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OpenAI Reveals More Instances of AI Models Acting Deceptively; Interview with Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-CA): Some Democratic Senators Push for FDA-Like Regulatory Organization; Axios: Trump Weighing Big Decision on Iran; Russian Satellites May Be Helping Iran Hit U.S. Targets. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired September 17, 2026 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: OpenAI says it discovered six more incidents over the last six months of its models performing what's been described as misaligned behavior during testing, including deceitful acts like hiding its mistakes and fabricating information without being told to do so. The company's disclosure is alarming many across the tech world and beyond.

Some Senate Democrats are now calling for an FDA-like regulatory organization that focuses on artificial intelligence. But right now, the House is out. Speaker Mike Johnson initiated a weeks-long recess despite calls to tackle concerns about AI first.

More than a hundred bills have been introduced in Congress over the last two years to rein in AI development, yet not a single one has become law. This week, President Trump dismissed concerns about the technology as a hoax. With us now to discuss is Republican Congressman Jay Obernolte of California.

He's the vice chair of the Congressional AI Caucus. He also is the only member of Congress with a graduate degree in AI. Congressman, thank you so much for being with us.

Despite these urgent calls for some regulation of AI, Speaker Johnson sent the House home. Is that the right move right now? Shouldn't lawmakers be huddled, putting together some form of regulation right now?

REP. JAY OBERNOLTE (R-CA): Well, there's a number of House members frustrated that we're not in DC, but I'm one who believes that a majority of our job is actually back in the districts that we represent, meeting with the people that we represent, so I think there's validity to both sides of that argument. It certainly wouldn't be fair to call it a vacation. People are back working amongst their constituents, and that includes Republicans and Democrats.

SANCHEZ: Understandably, the midterms are coming up. I imagine a lot of members are campaigning. I want to get your thoughts, before we talk about AI, about Congressman Thomas Massie, who says that this recess is happening because of his effort to impeach the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, that there are several Republicans who support that effort to impeach.

Are you one of them?

OBERNOLTE: You know, I haven't looked at Thomas Massie's impeachment resolution. That's something that never came up, as you're aware, for a vote on the floor, but I know there's been a lot of frustrations about the fact that the narrow majority has made anything moving in the House of Representatives this fall very difficult and very frustrating, and I share those frustrations.

SANCHEZ: Do you think that this recess is to avoid a vote on impeaching Hegseth, though?

OBERNOLTE: You know, I really couldn't say.

SANCHEZ: All right, Congressman, your AI legislation, the Frontier Act, it requires AI labs to write, publish, and follow their own safety plans with penalties if they don't comply with them, but if companies are still able to set their own rules, effectively, doesn't that mean that they could have weak rules in place, and if they still follow them and there's an incident, they were complying with their own rules. Shouldn't the government be more involved in what's happening?

OBERNOLTE: Well, there's another section of the legislation that requires frontier developers to hire independent verification organizations, and those IVOs would not only verify that the developers following their safety plan but also certify that the safety plan is adequate to address catastrophic risks, so we did that very deliberately to avoid the situation that you're talking about.

[15:35:00]

SANCHEZ: Yet, in my understanding, and I don't have a master's degree in AI, my understanding is that many of these companies, in training these agents to develop its own superintelligence, are not aware of what's happening in the black box. They don't know, for example, how these agents went rogue, so even if they come up with a safety plan, if they're not aware of what the agents are doing until after the fact, how does this legislation prevent something from going awry, right?

OBERNOLTE: Well, these companies are learning a lot about what can go awry as they're doing this testing, and it has to be said that these incidents that have occurred recently have been in testing of models that have intentionally had their safety controls removed, so these companies are asking the right question, which is, what's the worst thing that could happen? They're finding out, but it's also important to note that we're learning a lot about how to prevent these kind of incidents in the future. So one of the things that these companies are starting to do is called chain of thought monitoring, where they are monitoring in real time with a human or a completely segmented AI algorithm what the algorithm is doing.

And when it starts going in a rogue direction, they can stop it before it actually does something that's malicious. This is something that's come about, it's very recent, but it's something that's come about as a result of, and in response to, the testing that they've been doing.

SANCHEZ: It sounds like you trust these companies to monitor what is happening internally. Does that mean that you would not then support a ban on superintelligence development, a temporary one, as some lawmakers are calling for?

