Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

AI CEOs Brief United Nations; Interview With Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY); Trump Approval Rating Hits New Low; Iranian President Delivers Address to United Nations. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired September 23, 2026 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:17]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Tehran responds. The Iranian president taking the podium one day after President Trump stood in that very spot at the U.N. General Assembly, threatening to annihilate that nation.

Plus, midterm alarm bells getting louder for Republicans, new CNN polling showing more Americans are on edge about the economy, and they think the president has made it worse.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Plus, why officials in Mississippi are urging people to avoid an herbal substance that you can buy at a gas station and how it's connected to the deaths of two college students.

We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SANCHEZ: We begin this hour with a response from Iran's president, delivering a defiant message to President Trump from the very podium Trump threatened to annihilate his nation just 24 hours ago.

In front of world leaders, Iran's president saying that Tehran will not be bullied into diplomacy, calling out American attacks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MASOUD PEZESHKIAN, IRANIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): The United States president described us as terrorists. We have been the victims of terrorism. They bombed a school. You see these children. These children perished under bombs with weapons used by the United States and Israel. They were innocent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Notably, the sole U.S. delegate in the room at the time, as you see here, walking out moments later.

CNN's Jim Sciutto joins us now.

Jim, Iran's leader appeared to be trying to gain sympathy from those at the General Assembly. What was the response?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: No question.

Listen, it's quite -- people here for the UNGA are quite aware of Iran's acts of violence around the region, its backing for terrorist groups around the region. So it was a point for public consumption, but one that I wouldn't say move the audience in Iran's favor.

I think what folks were listening for was whether the president would make a public statement, the Iranian president, that it is interested in further dialogue with the U.S., that it sees hope in this meeting we know that took place between the delegation and U.S. peace envoys that the president revealed yesterday.

And it was notable that, after he answered the president's annihilation threat, he did -- the Iranian president did say Iran is open to dialogue. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PEZESHKIAN (through translator): Iran must be understood by Mr. Trump and those who seek to bully us that we are ready for dialogue and diplomacy and negotiations without accepting the language of force.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Now, we should note that Secretary of State Marco Rubio said today that no major breakthroughs took place in those talks yesterday. But that doesn't mean that the path of dialogue is closed.

It's quite possible they meet again. The president has made it clear that he's interested in negotiation, even as he coupled that with his annihilation threat yesterday.

But the administration may very well run into the same obstacle it did in previous efforts at dialogue, and that is that, while the Iranian president, Pezeshkian, the foreign minister, Araghchi, may be interested in talks and perhaps even agreement with the U.S., you still have that harder-line IRGC component to this administration, which arguably has the upper hand, which has resisted genuine negotiation and, in fact, has been expanding the war, right, through their allies the Houthis by attacking shipping on another front other than the Strait of Hormuz.

SANCHEZ: Yes, it's an open question how much this Iranian U.N. delegation has credibility in the eyes of the supreme leader.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

SANCHEZ: Separately, we're anticipating remarks from another significant world leader embroiled in a war, and that is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

SANCHEZ: What should we anticipate from him?

SCIUTTO: Listen, he -- his message -- not unlike what we were just saying there about hard-liners in Iran, his consistent message has been, listen, I'm ready to talk. I'm ready for a cease-fire, specifically for a cease-fire involving energy infrastructure in both directions.

But his read -- and, by the way, he's not alone in this -- his read is that Vladimir Putin is not. And I have heard quite the same from multiple European officials I have spoken to here at the UNGA. They just don't believe Putin is interested in genuine negotiations. And the proof is really in Putin's actions, right?

[13:05:02]

Because not only has he been expanding strikes inside Ukraine, but he's expanding this war, this hybrid war on Europe through attacks that are potentially deadly, right, attacks on railway lines, drones on the train coming out of Ukraine just last week, a bomb at an airport in Germany.

So -- and then we see, Boris, in the midst of this that Rubio said today Putin's going to get invited back to the U.S. to the G20 in Miami, the second time in a little over a year.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

Jim Sciutto, thank you so much for the update there.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

SANCHEZ: Brianna.

KEILAR: A new CNN poll out today shows that the war with Iran and the economic conditions it's creating are weighing on Americans as they get ready to vote in the midterm elections.

President Trump is at record unpopularity heading into November, sinking to just 33 percent overall job approval, registered voters now listing the economy as their most important issue with just 41 days before votes are tabulated, and that's creating some major headwinds for Republicans, who are trying to hold on to their majorities in the House and Senate.

Democrats holding an eight-point edge on a generic congressional ballot heading into the final weeks of the campaign.

Let's talk about some of this now with Republican Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis of New York.

Thank you so much for being with us.

REP. NICOLE MALLIOTAKIS (R-NY): Good to be here.

