out there, even if it's this language, right? It speaks to that calculation of they're not worried as much about the independent voters, the swing voters, however many might still be out there. They're focused on all of this, getting Trump out there is a sort of calculation that you can double down on MAGA voters that turn out for presidential elections and get them out for November.
TODD: I want to clear up that I definitely think you have to win swing voters, lest that be confused. But Texas is a place where if you just get the Republican vote, you win.
HUNT: Yeah, Brad. I mean, you obviously spend all your time looking at these maps. How in play is Texas right now?
TODD: I think it's fool's gold for the Democrats. If they'd nominated a sheriff, a Democrat sheriff from one of the border counties, a Hispanic sheriff with a conservative position on, say, life in a Catholic, I think then it would be unstoppable.
But James Talarico is almost exactly the wrong candidate for them in Texas. Paxton is a lift on our side for sure as well. But I think that Texas is not in play for real because the Democrats picked the wrong guy.
HUNT: Yeah.
David, on this Iran question too, I mean, we kind of went past it at the top of the show. But this "Wall Street Journal' reporting that they basically think that the war could extend beyond Donald Trump's presidency -- I mean, that, of course, is one of the underlying fundamentals of this election, gas prices, diesel prices. And that acknowledgement that they may have started a war in the Middle East that is going to be another quagmire from the U.S. is pretty significant.
CHALIAN: Which is exactly what the president promised voters he would not do. He would bring an end to these endless wars. That's a core piece of his 10-year political project. And so, it's so discordant from that, but to hear when the president was getting on the plane yesterday to go to Texas, Kasie, and he was on the tarmac, and he talked to reporters, and he said, certainly the war's not going to be over in the midterms, and he said, gas prices may not be coming down until after the midterms. That is a huge political problem for his party.
HUNT: Yeah, I mean, Brad, what are your thoughts on how that plays into these races in the late hour?
TODD: You know, I think victory would be good, progress in the war would be decisive, perhaps.
[16:15:02]
It might be the one thing left in the quiver that could change the trajectory of the overall climate. I think promising victory way down the road after the elections, trust me, we'll win if you just help us win. I don't think that's super. And I think that he needs to not be seen as half-prosecuting the war, and I think he doesn't need to be seen as staying the course in a half-prosecution.
All this, by the way, might be a prime motivation in why you heard the 5,000 dividend announcement yesterday is an awareness of the economic anxiety rooted in the war, even if you continue to dismiss it rhetorically, which he's doing.
HUNT: Yeah, well, he's punched a hole in Americans' budgets that may actually approach $5,000 for many people in the way we've seen gas prices go up.
All right. Coming up next here, Republican Congressman Mike Lawler enters THE ARENA. He's about to take the stage at the convention. What does he make of the president's promise to give away a trillion dollars?
Plus, Anthropic just revealed that it blocked multiple efforts to use its A.I. models in ways that could have helped people build biological weapons. This after one of their researchers resigned and warned that A.I. might soon be able to do that all on its own.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JACOB COXON, FORMER ANTHROPIC RESEARCHER: These A.I.s with the same independent volition, they could cause extreme havoc. For example, hacking critical infrastructure, building extinction-level bioweapons. There is a very real possibility that in the immediate future, these years that, like, next year, the year after, recursive self- improvement will happen and will enter the phase of Evan's post where he argues that there's a chance we could all die.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:21:03]
HUNT: Right now, the second day of the Republicans midterm convention is underway, though not every Republican lawmaker will be in attendance. And according to a CNBC count, fewer than half of vulnerable congressional candidates will be speaking at the event. My next guest is a Republican who's locked in a tough reelection fight himself and who did decide to attend the convention.
Joining me now is Republican from New York, Congressman Mike Lawler. He is speaking in Dallas tonight.
Congressman, it's always great to have you in THE ARENA. Thank you so much for being here.
You, of course, are in a tight reelection fight right now. The president is trying to convince people that he is on the ballot. Who is on the ballot in November, Mike Lawler or Donald Trump?
REP. MIKE LAWLER (R-NY): Mike Lawler. Look, this is an opportunity for me to highlight tonight the work that I've done in Congress, and in fact, standing up to the president on the number one promise that I made to my constituents when they elected me, which was to lift the cap on SALT, the state and local tax deduction. And I not only did it, we delivered the largest tax cut in American history.
