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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Supreme Court Rejects Trump's Plan To Limit Mail Ballots; Trump Rejects A.I. Regulation Despite Urgent Warnings; A.I. Industry's Pleas For Guardrails Dismissed By Trump, GOP; Gavin Newsom Tackles His 2028 Plans In A CNN Interview; Russian Oligarch Reportedly Pays Donald Trump's Son For A Wedding. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired September 14, 2026 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, return to sender. The Supremes block Donald Trump's efforts to limit mail-in ballots in the midterms, with none of his handpicked justices arguing in his favor.
Plus, the AI giants are begging to be regulated before a potential doomsday scenario, but the nation's top Republicans call it an artificial worry.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: It's going to be more good than bad.
J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: Feels a little bit to me like a bit of a Trojan horse.
PHILLIP: Also, one of the biggest Democratic names in the 2028 pool says he won't run if Kamala Harris does.
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): I wouldn't do that to her. I wouldn't waste everyone's time.
PHILLIP: And why did a Russian oligarch with ties to Vladimir Putin pay for Don Jr.'s wedding?
Live at the table, Van Jones, Ben Shapiro, Xochitl Hinojosa, Noah Rothman, and Sarah Matthews.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
Breaking news tonight, the president has suffered a major loss before the midterms even begin. The Supreme Court has just rejected his plan to change how mail-in ballots are delivered to voters across the country. Seven of the nine justices, including the three he appointed, blocked the administration's stay request, which would have given the Postal Service the unprecedented power to withhold potentially millions of mail-in ballots.
Now, both Democrats and some Republican state officials have warned that the proposal could have led to chaos and mass disenfranchisement. Justice Brett Kavanaugh took issue with the timing of it all, writing that the Postal Service could have had the authority ultimately to implement the rule change, but the state and local election officials do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the elections.
Now, at least three states have already sent in mail-in ballots. More than a dozen more will start sending them out later this week.
And before we open it up to the table here, we invite you at home to join our debate. Go to cnn.com/abby. Weigh in there. We'll get to some of your comments throughout the show.
And, Noah, do you think that this was the right move at this stage?
NOAH ROTHMAN, SENIOR WRITER, NATIONAL REVIEW: I think it was the most likely move. Nobody evaluated the constitutional merits of this thing, not even the decision. They said it's unlikely that it would've survived a, an exploration of the merits of the case. But they didn't even have to get there. They just decided that it was not going to be -- it would not be practical to implement it.
And Justice Kavanaugh's concurrence, he said basically the same thing. However, as you said, he thinks that it would survive an exploration of the merits. Nevertheless, it would violate the Administrative Procedures Act to implement this now, disenfranchise some voters along the way, and he said it's just there wasn't enough time, which is Justice Alito's point in his dissent, where he says, yes, there wasn't enough time, because we didn't get to this back in summer. We issued 40 pages of decisions over the course of the summer. We could've gotten to this earlier. I don't know if it would've survived a, an exploration of the merits, nevertheless. At the timing issue is Justice Alito's problem, and he says, it's a problem of our own making.
PHILLIP: Yes. But, I mean, either way, should we be implementing new, drastically different mail-in ballot rules less than 60 days before the election? I mean, one way or another, I think the big question for the Court would have been, had they allowed this to go forward, were they knowingly letting elections be tossed into chaos?
VAN JONES, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, it would've been an unmitigated disaster. You know, as you know, I've been a part of elections, doing elections for two decades, it's hard enough as it is. When all the rules are there and it's all on paper, you still have a bunch of lawyers suing you, it is a complete -- it's a miracle that we pull these elections off at all.
To change all the rules 60 days out, listen, the Supreme Court would've been embarrassed and humiliated watching the inability of the country to respond to this the right way. Here's the problem. Donald Trump had the opportunity to fix this. Biden had the opportunity to fix this. We have a problem in this country. Republicans do not trust Democrats to cast our votes fairly without cheating. Republicans don't trust -- I mean, Democrats don't trust Republicans to count our votes fairly without cheating and voter suppression. And so neither side feels confident.
There needs to be a grand bargain at some point. Biden didn't do it. He wanted to do a, a much bigger bill. He could get through the Senate. Trump came up with something else. It didn't work.
[22:05:00]
We have a bipartisan failure to fix this issue, but you can't fix it with an executive order at the last minute.
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You also can't fix it months before an election. And if Donald Trump really wanted to do something about it, he would've done it at the start of his presidency, and that didn't happen.
And I think that when he saw the writing on the wall, which was that the midterms are likely not going to go Republicans' way, then he decided that he wanted to potentially do something about it at the last minute, and has admitted that he understands that this is the only way that Republicans could potentially win the midterm elections.
And so I think that the fact that Donald Trump has one goal, and that is to win. His goal is not to protect our elections. His goal isn't anything else. That is his one goal, and I think that is in large part why a lot of people do not trust President Trump to move forward with some of these changes.
