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Anthropic CEO Amodei to Attend White House AI Meeting Tomorrow; Trump to Host Top AI Leaders at White House Tomorrow; Trump to Make Campaign Stops Nearly Every Day in October; SpaceX Launches Most Powerful Rocket Ever Built into Orbit. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired September 28, 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]

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is certain to develop significantly more over the next few days as this legal process plays out -- Boris.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Gloria Pazmino, thank you so much for that update. Still to come, a stark warning from Bill Gates on AI. Why he says the technology could cause a billion deaths.

That story next.

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: CNN has learned that Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei will attend a White House meeting tomorrow with President Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, and he'll join Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, and OpenAI President Greg Brockman. President Trump hosted Amodei for a private dinner last night despite some longstanding tensions between Anthropic and the White House.

[15:35:00]

Amodei has led calls for slowing AI development amid safety concerns, and President Trump has called those worries a hoax. In an interview on NBC's Meet the Press, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates joined other tech execs calling for federal regulation while warning of potential bad actors in the future.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL GATES, MICROSOFT CO-FOUNDER: AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that cause a billion deaths. There's never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intent using the latest AI tools.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: We're joined now by Jeffrey Ladish. He is an AI safety advocate and the executive director for Palisade Research. He also helped build the information security program at Anthropic through his security consulting company, Gordian. Jeffrey, great to have you back on the program. I wonder what you think of what we're hearing Bill Gates say there this warning, and what does it mean to hear it from him at this particular moment?

JEFFREY LADISH, AI SAFETY ADVOCATE AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PALISADE RESEARCH: Yes, I think it's a very good time to be talking about this right now, and I'm really glad that the president is convening the leaders of these companies to address some of these incidents. I think that a lot of people within the AI companies are actually caught pretty off guard by the pace of development. It wasn't until this year where you actually had AI agents being able to be trained to work together very effectively.

And we saw during the Hugging Face incident that you actually had 700 agents working together to hack this company. We also saw from OpenAI that they used over 10,000 agents all working together to solve one of the hardest problems in mathematics. So that's what's happening within the AI companies, and engineers are just not sure that they actually know how to control these agents.

So I think Bill Gates' warning comes at a very opportune time, and I hope the president can make the most of this meeting to figure out how to address these threats.

KEILAR: You said you hope he can make the most of the meeting. Do you have concerns that it might not be as productive as it should be, and what does it need to do to actually accomplish what this moment calls for?

LADISH: I think it's been pretty clear, both from the heads of the companies as well as the employees at these companies and independent researchers, that the pace of this is going too fast. We actually just do not understand the sheer volume of information that these agents generate when they are working together, when they are working together in a swarm and hacking other companies. I mean, I think it was Friday where OpenAI announced that another agent had broken out of its sandbox and was able to access the Internet.

Now, this is something that they have been trying to address but failing to address. So, you know, I think there are certainly difficulties, but I think we're seeing more and more consensus from the industry that something has to be done. We have to slow down.

We have to figure out how humans can stay in control of AI development.

KEILAR: You mentioned that on Friday OpenAI said some of its AI agents went rogue. They actually probed U.S. government websites this summer. And then, of course, just last week we learned that OpenAI agents hacked into Australia's national health care system back in June.

A lot of these things happening and then the company is not finding out for some time and then not disclosing them for some time. How do you stop this kind of hack from happening?

LADISH: Well, I think it should be clear at this point that the industry regulating itself is not enough. They've demonstrated again and again through these incidents that they clearly are not up to the task. And so there needs to be independent oversight.

And I think, you know, one step there is to have investigators go in and figure out what's been happening in these incidents. Why are all of these agents going rogue? Why are they hacking companies?

Why are they hacking government websites? And so I think this is really the job of the government to step in and say, hey, if you can't build this responsibly, if humans are not staying in control, then you have to do something differently.

KEILAR: All right, we'll see what comes out of this meeting. Certainly a lot of important minds convening. Jeffrey Ladish, great to have you. Thanks for being with us.

LADISH: Thanks.

KEILAR: Ahead, a look at President Trump's aggressive new campaign strategy aimed at boosting Republicans ahead of the midterms.

[15:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: President Trump is getting ready to ramp up an aggressive campaign schedule with just five weeks to go until the midterm elections. The president putting himself front and center. As Republicans try to hold on to majorities in the House and Senate.

KEILAR: But could that strategy backfire? Trump's approval rating hit an all-time low recently. As higher prices fueled by the unpopular war with Iran, weigh heavily on voters.