So, I'm going to speak about that tonight, as well as to introduce two of my constituents, Jess and Tom Gorman, who tragically lost their daughter earlier this year. Eighteen-year-old Sheridan Gorman was brutally murdered by an illegal criminal alien who should not have been in this country, but because of Chicago's disastrous cashless bail and sanctuary city laws, she was murdered. And they're going to share their story.
And so, to me, I know who I'm fighting for. I'm fighting for my constituents, my district, and I'm proud to stand on stage with the Gorman family tonight and let them share their story, their daughter's story, with the rest of the country. It's a story that should be heard, and so I'm proud to be here.
HUNT: We'll be watching.
The president, of course, last night was not talking about his immigration policies as much as he was talking about the $5,000 he says he wants to give to every American. Is it a good idea to mail everyone a $5,000 check?
LAWLER: Well, we certainly see in states like New York, they mail out refund checks all the time right before election time. So, I don't think it's a new idea that's been issued last night.
But fundamentally, the question is, how would you pay for it? And so, the devil, of course, is always in the details. From my vantage point, you know, this is part of the reason why we delivered the largest tax cut in American history. You saw in my district, for instance, the average person got over $4,000 refund check.
So, I want to obviously put more money back in the pockets of hardworking Americans and hardworking New Yorkers. But we also have a $40 trillion debt that we have to deal with. And so, you know, as we move forward, we're going to have to work legislatively and in a bipartisan way to actually address the issue of affordability, whether it's housing, whether it's energy, whether it's health care.
These are real issues that matter to the American people while simultaneously tackling some of the big issues facing our country, like our national debt, and making sure that the Social Security and Medicare trust funds are sustainable for the long term. So, you know, I think there's a lot of issues that we're going to have to tackle in the next Congress. This is an idea the president put forth last night. I think most folks would agree we want to put money back in the pockets of hardworking Americans. It's a question of how to do it.
HUNT: Congressman, the war in Iran came after the big, beautiful bill, and gas prices have exploded. Diesel is at its highest. level ever. Is this pitch by the president not an acknowledgement that things are really tough under his watch?
LAWLER: Well, there's no question that we are still dealing with the after effects of cumulative inflation of 21 . Well, there's no question that we are still dealing with the after effects of cumulative inflation of 21 percent during the Biden years. And clawing our way out of it is not easy. I think anybody would --
(CROSSTALK)
HUNT: But gas prices have come down from 2022 on the Biden.
LAWLER: Excuse me, Kasie. Excuse me, Kasie.
HUNT: Gas prices came down.
LAWLER: Cumulative inflation, cumulative inflation was 21 percent during those four years. That was a disaster.
And the fact is, prices in my home state of New York are through the roof. Democrats control everything in New York. They control Albany. They control New York City.
And yet we have the highest housing prices, the highest health care costs, the highest energy costs. Utility rates are up 58 percent in New York in the last six years. Why? Because they shut down nuclear power, they ban natural gas extraction, they block pipelines.
You want to focus solely on Washington. There's a lot of things that we have done to bring down costs. We gave the largest tax cut in American history, putting money back in the pockets of hardworking Americans.
We passed the single largest housing bill in 36 years.
(CROSSTALK)
HUNT: And then they started a war in Iran. They put gas prices back where they were in the Biden administration.
LAWLER: In 36 years, I was -- I was a lead on, and six of my bills were in it to increase supply, to reduce costs, to cut red tape, to increase access to capital. We need permitting reform to get done. I'm on a bipartisan working group to get that done.
You talk about energy prices. Here's the simple little truth, Kasie. We don't rely on Iranian petroleum. It impacts the global oil markets, but it speaks directly to why we need to increase domestic production of energy in this country.
Are Democrats prepared to increase oil and gas production in America? I don't think so. They continually vote against it. They continually pass legislation like in New York to block increased energy production.
So, if you want to bring down costs, if you want to address the fundamental issues facing the American people, it's basic supply and demand, that's what needs to be tackled across the board. There is more work to do, but I am proud of the work that I have done to put money back in the pockets of my constituents.
HUNT: Congressman, the Republican-controlled House passed a resolution last week condemning socialism in all its forms. I just want to put up a list of some of the things that President Trump has done or pursued at the federal level.