PHILLIP: I think it's important, just what you just said, which is that the president and his fervent belief that there's widespread fraud is really mostly about his unwillingness to believe that he actually lost the 2020 election. That's the whole ballgame for him.
SARAH MATTHEWS, FORMER WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY, FIRST TRUMP ADMINISTRATION: Yes, and this was another attempt by him to interfere in our elections, and I think, like you just mentioned, it's because he sees the writing on the wall for the midterm elections. It's not looking good for Republicans. And so he's trying to do anything he can to interfere, and he wanted to disenfranchise millions of Americans across this country who vote by mail, President Trump himself included. He voted by mail in August in Florida, and he has done so repeatedly.
And so it's just another example, though, of him and his trying to interfere in our elections, because this would've been unconstitutional. States run our elections, not President Trump. But he has always had this unwillingness to accept the results of the 2020 election. I believe it permanently broke his brain after he lost to someone he perceived as weak as Joe Biden, and he's never been able to recover, and we have seen him fall into conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory, trying to interfere in our elections.
But the thing is that voting by mail is safe and secure, and -- ROTHMAN: Isn't there a revealed preference issue here, though? We keep talking about how everybody's scared of voting. Nobody trusts the other side to count voting, and yet participation in our elections keep going up. We have record elections, record midterm elections, record general elections.
PHILLIP: I mean, to be honest, I actually think that -- I mean, to -- maybe this is to your point, but if Donald Trump would stop beating the fraud drum, which is really only about him, I don't think people would have as much of a problem with our elections now as they do. Because the only reason we're in this position is because of Trump, Trump fomented a lie about this.
BEN SHAPIRO, EDITOR EMERITUS, THE DAILY WIRE: This is a bipartisan issue. President Trump did that, but you also have Democratic politicians, Stacey Abrams claiming the election was stolen.
PHILLIP: But it's not -- hold on. It's not nearly to the extent that Trump did. And on top of that, I mean, Trump, to this day, believes despite all evidence to the contrary that he won the last election. But I bet -- I mean, I'm curious. Like Sarah just pointed out, from a conservative perspective, how are we even sitting here talking about the U.S. Postal Service deciding who gets ballots and who does not? How does that work from the perspective of people who believe that states should have the right to regulate things that the Constitution says that states have the right to regulate?
SHAPIRO: And so Justice Alito, who obviously is a textualist, I mean, he was the dissent in this particular case. He put out an eight-page dissent here, and his eight-page dissent essentially argued that the restriction that was placed on the USPS, that it was a regulation on the U.S. Postal Service, and that that regulation on the U.S. Postal Service, while it affected ballots, was not primarily about ballots. It was really about the use of the U.S. Postal Service.
Now, again, you can make the case the opposite way. I think that it kind of is, on a legal level, a bit of a jump ball. But the --
PHILLIP: I mean, do you really believe that?
SHAPIRO: Do I believe that --
PHILLIP: Do you really believe that you could argue that even if you consider it a regulation that allows the USPS to reject, en masse, ballots from being sent out is only just a USPS regulation and has no impact --
SHAPIRO: Well, based on a list of eligible voters provided by the state. I mean, that's what the regulation was.
PHILLIP: But you really would argue that has no impact on election administration?
SHAPIRO: Well, I mean, it has an effect on the use of the federal postal service to administer that part of the election. I mean, that is the question. Is it -- PHILLIP: Yes, that is the question. Are you okay with that?
SHAPIRO: I'm agreeing that it's a jump ball, but I think that the question here -- you're making it sound, everyone here is sort of making it sound, as though what the actual executive order did was simply bar millions of people from voting. That is not what the executive order says. What the executive order says is that states are to submit to the USPS a list of eligible voters, and then there are a list of things the USPS is supposed to put on the actual mail, right, on the envelope, and then send it to all of those people. So --
PHILLIP: I didn't say --
MATTHEWS: I think it would have disenfranchised people and I said that it was him interfering in our federal election.
SHAPIRO: I understand, but there's been a lot of attempts to get into President Trump's head, and, frankly, I find that rather uninteresting, since I think that we all kind of know what President Trump said.
PHILLIP: This is why I wanted to --
SHAPIRO: And what's more interesting is the fact the American people are very disturbed.
The vantage point --
[22:10:00]
PHILLIP: But hold on, Ben. This is why I'm asking you about the actual logic around this, if you are a conservative and you believe the Constitution says what it says about who regulates elections. And maybe you don't even -- maybe that's not even in the picture. Maybe it's just a belief that states should run elections how they want to. If they want to have voter I.D., they should be able to do that. How are you okay with the president, with the swipe of a pen, just saying, you know what? If the Postal Service receives a list of dubious origin, whether it's accurate or not, they can say that because of this one name that they believe is inaccurate, all of the tranche of ballots, it could be hundreds, it could be thousands, go back to the states. Is that really okay?
SHAPIRO: Well, again, if the goal were to have the states provide the list so as to not enfranchise non-voters, right, that's the goal of the thing theoretically, I don't have a problem with that on an ideological level. On a constitutional level, obviously, I would agree that the states are primarily in charge, but the Elections Clause does allow Congress to regulate.