KEILAR: So, you're hearing these numbers. What are your constituents telling you about how they're feeling the effects of the Iran war?

MALLIOTAKIS: Look, there's no doubt that, when you look at the gas prices, they are high. They're not what we want them to be. They should be lower. President Trump did bring them down to $3 at the beginning of his term, and the extension of this conflict is creating a problem at the pump.

What I will say is that people also do see that Republicans had worked hard to deliver historic middle-class tax cuts. They had saved thousands of dollars when they filed their tax return, senior citizens seeing money that they paid on their Social Security tax refunded to them.

They're also seeing that, with the economy, the GDP is growing as a result of the Working Families Tax package. They are seeing that last month, when the jobs report came out, it was three times what the experts had estimated. So things are going in a good direction overall.

Wages are also up, by the way. We should point that out. And if you ask the local person, yes, gas prices are high, but, overall, they're seeing that they did save thousands of dollars as a result of President Trump's policies.

Had those tax cuts expired, we would not have seen the expansion and the extension of the child tax credit. We would not have seen breaks for overtime workers and tipped workers. We would not have seen those senior citizens relying on Social Security keep more of their hard- earned money.

KEILAR: For folks not familiar with your district, the president won it in the last election, but you significantly outperformed him. There was a ticket -- there was a lot of ticket-splitting actually that favored you.

There are a lot of your Republican colleagues who are not saying what you're saying. They're actually -- they are splitting with the president. They're breaking with him on policies. Are they making a mistake?

MALLIOTAKIS: Look, I think everyone is giving their view. Whether they're doing it to win an election or whether it's their honest opinion, I don't know.

What I will say simply is that look, I understand that we are facing challenges, and I wish that this Iran war would have -- would have finished, concluded already. It should have. We always got that impression that this was going to be very short term. I don't think this is the forever war that the Democrats are trying to paint it.

I do think that Iran is trying to use leverage here and knowing that there's an election coming up. And, quite frankly, this country will be in a much better position if Republicans hold onto the House, because that will certainly help this administration's hands at the negotiation table.

So I think everyone has to represent their districts. I mean, I'm proud of the work we have done to deliver for constituents. We have -- we do massive constituent casework in our office, delivering results for people, returning money from federal agencies that they're owed, resolving a lot of their issues.

And also one of the biggest issues in my district was the open border, because they saw that play out in the streets of New York City. They saw it play out where there were thousands of crimes committed by individuals in those shelters. And I have the NYPD FOIA request to prove it.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Yes, some Republicans, as you're familiar, certainly in Florida, are breaking with the president even on immigration.

The president got into the war, which is one way in which I guess Iran had an opportunity to keep it going, right? That was his choice to get it going.

But I want to talk to you about something that I think is really interesting in your state, which is AI, because under Democratic leadership in your state, they're having AI firms, companies register with the state, and then requiring them to report if there are safety incidents.

I know that you oppose a patchwork approach. You have concerns. You think that New York trends towards overregulating. You want a federal regulatory framework, a version of which you are sponsoring. But you guys aren't in session right now.

Why should states wait on Congress, when you guys aren't even around to deal with this issue?

MALLIOTAKIS: Well, first of all, I think that the legislation that we put together with Jay Obernolte and Trahan leading the charge there, that is a very important piece of legislation. You need to have a national framework.

[13:10:09]

So the states can do what they think they -- is in the best...

KEILAR: But you need to be in session to pass it.

MALLIOTAKIS: Well, sure. We need to be in session. And we were here. We didn't have the votes.

The Democrats -- if we can't pass things because the Democrats refuse to cross party lines, it is a problem.

KEILAR: But that's not why you're not in session, right?

MALLIOTAKIS: You need 60 votes in the Senate.

KEILAR: That's not why you're not in session.

MALLIOTAKIS: Well, we were always scheduled to be in session until this week. We left early because we could not get pieces of legislation passed, and that is a problem. What I will say -- yes.

KEILAR: Speaker Johnson sent you and your colleagues home, just to note, early, as your fellow Republican Congressman Massie tried to force a House vote on impeaching Secretary Hegseth. That was some of the timing of this. And now you're not back until November.

The Hugging Face breakout incident that was, I think, such a wake-up call, right, it's not the only one. And Google, we have learned, its Gemini models actually hacked three companies. This happened in May. They found out about it in July. We didn't learn about it publicly until September.

This is an action that, if a human had done it, would have been illegal. Why not have a situation where you have to tell them, report a safety incident?

MALLIOTAKIS: Absolutely, and that's why I support the legislation that I do.

I mean, it is incredibly important that we have mandatory incident reporting. It's also incredibly important that our military is prepared to intervene should there be a nefarious activity conducted, particularly by an adversary. So I think that it is important, as we continue this dialogue on AI, that we look at the legislation that I'm co-sponsoring, because I think that's a good chunk of it.