He's had the government take ownership stakes in 30 private companies Intel, Nvidia, Nippon Steel. He tried to create a federal sovereign wealth fund. He considered bailing out and nationalizing Spirit Airlines. They proposed that government pay parents $9,000 per child per year to stay home. He's offered Trump accounts for -- seeded with $1,000, and now there's this $5,000 check.
How is that series of policies not at all socialist?
LAWLER: First of all, what the Democrats are advocating for is a government takeover of everything. They want a government takeover of healthcare. They want a government takeover of private property.
HUNT: That's not what I asked you, sir. I asked you to comment on the things the president has done, not what the Democrats are doing.
LAWLER: Well, I'm explaining to you. I'm explaining -- well, that's great, Kasie. I'm explaining to you the difference between the two parties here.
The fact is that the Democrats want a government takeover of healthcare. They want a government takeover of private property. They want to seize the means of production. These are the things --
HUNT: Well, you're not saying Trump is not offering social policies here. You're just saying that Democrats are --
(CROSSTALK)
LAWLER: AOC, Bernie Sanders are running on. That is what they are running on.
What we are doing is actually increasing investment in this country. And part of what the president is talking about with respect to dividends or American investment in these companies is precisely because the taxpayers have continually and routinely footed the bill. If you look at Chips and Science, for instance, the federal government, the taxpayers are spending billions of dollars paying these companies to build these products here in America. Why shouldn't the taxpayers be reimbursed for those investments?
That's part of what the president is talking about when he's talking about American investments in these companies.
What the Democrats want to do is have complete government ownership of the private sector. They want to take over our health care. They want to increase taxes by four trillion dollars. That's the choice in election. So fundamentally, to me, the Democrats have become the party of AOC, Bernie Sanders, and Zohran Mamdani.
If I asked you what it is that Jeffries and Schumer are running on, you couldn't answer it other than they hate Trump. But the fact is the mainstream of the Democratic Party has moved towards socialism. They publicly embrace it.
I am a capitalist. I believe in capitalism. But I also believe if the American taxpayers are going to subsidize certain investments, the taxpayers should be reimbursed for that and should see a benefit from it.
That is far different than socialism.
HUNT: All right. Congressman Mike Lawler, always great to have you in THE ARENA, sir.
[16:30:02]
I hope you'll come back.
LAWLER: Thanks. Thanks, Kasie.
HUNT: Thank you.
Up next here in THE ARENA, how Democrats are reacting to Senator John Fetterman's surprise video appearance at the GOP's midterm convention. But first, is artificial intelligence getting too intelligent? The chilling warning from an A.I. researcher who just quit his job at Anthropic.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COXON: I think what's most scary is if A.I. is used to make itself more intelligent. The A.I. just gets smarter and smarter with no human involvement necessary. And so, we have a thing that is vastly smarter than and humans. And this could be coming very soon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:35:01] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COXON: I've never seen an A.I. safety tweet go this crazy. I think it's because people saw the cyberattacks in the last couple of months. They're also starting to internalize the rate of progress. People are starting to realize this is real technology. This is not like hype.
This isn't going away anytime soon. This is only going to get more crazy. It's been getting crazy for the last six months. And I think there was that latent understanding of the severity of the situation that meant this was a match that lit a flame.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon sounding the alarm about the dangers of artificial intelligence earlier this week and sending shockwaves around the world. Jacob's warning earlier in the week read in part this, quote, "The people building A.I. earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt." His post has been viewed over 150 million times.
Today, Anthropic released a report revealing that it caught people trying to use Claude for malicious activity, including cyber operations, influence operations, surveillance, scams and fraud, biological misuse, conventional weapons development and distillation. One of his former colleagues added he believes there's a more than 10 percent chance it happens within the next decade, something that Jacob says is not an exaggeration.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COXON: Right now, there's no risk of extinction. The current models, the worst they can do is maybe hack into something, potentially cause a lot of damages in infrastructure. But there's no -- they're not intelligent enough to outsmart us at the level that would lead to extinction.