So, this, let's put it this way.
PHILLIP: Congress, it does and Alito mentions that. I thought it was super interesting --
SHAPIRO: The other people who are on the other side of this executive order, if this had been a Congressionally-passed law, like say the SAVE Act, would you suddenly be on team?
PHILLIP: Well, look, it would have be on stronger legal footing.
(CROSSTALKS)
SHAPIRO: But that was not my question.
PHILLIP: I mean, it would be on much stronger legal footing --
HINOJOSA: I'm not going to get into your hypothetical right now. The fact is --
PHILLIP: -- if Congress had passed the law, but Congress didn't.
JONES: But why are we even having this conversation? We're having this conversation because twice now a U.S. president said he was going to do something about it. Biden tried to put forward the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, but it had too much stuff in it, and it couldn't get through the Senate. Then Trump comes with the SAVE Act going the opposite direction with too much stuff, and it can't get a vote at all.
What you're -- so I just want to point out, there is discontent on both sides with the system. We feel like there's voter suppression. We feel like the Voting Rights Act needs to be restored. What Dr. King was beaten and killed for should be restored. We don't have a path to do that. Some Republicans are very concerned about voter I.D. They have no path to do that.
At some point, there's got to be a grand bargain, and the -- it's a maximalism on both sides that's actually putting us in a situation where we're doing, you know, nonsense 50 days before the vote.
PHILLIP: All right, we're going to leave it there.
Next for us, the A.I. companies are begging to be regulated right now as apocalyptic warnings come from the tech community. But Donald Trump tonight is calling it all a big hoax.
Plus, Gavin Newsom says that he is not going to run for president if Kamala Harris does. So, what is the reason behind it? Does it make any sense? We'll discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, President Trump is shrugging off grave new concerns about the risks of artificial intelligence, even though giants in the A.I. world are practically begging for guardrails before a potential doomsday scenario plays out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DARIO AMODEI, CEO, ANTHROPIC: I continue to be worried about economic disruption. Looking at what the models can do, you know, that they can solve these unsolved math problems. No one could look at that and say, this isn't a potential concern, right, that economic disruption isn't a potential concern when these models have these incredible intellectual abilities.
The nightmare scenario for 6 to 12 months would be that you have, you know, a swarm of these agents that, you know, that form some kind of botnet collective and, you know, could take down large segments of the internet. And then as the capability increases, it gets worse from there. And then, you know, perhaps you get into some of the more extreme scenarios.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That was the CEO of Anthropic, which is behind the A.I. chatbot, Claude. Just last week, one of the company's researchers quit over A.I. safety concerns, and warned the technology could wipe out humanity within the next decade.
But in a post on social media, Trump says, the only controls or guardrails that A.I. needs are a strong and smart president, which he claims the U.S. has. In another post, Trump wrote that the concerns are a hoax, just like Russia or Ukraine or his impeachment, that, quote, America was forced to endure through the destructionists and deviants' foul play and illegal conduct.
It's a sentiment the president has doubled down on when he called the CEO of NVIDIA, who was on the stage during a summit earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They're just playing right into the hands of a lot of people that don't want to see it happen. And that could be political people. It could also be China and we're not going to let that happen. It's a hoax.
I also have common sense about A.I. The robots will not be taking over. The A.I. will not be taking over the rest of the world. The whole thing is a hoax.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, Ben, is the argument here that A.I. is not as powerful as they make it seem, and that therefore cannot do all the bad things, cause a jobs apocalypse, cause the end of the human race, or is it that China's going to do it anyway, so we might as well just do what they do?
SHAPIRO: Well, I think it's a little bit of both. I think one argument is that the risks are being exaggerated by people who have a very strong interest in regulatory capture, who want to write the regulations themselves. Most of the people who are pushing the apocalyptic talk very hard, are people who are heads of closed models. They're very afraid of open models that theoretically could challenge them. And also they have liability in court that open models don't. So, looking for regulation for a sort of regulatory harbor that allows them to develop without the possibility of products liability is a good idea for them. So, I think that's one argument.
The other argument is the argument that Alex Karp over at Palantir has made, which I think is exactly right, which is China has no concern about any of this. China's just going to race forward, and China, if they outstrip us, is simply going to beat us.
[22:20:01]
And if they beat us in the A.I. race, then we will all be using Chinese models, and that will come along with all of the strings that are attached to that, including military dominance by China.
PHILLIP: But isn't that just basically saying we're going to be in a technological Cold War again?
SHAPIRO: We already are on --
PHILLIP: Right. And so therefore, I mean, shouldn't we learn the like lessons from the last Cold War? I mean, I'm not sure that just --
SHAPIRO: Yes, outspending them. I agree, yes.
PHILLIP: Well, just racing without an endgame to --
SHAPIRO: The endgame is for them to lose.
PHILLIP: -- something that could be mutually assured destruction could be problematic for us.