We're joined now by CNN political commentator. New York Daily News columnist and host of the Battleground Midterms podcast, S.E. Cupp. And CNN political commentator, and former South Carolina state representative, Bakari Sellers.

All right, S.E., what do you think about where the president is headed geographically? Is this going to help get low propensity voters off the couch? Or is he going to be a drag on Republicans?

Do you think?

S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think they're kind of out of options here. They can't run on poll numbers. His numbers are bad.

And the economic numbers are really bad. Gas prices are up. We're still in a war.

There's a lot working against Republicans.

[15:45:00]

I think one of their hopes was to run against the so-called crazy socialists and communists over on the left and try to tie all Dems to them. That's infinitely harder when Trump himself is doing, like, communist-y things at home. Banning White House journalists. Running taxpayer-funded propaganda, et cetera.

So I think the only hope or thought here is that the loyalty to Trump inside the base that still for sure exists will be enough to overlook all that other stuff. The bad poll numbers, the bad economy. Just the love of Trump will be enough to get them out to the polls.

We'll see. But I think this is sort of like the last option here.

SANCHEZ: Bakari, Trump says that he's going to be out there spending money. Something that a lot of Republicans wanted to hear. As of last week, the GOP had about $200 million more worth of ads reserved through Election Day than Democrats.

Some of whom are actually looking to billionaire Michael Bloomberg to help close that gap. If Democrats do get an influx of cash, do they know where they want to spend it?

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I mean, the map has expanded, which is something that many people probably thought wouldn't necessarily happen in this election cycle. I mean, we're playing in places like Ohio. We're playing in Iowa, Alaska, Texas even for some individuals.

But at the end of the day, I mean, you are making Republicans defend places that they normally don't defend. And they're actually taking money out of states like Georgia and North Carolina. We know those discussions are being had where Republicans were once very, very competitive.

And they see those races slipping away. This is all about finances. This is going to come down really to -- and I hate, hate, hate when people get paid to come on TV and they say it's going to come down to turnout, right?

I literally despise that phrase. However, it's going to come down to turnout, right? And so I think that along the margins, Democrats are going to do extremely well in the United States House, mainly because of all the reasons that S.E. laid out.

So I don't need to regurgitate those. But in the United States Senate, Democrats have more than a puncher's chance of actually taking back the Senate, which I believe terrifies Trump as well.

SANCHEZ: So, S.E., trans policies are a huge focus of Republican ads this year. Republican advertisers spent more than $60 million on that issue. In Texas specifically, James Talarico previously voted against age restrictions on trans athletes.

Now he says that he would oppose trans athletes playing in girls' sports if it risks safety or fairness. We saw that now infamous ad that President Trump put together regarding Kamala Harris during her campaign, talking about she's for they them, I'm for you. How decisive could that issue be in these midterms? CUPP: Listen, is there still a pocket of the Republican base that is really animated by this? Absolutely. We'd be we'd be doing malpractice to not admit that for sure.

This will turn out some voters in some places. But this issue is a little bit like the democracy issue for Democrats in 2024. I think Democrats really thought democracy, putting that on the ballot would turn out a lot of Democrats.

But it turns out when you can't pay your bills or your you know, you feel like the economy is working against you. You can't get ahead. You can't buy a house.

Democracy doesn't crack your top five issues. And I'm not sure in this economic environment, which is worse than it was in 2024. Republican or Democrat, I'm not sure trans rights is going to crack your top three, top five number of issues when things are so bad.

So I don't I don't know how that's going to go. I just have a sense. It's not going to be as helpful as it was in previous years.

KEILAR: We watch Bakari, as you see, though, Democrats, they do contort themselves, right. It is that issue, even if it's not going to animate as much. Like James Talarico is an example.

And we've seen that with other candidates as well. I mean, how are you seeing this issue and how Democrats are still struggling to deal with it?

SELLERS: I really don't think Democrats are struggling with it as we as we have been. I mean, the fact is we're talking about bread and butter issues. This is not a top 10 issue for most individuals.

When you can't afford to pay your utility bills or get your prescription drugs, when gas prices are four or five dollars a gallon. You have people who are in Iran and we're not still sure why we're in war in Iran. We're in trade wars with Canada.

[15:50:00]

And then low and behold, the FDA is recalling everything. It just turned fall in South Carolina. I don't know about in New York, but it's fall here now. And they just recalled cinnamon. I mean, the FDA now has to put out a list of things that you can eat instead of what is recalled.

I mean, there's so much going on right now that I'm not sure that that issue is going to be as pervasive as it has been. If Democrats continue to focus on the issues like how are you going to pay your bills? How are you going to put food on the table?