I think what's just crazy is to look at the rate of progress. And there is a very real possibility that in the immediate future, these years, like next year, the year after, recursive self-improvement will happen and will enter the phase of Evan's post, where he argues that there's a chance we could all die. That is coming soon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: On that cheerful note, CNN contributor and tech journalist Jacob Ward joins the panel.
Jacob, it's always great to see you, although in this case, maybe I'd rather that I didn't have to ask you to come by to help us understand a little bit better just exactly how much danger we're all in as humans. But what does this say? I mean, the stakes, the way he is playing the stakes, it's so enormous.
How should people who see these headlines be thinking about this? Because I think it sparks a lot of fear.
JACOB WARD, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I mean, it absolutely does. And I've been coming on and ruining your show for a while now here. But today will be the bummer day, no question. So, you know, I'm used to -- I mean, I've been covering A.I. for about 10 years. I've been covering tech for more than 20. Usually when a guy like this steps out and, you know, runs his mouth about his former employer, that former employer closes ranks and says, oh, this guy's crazy, or he's got an ax to grind, or they sue him, or they accuse him of violating his NDA.
Not in this case, right? The head of, basically, Anthropic's alignment safety lead, the guy who essentially is trying to keep the A.I. from killing us all, literally wrote in response to the tweet that Jacob Coxon put out, Jacob is correct here. We really do earnestly believe A.I. could kill all humans.
He says, "I personally think it is a greater than 10 percent chance within the next decade." I mean, that is a guy currently employed at Anthropic, and so I think the thing that we all risk here is becoming sort of anesthetized to this. A lot of us cynically, and as one of these cynical people, I have had this instinct too, think of this as perhaps a way of both boasting about the capability of your product while also scaring people about it.
We're seeing increasingly here, Kasie, is a group of companies, a very small and powerful group of companies, linked arms together, running toward what they say is a cliff they cannot seem to stop themselves from running off of. And we've seen this back in July. There was a big signatory letter, more than a thousand signatures saying essentially to the government, help us slow down, because competitive pressure means we can't do it.
And OpenAI's chief science officer this past weekend put out a quiet little blog post on the OpenAI site, essentially saying what we're building here is an alien intellect that we have to protect ourselves against. And so when the people inside the room who make the money, the incredible NASDAQ-supporting amount of money that these guys are making, are saying, hey, we're building this thing and it's exciting, but it might not just cost you your job, but your life, I think it is important that we start paying attention, and I think that's why you and I, of course, are having this conversation today.
HUNT: Yes, you definitely made me feel worse, Jacob, than I did in the beginning of this segment.
WARD: I'm in that place. Can I --
HUNT: Yeah, go ahead.
WARD: One thing I will say for you, though, to feel a little better about this is that this does seem to be scaring the pants off of people in Washington, right? So Bernie Sanders, in response to the Hugging Face attack that we saw, along with Representative Casar, is supposedly introducing a banning superintelligence act that would criminalize the pursuit of this kind of technology.
[16:40:04]
I would have liked somebody to ask Jacob Coxon, are you in favor of your former employees, your former friends at work being imprisoned, prosecuted for making this stuff? That's the moment we're at politically here. You think people are upset about data centers. I think with these kinds of warnings, they're going to be more and more upset about this, and it does feel to me like some political solutions may be on the way here.
HUNT: Yeah, well, listen, I absolutely respect your view reporter, I have to say, is I have covered Congress and watched them try to regulate social media, which is, what, a decade-plus year old now? And they have never been able to get it together, even when it comes to kids.
Forget, you know, adults and the rest of us. They just really can't do it. And I think that actually is my question for you, Jacob, because I hear you saying these companies are looking around and saying, we are competing with each other. We can't stop because we can't let the other guy win.
But this is only the American side of things. What do you think about the challenge posed by a country like China, which is potentially a significant adversary in some sort of future global conflict for the United States? Can we stop here if they're still going?
WARD: You know, I mean, this is the great difficulty, and I wish I could answer this question for you in a tidy way. I mean, the thing that I have been leading myself back to over and over again as I look at what Jacob Coxon and all these other insiders are saying is it reminds me so much of the Manhattan Project. where you had tens of thousands of scientists who knew morally at a time when most people were raised in the church that you shouldn't be building a world- ending weapon like the atomic bomb, and yet they went along with it.