But we need also the administration to work with us on that. And I think all the stakeholders are telling us that we need to do something. I'm prepared to do something. I'm in Washington today, if we were in session.

But let's also talk about every -- every Congress, we have the month of October off for campaigning to go back to our constituencies. And so let's not exaggerate, like we just went home. The reality is, we always have that month of October off.

KEILAR: Yes. There were weeks missed, though, to be clear. I think the expectation was there would have been some more time.

The president's hosting the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, at the White House today, big rollout. There's some splits in your party, I think, about how that's being done, some criticism. But you said yesterday China is in some ways an ally and in some ways an adversary.

So I wonder how you're seeing these overtures, considering there is a lot, especially when it comes to AI, to get done with China.

MALLIOTAKIS: I think it's just a very complicated relationship.

As I said yesterday, they're sometimes an ally, they're sometimes an adversary, but, look, the reality is, they're always a competitor. And when we talk about the AI race, it is important that the United States is ahead of every other nation, particularly communist China.

So I think this dialogue is important to have. I don't know that I would trust China. We have tried to hold them account on so many things, whether it be the environment or whether it be on COVID. And they're not always that honest broker who reports to those independent global institutions like the World Health Organization, for example.

And so I just think that it's important that we always talk and have open dialogue. That is -- diplomacy is first, is critically important and should always be the most paramount priority.

But, at some point, we need to take this within our own hands and make sure that we are regulating AI within this country in a way that we can remain competitive, but that we prevent something that could really be dangerous in the future from getting out there. And I think that we also need to be prepared from a military standpoint to intervene should another...

KEILAR: You're not describing an ally in this description.

MALLIOTAKIS: Well, no, I'm just saying, yes, a potential adversary.

KEILAR: How do you see them as an ally, though, just real quick? We got to go, but how are they an ally?

MALLIOTAKIS: Well, look, there is some type of cooperation, obviously, right now with supply chain, with certain things, that we have a lot of manufacturing going on there.

They're not an adversary, but they're adversarial.

KEILAR: They're not Russia. Is that your point?

MALLIOTAKIS: Well, look, we're not about to go to war, let's put it that way.

But there is a real -- and this is the point that I always bring up about our pharmaceutical supply chain. The fact that we rely 80 percent on communist China is incredibly dangerous. President Trump's working to bring that supply chain home. We have seen trillions of dollars of foreign and private investment coming to the United States, manufacturing facilities propping up.

That is long overdue. Quite frankly, it should have been done by Joe Biden four years ago when COVID was the number one teacher that we needed to get this supply chain home. We cannot rely on communist China or anybody else for our medication.

KEILAR: Congresswoman, thank you so much for being with us. Appreciate it.

MALLIOTAKIS: Thanks for having me.

KEILAR: Still to come: AI leaders are set to meet with the United Nations Security Council, as concern is growing over the technology possibly harming humanity.

Plus, police in Mississippi are investigating now after two Ole Miss students died in separate incidents in the same weekend. What authorities found at both scenes that have them masking questions.

[13:15:01]

And then, later: a bitter family battle. Dolly Parton's estate is asking for a temporary restraining order against her nephew. You will recognize him from the video from the family announcing her death.

We will have that and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: The CEOs of major AI companies are set to brief world leaders later today after a string of high-profile warnings about the fast- growing technology.

SANCHEZ: CNN has learned that Anthropic's Dario Amodei and OpenAI's Sam Altman are going to address the U.N. Security Council during a session about global security. Today's AI panel comes as President Trump prepares to welcome Chinese leader Xi Jinping, whose country is in the midst of its own high-tech renaissance.

CNN contributor Jacob Ward is a technology journalist, the host of "The Rip Current," and he's here in the flesh.

Great to see you.

JACOB WARD, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Great to be with you both. Thanks so much.

SANCHEZ: Thanks so much for joining us.

What does it mean that Amodei and Altman are the ones briefing the U.N.? They have called for a slowdown on superintelligence, for example. Other tech leaders have not.

[13:20:04]

WARD: Yes.

I mean, right, they're briefing the Security Council on company -- on technology they make, right? And these guys are in theory the ones sort of representing all of humanity. Also going to be there is the Clement Delangue, who's the head of something called Hugging Face, which, as you will recall, was the company attacked by OpenAI's own stuff.

So you have got Altman and his victim in that room along with Amodei. And they're all somehow representing humanity in the conversation about this. It feels very strange to me. It doesn't feel particularly democratic. And so it's very odd, I would say, to imagine those two guys trying to speak to the vulnerabilities of their own creation in a way that would satisfy any of us.

KEILAR: There's the...

SANCHEZ: While they're also competing with each other, we should note.

KEILAR: Right.

