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Judge Restores Media Access to White House; Trump Uses National Security for Justification; Trump Hosts Chinese Leader; Americans Fearful and Concerned about A.I. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired September 24, 2026 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

MIKE DUBKE, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Move together on A.I. as a -- as a -- as a large part of this conversation. I think that is something that, as a political issue, and as an issue that just the individuals of the world, we had Sam Altman at the U.N. yesterday. When's the last time that you saw a tech entrepreneur at, you know, addressing the U.N. on the future of humanity. So --

SAWYER HACKETT, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST AND CONTENT CREATOR: Pressing for regulation that Trump doesn't want.

DUBKE: Well, we can talk about whether that regulation is for them to freeze their position within the ecosystem of A.I. or what the advantages of that regulation might be. But Trump has pushed on an A.I. with Anthropic with regulations on A.I. With Anthropic, they've put a hold on one of their frontier models coming out.

So, I hear what you're saying on the rhetoric, which is part of this, but on A.I., if we find some level of cooperation with China, to me that's a good thing for the world.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Well, in the meantime, you've got Marco Rubio responding to Wicker saying, look, the idea we wouldn't interact with them at the highest levels, irresponsible. Basically, that the United States has to.

DUBKE: Absolutely have to.

CORNISH: So, it will be interesting to see what is actually discussed.

Now, I want to turn to this.

If you're just waking up, a judge ruled overnight in that ban when it comes to credentials for MS Now, CNN and "Politico." It is a legal setback for the president, at least for now. And we're going to hear from one of our White House correspondents, like, what's her day going to look like?

And later on CNN, the court set to resume in the murder trial of a former "American Idol" contestant who is charged with killing his wife. We've got testimony to show you, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [06:36:09]

CORNISH: Back to this news coming in overnight, a federal judge orders President Trump to restore White House access to CNN, MS Now and "Politico" immediately.

CNN White House correspondent Alayna Treene joins us here.

Thank you so much for being here.

You're dressed for work. Are you going to work?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the plan was for me to start here at our bureau. Obviously, I'm here with you guys, not at the White House right now.

CORNISH: Yes.

TREENE: Because this ruling obviously happened just a couple hours ago. So, I think we still have to figure out what this is going to look like, how long it is going to take. I do assume, you know, we will hopefully be able to get access. Our badges are going to be reactivated during normal working hours. We'll be able to get in. But we're still kind of figuring out the posture.

But, look, this was obviously a major ruling. One that I think the president won't necessarily be happy with, but one he was expecting. Earlier in this week he said, even to our own reporters at the U.N. and others, that in other places that, you know, he expected that the judge would side with the media outlets, CNN, MS Now and "Politico" --

CORNISH: Yes.

TREENE: Because of what we saw him do back in 2018, when former CNN White House reporter Jim Acosta had his badge taken. And this same judge, who is a Trump-appointed judge, I should be clear --

CORNISH: Timothy Kelly.

TREENE: Reactivated that.

CORNISH: Yes.

TREENE: So, there's still a lot of questions of what this is going to look like. One, this is obviously a temporary thing about, you know, we know that the White House, I don't think they're going to be able to appeal. I'm not going to get into the legal side of it because I'm not -- I'm not -- I'm not great with the legal stuff.

CORNISH: Yes. No, no, so let me help you out there.

TREENE: Yes.

CORNISH: Basically, the administration said one day, effective immediately, you three are banned. Just you three. Your badges, poof, not working anymore. So, this lawsuit was first just to say, hey, hey, hey, this moved too

quick. The reporter should be able to work while this is happening in court.

TREENE: Yes.

CORNISH: So, we are going to be -- there's going to be a further legal conversation.

I'm also interested in how this is different than what has happened in the past, when the president has tried to revoke just a journalist or a news organization. All of the people in particular on the TV side came together in a boycott.

TREENE: Yes.

CORNISH: That was unusual. And how did it actually play out? What did that mean for your day to day?