Only one guy walked away from that project for conscientious reasons, a Polish physicist named Joseph Rotblat. He's the only one to walk away, and so for me, the idea that there have now been multiple people, like Jacob Coxon, who have walked away from this, suggest to me that those people inside the walls there, there are many, many of them who seem to believe we have to build this before someone less scrupulous does, which is what got the Manhattan Project through everyone's moral compunctions about it.
I think that's the same kind of thing that's going on here. And I think what folks are going to need to start understanding, hopefully, is that we may not want to be first in the creation of this thing. There may be downsides to being first that we just don't even want to imagine.
That said, as you mentioned in your introduction here, Anthropic put out a very scary report today listing a whole bunch of scary uses of their technology. I think that in the end, it's probably going to come down to the courts. In the same way that social media is being sorted out by lawyers who are suing on behalf of families and school districts and the rest, I think it's going to be that kind of action. (CROSSTALK)
HUNT: Are we going to be alive to sue? If you're dead, you can't sue.
WARD: No, can you sue -- can you sue a robot when it's got its hand on your spine? I don't know. Right? That's a good question.
But I think that that could be, in the very most American of ways, the way that we end up dealing with this if we can't get to the international agreements that everyone from Bill to this 27-year-old says we're going to need to govern this technology going forward.
HUNT: All right, I think I'm going to go on Amazon and buy a go bag.
Jacob, thank you very much for your time today.
WARD: Time for some yoga. Thanks, Kasie.
HUNT: We'll see you soon.
All right, ahead here in THE ARENA, new details on Vice President Kamala Harris's plans to hit the midterm campaign trail. The candidate who's now welcoming her after other Democrats in tight races said no thanks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: I don't know how to live and not serve. I honestly don't. I just don't. It's something I've come to terms with. I don't know how to -- I just don't know a life without figuring out how I can help move the needle.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:48:19]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: I just don't know a life without figuring out how I can help move the needle. So right now, midterms, midterms, midterms, full-time occupying my thoughts, my mind, and my work.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Midterms, midterms, midterms, allegedly the only thing on the mind of Kamala Harris right now as she prepares to hit the trail ahead of the November elections.
Harris now set to appear in Fulton County, Georgia, at the end of next month to campaign alongside Senator Jon Ossoff, in his bid to hold onto a critical swing state Senate seat. Ossoff taking a different approach to some other Democratic candidates across the country who've tried to distance themselves from Harris or even straight up rejected help from the party's former nominee. Harris, who, of course, is still weighing another run in 2028, said
this last week about those keeping her at arm's length.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: We need to win. OK, bottom line, we need to win. I have run locally. I've run for statewide office and obviously nationally and these candidates know what they need to do to win and I would expect nothing less. I look forward to being on the trail and helping folks where I can help phone. I support them in doing whatever they need to do to win.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right. My panel is back.
David Chalian, key phrase "where I can be helpful". Are you surprised John Ossoff said yes?
CHALIAN: I'm not terribly surprised because Kamala Harris can probably still be a draw in the closing dates of the campaign when you're trying to juice African-American turnout in the Atlanta area as part of your coalition building and calculation if you're Jon Ossoff.
[16:50:01]
It doesn't -- it doesn't seem to me like that doesn't make sense in some way, nor do I think her presence there is going to be a big negative for him in any way. He's pretty much, you know, carved an identity of his own in Georgia. So, I'm not terribly surprised.
HUNT: He's also running against Mike Collins, which may make it easier for him to do this without risking backlash.
CHALIAN: Yeah. I think that -- and I'm not terribly surprised that lots of Democrats from Alaska to Iowa to elsewhere are like-- thanks, but no thanks. And I don't think that's all that particularly new in politics, but I do think it probably will inform some thinking about her own political path forward.
HUNT: Meghan?
HAYS: I mean, I think in Georgia, especially with Keisha Lance Bottoms running for governor there, she's extremely popular, both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris endorsed very early on.
And she's speaking at a Democratic dinner there, which is for all of the candidates. So, it does make a lot of sense for her to be in Georgia, but also Ossoff is up. I think the last poll was like eight or 10 points, so I'm not sure, to your point, it's a risk.
She's also extremely popular still with African-American women. And that is the base of the Democratic Party. And so, she will go where there is a large African-American population and turn out those folks in places that are tough for Democrats to win. And I think that's smart of her to say, if I'm not wanted, no hard
feelings, I don't need to come to you. That is the mature, smart way to handle this.
