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CNN, MS NOW And Politico Denied Access From White House; A.I. Intel Failure Exposes Wartime Risks; Patrick Clancy Gives First Interview Since Lindsay Clancy Trial; Holdout Clancy Juror: "Kept Getting Cut Off" In Deliberations; Political Candidates Consider Their A.I. Policies; Ed Sheeran Back For First Time Since Macklemore Cut, Others Quit; Social Media Powers This California Cat Rescue. Aired 5- 6p ET

Aired September 19, 2026 - 17:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:00:33]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Pamela Brown in Washington.

And we begin this hour with our breaking news.

With just 45 days until the midterm elections, President Trump is blocking access to the White House for three major news outlets, including CNN.

Here's what Trump said about the ban yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What does that mean in practice? Are you taking away their badges or are you banning them from the pool? Are you banning them from the Oval Office? What does that mean?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I still don't know.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What do you envision the ban for?

TRUMP: Politico.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And media outlets.

TRUMP: Oh, the ban on the free press, right? A very simple ban. I don't want them in my office. I don't want them here. I would say the ban would go as far as you can.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: And he's also threatening to ban other news outlets as well.

The upcoming midterms will decide who controls Congress for Trump's final two years in office. Trump is telling voters to pretend he is on the ballot.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: When I'm in the ticket, Republicans have always done really well. They go out, they vote, everybody gets elected. Everybody gets elected.

But I just want you to go out and pretend I'm on the ticket, because essentially I am.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: But new polling suggests that voters would prefer candidates who say they are going to check the president, not just support him, by a roughly two to one margin.

And despite Trump's campaign promise to bring costs down, Americans are feeling stress on their wallets.

The most recent federal report shows food prices are up 3 percent from last summer. Average mortgage rates are nearly 7 percent. And the war with Iran has driven up gas prices to a national average of $4.48 a gallon, says AAA. That is 50 percent higher than before the war started.

Still, Trump is focusing on renewed threats against the press. This morning, CNN, MS NOW and Politico were all denied entry to the White House.

CNN said this in a statement, quote, "Early today, CNN journalists were denied access to the White House grounds. CNN's mission to report on the U.S. government will continue regardless of any attempts to restrict physical access to the White House and other government buildings or any other attempts to impede our journalism.

We have a right under the U.S. Constitution to do our reporting without hindrance or interference from the government, and this ban is an illegal assault on this fundamental right.

We will not be deflected from our duty to hold the government and other public bodies to account. And we will continue to report on the actions and processes of this administration without fear or favor. CNN stands fully behind our White House team."

For more on this from outside the White House, CNN's Julia Benbrook joins us now. So, Julia, walk us through what happened this morning and why this is something every American should be paying attention to right now.

JULIA BENBROOK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Starting with what happened to our team today, senior White House reporter Betsy Klein, she came in to do the morning shows, as she typically does, as we typically have a reporter doing now.

As she came in, we do pass multiple areas where you show your press badge, your White House hard pass, as we refer to it. When you get to that last stop, you go in, you scan it, you put in a

pin. Of course, there are all those security measures. They have your information. You go through security like you would at the airport, and then you go in and do your job.

When she did that today, it did not light up green like it normally does. She was told that that card had been disabled. She asked a few more questions about what that looked like. Could she keep the pass? And she was informed by Secret Service that they would be keeping that pass.

Of course, we're still out here doing our jobs, reporting on this administration. And the latest development in all of this is that the White House Correspondents Association, which really serves as a go- between for nearly 900 journalists and all types of journalists from reporters to producers to photographers and the administration.

They put out a statement calling for the immediate reinstatement of those badges, and they called this ban a -- that they said that this ban went against the First Amendment.

[17:04:51]

BENBROOK: So I want to pull up part of this for you. Now, this is from the current WHCA president and a White House correspondent for Fox News, Jacqui Heinrich. And she said in part, "The implications extend beyond these organizations, a standard use to exclude one news outlet because of its coverage could be applied to any outlet in the future.

