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Taxpayer-Funded Trump Ad Warns of America's 'Final Battle'; Trump Dines with Anthropic CEO Amid Growing AI Debate; Fetterman Corrects after 'I'm a Lifelong Republican' Gaffe. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired September 28, 2026 - 06:00   ET

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

BRAD SMITH, CNN ANCHOR: -- plane pull. A fundraiser for Special Olympics.

[06:00:05]

Teams of up to 20 people compete to pull the 95,000-pound plane 12 feet as fast as they could. In the end, the event raised more than $230,000, an incredible feat. And no need to go to the gym after that effort with the team.

That does it for CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS. I'm Brad Smith. CNN THIS MORNING with Audie Cornish starts right now.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Today in the group chat, a two-year-old Trump campaign ad. Why? Because it's back on TV. This time, the government paid for it. So, our tax dollars paying for propaganda.

Plus, Trump has dinner with one of the biggest voices warning about the dangers of A.I. after calling those warnings a hoax. Is the president listening?

And tariffs, beef imports. The cost of diesel. They have red-state farmers rethinking their loyalty to Trump. Can Democrats turn that into midterm votes?

And Senator John Fetterman slips when defending his identity as a Democrat. Did he accidentally say the quiet part out loud?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN FETTERMAN (D-PA): Because I've -- I'm a lifelong Republican.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Democrat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish, and here is where we begin.

The president spending more taxpayer dollars this weekend to air another ad promoting what he calls, quote, "a final battle against communists and the deep state."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: And we will liberate America from these

villains once and for all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So, the video is actually identical to an ad that the -- that Trump ran as a candidate that aired during his run for reelection in 2024.

Here's the difference. The ad this weekend features the disclaimer "paid for by the U.S. government."

So, the White House calls it a public service announcement with a nonpolitical message saying in a statement, quote, "The ad is educational and unapologetically patriotic. We should be proud of our country."

Now, even some in the president's party aren't sure it's the best use of money.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): I don't think any public official, including President Trump or Kristi Noem or John Kennedy, should spend public money on -- on private ads for themselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So, joining me now in the group chat, Sara Fischer, CNN senior media analyst and senior media reporter at Axios; Tiana Lowe Doescher, political commentator for "The Washington Examiner"; and Yasmin Radjy, executive director of Swing Left.

OK, I want to start with you, because I don't know the laws here, basically. You're a candidate. You spend your candidate pool of money. You're an incumbent in office. You spend a pool of money. I was under the impression never the twain shall meet. But what am I missing?

SARA FISCHER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA ANALYST: So, the way that it works is that the Government Accountability Office will typically review these types of things once they get a complaint. They have received a complaint, and they're going to look at three things as it pertains to the law.

The first is, is there an adequate disclosure. In this case, yes, there is an adequate disclosure that the person who paid for -- the group that paid for this was the U.S. government.

The second they're going to look at is whether or not this was sort of self-aggrandizement. Meaning are you just promoting yourself as a candidate or yourself as a person?

And then the third thing: is it policy and partisan in nature, meaning it's not a typical public service ad that it would be promoting something that everybody should be focusing on. Like, you know, get a vaccine or something like that. It is focused on a particular policy or a person.

I think that the complaint that's been filed by Public Citizen likely will have a strong review by The Government Accountability Office, which is a legislative branch.

It's not governed by the executive branch. The man who leads it is a career official. And so, we'll see what they have to say about it.

But it's not like they filed a lawsuit -

CORNISH: Right.

FISCHER: -- in which the president can be found, you know, unlawful or guilty of doing something.

CORNISH: Yes. It's not like a campaign finance violation or something like that.

FISCHER: Correct. One last wrinkle. We do have state-backed media in our government. It is foreign-sponsored broadcasters. So, it's like VOA.

CORNISH: What's left of it.

FISCHER: Yes. What's left of it. Yes. A lot of it has was attempted to be dismantled by the Trump administration, but a lot of that's been overruled in courts.

But you have Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, all of those things. It is illegal for those entities to run ads targeting the U.S. That is very clearly considered propaganda.

But in this case, there is, because of the public service and the public service announcements component, a little bit more of a gray line.

CORNISH: OK. So, let me go back to that gray area. It is very gray in terms of the service.

The White House has said, Look, we saw the George W. Bush administration spend money promoting a Medicare plan. President Obama spent money on the Affordable Care Act PSAs. And of course, Biden spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a COVID vaccine PSA campaign.

[06:05:05]

Yasmin, does that put him in the clear?

YASMIN RADJY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SWING LEFT: No, I think this is pretty black-and-white. This is state-sponsored propaganda at its finest.