TREENE: Well, I think one of the key things, and I know this gets wonky for, you know, people outside of D.C., is what happened with the White House pool. And so, our viewers know what the pool is, is it's essentially every single day there is a rotation. You have five of the major networks CNN, ABC, Fox News, NBC, AND CBS, that on any given day, they are responsible for broadcasting every single movement.

CORNISH: I will say, that gets expensive, 24 hours a day coverage.

TREENE: It's a space issue. It's expensive.

CORNISH: Let's all take turns.

TREENE: Exactly.

And what happened was, not only did the White House ban reporters' access to the White House, they also said CNN is no longer part of the pool, which meant -- and we were actually pool on Monday. I was supposed to be the one traveling with the president to the U.N. General Assembly to New York, covering his every movement there. And then, of course, I wasn't only there in the -- I wouldn't have only been in there in the capacity for CNN, it would have been for all of the networks who would have taken the footage that CNN had of the president and broadcasted it for all the networks and everyone to be able to share. That didn't happen. And because of that, that's why we saw a lot of these other networks and even press outlets band together and say, we're not going to do that either.

So, when the president went to New York on Monday, he did not -- and he didn't have this yesterday either with Xi -- he did not have a pool camera on him.

CORNISH: Yes. So, any video we saw was coming from other sources.

TREENE: Yes. That's why you saw the weird helipad moment.

CORNISH: But to the point, basically, this was an unexpected response for him. He's used to, you have a lawsuit, you pick on a person, they have to deal with it in court. This collective response was new.

TREENE: Yes. And I also think -- I mean, there's no secret that this president loves media attention probably anymore --

CORNISH: Yes.

TREENE: More than any other president we've had. To lose that type of coverage where his -- you know, whenever he wants reporters to come into the Oval Office.

[06:40:05]

CORNISH: Call a speech. Do a thing.

TREENE: Yes.

CORNISH: Yes.

TREENE: And have a camera where everyone across America can see it, that's no longer happening with the pool. And that's still a question I have with this lawsuit is that this addresses the ban, and, obviously, that's what our lawyers and the lawyer also representing "Politico" and MS Now fought for in court. The question is, what happens to the pool? That's still something we're uncertain of.

CORNISH: Right. Will the other organizations maintain this --

TREENE: Will this be --

CORNISH: Yes.

TREENE: I think today is ABC's day, for example. Will they be -- will they go back up to normal processes, because that's still an unclear part for us at CNN.

CORNISH: All right, we're going to hear from you more, of course, Alayna Treene.

And in the meantime, on CNN THIS MORNING, we talked about the fact that the White House actually talked about national security when it tried to justify this ban. Now, the judge in the case has actually questioned that claim. We're going to talk about what happens next.

And for the first known time, A.I. hacks a government database.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:45:13]

CORNISH: Back now to this breaking news.

A federal judge orders CNN's access to the White House be restored. The Trump administration argued the ban was to, quote, "protect national security." And that is something that they have used before.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We need Greenland for national security, and even international security.

Tariffs are national security.

A tremendous amount of what's being done with respect to the ballroom is for national security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So, is that a stretch?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): He's using national security for anything where he loses in court. He's using it for the ballroom. He's using it for the Reflecting Pool. He's using it for the Kennedy Center. He's using it for the arch. And he thinks that somehow there's a magic national security exception in the Constitution that allows him to override every other provision of the Constitution. There's clearly not a national security exception for the censorship of speech. We have the same First Amendment in peacetime as we do in wartime and so on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Group chat is back.

Sawyer, let me start with you, because what I see in a Democrat talking that way is no longer being scared when national security is invoked for an issue. I feel like in the past Democrats, there was a little bit of, like, oh, we have to show we're strong on things. So, when someone says national security, those are the magic words to back down and start talking in a more moderate way. And that's not what we hear.

HACKETT: Which is, I think, why they're -- why they're doing it. That, and it's a good excuse to use with the courts, which have kind of blocked a lot of Trump's actions, especially related to these vanity projects.

