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Safety Concerns Intensify Over A.I. Warnings From Top Developers; Iranian Commercial Vessel Struck In Strait Of Hormuz; Iran-Gulf Talks On Strait Of Hormuz Postponed; Hegseth Pushes To Showcase Iranian Rescue Mission; Israeli Minister Calls For Filmmakers Citizenship To Be Revoked. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired September 14, 2026 - 10:00:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:00:52]

ANNOUNCER: Live from CNN Abu Dhabi, this is CONNECT THE WORLD with Becky Anderson.

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: And Welcome to the second hour of the show from our Middle East programming headquarters here in Abu Dhabi.

I'm Becky Anderson. Time here just after 6:00 in the evening.

A.I. safety concerns massively thrust into the spotlight by the very same people who are developing the technology. Their message, We need some sort

of regulation, please. The question is, how will those appeals be answered, if at all? While the debate ramping up just as both houses of the U.S.

Congress reconvened today after the summer recess, and it may be no surprise that deep political divisions are starting to emerge. President

Trump setting the tone for Republicans, saying winning the A.I. race with China is more important than reining in the technology. Democrats pushing

back hard.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JON OSSOFF (D-GA): An ancient establishment, barely capable of e-mail, sleepwalks into a technological revolution while the president dismantles

precautions and calls us fools for worrying.

Just listen to this, on day one, Donald Trump rescinded the A.I. safety order meant to guard against catastrophic risks, including the engineering

of bioweapons.

Meanwhile, Don Jr. 1789 Capitol bought big money stakes in data centers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: Well, here's what the Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): If they want to slow that down, that's fine. But we also, at the same time, have to resist Congress jumping in and imposing

some sort of emergency moratorium. It's got to be done right, safely, wisely.

But we -- in order to solve that equation, you need a lot of bright minds around the table. We cannot put a moratorium on this because China will

overlap us, and that's the challenge, it's national security balanced with the immediate security of making sure the models are safe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: So, what has put this front and center of the political agenda now? Well, top A.I. developers spent the weekend issuing warnings and

calling for a slowdown of the advanced technology. It is a rare show of unity for big tech's top rivals.

OpenAI's chief Sam Altman joining Anthropic's Dario Amodei and Elon Musk, calling for independent evaluators embedded in A.I. companies. Anderson

Cooper, my colleague, spoke exclusively with the Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who is urging A.I. leaders to take unified action to keep

artificial intelligence from harming humanity.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DARIO AMODEI, CEO, ANTHROPIC: I think it's much more illuminating to say, well, that forks into different paths. And if we take the right paths, then

the chance of something going wrong is very low. If we take the wrong path, then the chance of something going wrong could be -- could be even higher

than that.

And so, let's focus on our agency and our ability to take the right paths instead of the wrong paths. And I think that the way to take the right

paths is for the industry to work together. Again, you know, well, we'll talk about the proposal that I put out today. But at the end of the day,

the industry has to work together and it's harder. But to some extent, the world has to work together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: Well, Anderson spoke to our colleague John Berman about that interview and about some other very alarming statements that we've been

hearing from the industry.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: One former Anthropic employee has come out saying that, you know, he believes and many people within the company and

other these companies believe there's a chance that A.I. will wipe out humans. And another current employee of Dario Amodei's company said it's a

greater than 10 percent chance that this could possibly happen.

Obviously, that was my first question to him. Does he believe, as the CEO of this massive company and one of the leaders, if not the leader right now

in A.I., does he believe that this will wipe out the human race? I asked him three times. He didn't say yes, but he also did not say no. And if he

doesn't believe that it's going to wipe out the human race, you would think he would say no very clearly. He did not say that.

[10:05:20]

What he said is that there are great dangers, obviously, and that if things go well and things go right and we make the right moves, then the chance of

something terrible happening is very low. He said, if we do not do this, if we do not make the right moves and we take the wrong path with this, the

chance of something terrible happening or very bad happening is actually could be higher than a 10 percent chance.

So, some caution there, but certainly not saying no.

He has been more on the side of publicly at least saying he would like regulation. He is certainly saying the U.S. government needs to do a better

job and a job of actually trying to regulate this. And these companies need to come to some sort of understanding with the government, elected

officials he's calling on and voters to vote people -- elected officials accordingly.