WARD: Yes, and famously despise one another. Whether they can even shake hands in that room will be really interesting.

KEILAR: Well, we will have to look for that.

WARD: Yes. Yes.

KEILAR: There is a split among these AI leaders about how bad this could get, right?

WARD: Yes.

KEILAR: So if you are a policymaker and you want to make a decision, just like choose your own adventure, right?

WARD: Right.

KEILAR: Nvidia's CEO, Jensen Huang, asserting in recent interviews that AI doomerism is scaring people unnecessarily, and AI leaders calling for more government regulation must be doing it for ulterior motives, reasons, he said.

WARD: Yes.

KEILAR: I mean, Trump can kind of look -- he looks to that. He's got his ear.

WARD: He certainly does.

I mean, Jensen Huang is somebody who, right, he benefits the happier we all are about the prospects of AI. He's a guy who -- he sells the chips, right? And so he, of course, I would say, from just an ulterior motives perspective, from a financial perspective, would not want everyone being as doomorous as they have been about it.

I think the thing that is interesting is how Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, and Elon Musk, three people who famously do not like one another, have in fact sued one another, that they have all somehow agreed in principle that they are going to slow down in some form is kind of interesting.

But I would also point out, right, the language they use for slowdown is pacing. They're going to pace themselves. And when you pace yourself in a race, you're not quitting the race.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

WARD: You're not no longer running, right?

What they're trying to come up with is some sort of way that they can continue down the path they all want to create, which is this utopian world they say that we're all going to occupy where AI makes it all happen without, I guess, the dangers that they see potential here. SANCHEZ: And there are criticisms about that approach and the way

that in large regard it is consumer-facing, something that President Obama recently spoke about.

WARD: Yes.

SANCHEZ: I want to get your reaction to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So the big thing right now in AI is what are called agents, agentic AI. If we are thinking about AI just in terms of how do we cure cancer or get better energy, you can do that without having agentic AI and having it just roaming free in the Internet.

The reason you are doing that is because you have to market a product that people will pay money for. That's a misalignment between what our society needs and the commercial imperatives that these companies are facing, not because necessarily they're trying to do bad things, but because they have got to -- they have got to justify these valuations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Note, he used misalignment in the way that I think is traditionally used, not the way that AI companies are using misalignment, as a sort of euphemism for like, we don't know what it's doing.

(CROSSTALK)

WARD: Yes, right, exactly.

I mean, it's very interesting, right? I mean, President Obama is the -- is famous for having early on called it with Silicon Valley and basically said these are guys who are always trying to convince me you can do well by doing good, but there are some functions the government has to do.

In his case, he was talking about something like veterans. You know, but here he's clearly talking about the role of the government in slowing them down, because, as he says, their incentives are not the same as regulators' incentives would be, even though these guys are now the self-appointed elder statesmen speaking to the U.N.

KEILAR: Yes, the president's meeting with China Xi Jinping, as we mentioned.

WARD: Yes.

KEILAR: They're going to talk about AI. They need to talk about AI.

WARD: Right.

KEILAR: Who holds the cards in this? WARD: Oh, man, I just think President Trump is going to be so disoriented when he figures out in the middle of that conversation that he really has no leverage at all, because China at this point, right, doesn't need our chips, they have shown, even though we tried to isolate them. It turns out they don't need that technology to create a very thriving AI industry inside China.

They have their own multimember national -- international body they have created that's based in Shanghai. So they don't need the U.S. to get global cooperation and policy put together. And in a recent Gallup poll, in 34 out of 37 nations polled, people were thrilled about AI. They feel mostly very positively about it.

So, the U.S. is really very isolated on both the hand-wringing that we are doing and in the posture that President Trump has taken, which is, we need to be dominant, we have to win. I just think that's not going to be a very fruitful line of negotiation here.

SANCHEZ: Jacob Ward, always appreciate the perspective. Great to see you in person. Please come back.

WARD: Great to be with you. I really appreciate it.

SANCHEZ: OK. Thanks so much.

Still plenty more news to come this afternoon. Police in Mississippi urging people to avoid an herbal extract after the substance was found while investigating the deaths of two college students.

[13:25:07]

We will explain in just moments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Police are investigating the deaths of two University of Mississippi students. Their bodies were found where they lived, one on campus, one off-campus, after a rowdy football weekend in Oxford, where Ole Miss defeated rival LSU.

Investigators say there's no confirmed evidence that the deaths are connected, but authorities say an herbal extract called kratom, which can produce opioid- and stimulant-like effects, was found at both scenes. And now officials are urging people to avoid using kratom while the investigation takes shape.

CNN's Isabel Rosales is with us now on this story.

Isabel, what are you learning here?

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And, Brianna, there's so many questions about this incident. And, in fact, the University of Mississippi just answered one of my e-mails stating this.