And I think, you know, it's interesting that the Trump administration kind of invokes these things because clearly it's just an attempt to justify the president stealing billions of dollars from the American people to build these vanity projects or to, you know, ban the press from covering him, or whatever it may be. They use that as a justification because they know that it won't pass muster with the courts. And, clearly, obviously, that's not happening.

CORNISH: One thing I just want to say, to read from the ruling itself, because you're just waking up, you're just hearing about this. The judge basically said he was skeptical. He says, quote, "for one thing, nothing in the record that predates this suit suggests that the revocation of plaintiffs hard passes was motivated by national security concerns. Certainly, that is not what President Trump said when he announced that he was banning plaintiffs from the White House. Instead, he focused on the alleged lack of truthfulness and negativity of plaintiffs' reporting."

It's actually not unusual for the president's words on social media to be -- to resurface in court from a judge.

DUBKE: No, and that's part of, you know, that's part of the benefit and the problem of being so connected to the American people through social media, that those words are going to come back up.

But I want to -- I want to go to that Raskin clip that you played. The president never used national security about the Reflecting Pool, never mentioned national security when it came to the Kennedy Center.

CORNISH: Well, he said it was terrorism, the vandalism.

DUBKE: Oh, that is not a national security argument. I mean, listen --

CORNISH: I don't know. He said it.

DUBKE: I mean Raskin is -- the fact that the -- Raskin says you can't use national security when you're talking about the press. If the press leaks information, and I'm using Air Force One as an example of a recent episode.

CORNISH: Yes.

DUBKE: If the press leaks information about Air Force One, that is national security. So, I understand that he wants to make a big darn deal about this. It's early in the morning. I won't swear. But, please, I don't -- I have a problem with saying, Democrats are not afraid to stand up anymore. Raskin is a partisan hack Democrat, no on this. And, yes, does the president use national security too often? Probably.

HACKETT: He invents it.

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: And in this case, in this case, one of the instances of -- that was invoked for national security was an article in "Politico" that quoted an unnamed senior administration official. And it was attributed by the White House lawyers to a leak that was a big problem.

There has been reporting yesterday from "The Washington Post" and from "Status" that, in fact, that person quoted was Vice President J.D. Vance on a call that was organized by the White House. People may not know this, but on a regular basis, any White House -- Trump White House, Obama White House, Biden White House, organizes these phone calls where they say, we've got some people to talk to you about what's going on, but we can't -- but we don't know what happens on them (ph).

CORNISH: Yes. And we -- to the point, just bringing up again what is in the ruling, the court and Timothy Kelly, the judge, said, look, you've turned in, as evidence, stories from the Defense Department, which does not deal with the White House Press Corps. And you've turned in stories that were done months ago when you did not revoke the pass. And finally, my favorite, that some of the stories didn't even require a hard pass to report.

[06:50:02]

So, to your point, they will have to provide more evidence.

DUBKE: Yes.

CORNISH: He is raising a flag saying, hey, we've got some skepticism.

I want to turn to something else, which is that in a few hours the president is going to have a big welcome for Chinese Leader Xi Jinping. Now, we might actually see some of it after the judge has restored this access to the White House overnight. We're still awaiting to find out whether TV pool coverage will return. But senators on both sides of the aisle are concerned about the signal that this welcome is sending.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ROGER WICKER (R-MS): Our commander in chief should keep in mind that his guest is a brutal, unelected and oppressive dictator who seeks to dominate his neighbors.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): Is there any evidence that he has ever been tough with another dictator, ever been tough with the head of China, ever been tough with the head of Russia? Nope. He gets in front of them and just tells them what great, great people they are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: I've got here Marc Stewart, global business strategist and a former CNN Beijing correspondent.

Welcome back, Marc.

I earlier was reading to the panel some of the things that Xi Jinping said were red lines, talking about Taiwan, talking about China's human rights record. So, those are the things he's like, look, don't talk about that. So, can you talk about what he does want to talk about when he arrives at the White House today?

MARC STEWART, FORMER CNN BEIJING CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Audie. It is good to see you again.