He says he wants that this needs to be regulated. Obviously, he has concerns about what the regulation is, what that means for the arms race,

which is not a term he uses, but which is a term a lot of people use for the competition between American A.I. companies and Chinese and others. But

the U.S. government, certainly the Trump administration, has not shown any desire, really, for any form of regulation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: Henry Ajder is a generative A.I. expert and the founder of Latent Space Advisory. He's also an A.I. advisor to the World Economic Forum,

amongst other things, and contributed to the WEF's recent report on digital safety foresight. He's joining me from Cambridge, England.

So, firstly, I mean, you know, it has been quite the week, right? Including over the weekend, and there are those who are saying, you know, don't

listen to the doomers, and then those who feel very overwhelmed and frightened about where we are headed, and are at least in principle

delighted that there are doomers out there, at least sort of underscoring some risks and warning where we are headed. So, how concerned are you in

the first instance? Where are we headed with A.I. at this point?

HENRY AJDER, GENERATIVE A.I. EXPERT: It's a good question, Becky, and I think you kind of touched on it there that the narrative is quite

polarized, right? It's a kind of zoom or doom. It's this sort of we need to push harder, accelerate, get there first, or it's this kind of we are at

the precipice of some kind of A.I. enabled oblivion for the human race.

And I guess from my perspective, I think I'd like to try and have a little bit of both. I know that's a bit of a milquetoast answer, maybe to some

people, but I think it's worth examining these concerns. I think some of the instances we've seen recently where agentic systems are a taste of

things to come as these technologies get more sophisticated.

But at the same time, I worry that maybe some of this long-term fear of this real kind of true A.I. catastrophe, actually masks some of the harms

we're dealing with right now. Whether that's image abuse with deepfakes against women and girls, whether that's some of the concerns we're seeing

around some of these agentic attacks from a more basic cybersecurity perspective.

But I think that definitely the tone of the conversation over this last week. I didn't have much of a weekend because of it is quite febrile, it is

quite charged, and it's not the best environment to be having these very high stakes conversations.

ANDERSON: Yes, and let me tell you, certainly in the U.S. and around the world, quite frankly, there's an awful lot of politicking around this. So,

let's be quite clear about this, and as we speak, as I understand it, J.D. Vance has just spoken. So, let's just have a listen to what the vice

president said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you concerned at all about the developments with A.I. and the calls over the weekend by Sam Altman and Dario Amodei to pause

the development of artificial intelligence?

J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: You know, it's something that we're concerned by, but we want to make sure that we actually regulate smartly,

and we're thoughtful about the risk here.

So, there are obviously risks to A.I. There are some benefits to A.I. I have to say, just personally, I feel a little bit weird about the fact that

you have so many frontier A.I. tech companies kind of coming to the government and begging the government to regulate them. It feels a little

bit to me like a bit of a Trojan horse. So, I think we just have to be careful about this.

The other thing the president has said pretty consistently is we know that the Chinese are engaged in this long-term A.I. race against the United

States. We want to make sure the United States we do things smartly, but we stay ahead of the curve.

[10:10:02]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, you don't think Americans should be scared about the way A.I. is trending right now?

VANCE: Well, look, any technology has risks. Any new technology is going to bring both risks and benefits. I think what the president has said is we

want to be smart about making sure we stay on top of the risks. I don't think Americans should be scared of anything. I think that we have to be

mindful that there are risks, there are downsides to anything, and that's certainly true of A.I.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: What do you make of what you just heard?

AJDER: I'm not entirely surprised, to be honest, by that narrative by the vice president. I think his point about regulating smartly is a good one,

and we have seen perhaps some countries who have put in place regulation, or even blocks like the E.U. put in place regulation, which hasn't

necessarily evolved that well with the technology.

The technology's moved very quickly, and there's been some kind of amendments made to the E.U. A.I. Act and so on. Nor am I surprised to hear

him directly reference China there, and I think this is something which is obviously a huge part of the picture with regards to slowing things down.

Which is at the moment with the A.I. conversation globally and with the with the U.S. and China being the two major players, I think there is a

very low trust environment there for any sense of true international cooperation around slowing things down. That if one does, that the other

would follow, and vice versa.

And so, I think this kind of this kind of dynamic really does feed into the arms race framing, right? And you know, lawmakers are trying to juggle

concerns domestically and how these technologies are having an impact within their borders, whilst also trying to make sure that they can capture

power on the international stage through these technologies.