MATTHEWS: The endgame is for them to lose, but if we're all doomed, then what's the point if we got there first? And I will say too, when you look at China, I think that China is always going to choose government control over choosing open innovation like we have in this country. And so I think that we already have the upper hand when it comes to the race for A.I. against them.
And if you're looking at innovation in this country, I think that there has to be a fine line. We have to make it a balancing act where we do need some serious, responsible guardrails in place while making sure that we don't regulate this technology into the ground.
When you look at something like the nuclear age, we didn't look at that and say, oh, we need to get rid of this technology completely, but we didn't wait for disaster to happen before having the guardrails in place.
ROTHMAN: Well, some did say that we need to get rid of nuclear technology entirely, and that was unfeasible had they gone --
MATTHEWS: But that's not my -- my argument isn't that, that we should get rid of A.I. technology entirely or that we need to put a stop on this completely, but President Trump going out there and saying that this is a hoax and saying that he doesn't want to do any regulation around it, that seems a little irresponsible and he's not really meeting the moment here.
ROTHMAN: Why? Why is it irresponsible? They have not made their case.
MATTHEWS: So, you don't think there should be any sort of regulation at all?
ROTHMAN: They have not made their case. It is step one, build A.I. Step two, question mark. Step three, the extinction of the human civilization. You need to show evidence --
HINOJOSA: No.
MATTHEWS: it's not just the extinction of human civilization. It's also worrying about the concerns when it comes to jobs and wiping out entire industries.
ROTHMAN: And the prediction was that we would be in a jobs apocalypse by now. Amodei made that prediction. He also said that the age of human coding would be over by now. It's not. We do need to ask a little bit more evidence from this guy, and anybody who says, stop me before I kill again, is not making a good faith argument. They're not. That is emotional and moral blackmail every single time.
HINOJOSA: I mean, if you're listening to President Trump's remarks about how this is all a hoax, et cetera, if the head of the Republican Party, and as Mike Johnson also believes that there aren't guardrails, and that is largely because you're looking at the president and you're looking at the Republican Party, they are funded by these companies. And, of course, they're going to say that there should be no guardrails where they are funded by -- they're absolutely funded by them, and they go in and they kiss the president's ring.
SHAPIRO: Anthropic's in an open war with the DOD.
HINOJOSA: They -- well --
PHILLIP: Yes. Well, I mean, I would say, I mean, OpenAI's Sam Altman has also been --
HINOJOSA: Yes, there are other companies who are in the pockets, and not only that, and it's not just there, but it's also places like where the data centers are booming in Texas, and that is a huge -- the state where I'm from, my sister's running for governor, that is a huge issue there too. And there are -- these folks are in the pockets of those elected leaders there. This is exactly why they don't want to regulate it.
JONES: Okay. I know a little bit about this, so I just wanted to say a few things. First of all, the thing with regard to China and the United States is a real challenge. However, I think there is a pathway there. Bill Gates came out with some ideas that I think are very helpful. Let's start with bioterrorism. Despite some concerns you may have about COVID we can talk about there is, we have to start someplace between the two superpowers.
Xi and Trump are the two people that could slow this race down. In order to do that, you need to get them together on something. Bioterrorism is something that neither one would want to happen, number one. Number two, right now, neither the DOJ nor the SEC has any of the basic regulatory and criminal justice tools to impose accountability if they do things the wrong way.
So, there's a group called EqualAI. There's a woman named Miriam Vogel that has a series of very sober-minded suggestions that the government could adopt to at least begin putting in place with the DOJ and the SEC accountability if these things do get out of control.
So, there's a -- everybody's kind of concerned about can you trust Dario, can you not? I know Dario. I trust him a lot. But regardless, we don't have the basic regulatory framework to control this.
ROTHMAN: I would take issue with that.
PHILLIP: But just a second. Let me -- I mean, Dario talked about that very thing today, the idea that what is really needed here is not a United States grand bargain, but a global grand bargain. Listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AMODEI: I'm not going to put aside those concerns. But, you know, just as when we had the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and we said, man, we have so many, you know, nuclear missiles that, you know, we could destroy the world. Like even though we disagree on lots of things, even though we as the U.S. feel that free societies are in the right, we've got to do something together with them to reduce, at least reduce, hopefully eliminate, the scale of the potential destruction.
[22:25:09]
And that is the kind of thing that I'm suggesting here, right? Even when we feel that we don't trust these countries, we have to find a way to work together with them as much as we can.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Look, a lot of people have suggested that if Trump really wanted to make sure that we could pursue A.I. for the benefits, he should be the one to get together with Xi and whoever else and make a deal.
ROTHMAN: Well, I don't know if Mr. Amodei is familiar with the history of arms control treaties. They're not especially ironclad. The Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, for example, was something we observed and the Soviets didn't and the Russians didn't until we eventually just abandoned it because the only people who were abiding by it were us.