Look, these red lines are issues that will not be crossed. And I think, to some extent, we will probably see some conversation on these very sensitive issues, namely Taiwan. It's one that China certainly wants to resolve. U.S. policy allows for the sale of arms to Taiwan, but recognizing China as the overarching government.

Perhaps we could see some bargaining. Perhaps Xi Jinping would say to President Trump, look, if you stop arms sales we'll give you more access to U.S. markets. But I still think some kind of agreement like that is very far off.

I think what the two men will talk about are things where there is going to be some commonality. I think there will certainly be a discussion about A.I., about this big push of global technology. And, of course, we'll have some conversation about these issues relating to trade and tariff. Quite possible that we'll see some agreement signed. Perhaps some announcements. We recently saw China indicate that it's going to buy a large soybean purchase from the United States. That's very symbolic. Soy -- soybeans are a key commodity for both nations.

But, Audie, I was texting with a source of mine yesterday just kind of trying to put the days talks in perspective, and the line that this source said to me, too much pageantry, too little substance.

CORNISH: Can I talk about the pageantry for a minute? It sounds like a small thing. But we know, for instance, President Trump does like to be treated well when he goes abroad. And that that can, in fact, some leaders believe, make a difference in whatever conversations they have with him.

I see him really rolling out the red carpet for Xi Jinping, even meeting him on the tarmac. Is this a leader who is also affected by this kind of welcome?

STEWART: Well, I think there's several ways to look at all of this. This you could argue, is perhaps a way for President Trump to almost lower the temperature as perhaps some very difficult conversations are going to take place. So, there is a lot of room for interpretation.

What's been interesting to me, over the last few hours, is looking at the response from China. The unprecedented nature of this is something that is getting a lot of attention in state media. It's seen as the ultimate sign of respect. It's something that the Chinese government spokesperson put on social media upon the delegations arrival in China.

Also interesting, I think for China, this is also a way for it to build some street credibility in the sense that these images are being blasted around the world as China is trying to establish itself as this alternative to the west, this alternative to the United States, almost. These images tell potential allies, it signals to potential partners that China is being taken seriously for it to receive this kind of welcome by the United States.

But this back and forth, you played some sound earlier from a Republican, from a Republican lawmaker, I don't think that's unexpected. But this is certainly a way to win China, to win China's favor.

[06:55:01]

This symbolism, in many ways, is substance for Chinese delegates as far as how they view these conversations.

CORNISH: OK. Marc Stweart, thank you so much.

I want to turn to one more thing, a new CNN poll on A.I., because it finds three out of four Americans are fearful and concerned. Just one in four feel hopeful and excited about A.I. surpassing human intelligence. It's coming at a time that we continue to see headlines like this one. Australia's prime minister confirmed that an OpenAI agent hacked into his country's health care database. We're also learning OpenAI, an agent went rogue at least four times in May and June, hacking into government and university websites in the U.S. and abroad. It's all happening basically on its own.

I should say, it's also happening in the context of research. They're saying to the A.I., hey, we got an exercise for you. Go find out health information in Australia. And it basically, I think the prime minister said, didn't take no for an answer.

How does this hurt or help in a moment where you have Sam Altman at the U.N.

DOVERE: People were already anxious about A.I. and the effects of it. And then you have a couple of weeks ago all these A.I. executives saying there's a big problem and humanity might be ending. And then you have the A.I. executives show up at the United Nations and say, please do something to stop us. All of you agree on this. And then you have incidents like this that raise even more questions. And make people see that there are things that are going on that are clearly getting beyond the control of humans here. It's not shocking that people would be even more anxious.

CORNISH: Yes. I mean, the warnings have not been subtle. I would say the government response has been a little subtle. But we have heard the president talking more and more. In his speech, he talked about the idea of superintelligence. What is the Democratic response? Like, what is the lane here that you are starting to see from candidates ahead of the midterms?