And that's a difficult tension to manage. But I don't think I would agree with the vice president there that they shouldn't -- that the public

shouldn't be worried at all. As I mentioned, there are there are harms that are occurring right now, and obviously the signs are that things to come

might exacerbate them quite significantly.

So, no doubt lawmakers have a difficult challenge here but safe to say that the kind of the environment right now is a difficult one.

ANDERSON: All right. at the moment because we've got the midterms coming up, and an A.I. regulation and the sort of infrastructure build out of A.I.

factories or data centers is really really polarizes, and you know we're going to hear a lot of noise and a lot of politicking about this.

But I'm really interested in what regulation genuinely might look like if we're all agreed that you know, frankly, we need some. Have a listen to

what Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei had to say about regulation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DARIO AMODEI, CEO AND CO-FOUNDER, ANTHROPIC: There is precedent for this. If you look at how banks are regulated, right, there's all kinds of --

there's all kinds of rules about how banks are allowed to do their business, right, because we don't want to have financial crises.

And one of the things that are done in some cases is I think they're called supervisors in the financial industry, but there are folks who are

independent of a company who are embedded in the company day to day to check their practices. And I think we can do the same thing -- I think we

can do the same thing in A.I.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: And people talk about the aviation industry. People also draw analogies to the nuclear industry. You know, to your mind, with your

experience embedded in the sort of you know evolution of A.I. as you are, would regulating A.I. really be as straightforward as Dario Amodei suggests

there?

AJDER: So, I think to be charitable to Dario, there I think -- I think he's talking about frameworks which, in practice, I think he would also

acknowledge are complicated, and the kind of devil is in the details of how that would -- how that would unfold. I think certainly measures that

involve some kind of kind of persistent auditing by governments across different big A.I. companies is something that certainly I think should be

explored. I think that's a good idea.

But I guess what comes to mind to me is these cases where we had an OpenAI hack on the A.I. code repository Hugging Face, where they only found out

about the attack by actually going to Hugging Face and saying, hey, was any of our code compromise, as I understand it right.

So, I think there's a danger of assuming that that kind of even an external person embedded would have a full kind of god's eye view of everything

that's going on, and I think that speaks to the complexity of the models that are now being created, the kind of near infinite permutations of how

they can then go and interact in the world.

And so, having true oversight over everything-I'm not saying it's impossible, but is certainly going to be difficult, and certainly something

regulation might be able to help buttress or make more secure. But I think it's far from simple to kind of have that perfect view of what these models

are capable of in every single sense of the term.

[10:15:11]

ANDERSON: Donald Trump doesn't want to put the brakes on A.I. because he wants to beat China. This is a race, and it's a race America has to win,

you know, the worry out there is what we racing towards at this point. You know, if you buy the kind of argument by some of these, you know,

youngsters who are -- who are leaving OpenAI and Anthropic, you know, we're headed towards extinction. So, what's a point in winning the race to a

degree.

But I do think it brings up a really important question here, which is, you know, how certainly the Trump administration, if not the Republican Party

in the U.S. is really focused on sort of national security and you know, and frankly winning this race.

I just wonder, you know, what is going on in China to your mind, and how big a threat is Beijing for the U.S. A.I. industry at this point?

AJDER: So, what's going on in China is there's actually quite a lot of regulation that's gone on in China, and actually some of it earlier than

what was happening in Europe, which is seen as a very pro-regulation space.

I think the reasoning for that being that I think China recognizes that again these quite powerful, often almost open-ended technologies and what

they can generate and do is a potential threat to their own domestic security and to the parties' policies around censorship and around certain

kinds of things being out of their control. So, I think China have actually regulated within their own borders quite quickly relative to others.

But in terms of the kind of the dynamic between the U.S. and China and kind of where China sits, China's approach so far they've really leaned into

slightly smaller A.I. models that are open source, so anyone can use them with the requisite technical ability. They can -- they can deploy them

within their own products or companies, and that's led to a lot of companies, including some U.S. companies, preferring Chinese models to more

expensive, larger American models.

And I guess the kind of the race to AGI within China, I don't have perhaps the best insights into the kind of the real cutting edge of what they're

doing, and I suspect many of us don't. I imagine that's being kept quite close to the chest by the by the Chinese government.