This is -- I think we're in a race to the bottom with North Korea and Iran, with the kind of propaganda that we're seeing here.

But I think something that was, to me, really interesting in the ad is that he is focused on getting rid of the warmongers, and also in sort of uncovering the deep state in this ad.

That's him. He's the warmonger. He is the one who himself has promised an "America first" agenda and then has invested $2 billion a day in an illegal war with Iran.

And so, we -- I see that, really, as an attempt to desperately try to cling on to any ability to win over Republican voters in the midterms. And that is so clearly the play that we know what he's doing here.

CORNISH: Ads do reveal where you're weak.

RADJY: Taht's right.

CORNISH: Meaning you're only advertising what you're concerned about. What do you see in this ad? And what do you see about him?

And again, this is not about how much money it is. It's the fact that, you know, he's sitting on $400 million. Like, why isn't he paying for it?

TIANA LOWE DOESCHER, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, "WASHINGTON EXAMINER": The White House's defense is exactly what I think the issue is. Look, I think the difference between us and Iran is that Trump critics are on television not you know, hanging from a crane.

So, it's not exactly the same thing. We have free speech, and the president's always supported that.

The issue with the ad is that the ad doesn't actually say what he has done. It does not say shutting down Joe Biden's open border that saw an influx of over 10 million illegal aliens; passing the Laken Riley Act to make sure that criminal illegal aliens --

CORNISH: Tiana, not here to give them free advice. So, are you saying this is -- this didn't work?

DOESCHER: So, Trump aura farming and sounding cool and talking about taking down the commies? All right. I think it works for people that already like him.

But why not explain the Trump Accounts? My daughter is sitting with a Trump Account with $1,000 from the treasury.

CORNISH: Right. You know, how to get one, which is what a PSA is supposed to do.

DOESCHER: Explaining how to get the tax cuts that he passed.

CORNISH: Here's where to sign up. It's not, as you said, aura farming. Thank you for that on a Monday. Stay with me.

Coming up on CNN THIS MORNING, the president had dinner with one of tech's biggest leaders. It's the man who's been sounding the alarm about the risks of A.I. Think he's going to listen?

Plus, there are farmers who helped put Republicans in power, and some of them are upset. Can Democrats move in?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:11:49]

CORNISH: So, last night, the president hosted Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei for a private one-on-one dinner. This was at the White House.

And the meeting comes just days after Anthropic lost a court fight with the Pentagon over how its A.I. can be used.

An appeals court upheld a ruling allowing the company to be blacklisted and labeled as a security risk for refusing to allow certain Claude features to be used by the military.

Now, at the same time, Amodei has been warning that A.I. is moving too fast and needs more guardrails. He wrote an essay detailing why he thinks the industry should slow down and how he plans to do that. The group chat is back.

So, he is one of the tech leaders who both has spoken publicly, but also had a former employee come out and say, guess what? Even the good guys are bad guys here, because they're just racing to the bottom.

Help me understand why the president would be meeting with him, because their relationship has been almost purely antagonistic. Trump has complained that he thinks Amodei has connections to the Democrats. He also, obviously, with the Pentagon, has said Anthropic and your guardrails, get out of here. You can't tell us what to do.

So, what is on the agenda, do you think?

DOESCHER: I mean, look, the president likes to talk to everyone, including his enemies. It's why we saw him talk to Xi Jinping last week. It's why we see him with Zohran Mamdani at Gracie Mansion. Right?

I think he's willing to give Amodei a chance. But the fact is --

CORNISH: Will he give as warm a welcome as those two did?

DOESCHER: Probably. Anyone who knows, knows he takes you through the tour of -- of the gallery and all of that.

Look, Amodei, if Amodei believed what he was saying, if you really believed your product was killing people, what would you do? Shut it down. Delay your IPO?

No, his IPO is coming in, what, I think November? And it's a $2 trillion IPO.

Every single word that comes out of his mouth needs to be interpreted as not only a boon to the stock price, to make sure that the IPO on the NASDAQ goes well, but also, it's basic regulatory capture, right?

If you are leading the field, but you know that open source has capabilities to surpass you, you go to the government to say, keep open source out.

CORNISH: But let me throw this out there, because first of all, if that's the case, you're kind of happy, or you're not so happy, because this administration is not interested in doing all that much regulation.

They have brought up a couple new things. I'm going to bring them up here. I didn't forget them. There's a new A.I. czar. Maybe there's a commission coming. Maybe.

And we've talked for a long time about this digital red phone to China. Do you see anything else? It's an A.I. force like the Space Force. But it doesn't exist yet.