OBERNOLTE: Well, as Ronald Reagan say, trust but verify, right? That's why we do food safety inspections. We have requirements, but we send out inspectors to verify that food providers are following the rules, the same way that our bill would have these independent verification organizations go and verify that frontier developers are following the rules, so I think there's a balance to be struck between not overregulating but also putting in place the safeguards that are going to protect Americans from the malicious use of AI by human actors.

SANCHEZ: I guess the fear is, in part, you mentioned the FDA and food safety regulations, this isn't just, you know, lettuce with some bad, you know, cells in them or something, right, as we saw over the summer, this is something that could remake history in the sense that we can't imagine all of the things that this superintelligence may be capable of. So I wonder if you are not concerned about the direction that this is heading in such a way that the brakes have to be pumped now, and in other words, that Congress should do more now to prevent these companies who are competing against each other from developing something that they can't control.

OBERNOLTE: I completely agree with you, and that's why I and my bipartisan co-leads on the Frontier Act have been pushing for congressional action this year, but it's also important to note that most Americans don't have a terribly realistic view of what the actual big time harms of AI are. It's not an army of robots rising up to take over the world through superintelligence like something out of a Terminator movie, it's rather the malicious use of AI in the hands of human actors, the use of AI to do things like steal people's money through cyber fraud and cyber theft, the use of AI by our geopolitical competitors to hack our infrastructure, the use of AI to spread mis- and disinformation, to influence our democracy, those are the things that keep me up at night.

SANCHEZ: You said you would want to see a vote on this or another form of AI legislation this year. What is your reaction then to the Energy and Commerce Chair, Brett Guthrie, saying that your legislation needs work, that it will not move through committee where it's been since July until next year?

OBERNOLTE: Oh, I don't think he said that. He definitely said it needs work and I agree with him, we have been working. I don't expect that it will be brought up for a vote until I can demonstrate to the chairman and the rest of the committee that it has been thoroughly vetted, that it is workable and that we have the political support to get it through, but I'm confident that we're going to be able to do those things. And Boris, for us it's not like we've been sitting on our hands here.

This bill is part of a larger bill package called the Great American AI Act and major pieces of that have already been passed through committee. In fact, we passed 11 different bills that were part of that package through the Science, Space and Technology Committee in July. So this piece, the Frontier Act, needs to go through Energy and Commerce, we have a couple of other committees to do too, but the goal is to get all of this through committee in a position where it's eligible for floor action before Christmas and that's I think what we're going to try and do.

SANCHEZ: You say lawmakers haven't been sitting on their hands, which is fair, they've been coming up with legislation, but for the average person who's sitting at home hearing these warnings and they hear that the House isn't even in session, you understand their fear, right? What do you say to them?

OBERNOLTE: Well, we weren't going to get a hearing on Frontier in September anyway, so we actually have not been delayed, but I understand the frustration as a member of Congress. I've been frustrated for the last four years at how dysfunctional the House of Representatives has been.

I know many of us share that sentiment.

SANCHEZ: Congressman Jay Obernolte, thank you so much for joining us.

OBERNOLTE: Always a pleasure.

SANCHEZ: Of course.

Still ahead, President Trump facing a major decision about the war with Iran as things get more tense in the Middle East.

You're watching CNN NEWS CENTRAL. We'll be right back.

[15:40:10]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: To destroy or not to destroy Iran, that is the decision that President Trump says he is weighing. In a new interview with Axios, he says he's considering whether to quote, go in and annihilate them, and he insists that anything could happen. Next week, Trump will be meeting with Gulf leaders on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, as tensions in the Middle East appear to be rising.

Iran-backed Houthi rebels released video that they say shows the wreckage -- you see it here -- of a U.S.-built Saudi F-15 fighter jet shot down over Yemen. CNN has not verified or geolocated that video of note.

But let's bring in CNN senior military analyst and retired Navy Admiral James Stavridis to talk a little bit about what's happening in the region.

[15:45:00]

I mean, first, what we're hearing from the President, Admiral, he tells Axios he's at this major crossroads in the Iran war. He has made a lot of threats before, so how are you seeing this moment?

ADM. JAMES STAVRIDIS (RET.), CNN SENIOR MILITARY ANALYST: It is indeed one in a long series of moments where he's threatened to annihilate Iran, destroy their civilization, et cetera. But let's back up, Brianna. He's really got three options here.

He can kind of walk away from this. The bad news there is you leave this Strait, and therefore the global economy kind of in the hands of the Iranians, not a good option. Option two, which is what he's discussing again, is going big, huge military strikes.