But it's undeniable that there is this race dynamic, and I'm not surprised to see the president talking about that. And it'll be interesting to see if

there are any conversations around this when President Xi comes to the states this month around potentially trying to find some common ground to

rein things in.

ANDERSON: Yes, and you make a really good point, and that was one I was going to close with. We do have a scheduled Xi visit to Washington back end

of this month, some sort of four or so weeks before the U.S. midterms, which are of course front and center as a -- as a focus for U.S. lawmakers.

It'll be interesting to see what comes out of that.

It was only a week or so, or two weeks ago, at G20 when, you know, the U.S. was calling on nations around the world to, you know, keep an open mind

when it comes to regulation and sort of you know take a sort of hands off softly approach to this. I wonder how much of that narrative may change

given what is going on in in U.S. politics today and going forward.

It's good to have you. When you talk about AGI, of course, you're talking about what many people here as sort of super intelligence. The next stage,

which is one that is worrying a lot of people. Thank you very much indeed for your insight today.

We discussed the breaking comments from the U.S. Vice President just moments ago. We do now have breaking from the man himself, the U.S.

President, posting this on Truth Social in the past couple of minutes, the only control or guardrails, he puts in inverted commas, that A.I. needs is

a strong and smart "high I.Q.!" president, and the USA has that in spades, he says.

The Trump administration has stopped A.I. "People" from doing bad or potentially bad "things" like Dario (Anthropic), who is now pretending to

be a, "Perfect little angel." We already have tremendous criminal and regulatory power over these companies, he said. And he went on to sort of

flush out his argument. I mean, you can see it there on this screen. I don't need to read out the full post for you.

Well, I have to say, right now, we had already seen stocks, certainly A.I.- linked stocks down in U.S. trade. The Nasdaq opened about 1.5 percent lower, but some of these stocks, Nvidia, SpaceX, and AMD, are lower. Today,

Nvidia down by 3-3/4 percent. SpaceX down by 1-3/4 percent, and AMD off nearly five percent. And we will be following this story, this top story,

all week from regulation to potential policy. You can find me on socials @BeckyCNN on Instagram and X, we are focused on this. You can get mine are

lots of teams' thoughts on those social platforms. All right.

[10:20:44]

Well, you are watching CONNECT THE WORLD. Still to come, a deadly attack in the Strait of Hormuz as diplomatic efforts to reopen one of the world's

most vital oil routes hit another blocker, details on that are just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANDERSON: An Iranian commercial vessel has been struck in the Strait of Hormuz, killing one person and injuring four, according to Iranian state

media. That comes as shipping through what is this crucial energy choke point remains somewhat below pre-war levels. This as instability around a

second vital route in getting oil out of the area into the Red Sea adds pressure to global oil prices. The escalation rattling energy markets.

Brent climbing above $109 on the barrel, up more than four percent as we speak.

CNN's Matt Egan has been tracking the developments, and he joins us now. The map up on the screen of both the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf of Oman,

and to the west, of course, and you've got it too, the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea there, and we see that what is going on regionally is

putting an enormous amount of pressure on global oil prices, just walk us through what's going on here.

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, Becky, yes, this is a significant setback, and it's one that could cost consumers really around the world.

The East-West pipeline, not a household name, but it has been instrumental in preventing the Iran War from doing even more economic and financial

damage.

Now, normally, Saudi Arabia would send its oil out to the rest of the world through the Strait of Hormuz, but as you mentioned, it's been restricted

because of the war with Iran.

So, what they've been doing is they've been using this 750-mile east-west pipeline as a bypass to avoid the Strait of Hormuz, get out to the Red Sea,

and to the rest of the world, but now we see that this pipeline has been damaged by drone attacks, and it has been shut down.

[10:25:02]

Now this is a big deal because this pipeline it carries up to 7 million barrels of oil every single day to the rest of the world. That's

significant, right? That's about seven percent of world supply.

Now, the trillion-dollar questionnaire here is how long is the pipeline going to be shut down? Saudi Arabia has not released a timetable. Reuters

is reporting that this could take five to six weeks to fully repair, but some analysts are hopeful that the pipeline can start flowing again, even

as repairs are getting done.

Oil veteran Bob McNally he told me that it would be, "Truly calamitous if the pipeline is shut down for a significant amount of time."