FISCHER: It's the most explosive thing that has happened is that the government very quietly submitted a statement of interest in "The New York Times" versus OpenAI case two weeks ago.

Why was that explosive? The official position of our copyright office is directly opposed to what the Department of Justice said in that filing.

Why does that matter? It matters, because if these A.I. firms are to lose in court, around which they're mostly right now, being sued around copyright. That's their biggest thorn.

CORNISH: Yes. Meaning your language models are based on material you have taken from human beings typing all these years.

FISCHER: Yes. If they lose in court, they could be subject to so many billions of dollars' worth of fines. This could be their Napster moment. Which is why your point was very astute.

[06:15:10]

They have to do this delicate dance of publicly saying one thing and privately understanding another. In that case, it came out that one of the defendants, Microsoft, their employee, basically said, we know that our models, if we don't adequately pay publishers might long-term be at risk, because we will have nothing to train them off of.

Yet they can't make that their public posture, because then they'll lose in court; and then they'll be subject to so many fines that they can't IPO and they can't --

CORNISH: It's weird. It's like that legal fight is over. The first phase of -- of A.I., right?

FISCHER: Yes.

CORNISH: Long -- the large language models.

FISCHER: But that's what they're being sued over.

CORNISH: That's what they're being sued over.

FISCHER: That's why it matters.

CORNISH: But the thing that people are warning about is what comes next.

FISCHER: But the warnings are not going to --

CORNISH: OK, fine. But here's Bill Gates.

FISCHER: OK.

CORNISH: Since you haven't done your tech company yet.

FISCHER: Yes, true.

CORNISH: This is how Bill Gates felt about it. And this is what he said to NBC News.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL GATES, CO-FOUNDER, MICROSOFT: A.I. is certainly powerful enough to drive events that, you know, cause a billion deaths, you know. So, even though it's pretty hard to get to 100 percent, there's never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intent using the -- the latest A.I. tools.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Because we haven't heard a Democrat come out yet, really, and say, like, this is what the policy should be. Where are you guys in terms of campaigning on this or talking about it?

RADJY: I mean, every single industry in the entire world is regulated. Every -- whether it's, you know, you have to wear a car seat; that our airplanes are regulated.

CORNISH: Yes. Those are also all a fight. But yes.

RADJY: It has to be -- that's right. And I think what we're seeing right now is, I mean, on Friday night -- I know you all saw this -- OpenAI rogue agents hacked the SEC, the Commerce Department, and possibly the Department of Education.

If a private citizen hacked those entities, they would go to federal prison. What we're probably going to see is Sam Altman get a slight little slap on the wrist.

And so, I think what we can't wait for is for public sentiment to nerd out with the experts like the Bill Gates and the Barack Obamas, et cetera.. There needs to be regulation now that should be, in normal times, a bipartisan effort.

But what we know -- and this is the Donald Trump playbook -- he goes after his enemies. And he keeps his friends, you know, happy with whatever they need.

And that is why we are not in the kind of regulatory environment that is going to prevent something like a rogue agent taking over a public utility; a rogue agent, you know, making sure having thousands -- millions of lives hurt. And that's what we need: a check on Donald Trump.

CORNISH: We'll see if this dinner ends up with another friendship, even for show.

After the break on CNN THIS MORNING, there is a top White House aide who has posted a champagne-popping party video. And of course, there is help from A.I. Even some in the MAGA movement are calling it -- I don't know -- tone-deaf.

Plus, Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania tries to assure everyone, yes, he's still a Democrat. And then he ends up kind of saying something else.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:22:31]

CORNISH: Call it a slip of the tongue. The timing couldn't be more interesting.

Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, who has repeatedly insisted that, yes, he is staying a Democrat. He said this over the weekend when he was asked directly, Hey, why not become an independent?

FETTERMAN: Because I'm a lifelong Republican.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Democrat.

FETTERMAN: Or I may say. That's --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's a moment right there. That's clippable, ladies and gentlemen. Certainly go, go, go. Internet spin wildly. Wildly spin, internet.

FETTERMAN: Yes. I guarantee you that's going to break through. That'll get -- that'll get clipped. Yes. I'm a lifelong Democrat, though.

That's right. He calls himself a lifelong Republican, which he quickly corrected. And yes, we clipped.

Fetterman was also pressed on an even bigger question: if Democrats actually win back the Senate, and he's their crucial 51st vote, what does he do then?

His answer: let's revisit after the midterms.

Group chat is back. I feel like, Yasmin, you look at your face, you're like, I'm here. tell me about this. I mean, the will he won't he, you know, romance of will I be a Republican or a Democrat? Sure. That's a little tedious.