The problem with that is, A, it's unclear that the Iranians are going to curl up in a fetal ball and cooperate by quitting. They certainly didn't fold during the first series of strikes, which were quite significant. And the second problem is they're very expensive, not only tens of billions of dollars, obviously, but in American lives.

We've lost almost 20 killed in action, hundreds wounded, our Gulf bases are decimated. So option two, go big, not very good. Option three, which is where he is right now, is continue the economic pressure, continue the blockade of Iran, hope that eventually the Iranians come to the table.

I think that's where it lands. But as the president himself says, when it's a decision from President Trump, you never know which way it's going to go.

KEILAR: This Houthi video of what they claim is a Saudi fighter jet American built, as I mentioned, CNN hasn't verified or geolocated the footage. Saudi Arabia hasn't made an official comment. But CNN military analyst Cedric Leighton said the markings on the tail were consistent with this kind of Saudi aircraft.

How significant would this be?

STAVRIDIS: It's an indication that what you and I have called in previous conversations, the Western Front in this war is heating up. As you know, Brianna, the Houthis are centered not around the Strait of Hormuz, but well to the west around the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which is effectively controls the Red Sea and therefore locks up the Suez Canal. 10 to 15 percent of the world's shipping goes through there.

And yep, you're seeing guys with guns. They have probably shot down a Saudi F-15. They're becoming more sophisticated, more dangerous. And it adds to the complications of the president's decision matrix.

KEILAR: CNN is reporting on Russian satellites feeding intel on U.S. military bases back to Iran and helping in at least some precision strikes. For example, 14 Russian spy satellites moved over a U.S. military base in Saudi Arabia two days before a devastating attack by Iran in March. How much detail can those satellites get on U.S. bases? And is there any way that the U.S. can stop that kind of surveillance by adversaries?

STAVRIDIS: Putin is showing exactly who he is in this moment. He is no friend of the United States. He is a malevolent actor who has invaded Ukraine.

And unfortunately, Brianna, he's got a lot of capability, including those satellite constellations. They're not quite as good as ours, but they can certainly provide a great deal of detail that can drive strikes against us. What we ought to do about it is put more weapons and ammunition and capability in the hands of the Ukrainians.

We ought to support the Ukrainians who are in active combat with Russia. That's the best way to send a signal back to Putin that if he's going to aid our opponents in the Middle East, we are going to massively increase aid to his opponent in Ukraine. That would be the best response.

KEILAR: Admiral James Stavridis, thank you so much for being with us.

STAVRIDIS: You bet, Brianna.

KEILAR: Boris.

SANCHEZ: Now to some of the other headlines we're watching this hour. The remains of the last person missing after the recent flash flooding in the Grand Canyon has been identified. The wife of Timothy Alan Smith says his body was found earlier this week some 10 miles downstream from the area impacted by the floods.

According to the National Park Service, Smith had been on a camping trip with two other friends who also perished.

Travis Kelce has been named as one of the victims of a $35 million Ponzi scheme. The NFL star reportedly invested in a fund established by this man, Siddharth Jawahar. He's now been sentenced to 11 years in prison, ordered to pay more than $31 million in restitution.

Prosecutors say that between 2016 and 2023, he used money from new investors to repay older investors, all while living an extravagant lifestyle that included luxury apartments in New York and Austin, Texas.

[15:50:00]

Some airlines are cutting cheaper flights for the rest of the year because of the spike in jet fuel prices. Airlines have paid billions more for fuel because of the war with Iran. From April to June, United, Delta, American, and Southwest paid nearly 80 percent more for fuel than they did a year ago.

You might have already felt the impact through higher baggage fees and 25 percent higher summer airfares.

Up next, a member of Congress rips into President Trump's immigration policy in a new campaign ad. This criticism, though, coming from a lawmaker in his own party. We've got the details straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: In the new CNN original series, "THE DETOUR", acclaimed chef David Chang steps away from online recommendations and algorithms and sets out with his friends on a road trip in search of the next great meal.

KEILAR: Along the way, he follows local leads, trusts his instincts, and of course, takes a few detours.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have to put Filipino cuisine as like for those that roast pork the best and in the final four.

DAVID CHANG, CHEF AND RESTAURATEUR: This place is great.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This place is great.

You know what I love?

CHANG: What?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No vegetable.

CHANG: No green anywhere.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Monotone of brown. It's like a Rothko.