Now, as you mentioned, oil prices moving up on this news. Another 4.5 percent increase for Brent above $109 a barrel, flirting with the highest

levels from late last week. And WTI, the U.S. benchmark, firmly in triple- digit territory.

And this, of course, is pushing up fuel prices right here in the U.S. The national average $4.32 a gallon. That's not just a three-month high for

gasoline. That's the highest price ever during the month of September, and it is dramatically higher. Right, $1.34 higher than before the war, when

gas prices were well below $3 a gallon.

And then, it's not just gas, right? It's also diesel. Right here in the U.S. diesel is not used by many consumers. However, it does power the

trucks and tractors and boats at the heart of the economy. 6.23 a gallon for diesel, that is a new all-time high.

And so, bottom line here, Becky, is prices were already high and going higher, and this pipeline shutdown has the potential to drive them even

higher if it doesn't come back online soon, back to you.

ANDERSON: It's good to have you, Matt. I do just want to bring up the 10- year Treasury numbers because that 10-year yield has just hit five percent a critical threshold for U.S. consumers. And for markets, soaring energy

prices, expectations that the central banks may raise interest rates, uncertainty about the war with Iran, and unchecked government spending amid

mounting debt, really driving these prices down.

And as you know, when the prices go down, the yield goes higher to numbers that we haven't seen in some time. If you're looking at this and you put a

mortgage, for example, in the United States, that is not a good picture. More on that, of course, as we get it. This is quite the Monday trading

day. It has to be said.

Well, there has been a setback for diplomatic efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Iran and Gulf states were due to meet in Oman today. Those

meetings have now been postponed amid, as we understand it, disagreements over what was a potential sort of framework deal, notably the United States

not due to take part. This was a Gulf Iran moment.

Joining me now is Hasan Alhasan, senior fellow for Middle East policy at the IISS in Myanmar, in Bahrain.

Look, let's just explain to our viewers what was going on here. This meeting was intended to discuss a sort of legal framework for reopening the

Strait, one that would effectively allow Iran and Oman to collect some sort of transit fees. There are some Gulf countries who were concerned about the

language. They were concerned this could create a sort of new status quo. And given what we're seeing in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait at the moment,

that's worrying. Bahrain choosing not to attend at all.

How do you -- how do you read what is going on and the fact that -- the very fact that there you know there was a scheduled meeting between these

Gulf nations and Iran, a country that has been bombing these countries over the past six months?

HASAN ALHASAN, SENIOR FELLOW FOR MIDDLE EAST POLICY, IISS: in Myanmar, in Bahrain. So, Becky, just about a few days ago, there seemed to be quite a

significant amount of momentum behind potential GCC Iranian efforts to convene at the summit and agree on a way forward for the Strait of Hormuz.

The Iranian President had been making some conciliatory statements during interviews. He said things like Iran is not at war with Saudi Arabia,

despite the recent escalation in Yemen and the strikes by Iran-backed militias in Iraq against Saudi Arabia.

And so, there were attempts, I think, to send positive signals, especially by the Iranian president ahead of the meeting, and then of course we had

the meeting between the Iranian president and the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheik Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed on the sidelines of the BRICS

summit in New Delhi, which I think was also sort of an indicator that perhaps we are headed towards a somewhat of a breakthrough in Iranian GCC

relations.

[10:30:07]

But, I think, that's -- for the time being has apparently collapsed. Bahrain announced its intention from the get-go of boycotting the summit

and not taking part.

And according to sources close to the Bahraini government, it would have been unacceptable for Bahrain to take part in a summit with a country that

continues to commit acts of aggression against its neighbors. And Bahrain was worried that by meeting with Iran face to face, that this would

legitimize Iran's course of action and behavior in the region and help Iran break free from its international isolation.

We now know that the Saudis have had reservations about the substance of the proposed framework that the Iranians and the Omanis had agreed on and

had been wanting to present to the summit, and there is also, of course, the related context of the recent escalation in Yemen, with the Houthis

taking over the western coast of Yemen, and obviously, with the attacks on Saudi Arabia --

(CROSSTALK)

ANDERSON: Yes. So --

ALHASAN: That have now taken the east-west pipeline offline.

ANDERSON: What I'm really interested in here then is the following. You know, we heard from the adviser to the UAE president Anwar Gargash, just at

the beginning of last week, who sort of put a pin in sort of UAE thinking six months in, which was basically the following.