The American people, through a free and independent press, must be able to scrutinize those elected to power, regardless of whether government officials view it favorably."

And as Trump spoke in the Oval Office yesterday, he suggested that there could be more outlets added to this. As of right now, it is CNN, MS NOW and Politico but he suggested that he could go farther. He said, quote, "Others may join them."

I want you to listen to that answer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: There's a lot of news, and there may be others to join them. The "New York Times" is fake news. "Washington Post" is fake news. They're crummy papers, both doing very poorly, by the way.

But we'll see. We're probably not going to display the paper anymore in the White House.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BENBROOK: And I do want to add a little bit of context here, because, of course, we report to our viewers as CNN. That is part of our job. There is also the TV press pool at the White House. It is a rotation of five major networks that make sure that those visuals, that access, as the president travels is there and in place. On Monday, CNN is scheduled to be serving as that press pool as Trump

travels to the United Nations General Assembly, obviously, a time that he could make a lot of news, and it is still unclear how that will be handled, Pam.

BROWN: All right. Julia Benbrook from outside the White House. Thank you so much.

So let's bring in CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter and former president of the White House Correspondents Association and current senior contributor for Axios Margaret Talev.

Margaret, as someone who used to represent the White House Press Corps, help us better understand the impact of the press corps, why it matters. Why it matters that CNN is supposed to be pool on Monday, what that means. And in the bigger context, what all this means, this ban.

MARGARET TALEV, SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR, AXIOS: Sure. Well, Pamela, your correspondent was just talking about the idea of the network press pool. When you watch TV or any form of video that's like nationally distributed about the White House that's coming from journalists, it's coming from a rotation of those five TV networks.

When you are the network pool, you are sharing that with everyone, with your competitors, with smaller outlets that can't afford to do that kind of White House coverage, with hundreds of millions of Americans see that coverage.

And when you're in that pool function, you're not getting scoops (ph) for yourself or off to the side doing, you know, your own reporting. You are doing reporting on behalf of all of your colleagues and on behalf of the public.

So it is sort of a behind-the-scenes role that most Americans never see or think about. But when you're getting news, when you're seeing the video of the president giving a speech or the president's own messaging that he might want to put forward, very often that's coming from the pool and that includes CNN.

CNN's absence on Monday, you know, is going to create the absence of coverage of the president, which is he wants that coverage. He doesn't want the critical off-camera coverage from someone standing across the street talking about whatever they want to talk about.

He wants them carrying his messaging, and he is preventing them from doing that.

So this is actually, I'm not sure that what he hopes to accomplish is going to happen through this path.

BROWN: And we know he likes the cameras, right? I mean, so it will be interesting to see what happens come Monday.

Brian, you know, to be clear, this obviously involves CNN and other outlets, but this isn't about the media, the press. It's not about us. It's about the people that the press serves. What are First Amendment experts telling you?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Yes. We'd be reacting the same way today if this was about ABC or the "New York Times". It just happens to be CNN that he's targeting today.

But right now it's very clear, Pam. We've talked to half a dozen First Amendment groups, other media lawyers. There's real unity. The message being that this is unconstitutional and unacceptable.

Trump, of course, is constantly criticizing the media. It's become like background noise after ten years. But this today is a big escalation because he is really translating words, those typical words, complaints into actions, physical concrete actions.

Actually banning journalists from the White House is undemocratic. It is straight out of the autocratic playbook.

And I know some figures might say it's just a temper -- you know, temper tantrum. Trump will settle down. We'll move on soon to some other target.

That might be the case, but this is also a serious legal situation. So right now, media lawyers from the three newsrooms that have been targeted are working on next steps. And Pam, there will be legal action in the days to come.

BROWN: And just to be clear, we know from when our former colleague Jim Acosta had his press pass revoked, it was reinstated by a judge.

[17:09:48]

BROWN: And the ruling was that once you grant access to members of the press, you can't just arbitrarily take it away based on viewpoint discrimination just because you don't like the coverage, right, Brian?