CHANG: What was, what is, what is this dish that they're eating over there?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Some kind of rice noodles with some special.

CHANG: Palabok.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's called Palabok.

CHANG: Oh my God. That's insanely good. So is this, do you live close by or?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, we traveled to go here.

CHANG: You live in Cora County?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We used to live nearby and then we moved, but we can't find a good Filipino.

CHANG: This is the spot. We, we accidentally stumbled upon one of the best Filipino spots.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yep, you did.

CHANG: I'm so happy right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: I see some green garnish there and I think that counts. David Chang is with us now to talk about this. It's so interesting to watch your approach here because the internet, I think is how so many people are finding where they want to eat these days, but you really step away from that.

Like you said, you stumbled upon the best place.

CHANG (on camera): Absolutely. And then that's what we wanted this show to be a sense of discovery, but more importantly, having fun in a road trip is one of the best ways to sort of experience food, America, hang out with your friends. And that scene right there is a great example where unfortunately for the producers of the show, we had spent months creating a list of where we should theoretically go.

And I told them we're not going to use any of this. I know we have to, but we went to Las Vegas. We were supposed to go to a different restaurant.

We want to -- because I just saw a bunch of people lining up and we wanted to go to this Filipino restaurant. And it was a sense of discovery. Like I said, I was so happy because there were real people that wanted to eat there and it didn't get any press, no buzz.

And that's the kind of food that I want us to start to go back to, where it's not an algorithm. You're not looking at your phone. You're just sort of talking to people and trying to find where something good is.

SANCHEZ: To that point about talking to folks. So you found that place because there was a line outside. I understand there were a number of other places you found just based on recommendations from folks.

Tell us about one that you think you probably wouldn't have found otherwise.

CHANG: Well, for example, in Las Vegas, we were trying to talk about the huge Hawaiian population, which I didn't even really know that there was a giant Hawaiian population. They call it like the Seventh Island. And we went to eat some great Hawaiian food and then we left and we got into a cab, Cor Jefferson and I.

And next thing you know, this very, very colorful cab driver decided to tell us that we were wrong. We should be eating Ethiopian food in Las Vegas. Again, I didn't even know that there was a giant Ethiopian population.

I think it's like the second or third largest. And she recommended a restaurant and we didn't know it was going to be a serious thing. And sure enough, one of the best meals of the entire series was at this Ethiopian restaurant in Las Vegas.

And it was it was actually glorious, yeah.

KEILAR: It was glorious, glorious. OK, so what did being on the road teach you about your relationship with food?

CHANG: Well, it was a great excuse. Thank God this was a dream to be able to do, like get paid to hang with your friends, go on a road trip. Thank you, CNN, you know. What it taught me was I need to get off my butt and start to do things the old fashioned way. Right. And it's OK if you're going to have a bad meal sometimes, right? And it's almost a platitude that the journey is what makes it all worth it. And it was. Like there were not some spectacular meals.

There were definitely meals that were not glorious, but those are actually some of my favorite meals, right? And once you start to eliminate the things that maybe are not so great, you have a hard time to judge the things that are great sometimes.

And sometimes the best meals we had were actually pretty mediocre. But it was the experience of some of the parts, right?

KEILAR: Favorite little snack along the way.

CHANG: Man, we had a lot of pork rinds.

KEILAR: Really?

CHANG: A lot of pork rinds. Yes.

KEILAR: Who has the best or none disappointed?

CHANG: You know, I would say Pennsylvania as a whole. Important state, clearly for CNN purposes. People may not realize that it is the Keystone State is the greatest snack food state.

SANCHEZ: Wow.

CHANG: Yes. They got everything. Yes.

KEILAR: Lots of potato chips coming out of there.

CHANG: Lots of potato chips. Lots of things that you would want to eat in your car for sure.

KEILAR: I love that.

CHANG: Philly cheesesteak all over the steering wheel. Sounds like a good time.

CHANG: Yes. Roast pork, too. Don't forget about that.

KEILAR: Don't forget about that. David Chang, thank you so much. This is just amazing. And thanks for sharing it with us.

CHANG: Thanks for having me.

SANCHEZ: Look forward to watching.

KEILAR: And be sure to tune in the all new CNN original series, "THE DETOUR WITH DAVID CHANG" premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific.

SANCHEZ: That conversation makes you want to grab a snack. KEILAR: Let's go do it. "THE ARENA" with Kasie Hunt starts right now.

END