Look, you know, we are focused on deterrence, we are also focused on diplomacy, whilst, you know, there is a massive trust deficit with the

Iranians, and he calls that a generational trust deficit. He conceded that, you know, there is nothing that these Gulf countries can do about

geography, and there needs to be some sort of pragmatism to a degree about how these Gulf countries will deal with and work with, you know, Iran going

forward.

What they -- what we can't see, he says at this point, is just the normalization of this space as a sort of contested region. That is no good

for anyone. It feels like the region is taking a more pragmatic view, to a degree, about what a relationship with Iran might look like going forward,

without involvement from the United States, who, frankly, you know, isn't a player in this sort of GCC Iran conversation at this point?

You know, what's briefly -- what's your take at this point?

ALHASAN: I think, the subtext here is that the Gulf states feel as though they need, or at least most of the Gulf states feel as though they need an

independent channel of communication and negotiations with Iran, because they don't--- they may not trust Iran, but they don't trust the U.S. to

have their best interest at heart either.

And so, totally outsourcing the future of the Strait of Hormuz, the future of the region to the Trump administration is not a viable approach for the

Gulf states either, because we have seen in previous episodes during this war where the Trump administration didn't really prioritize the interests

of the Gulf states. Neither during the high-intensity phase of this conflict did not ensure the adequate defense and protection of its Gulf

partners, nor during diplomacy, where the Americans really gave away quite a bit too much to Iran for the Gulf states' liking as part of the Islamabad

MOU.

So clearly, I think, we are seeing the Gulf states wanting to build an independent channel of negotiation and diplomacy with Iran.

Now, I think Dr. Anwar Gargash is spot on that the Gulf States approach needs to be an approach of both deterrence and diplomacy.

Now, the issue is that the Gulf states haven't been working together sufficiently to establish an effective deterrence against Iran.

To do so, they need to be able to achieve regional air and missile defense integration, and so, they need to work as a single air and missile defense

unit. They need to make massive investments in their offensive capabilities, and so, their ability to conduct long-range strikes against

Iran and to be able to collect intelligence on Iran.

All of these -- and of course, a common GCC approach and a common GCC diplomacy that allows these states collectively to have a greater influence

on Iranian calculations, but also on those of the U.S., Israel, and other partners.

I think, these elements are still lacking, and without them, it's difficult to see how the Gulf states can actually do good on this fantastic idea of

using both deterrence and diplomacy to deal with the long-term challenge that Iran poses to them.

[10:35:09]

ANDERSON: Good to have you, Hasan. Always a pleasure. Thank you very much indeed.

Well, according to sources, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and members of his team pushed for the two airmen who shot down over Iran in April to

participate in a CBS report.

Political appointees from Hegseth's office were adamant that the airman sit for the interview, even after both expressed reservations.

Well, for more on that, I'm joined by CNN's senior national security reporter Zach Cohen.

So, just explain, you know, what this interview was about, you know, and where we got this from, and what we have learned?

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes. Becky, this is the first time we have heard directly from one of those rescued U.S. airmen

who were shot down over Iran back in April, and we hear in his own words how he describes his experiences from the moment he ejected from his F-15

fighter jet, then, subsequently, the 50 hours he spent on the ground, trying to evade capture by Iranian forces.

And that includes this moment right after the jet was hit, where he describes being in effectively free fall due to a malfunction with his

parachute.

Take a listen to what he said about that moment in time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRAVO: PILOT, UNITED STATES AIRFORCE: My parachute was damaged in the initial attack at one point. When I looked up and saw no parachute, that

was the most -- it was the most terrifying thing I have ever seen.

So, I paused right then, and I prayed, Lord, your will be done. But if I'm getting through this, I need help.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: So, the airman, identified only by his codename, Bravo, slammed into the ground after ejecting due to that parachute malfunction, sustaining

serious energies and -- injuries, including a broken back, arm, and shoulder, and still managed to climb up a 7,000-foot ridge, where he

managed to hide effectively from the Iranians who were searching for him actively.

And that's where he says that he sent his first message back to the U.S. military to let them know that he was alive. The message amounted to, "God

is good."

And so, again, this is really when U.S. forces, the U.S. intelligence community, rushed to try to rescue this airman, and it took 50 hours and 90

plus special operators and a really complex mission that U.S. commanders, both Brad Cooper, the CENTCOM commander and chairman of the Joint Chiefs,

Dan Caine, walked viewers through last night.