HUNT: Yeah. Zolan, let's watch what the Iowa gubernatorial nominee, Rob Sand, had to say when he was asked, just because I think it shows you the contrast, Ossoff obviously saying yes, Rob Sand, not so much. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
INTERVIEWER: Would you want to have Joe Biden here campaign for you?
ROB SAND (D), IOWA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: No.
INTERVIEWER: Can he even do that right now? How about Kamala Harris?
SAND: No, thanks. Let's move on. We need some new leadership.
INTERVIEWER: You don't think Harris should run in 2028?
SAND: Nope.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: I mean, how do you really feel?
KANNO-YOUNGS: Right, exactly. And by the way, that type of clear language, clear answer is what we did not see in the last presidential cycle. And it frustrated a lot of voters, it frustrated a lot of Democratic voters as well just to speak out and say actually what you really mean here. I get that it's not necessarily new to not want an incumbent or a former sort of White House official to -- like, it's not new to want space in a midterm cycle.
But what makes this notable is that we have seen the Democratic Party, including in recent elections, repeat the same mistakes, right? And continue to go with. someone who, for many voters, represents status quo candidacy, right, instead of answering voters who wanted change, right? And I think that answer is interesting because you don't just hear no thanks, you also hear let's move forward as well.
TODD: I'm just thrilled we're talking about Kamala Harris. And I think it says she was a missing ingredient in the convention last night in Dallas. The president and the party have to meet people who are -- they were saying don't think things are as good in America as they could be, but they're still scared of the Democrats.
And they should be saying, if Kamala Harris was president, you know it'd be worse. And if we let the Democrats back in power, you know it'll get worse. And we know it's not what you want it to be. We're trying hard, and we're certainly better than the alternative.
And I think using her as a key talking point would help us and I hope they talk about her tonight. CHALIAN: The brand of the Democratic Party broadly, like the Quinnipiac poll that was out today, it's abysmal polling for Donald Trump. But it also has the Democratic Party in Congress at like 21 percent approval.
So, it is -- if the Democrats, they have a favorable environment, they have a successful night November, it's not going to be because they lit the world on fire with their own brand. And I think right now, she's the most recent presidential nominee. She's very much associated with that brand.
KANNO-YOUNGS: Worth adding as well. I know she said that. She's only thinking about the midterms now. Just in April, she had an event with Sharpton and said, I'm thinking about the presidency, too.
HUNT: Right.
HAYS: Also, to your point, though, about the Democratic brand, the national brand might not be good, but the brand in people's communities are good. Democrats have won over 90 percent of the elections from the top of the ticket down ballot since the '24 elections. So, people in the communities believe what the Democrats are telling them in their own communities.
And that has a lot to do with candidate selection. Going back to your point about Texas, that is what puts these seats on the line. And Rob Sand is a good example here of candidate selection being favorable for Democrats.
HUNT: Yeah, Brad.
TODD: Rob Sand is very disciplined, but he's the rarity among Democrat politicians this time. I mean, most primary winners are far to the left, even of Kamala Harris, and she lost because she was too far left.
HUNT: Yeah, David, I mean, when you think about the potential 28 field and who could go anywhere for Democrats right now, is there anyone that comes to mind? Not to put you on the spot.
First of all, I think you see a lot of them out there. There are a lot out there. I know lots of candidates are very eager to take J.P. Pritzker's money if he's willing to offer it. And Gavin Newsom has been active out there.
Listen, I think that in this environment, almost any Democrat can go anywhere and sell sort of an anti-Trump message and that the economy is not where it should be and speak to those voters concerns.
[16:55:03]
But I think the midterms are likely to paper over a large part of the Democratic Party's issues that are going to have to sort out in this next nomination.
HUNT: Yeah, it might -- it might go so well that they forget to learn the lessons that got them.
HAYS: Well, we're still Democrats so here we all are.
HUNT: All right. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HUNT: All right. Thanks to my panel. Thanks to all of you at home for watching as well. We always appreciate you.
Please do not go anywhere, though, because Jake Tapper is standing by for "THE LEAD".
Hey, Jake. Great to see you.