STELTER: That's exactly what was found in 2018. That has been reaffirmed more recently. And I've heard from experts who have said, this is textbook viewpoint discrimination.

Trump's own words will be used against him in whatever legal action comes, unless, you know, for some reason, he reverses this in the coming hours. There's no reason to believe he would do that. And that's why what you and Margaret were talking about is critical.

It's going to be about that Monday moment with the TV pool, because CNN is assigned to be the TV pool representative on Monday morning, and Trump is heading to New York for the U.N. General Assembly. That's going to be the real test of this new ban.

BROWN: You know, Margaret, at the top of the show, I mentioned how this latest move by the president comes just 45 days before the midterms. Brian, wait -- I mean, we've heard these threats from the president about the press and grumbling about the press and its coverage, but we've never seen him take steps this far, this kind of escalation.

What do you think this ban is all about?

TALEV: You know, you've heard the argument that the fastest way to take the president's eye off the ball of coverage of events like inflation or more people, more U.S. service members dying in Iran than was previously reported, or affordability is to give the press a story about the press.

So that is one argument, sort of the distraction argument.

But I think it's also entirely possible the president is just completely frustrated with his standing in the polls and how that could impact the midterms, and is lashing out.

As a journalist, obviously, I don't think that restricting the free flow of information to the public is a good idea. It is clearly going to be a First Amendment issue to be litigated by the courts.

But I'll also tell you, in my role as director of an institute for Syracuse University that studies the relationship between health of the media ecosystem and health of American democracy, we know from research that when you restrict Americans' access to news and information, including news that's critical of government, whether its local government or national government, that that fuels polarization.

It fuels misinformation in communities. It gives people less information with which to make good decisions about voting. So there could be ballot impacts.

The trouble for the president is that most Americans right now who have voted for him in the last election and then turned against him, want him focused on affordability and the economy. And one of their biggest complaints we see in polling and focus groups, one of their biggest complaints is that they think he's taking the eye off of those things and focusing on petty personal disputes, or kind of other adventures, tariffs or whatever things that he wants to get into.

I think that there is some political risk for him in taking this approach. Aside from whatever the courts decide, and hopefully the courts protect the First Amendment.

But politically, between now and November midterms, if Americans feel that the president is being distracted by this instead of focusing on the economy, they could take that out on his political party. And that's the political risk I think, that Republicans are concerned about right now.

BROWN: All right. Margaret, Brian, thank you so much.

Still to come, a faulty A.I. report nearly triggers a U.S. military operation in the Middle East. And now some lawmakers are calling for an investigation.

Plus, the holdout juror in the Lindsay Clancy trial whose decision led to a hung jury, speaks out for the first time since the court case ended.

And Ed Sheeran is set to hit the stage in just hours amid major controversy surrounding his tour.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM and we'll be right back.

[17:13:27]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, President Trump says that he will create an A.I. force and appoint a leader amid calls for government guardrails on the fast- growing technology. Trump says it will not hinder or stifle the industry, but can look for what he called, quote, "the bad".

Trump posted, "A.I. is the next industrial revolution or Internet, but will be even larger and more impactful, possibly as much as 25 percent of our country's GDP. We are leading China and the rest of the world, and I intend to keep it that way."

Also tonight, a group of top Democrats are calling for an investigation after a series of mistakes in a U.S. military targeting plan caused by artificial intelligence mistakes that, quote, "almost started a war", according to a source familiar with the incident.

The senator cited CNN exclusive reporting that a special command analyst relied on A.I. to generate an intelligence report, and then that report inaccurately identified a material on a Chinese cargo ship in the Middle East.

The senators wrote of their, quote, "growing concern about the extent to which agencies, under your oversight, have prioritized acceleration of A.I. capability, adoption, and experimentation over effective governance."