But what do you see in his kind of tour about it? And constantly talking about it? Yes. It's not normal for a Democratic senator to headline the RNC's

midterm convention.

CORNISH: In fairness, he appeared as a video. He didn't actually commit to showing up.

Until.

Um, and, you know, it's also not normal. He has a joint fundraising account with a Republican for the Senate. These things are not normal.

And so, I think what we think about at Swing Left is we need to win by big enough majorities that we don't have to focus on mind reading and fortune telling John Fetterman.

We've got enough of a majority to be able to keep the balance of power and have a real check on -- win the balance of power and have a real check on Trump.

And that's, you know, it's a very tough map, but it's looking very, very competitive. We have to hold three seats.

CORNISH: But see, we've got the whole thing. But he's just there being like, will I, won't I --

RADJY: That's why --

CORNISH: If it's work for naught if he just kind of is like, but I'd like to hold the gavel and just switches to Republican.

RADJY: Well, it's why we've got to win. Instead of winning four seats, we've got to win at least five. I mean, places are competitive.

CORNISH: I'll leave that to you. Here's another thing that he said. It was actually on the 15th. We're a couple days past this, when he was asked about being a Republican.

And he said something similar, which is like, hey, chill. You don't need to know this yet. And then he followed up with another thought I want you to hear.

[06:25:02]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FETTERMAN: I'm not going to be a Republican. You know, why can't you guys just wait till the midterm? You know? And if I turn a Republican, and then I'll be a liar, then. Like, it's just -- like, my name is not on the ballot. Like chill and wait for the midterm here. I've always been a Democrat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Its funny. He's like, I've always been a Democrat. But also wait till the midterms. DOESCHER: I mean, because he is being harangued about this, which is

sort of questionable, considering that he votes with Democrats 88 percent of the time. He votes the Democratic caucus.

CORNISH: You don't believe he's ever going to turn to Republicans?

DOESCHER: I don't know. I mean, OK, I'll put it this way. I think it's as likely as Susan Collins turning into a Democrat. Why? Because she votes with the Democrats more than John Fetterman votes with Republicans.

CORNISH: All right. So, you're a no. Tell me what's going on. He's very irritated. Right? It's very -- like, how dare you ask this thing? Even though, if I had an answer, I wouldn't tell you for months.

Like, I feel like that's very strange, but I may be misreading senators after covering senators for a long time.

FISCHER: I wonder if he's waiting to see to what extent the Democrats have that majority position if they get it, and that could then give him the leverage to say, OK, I can be -- become a Republican, because I'm not leaving the Democrats hanging without having the key -- having to be the key crucial vote. Like, that could be one of his considerations.

I also think the John Fetterman health battle is kind of -- also hangs in the balance here, because you make that, that's a massive Freudian slip.

You know, a question that I think other people are wondering is, like, how is he handling this role in office, coming out of all of that? How is he going to be following?

You know, to me, that is a major, major slip that could even -- I don't want to make assumptions.

CORNISH: Yes, but that's the other kind of factor here --

FISCHER: Yes.

CORNISH: -- that is part of his history --

FISCHER: Yes.

CORNISH: -- is his health and his ability to communicate --

DOESCHER: Fetterman openly --

CORNISH: -- and what that communication sounds like.

DOESCHER: Fetterman openly talks about still having aphasia from a stroke. Right? And that's why some of us said maybe you should vote for Dr. Oz back in 2022, because he --

CORNISH: He landed OK. He's doing good.

DOESCHER: He was -- and he's doing great at CMS, cutting out all the waste, fraud and abuse.

But with Fetterman, this was known. It was known that he had severe aphasia. It's known that he needs to use an iPad, an AAC device, to help with communication.

CORNISH: Well, I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole. Because in that situation, he was sitting there looking pretty chill. He doesn't have a device, and he was answering questions on the fly.

I think in an age where, if even a single Senate vote is in question, we hound them, you are not exempt from the hounding. Because if you decide to put yourself in the caucus of maybe you should do something for my vote. Then that is going to be your life for the next couple of years.

But depending on the actual balance, that's not what I want. That is how coverage works of the Senate.

Straight ahead on CNN, farmers have been some of the most loyal Republican voters, but now they're dealing with tariffs. They're dealing with high diesel prices and high beef imports. And some are just rethinking that loyalty. We're going to ask Congresswoman Suzan Delbene if Democrats can convert those folks into votes.

And later on CNN, a deadly Nor'easter is bringing wind and waves to the Northeast. And in the next hour, we're going to talk about how rescue crews are trying to get people out of the flooding.

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