When it comes to biological weapons, it's not as though there are no tools on the books. And, again, in the 1990s, we had this whole conversation. You can't suppress knowledge, but you can suppress the tools, right? I can look up how to build a nuclear bomb on the internet right now. That doesn't mean I can build a fissionable device in my basement, nor could I build a bioweapon because I would need to go to a DNA synthesis lab, which checks against watch lists, or I'd have to go to a chemicals or manufacturers or contract labs --
JONES: Your copy's level is a little bit higher than mine.
ROTHMAN: -- and which also trigger law enforcement and trigger biosafety elements. Like there's not nothing there.
SHAPIRO: Also, again, China was responsible for hiding COVID, which then killed multiple million people, and that was in the last six years. So, trusting them when it comes to gigantic treaties --
(CROSSTALKS)
SHAPIRO: There's one other point that nobody's talking about. There are two risks. And it's fun to talk about the apocalyptic risk because we've all seen apocalypse movies. There is a much more significant risk that is much higher threat, that is much more likelihood. Not higher threat, but more likelihood.
And that is the risk of stagnation. If you stagnate A.I., it is probably the beginning of the end of the American economy. We are currently running into economic dire straits in which key bills are absolutely getting crushed, in which we have a $40 billion -- $40 trillion national debt. The only -- and both parties, there is a uni party. The uni party is for spending enormous amounts of money and never paying for any of it. That is the actual uni party in the United States.
The only possible escape from that is to reach some sort of escape velocity in terms of productivity, which is why the Trump administration has been pushing A.I. recently.
PHILLIP: So, okay, let me just read this. Let me read this viewer note because I think it actually has some relevance to what you said. This viewer says, Trump told Bob Woodward that he downplayed COVID because it would kill the economy. The same holds true today regarding A.I. and Trump.
It is -- I think what this comment is suggesting is that Trump doesn't care about the downside, the collateral damage of, you know, a massive A.I. renaissance, and he's talked about this, and that regular people will care because they will be the collateral damage. That's what the concern is.
MATTHEWS: Regular people care because they're worried about things, like Flock cameras in their communities. They care about the data centers in their backyards. They care about unregulated A.I. potentially wiping out entire job industries and them being unemployed. Trump can't wrap his mind around any of those issues because he's so out of touch with the everyday average American. So, he doesn't see this as an issue, and that's why he chalks it up to being a hoax.
And this is a top concern for a lot of people across this country right now, and it would do him some good to actually care and talk about it. A capable president would be addressing the concerns that the American people have. And I do think that there is a balancing act here where you can have oversight without slowing down. It would --
ROTHMAN: That's what Amodei said. He said, let's have a third party audit.
PHILLIP: I would say that there are a lot of people calling for oversight without slowing down.
I think one of the biggest parts of it is that the technology needs to be understandable by humans. This is the part that I think is important. The president doesn't use a cellphone, okay? I don't think he understands a type of technology that goes beyond human comprehension, computers that can code things that humans have to take weeks and months to figure out what it's doing.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: There is an understanding gap here.
MATTHEWS: Wait. President Trump says that we need no regulation because, thankfully, no guardrails are needed because we have a strong and smart president, high I.Q. --
PHILLIP: Okay, a strong and smart president --
SHAPIRO: On the other side, there were useless socialists who ran for president multiple times who doesn't know a computer or a chinie.
MATTHEWS: I'm talking about the guy in charge right now.
SHAPIRO: And I'm talking about the guy who's been --
MATTHEWS: I'm talking about the guy in charge right now facing the biggest policy issue of our generation.
SHAPIRO: I understand. And the alternative policy proposal that is being posed by Bernie Sanders is a full A.I. stop.
MATTHEWS: That's not what I'm arguing for, but --
ROTHMAN: But he can read a poll. Even if he knows nothing about this technology, he knows what people want.
HINOJOSA: If they wanted to regulate it, they would regulate it. Republicans are in charge of everything.
ROTHMAN: I understand.
HINOJOSA: Every part of government. And they don't want to regulate. They don't want --
(CROSSTALKS)
ROTHMAN: He's not paying attention to the polls because he thinks that it's more valuable to build out data centers, to build out A.I. --
PHILLIP: One second, Noah and Xochitl. Hold on a second. Two things. One, I don't think it's true that Republicans in general don't want to regulate. There have actually have been several of them who do. And I actually think that Mike Johnson is one of them, I mean, he's not Bernie Sanders, but he's not nobody.
[22:30:17]
Second thing, 50 percent of Americans told Pew last year that they are more concerned than excited. So the President can read polls.
This is a political problem. It's a very real one, and there are real practical issues here moving forward.
JONES: Okay, look, I just know a lot about this. It's weird to be in a conversation where I'm in this industry. I just want to point out, here's the thing that I think people don't understand.
It's the agents themselves that can get out of control. It's not just, you know, Dario and some, you know, scheme to try to, like, get.
Honestly, they're seeing things in these labs that are actually frightening. They are seeing these agents act in ways that defy their training, that are threatening to humans, and they don't know what to do.
And I've been in rooms with the hyperscalers. I've been in the room with the hyperscalers and the Trump administration officials, and none of them know what to do. So I do want to say nobody's flying the plane on this.