I do think you'll have a successful November. The problem that I'm more concerned about, and I know this is kicking the can down the road a little bit, is what Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer do November 4th, because they still have to answer the question, what are you going to do when we give you the reins of power? That will get them over the hump November 3rd.

But that's also my concern November 4th.

SANCHEZ: Bakari Sellers, S.E. Cupp, appreciate the perspective.

CUPP: Sure.

SANCHEZ: Coming up, a successful, unprecedented liftoff by SpaceX, the company sending the most powerful rocket ever built into orbit.

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[15:55:00]

SANCHEZ: The mission lasted only a few hours, but the results may usher in a whole new era of space travel. SpaceX's Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, blasted off this morning in an earth- rattling show of force from their base in Texas. For the first time, it actually made it into orbit and then released dozens of Starlink satellites, marking the first time the rocket has deployed an operational payload.

KEILAR: After a shorter than expected outing, Starship plunged back to Earth at more than 20 times the speed of sound before making a pre- planned splashdown in the Pacific.

With us now is CNN aviation analyst Miles O'Brien. I just get lost in these pictures, Miles. They're so unbelievable, just the quality of them, and you just get the whole sense of this mission here. What made this one in particular so important for SpaceX and NASA's future?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: It's all about orbit, Brianna. If you think about it, the first 200 miles of getting from where we are right now to space are by far the hardest thing to do. Once you get into orbit, the next couple hundred thousand miles are easy peasy.

The universe is your oyster. And so getting to orbit, 17,500 miles an hour, with a vehicle of that size, is quite a significant milestone. It opens up the doors for all kinds of things.

Of course, Elon Musk has rather grandiose visions of colonizing Mars. That might be a ways off. But in the meantime, NASA is looking for a way to get down to the moon, to put astronauts on the surface of the moon in the next couple of years.

And a modified version of this spacecraft, the Starship, is slated to do that job. And it's not going to get anywhere close to the moon if it can't get into low-Earth orbit, and they proved that today.

SANCHEZ: There were some minor issues that SpaceX obviously is likely going to tell us more about and address into the future. Walk us through why the flight was cut short, what we know about that, and what could have gone better.

O'BRIEN: Yes, Boris, you know, I never count on SpaceX to tell us anything. They don't give us news conferences like NASA does after these events. We wait for a tweet from Elon Musk.

But eventually it will come out. There was an on-orbit engine on the Starship which failed. It wasn't enough to cause any problem controlling that craft and bringing it down to a safe reentry and soft splashdown near Hawaii.

But I guess out of an abundance of caution, they decided not to do the full six orbits that they intended. But, again, that's TBD. I don't know the full answer to that right now.

Nobody has shared that from SpaceX. But really just getting to orbit and doing two laps, that's quite an accomplishment. Fourteenth time is a charm.

There was a lot of mishaps along the way getting to this point. But SpaceX can check an important box today. It's a little piece of space history.

KEILAR: When you don't have all of your engines working, granted there are many on this rocket, but what does that mean? What are the concerns?

O'BRIEN: Well, you know, you always have redundancy built in. But the really important thing, Brianna, as we learn, think about what happened with the Starliner as it approached the space station a couple of years ago. You have layer upon layer of thrusters.

But if you don't understand why things are failing, then you've got a problem. So you lose an engine and you have a short period of time in this case to make a decision on whether to do a suborbital hop or continue to orbit. And you want to make sure whatever caused that one engine to fail is not going to cause the others to go down.

And so they had to do some scrambling. And engineers love this stuff, right? This is like Apollo 13 stuff, right?

They got 10 minutes to figure it out. And then they decided to go for the orbit. But they decided that for whatever reason, six orbits might be tempting fate.

But I don't know why that is yet. TBD on that one.

SANCHEZ: And a quick question, Miles. I understand that they actually recycled some of the heat shield cells for this mission. I guess that's a vote of confidence that they work and they work well.

O'BRIEN: Yes. Mission 13 ended up in the Indian Ocean, had a soft landing, and the Starship remained intact like a big buoy. So they sent a team out there with a ship, and they crawled all over it near Christmas Island.

And they looked at all the tiles to see what did well, what didn't. And they pulled a couple of them off and put them on this one just to say, hey, we can reuse these things, which is, in the end, what they're after, reusability. We tried that with the shuttle.

We didn't really accomplish that goal.

[16:00:00]

Elon Musk would like full reusability. It's an incredibly difficult challenge. It is, after all, rocket science, Boris.

KEILAR: Yes, it really is. Miles, always great to have you. Thank you so much.

And "THE ARENA" with Kasie Hunt starts right now.

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