Here's Zach Cohen with CNN's exclusive reporting.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZACH COHEN, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Sources are telling me and our colleague Katie Bo Lillis, that this intelligence report was circulated through the U.S. military earlier this spring while the war with Iran was still ongoing.

And it concluded that a Chinese vessel that was transiting through the Middle East was likely carrying components of a nuclear weapons program.

[17:19:42]

COHEN: Now, that obviously caught the attention of U.S. military officials who immediately moved to prepare for a potential operation targeting that ship, even taking steps towards possibly boarding the vessel.

We're told that it was when military aircraft were in the sky, and that this operation looked like it was going to be underway, that U.S. officials took a closer look at the intelligence report itself and determined that it had been generated with the help of A.I., and that the chatbot used by a special operations analyst had misidentified the ship's cargo, ultimately, leading U.S. officials and the military to pull the plug on the planned operation and hence likely avoiding a potential international incident with one of the world's other superpower.

Now, this is reviving and contributing to ongoing concerns in the debate about the place of A.I. going forward and the U.S. commitment to potential guardrails around A.I.

And the U.S. military under President Donald Trump and his Defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, have been very A.I. forward during their second time in office.

Hegseth himself sent out a memo earlier this year saying that he wants the military to be experimental in how it uses A.I. and to incorporate it in nearly every facet of its job, whether that be targeting operations or more mundane tasks like budgeting.

This is going to raise additional questions, though, given the close call, as our sources characterized it, in terms of incorporating an intelligence report that was aided by A.I. and ultimately proved to be, as one source put it, entirely false.

So another source saying and reiterating that this was not necessarily a one-off incident, that A.I., the use of A.I., particularly when it comes to precision targeting operations, is increasing under Pete Hegseth.

This source says, quote, "A.I. and targeting is definitely something that's ramping up. And there is no real guidance for how having a human in the loop will prevent civilian casualties or fratricide."

And so that does speak to another concern. We're hearing from our sources is that there is no consistent guidance coming from the very top levels of the Pentagon about how the military branches should be using A.I., which tools and which systems they should even be using.

There is very little consistency across all of the services on that regard.

And as we've seen in this case, with the Chinese vessel, at times A.I. can be incorporated into producing intelligence that almost goes to operational status without being fully vetted.

And so, again, we've heard lawmakers here in Washington, D.C., debate in recent weeks about potential guardrails around the use of A.I.

The Pentagon and the U.S. Military, meanwhile, has been on the forefront of trying to find ways to incorporate A.I. more. And it will be interesting to see how this revelation may impact the Pentagon's stance on A.I. going forward.

Zachary Cohen, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Really important reporting there. Zach Cohen, thank you so much.

And still ahead. Lindsay Clancy's ex-husband and the stand-alone juror each speak out about the high-profile trial weeks after it ended in a mistrial.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM, and we'll be right back.

[17:22:57]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: CBS' "60 Minutes" has released a new clip from its interview with Patrick Clancy and his new wife. It is the first time we're hearing from the couple since the trial of Clancy's ex-wife, Lindsay Clancy, ended in a mistrial.

Here's part of the interview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you angry at yourself? Do you feel like you failed in some way in this period, or do you feel like you did the best you could?

PATRICK CLANCY, EX-HUSBAND OF LINDSAY CLANCY: I think I did the best I could with what I had at the time. And I live with the outcome. I live with it every day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Lindsay Clancy is charged with killing their three children, but argues she should not be held criminally responsible because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis.

Since testifying in the trial, Patrick Clancy has faced intense speculation and scrutiny online. His full "60 Minutes" interview airs tomorrow night.

And meanwhile, the lone holdout juror who forced a mistrial is speaking out for the first time, raising fresh questions about what exactly happened during those deliberations.

In a statement, the juror says that he had, quote, "no doubts about whether Clancy should be held criminally responsible for killing her children," adding he believed there was enough evidence to show Clancy, quote, "knew exactly what she was doing and planned".

That contradicts a picture other jurors have painted. Some have given interviews since the mistrial, claiming the holdout admitted to having reasonable doubt.