It's easy to -- everybody go to their little sound bites and stuff like this, but this is a real tough problem, and I appreciate the fact that we're being invited to.
I think that the ethicists that work for them, when they are quitting, and they're running out, and they're pointing back at the building, and they're waving their arms, and saying, I'm seeing stuff that's scaring me, we should take that very seriously.
ROTHMAN: Van, one of Mark's suggestions was that we need, the actionable suggestions beyond this, like, global consortium, was that we need a third-party ombudsman embedded in all these companies, auditing safety protocols. Why do we need an industry collusion to get that?
If it's best practices, you have a fiduciary responsibility to pursue it yourself without the industry.
JONES: I don't.
There's a foot race dynamic here where, and this is just, it's like a trap, I call it the greed and speed trap, where if you are ethical enough to want to slow this down and do it the right way, but I am so unethical that I don't care, I'm going to get ahead of you, and my model will be better than yours, and I'll be able to knock your model out conceivably. And so the ethical thing --
ROTHMAN: But you'll be sued if it's bad best practice. If it's best practice to do this, then every company will do it. There'll still be lawsuits after the robot apocalypse.
JONES: No, okay, listen, I really wish it was simple as what you're saying, but it's honestly just not. Something could happen that is really catastrophic that, fine, you can sue later on, but you would rather avoid it.
There are ethical people who are trying to figure this stuff out, and I just think this idea that you should just assume that everybody here is lying, everybody here is up to no good, I think deserves a public.
ROTHMAN: Even if I assume good faith, I think that's something you could pursue without the industry's collusion, just for the benefit of your investment.
PHILLIP: I think that one of the reasons. Look, Ben brought this up at the beginning. I think there's part of what you said that's important.
These are businesses. They don't want to take actions that their competitors are not taking.
One of the reasons that they want to get ahead of this is so that they're not out there alone. And you might call it regulatory capture. I think there's some degree to which that is true, but there's a competitive element to this where they need to jump into the deep end together.
Otherwise, they lose their advantage.
ROTHMAN: That's the definition of regulatory capture, raise the barrier to entry into the business.
PHILLIP: Look, it is what it is, but I think that that is, to answer your question, that is the why.
SHAPIRO: -- monopoly and collusion. Because they're literally calling for monopoly and collusion.
PHILLIP: Well, they're calling for government to step in, and government doesn't have to let them capture it. They can actually just act, which they aren't doing right now.
JONES: That's why equal A.I. is important, because they are nonpartisan, and they're trying to figure out a way to do this the right way without the capture, but also without the catastrophe.
PHILLIP: All right, next for us, Gavin Newsom says he has made an important decision about running for President, and it's sending shockwaves through the Democratic Party. We're going to discuss that next.
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[22:35:00]
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PHILLIP: Tonight, as the 2028 jockeying gets closer, Gavin Newsom makes a pledge that could dramatically alter the race for Democrats. In the first of a series of new interviews with politicians on both sides of the aisle, places that matter to them, listen to what the California governor said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: It's going to be a lot of people.
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): Yes.
TAPPER: It's a lot of Democrats.
NEWSOM: 31 flavors.
TAPPER: You're not even the only Californian.
NEWSOM: No, right? Yes.
TAPPER: You've got Ro Khanna, Kamala.
NEWSOM: Yes, I don't know if she runs, but we'll see.
TAPPER: I know she's called around.
NEWSOM: Yes, but I wouldn't run if she ran.
TAPPER: If she runs, you will not.
NEWSOM: Of course not. Why would I?
I wouldn't do that to her. I wouldn't do it to me. Why would I? I wouldn't do that to you. I wouldn't waste everyone's time.
First of all, electorally, it's a gift from God for everybody else. They can enjoy the hell out of it. Mutual assured destruction.
It services no greater good.
TAPPER: You've never run, and she's run twice.
NEWSOM: Yes, I mean, that would be the approach to the campaign. Certainly that would be the case you'd make.
I just but I know what that means. I know her base of supporters, I know her friends. The Zenn diagram on that is just pure crossover.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, Van, why is he saying this? JONES: I don't know, but, you know, I know both of these folks. We all
grew up together. Gavin, Kamala, and myself are all kids come up in San Francisco, barrier politics together, and they've always been this way. It's the weirdest thing in the world.
They just will not run against each other when he when he.
PHILLIP: So you think it's true?
Let me just make sure --
PHILLIP: Some people are not.
JONES: Let me just make sure people understand the background story. This is a 30 year story.
When he ran for mayor, she ran for district attorney. When he ran for lieutenant governor, she ran for attorney general. When he ran for governor, she ran for Senate.
[22:40:07]
They just don't want to do this because it would be a nuclear Armageddon among the California Democratic elite and party. And so I don't know if he means it or not.
Maybe he's just trying to bow to her. So she'll give him a chance for once. But this is this has been going on in our party in California for 30 years.
These guys just trying to never have to fight each other.
PHILLIP: Ben, I know you talked to Gavin Newsom sometime last year --
SHAPIRO: In January.