HACKETT: I think across the country you're seeing candidates for statewide races stepping up and -- especially in governors races. I saw just yesterday that Governor Wes Moore implemented some regulatory efforts around A.I. States can only do so much, obviously.

CORNISH: Yes. But I feel like states and governors have felt a little bit forced to.

HACKETT: For sure.

CORNISH: Whereas lawmakers are kind of like, I really wish someone would do something about this.

HACKETT: Which is a --

DOVERE: Well, I mean, I -- the House of Representatives went out of session last week. They're not going to be back until November. On this or any other issue, they're not doing anything.

CORNISH: Yes.

HACKETT: Which is why the entire country is essentially clamoring for regulation on this, including the A.I. companies. And, you know, it seems like Donald Trump and Xi Jinping are really the only two people who don't want to decelerate here. CORNISH: Well, not the entire country. Yes. Democrats, 85 percent say

the government is not doing enough. Republicans, it's only 63 percent. And independents, 67 percent. So, there is some room here, some flexibility for how people are thinking.

DUBKE: But there's not a lot of room there. I mean, I think one of the things about this issue is that it's a fairly bipartisan angst by the American people, Democrats, Republicans and independents. And, you know, I hear you saying the president's done nothing on this, but there is the conversation about who will be an A.I. czar. Scott Bessent's name has been floated out there, in charge --

CORNISH: Wait, so what was Sacks (ph) doing?

DUBKE: In charge of an A.I. task force.

CORNISH: Oh.

DUBKE: What Sacks was doing early in the administration before he left, because he was a, I don't know what they call him, a guest worker.

CORNISH: Yes.

DUBKE: But --

CORNISH: A special government employee.

DUBKE: A special government employee.

CORNISH: Yes.

DUBKE He was there at the beginning of the administration advising on A.I. But as we have seen, and I think this is also part of the anxiety that the American people have, and frankly citizens of -- in the world have is the pace at which A.I. is developing.

So, the government is trying to address that. I don't know if they're doing enough. And I think with these incidents, you know, some simple things, like an incident report, we don't know all the incidents that have happened.

CORNISH: Yes, we don't.

DUBKE: And they seem to trickle out. So, there's -- there are some very kind of logical first steps that can happen here. And I think with a task force and a -- somebody to oversee this, we might be going in that right direction.

CORNISH: We'll see who -- if it comes to pass and who is on it.

Sawyer Hackett, just because I haven't seen you in a while, what is going on in your group chats?

HACKETT: I'm a -- I'm a straight man in my 30s, so my group chats are mostly, you know, us sending dumb TikTok's to our friends. But -- CORNISH: I thought you were going to say football, but that's my bias.

HACKETT: You know, there -- some of them are about football.

DUBKE: Mine too.

HACKETT: Some of them are about football. But I would say, you know, lately it's been interesting because a lot of my friends are non- political. They've been reaching out about the election. and, you know, talking about voter registration. They've seen some of the news about cracking down on those things, cracking down on voter registration rules and things like that. And so they've been asking me questions about updating their registration, when's the deadline, all of these things. And I just think it's very surprising that -- or it's very telling, I think, heading into this election cycle.

CORNISH: Confusion.

What's going on with you?

DOVERE: This new movie from Nathan Fielder about Elizabeth Holmes, "You Can See Everything." The --

CORNISH: The former CEO of Theranos, off to prison.

DOVERE: Yes. The brief clip of it dropped two weeks ago. The fuller trailer dropped yesterday. It does look like an astounding piece of work, unlike anything that I've seen before. I'm looking forward to seeing it.

[07:00:00]

CORNISH: OK. Last word to you.

DUBKE: Mine is peer to peer surveillance of our friends and family with these eye -- with these glasses.

CORNISH: The glasses.

DUBKE: And -- but the worst part, and I think most people aren't seeing this, when you're on a Zoom call, a lot of times people have A.I. note takers taking down every word that you're saying. That's a -- that's a problem.

CORNISH: OK. And just the start, I think.

Thank you for the group chat. Thank you for waking up with us. Headlines are next.