So let's talk about it all with attorney and jury consultant Alan Tuerkheimer. He is the founder of Trial Methods, a firm specializing in jury research and trial strategy. Hi, Alan.

So this holdout is now publicly disputing a narrative that he had doubts, saying that he felt there was enough evidence to convict. What do you think about his comments? Do they surprise you?

ALAN TUERKHEIMER, FOUNDER, TRIAL METHODS: Not really. And -- good to be here, Pamela, thanks for having me.

We're getting a preview of what happened in deliberations as jurors are speaking and the term reasonable doubt, it's malleable. It's something jurors aren't used to.

So I think there was a pretty thorough discussion during the deliberation about what it meant. And look, when jurors are talking, just like when humans every day are talking to each other, communication is imprecise. Sometimes people hear what they want to hear, or they see what they want to see.

It's like the old game of telephone where somebody says something and it's passed on and on and on.

This lone holdout might have been talking about his perception of reasonable doubt. The other jurors might have thought that he said something along the lines of that he didn't -- he didn't see it or something, something like that.

And he in his mind, he was saying, yes, there was there's no doubt in my mind that she knew what she was doing when she killed her three children.

So I think it's pretty typical. And look, the system worked just because there wasn't a unanimous verdict in a criminal case, you need 12 people. And jurors are told to hold firm on their convictions and their beliefs, and not just to see what the majority is doing.

Usually it benefits criminal defendants, but here we see that they just couldn't come to a unanimous verdict. And it's interesting that they're speaking out about it.

[17:29:49]

BROWN: And he also went on to explain that quote, "I tried to explain different possible theories during deliberation. I kept getting cut off as if I had doubts based on the evidence presented."

And really, you know, as you kind of point out there, Alan, it's his word against several other jurors who have spoken out. But what does that tell you about what may have been happening inside that jury room?

TUERKHEIMER: It gets so heated. Things are -- it's just exhausting after so long. It was 38 hours. I -- on a regular basis, in mock jury deliberations, after a couple hours, jurors get really dug in, tired, frustrated. The same arguments get rehashed. Sometimes different perspectives and arguments are tried to persuade others. But it is a really gruesome process, especially a case like this with all these photos and the three children, the autopsy reports, everything.

So, at the end of the day, it just got really tiresome for them, and they really just wanted to get to the finish line. And I saw a report that he was on his phone. I'm not sure why they had their phones back there, but it really get -- gets personal. And when it's 11 against one, that -- that's extra stressful. At least, if it's six-six or seven-five, and you have allies in the deliberation, it's a little easier to continue on.

But here, with 11 people, you standing in the way of 11 people getting to a verdict and going home, that's psychologically really stressful and hard to deal with.

BROWN: And you had the attorney representing the holdout juror, saying that he is now in a secure, undisclosed location. You know, what does this tell you that this juror has to go into hiding and lawyer up like this?

TUERKHEIMER: It's really unfortunate. Look, nobody -- for the most part, just about nobody, I should say. I have to qualify it.

When somebody receives a jury summons in the mail, nobody is excited about it. Now, for most cases -- this is not a typical case, but for most cases, after jurors serve, they are satisfied. They helped resolve a dispute. They did good for the public. It was their constitutional duty.

But here, it's really gotten out of hand. And this juror was even attacked by the defense lawyer, Reddington. I mean, he made a statement that I hope this juror can sleep at night. He has a bias against somebody with a -- with mental health problems. That's just -- that's out of bounds. It shouldn't be that way.

Jurors should come to serve as jurors, and they shouldn't be second guessed like this, or raped over the coals, and certainly harassed by others in social media.

BROWN: All right. Alan Tuerkheimer, thanks so much for coming on to offer your perspective on all of this.

And after the break, the role A.I. is playing this campaign season, and whether it would hurt or help candidates headed into the midterms. You are in the CNN NEWSROOM, and we will be right back.