PHILLIP: -- or in January and -- okay, so first of all, do you think that he's telling the truth about that? And secondly, does that mean that if Kamala Harris is really going to run, he's out?
SHAPIRO: I think he's telling the truth about that. I don't know why he's fly fishing. I mean, that was the thing about that whole thing.
It was about is it kind of normal to watch that as President Trump to sort of equestrian ride exactly what's happening. But while he's being unnatural, which is kind of his usual mode, I would say that Governor Newsom.
Yes, I think that he is honest about that. Also, because I think that he looks at the electoral map like anybody else in the opening state of South Carolina. If he runs against her in South Carolina, she'll kill him.
And so I think that puts him in a really bad position starting off. The Democrats shifting the calendar, the primary calendar is very bad for anybody who is running against Kamala Harris or maybe Wes Moore. There are some a few other candidates who might do really well there, but I don't see why he would run against her if that.
PHILLIP: Our friend Bakari Sellers recently talked about this on his podcast, and here's what he thinks Kamala Harris is going to do.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BAKARI SELLERS (D), FORMER SOUTH CAROLINA STATE REPRESENTATIVE: I don't even know if Kamala Harris is going to run for President of the United States again.
She has not done anything. That would outside of a book tour, which everybody does for whatever reasons they do, there have been. And let me give you a great example, like.
In Michigan, South Carolina. Some other of the early states, you've had Pete Buttigieg, you've had Westmore, you've had everybody, but Jon Ossoff and Josh Shapiro come to these places for an NAACP event, for a gala, for something. And all I'm saying is she may not have to do that.
She may see herself as where she is right now, not having to do that. But she's not doing that. She's not calling the people who, you know, are your field organizers, et cetera.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So do you think, do you agree with that assessment that she's not quite doing the things she would need to be doing?
HINOJOSA: Well, she's definitely talking to people, as Jake said, and she is talking to people within Democratic circles. She has kept senior people on her team, for example, that unless you're going to run for President or start a big pack of some sort or some be involved and be relevant in the national political space, then you would keep these folks on.
Listen, like I think that is very tough, especially with the calendar, as both of you had mentioned, for someone to run against her in a place like South Carolina. It's also very tough to run against a black woman or a woman of color. More broadly, I think that if you are a white man running against a woman of color and you are going to there are attacks and other things, I don't think it is a good look for the Democratic Party base if we have a number of men attacking the only black woman running.
And so that did happen. But she was also Vice President of the United States. She has run before.
There is this respect for her within the Democratic Party, whether or not she wants the headache of running for President, I think is another thing. I think she needs to decide whether she wants to give up her life in California.
And those are the things that do that. PHILLIP: Your last word.
ROTHMAN: Oh, I don't know. I just think everybody wants the fireworks not to start until after the midterms.
They want all fire directed at Republicans. I mean, the integrity of the Democratic Party in California, notwithstanding, I'm not sure if that would be an obstacle. If the you know, the gold brass ring is right is right in front of your face.
MATTHEWS: I'll say to real quick, if you believe in deference or you believe in waiting for someone else's turn, then you're not right for the job. So I don't think that Gavin Newsom has what it takes if he's going to say something like that.
PHILLIP: All right. Next for us, they said it was everything they dreamed of, and now Don Jr.'s wedding is under close scrutiny. Why Russian oligarch paid for his party?
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[22:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, the President's eldest son is facing scrutiny after it was reported that his intimate wedding celebration in the Bahamas was heavily funded by a Russian oligarch who is close to Vladimir Putin.
ProPublica reports that Umar Kremlev covered the bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of expenses for Don Jr.'s wedding to socialite Bettina Anderson. Among those expenses, well, rental costs for a entire private island where the going rate is about $100,000 a night, a firework show that could cost around $70,000 and his team helped plan the event.
Now, the relationship between Kremlev and Don Jr. was previously unreported, according to ProPublica. Kremlev speaks very little English. He showed up with a large group of Russians that stood at times by themselves at the event, speaking to each other in Russian.
It's also unclear why Don Jr., whose net worth was recently estimated to be about around $300 million, didn't just foot the bill himself.
[22:49:59]
In a statement to the outlet, a spokesperson for Don Jr. did not dispute the payments, saying that Umar is a personal friend of Don and not someone with which he has had a business relationship. Kremlev's press office said the two first met a couple of years ago.
CNN has reached out to the White House, the Trump Organization, Don Jr. spokesperson and to representatives for Kremlev. And we should also note that Bettina Anderson also put out a social media post that confirmed all of this, although they emphasize that he only paid for two incredible nights after the wedding celebration.
I don't know if that's meant to make a difference.
JONES: -- in the middle of the wedding.
PHILLIP: Not sure what the difference is.
ROTHMAN: Angry confirmation.
PHILLIP: But I mean, there are so many weird things about this. And I just keep thinking like if this if Don Jr. I mean, Don Jr. is the President's son, so he doesn't need a security clearance. But if he did, he wouldn't get one after something like this.