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[17:36:58]

BROWN: Well, new today: Google, says it's A.I. bot, Gemini escaped its testing sandbox as well. They accessed the internet and hacked into three companies in May, a first for the company's A.I. system.

And the hacks happened after an Israeli testing company accidentally gave Gemini Internet access during a test. The models then found or guessed logins and passwords. Google says in all three cases, the model ceased its hacking.

Other incidents have been disclosed by Anthropic, OpenAI, and Meta, raising serious questions about the need to regulate A.I. for safety. The Wall Street Journal reports that Google did not disclose the hacks until the paper reached out with inquiries this week.

A.I. is certain to be a major topic at one of the most highly anticipated Oval Office sit-downs of the year, when President Trump hosts Chinese leader Xi Jinping for a state visit to the White House this coming week.

Tech and A.I. CEOs are expected to travel to D.C. for a state dinner, including the CEOs of OpenAI and chipmaker Nvidia.

This is coming soon after A.I. executives suddenly rang alarm bells about A.I.'s possible threat to humans unless we find a way to hit the brakes. It has marked a clear shift in tone to doomsday warnings.

CNN business reporter David Goldman breaks down how we got to this moment.

DAVID GOLDMAN, CNN BUSINESS SENIOR REPORTER: A.I. is dominating the conversation right now. How did we get here? Well, let's go through the foggy mists of time, all the way back to November of 2022.

ChatGPT, remember when that came out? Oh my God, this can help me cheat on my homework, and it can write poetry. That was revolutionary at the time. It feels quaint now because then, three years later, we had DeepSeek. This is China entering the conversation.

Now, Chinese A.I. can do everything that American A.I. can do. This was a big, big moment for A.I., but not as big as this.

This year, we are expected to spend $1 trillion. Let's see: thousand, million, billion, trillion. Yes, trillion dollars on A.I. data centers and infrastructure, and this has caused an uproar. This has become a political issue, and certainly helped make A.I. a conversation piece across the country.

But it's gotten even bigger. Because then, in June of 2026, we had Mythos. This is Anthropic's tool that basically they had to warn the government that this could hack into anything. The government says, nope, you are blocked.

And Anthropic listened. This was an enormous moment in time, but this is the thing I think that started to freak people out.

Hugging Face, OpenAI, says we found that our chatbots have hacked in to Hugging Face, which is another A.I. platform.

Their agents went rogue.

[17:40:01]

Basically, they had a jailbreak. It was like an Ocean's 11 like heist. They even had a getaway car. It was incredible, and it was an eye- opening moment because 1,400 A.I. researchers wrote an open letter that said, wait a minute, we need to start to regulate this thing.

And then, of course, Jacob Coxon, who is an -- now, resigned Anthropic researcher, says A.I. could kill us all. This opened up the conversation to wait a minute, are we going too fast? And his former boss Dario Amodei said, yes, maybe we need to slow our roll just a little bit.

And an open letter says we need to come together as an A.I. community, and we need to slow down.

Now, whether or not this is true is up for debate, but it has caused alarm, and that is how we got to where we are now.

BROWN: All right. That sums it up, David Goldman. Thank you so much.

An artificial intelligence has found its way onto the campaign trail this year. Political candidates are using this technology to create deepfake ads.

For more on all of this, let's bring in Eric Wilson, executive director of the Center for Campaign Innovation, which he calls an R and D lab for Republican digital strategy.

Full disclosure, he is also the brother-in-law of CNN's Jessica Dean, and he has worked as a campaign digital advisor, including the 2016 Marco Rubio presidential campaign.

So, right now, the latest news cycle is all about the possible dangers of A.I. But you see, A.I. can actually connect candidates and voters. Tell us about that.

ERIC WILSON, POLITICAL TECHNOLOGIST: Yes, campaigns are using A.I. in the most boring and mundane ways possible to connect with voters in new and interesting ways.

For example, being able to translate into languages that the candidate might not be able to speak, or giving the sort of resources to these down ballot candidates that they wouldn't otherwise have in the form of really sophisticated data scientists or messaging consultants. And so, we are seeing it sort of level the playing field for a lot of candidates, and it's pretty, pretty valuable for campaigns right now, and they are having to navigate, well, what are -- what are voters willing to tolerate.

BROWN: And as midterms approach, a lot of people are turning to Google. Right? To find out about these different candidates, and A.I. is giving them the answers. Right?

But you did some research that shows just how quickly that can change what the answer would be, depending on when the voter decides to ask. Right?

WILSON: Right. So, people may not realize this. But every time you ask an A.I. chatbot a question, it's going to give you a new answer. So, we knew this already, but we wanted to measure well, how different are those answers?

And one of the ways that we measured that was rating the favorability of the answer. So, for example, you know, did it include criticism or did it mention this policy unfavorably? And we found that frequently, the same model asked about the same candidate with the same question is going to give vastly different answers depending on when you ask it.

BROWN: So interesting.

I want to talk about A.I. deepfakes, because they are being used in campaign advertisements. Here are just two recent examples.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And God said, let there be six genders, and there were. Then, God so loved the world that He gave us His only Son, who is a radical feminist.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They will never see us coming. They really think we are just Democrats.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Do you believe that these A.I. uses go too far?

WILSON: Not at all. Because these are clearly examples of parody and satire. And the concern heading into this election was that there were going to be deepfakes, confusing people about what's real and what's not. And what we have seen is campaigns consistently use them for: parody, satire, to humorous effect. And most of the times they are disclosing that, or it's fairly obvious that the A.I. is being used.

Where I think the concern comes in are when state actors, like we are seeing with Russia, using deepfakes of celebrities to try and get people not to vote for certain candidates. And we are not seeing the sort of campaigns use them in a malicious way.

I think, a lot of people would be surprised to know that we can use A.I. to do ads that are really effective and tell a story and give, once again, a level playing field to those candidates who might not have the money to be able to do full on production or hire actors or things like that.

BROWN: But what about the campaigns do make ads using A.I. that look more realistic? Right? I mean, clearly those were parodies, but that's not always the case necessarily, or it won't be in the future. Do you think there should be more guidelines or clearer label requirements that this is A.I. generated, that kind of thing?

WILSON: Well, we clearly need some rules of the road, and I know that some of the professional organizations in this industry have their own code of conduct.

Similarly, we have seen over 30 states come up with different policies that really span the gamut from labeling to not even being able to use it at all.

[17:45:06]

So, I think it's something that each campaign has to think about. Is this being used for effect? And voters certainly don't want to be deceived. One of the things that we have seen in some research that we partnered with another group on is that the disclaimer and that labeling is very important to voters, but it also has that backfire effect where they may not trust the ad as much anymore.

BROWN: All right. Eric Wilson, thank you so much. Appreciate you coming in.

WILSON: Thanks for having me.

BROWN: Well, for the first time since his tour was derailed, Ed Sheeran is set to return to the stage.

You are in the CNN NEWSROOM, and we will be right back.

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[17:50:02]

BROWN: Well, Ed Sheeran returns to the stage tonight for the first time since all of his supporting acts withdrew from his concert tour.

The artist quit in solidarity with rapper Macklemore, who was dropped from the tour after exclaiming, "free Palestine" during a show in New Jersey earlier this month.

CNN's Gloria Pazmino joins us now from Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.

Gloria, the concert time has already been pushed back, and now some people are reconsidering whether to show up. What are you hearing?

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN NEWSOURCE NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. But so far, from what we are seeing, fans are starting to arrive.

The gates are not open just yet, but people have started to line up at the doors to try and get in. And we can see that people are arriving.

We spoke to some people yesterday who were sort of on the fence about whether to come to tonight's concert, and we have seen that ticket sales, the prices of the tickets have significantly been reduced, and it looks like the ticket providers have been also giving purchasers refunds for tonight.