MATTHEWS: I just can't imagine if this was like a Hunter Biden situation, how much people's heads would explode. Imagine a Russian oligarch in Putin's inner circle paying for the wedding of the President's son. It blows my mind.
And I can't understand why, is he really that cheap? Also, like he has the net worth to pay for this himself. So it makes you question why is this man paying for their wedding costs?
SHAPIRO: You just need better friends.
MATTHEWS: Yes. But you bring up better friends. And I think that's something we're not talking about this guy is that his organization is under Ukrainian sanctions for its alleged role in abducting Ukrainian children.
That's who this guy is. And that's the company he's keeping. And he's using that money then to pay for Don Jr.'s fireworks at his wedding.
JONES: Also, he doesn't even speak English. The guy speaks only Russian. So my great buddy, who I can't even talk to.
PHILLIP: But Ben, what do you make of this stuff?
SHAPIRO: It's bad.
PHILLIP: There's brazen stuff. That's what I make of it.
SHAPIRO: It is bad. And also, I'm getting quite tired of Presidential children picking up sacks of cash abroad and then presumably being pardoned by their father at the end of their term. We're going to go two for two here and I feel like this is not a great pattern.
PHILLIP: I mean, yes, we will revisit this because, I mean, there may very well be a pardon. I cannot wrap my head around this. Why?
Because he can pay for it. This is actually not like a Hunter Biden.
MATTHEWS: You would think he'd be making enough off the crypto-grids and all the government contracts.
PHILLIP: These guys are very rich. Why would you let a Russian oligarch pay for? And why would -- okay, put aside Russian oligarch.
I'm getting married, I would never let a guest pay for part of my wedding. That is a weird, tactless thing to do.
HINOJOSA: Because you're classy.
ROTHMAN: And probably nobody would offer unless they were expecting something in exchange. You don't spend six figures on nothing, on a gift. Even if there was just really bad judgment here and no quid pro quo whatsoever.
It's nevertheless absolutely reckless and heedless and does damage to his father's political position, which he doesn't seem to care about. The Hunter Biden thing, I think, is perfectly apt. It's not like it's not 100 percent apt because, yes, Don Jr. probably could have paid for this sort of thing and Hunter couldn't.
Nevertheless, Hunter Biden got the Burisma contracts. Hunter Biden got the paintings paid for.
MATTHEWS: Let's look at the crypto-grift in this administration. Let's look at all the government contracts that the.
ROTHMAN: Well, I'm not trying to say that it was so politically damaging to Joe Biden. And the Trump administration owes its administration.
MATTHEWS: And they saw that Hunter Biden left money on the table. And so now they're making even more money and they're capitalized on their father's name.
And so I hold both parties accountable. I think that what Hunter Biden did was gross. But I think that what they're doing is ten times worse and even more gross.
And it's raising really serious national security questions of why is this Russian oligarch who's in Putin's inner circle paying for Don Jr.'s wedding, who has all these questions around him when it comes to his Ukrainian ties of him, quite literally his organization that he works for being sanctioned for abducting Ukrainian children. It's gross.
HINOJOSA: So you ask why? And the answer is, is because they can.
And there is no sort of oversight. There is no one stopping them. The Justice Department isn't going to investigate them.
There isn't -- there is no congressional oversight. The only thing.
Well, I mean, there probably have been crimes based on their business dealings and what the White House and the White House policymaking that has occurred, et cetera.
And like but no one will even look into it because that is what Trump 2.0 is all about. They control every level of government and therefore they don't have to worry about that. And so the answer is they can't and they will and they will.
PHILLIP: Sarah said this is ten times worse because of the scale. Do you agree with that?
SHAPIRO: I'm not sure that it's ten times worse.
PHILLIP: I think whatever order of magnitude --
MATTHEWS: Not this.
SHAPIRO: I think there's corruption that has surrounded the administration that actually is not this story. That is significantly worse than what we saw during the Biden administration. And I was extraordinarily condemnatory of the Biden administration and Hunter Biden.
I think it's going to come back to bite a lot of people who are working in the administration directly (inaudible) and that includes the entire Republican Party. If they fail to distance themselves, I think it's a real major issue that people are ignoring.
PHILLIP: All right. Next for us, we'll react to your feedback from cnn.com/abby. We'll be right back.
[22:55:10]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: And now some viewer feedback from cnn.com/abby.
This viewer says I should be treated much like the nuclear power industry and test, verify, regulate and inspect. That seems reasonable.
[23:00:00]
JONES: Amen. I think exactly right. And even more so because this can be on any laptop in any place. And so you need to be even be more aggressive than with a bomb.
SHAPIRO: And just like nuclear power, don't kill it. It's a really bad idea to kill it.
PHILLIP: Yeah, we did. I mean, we didn't kill it.
JONES: I agree.
PHILLIP: But we tried to have treaties with other countries and maybe they all didn't work, but we tried.
SHAPIRO: Europe did. It was really bad.
PHILLIP: All right. Thanks for watching "NewsNight." "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