So, that's a significant sort of change from the usual. Right? You can't usually get your money back for a concert that you simply just don't want to go to if the concert is still happening.

But let's talk about what got us here. Right? This controversy that started earlier this month, after Macklemore took the stage in New Jersey and spoke about the conflict in Gaza. He highlighted the war. He spoke about Palestinian rights, and it was shortly after that, that it was announced that he -- announced that he was being dropped from the tour.

Now, it's not the first time that Macklemore speaks out about this. It's also not the first time that he faces some sort of controversy on this issue.

Now, Ed Sheeran has sort of defended himself by saying that this was not his decision. Right? That it was up to the promoters of this tour and Robert Kraft, the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots, who encouraged him to drop Ed Sheeran from the tour and said that he would urge other stadium owners to follow suit.

So, you can really see the pressure here in terms of, you know, Ed Sheeran being able to continue on this tour, and he spoke to that, saying that there were, you know, musicians and performers and staff that is relying on this tour to make a living.

So, we expect that Sean to take the stage tonight without any opening acts, because after Macklemore was dropped, there were other acts that were expected to perform here tonight, who announced they will no longer be doing so in solidarity with Macklemore.

Now, ahead of tonight's performance, there has been some protests. About five, six blocks away from here, there is a small group of demonstrators that are gathered. We talked to them just a short while ago. They are trying to bring attention to the issue of the war in Gaza and Palestinian rights. Right?

They say that it's not really about this concert, but rather bringing the attention back to the issue. So, the question remains: Will Ed Sheeran address any of this controversy on stage tonight, and how are some of the fans who perhaps are going to come anyway feeling about this whole thing?

There are some who we have heard from that were disappointed that Macklemore was dropped from the tour. Pamela?

BROWN: All right. Gloria Pazmino, thank you so much.

And after a week that included the Supreme Court blocking his new requirements for mail-in ballots and the first federal interest rate hike under the man he just picked to replace Jerome Powell, President Trump responds by denying White House access to CNN and two other news organizations this morning.

You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. We will be right back.

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[17:58:00]

BROWN: They slip under cars, hide behind buildings, and often go unnoticed in plain sight. Tens of millions of stray and feral cats live across America, facing hunger and illness.

This week, CNN Hero is working hard to break that cycle. Here is her story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAINA SPAGIS, FOUNDER, CATS OF SAN BERNARDINO: If you are not looking for cats, you might not see them. But as soon as you do, you see them everywhere. And they are in such great need, especially in low-income areas like San Bernardino.

Today, we are trying to catch three orange kitties, and we are trying to get them in for TNR tomorrow.

Cats of San Bernardino is a nonprofit cat rescue. Some of our main focuses are TNR, which is the process of trapping a cat.

All right, mamas, getting them spayed, neutered, vaccinating, and then returning them back to where we got them. This helps curb the population of cats that are being born to suffer on the streets.

Come on, big guys.

We also do colony feedings, where we care for 14 different colonies every single day, providing food, water, medical care to them.

Can I see them?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, of course. We just found her, I believe, out in our dugout.

SPAGIS: We find a friendly kitty, or they are sick or injured.

She got upper respiratory infection for sure.

We take them into our rescue. We get them the treatment they need.

Our rescue, which is based out of our home, has our isolation and medical room.

Time for your medicine.

Which is our garage, which has been outfitted fully as a medical ward.

20.5 ounces. You are a big boy. You are the biggest. Good job, bud.

And then, we also have what we call the Healthy Kitty Club, which is a bedroom in our home. This is where the healthy, adoptable kitties come to hang out until they are ready to be adopted. We have two patios that are connected to that room.

Although, work never ends, it's a work that we love. So, I love having them close by.

It is Vet Day Friday. We have six kitties for TNR.

Social media plays a huge role in our rescue. My wife does almost all of the social media.

[18:00:01]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let's start with the first clip.

SPAGIS: It is the only place that we get funding from. It is a huge aspect of what we do, and so, so important.

You would be looking for a high energy -- definitely him.