It was not without its challenges. At one point, the evacuation aircraft they were going to use to leave Iranian airspace was impacted during the

mission, malfunctioned on its own, and all 90 operators plus the airmen in question were temporarily stranded on the ground there. So, compelling

stuff.

ANDERSON: Absolutely. It's good to have you, mate. Thank you.

All right. You are watching Connect the World with me, Becky Anderson.

Still to come: Russia stepping up its attacks near the Polish border in Ukraine. The latest just narrowly missed trains carrying former European

leaders.

More on that after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:40:56]

ANDERSON: Welcome back. I'm Becky Anderson in Abu Dhabi. You are watching CONNECT THE WORLD here on CNN. These are your headlines:

A.I. safety confirms exploding into the political spotlight. This comes after warnings from the Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, a leader in the A.I.

race. He says A.I. needs regulation and fast.

In a rare show of unity, big tech's top rivals are agreeing with Amodei and are calling for a slowdown of the advanced technology.

Well, an Iranian commercial vessel has been struck in the Strait of Hormuz, killing one person and injuring four, according to Iranian state media. It

comes as shipping through the crucial choke point remains about 90 percent below pre-war levels, and as instability around a second vital route, the

Red Sea, adds pressure to global oil prices.

Indonesian rescuers are scouring the Java Sea for 140 missing people from a capsized passenger ferry. Officials say 103 other people were evacuated,

one of whom died.

Indonesians heavily rely on ferries for transport between these islands, but they have a. relatively poor safety record.

Former CIA director, David Petraeus and the former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson narrowly dodged a Russian drone strike in Ukraine. The

diplomatic train carrying Johnson and other European security officials made an early departure on its trip from Kyiv to Poland, due to the

constant threat of Russian strikes.

Well, the former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt was also on that train and says he saw a drone hitting another nearby passenger train.

Well, I'm happy to say he is with us today, joining me live from Stockholm.

Carl, good to see you. I think, it was only a week or so that I did see you here at an event in Abu Dhabi.

(CROSSTALK)

CARL BILDT, CO-CHAIR, EUROPEAN COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Yes.

ANDERSON: Tell us more about the moment when you were made aware of Russian drone attacks and particularly this passenger train. Had you been preparing

for a situation like this?

BILDT: Well, not actively. But I mean, when you board the Ukrainian trains, I mean, there is an instruction very well done on how you should deal with

emergencies or threats. And I had been at the previous meetings with Ukrainian. Railway; they had been extensive on the very impressive system

they have for alerts on drones approaching, and then, stopping the trains, evacuating and all of that.

So, what happened in our particular case when we are approaching the Polish border, very, very early morning, they stop the train and say prepare for

evacuation because we have an incoming threat.

So, that we did, but in a couple of minutes-just I can't remember exactly how long-they said it passed, no problem, and our train went ahead.

The train coming thereafter, some minutes, they got into the trouble, and the trouble was that there was a fairly massive Russian attack coming in

against sort of border installation. There was a petrol station hit. There was an engine for train hit, and other things.

And that sort of they closed the border. It was quite problematic for a time. Our train, happily enough, wasn't directly affected.

ANDERSON: Well, I'm very -- and I'm very pleased to hear that. Russia's been stepping up attacks near the Polish border with Ukraine.

BILDT: Yes.

ANDERSON: Last week, a Russian drone entered Moldovan airspace.

BILDT: Yes.

ANDERSON: What point?

BILDT: Yes.

ANDERSON: At what point do you believe NATO should or will draw the line?

(CROSSTALK)

BILDT: BILDT: Yes, they have --

ANDERSON: And what would that look like?

BILDT: Yes, before -- you are -- you are correct. What we see is an evolution of the Russian threat. It is far more active. It is continuous in

days. They have more yet powered, more effective drones that the Ukrainians have more difficulties dealing with.

[10:45:06]

All the Patriot missiles of the Americans are spent in your part of the world rather than helping the Ukrainians. So, it's a more difficult thing

for Ukraine. What can we do?

We need to improve and expand our help with their air defense. That is different innovative solutions that are necessary to counter the more

aggressive drones. It is helping them with also offensive operations in the sense that they need to strike at the basis from where which this sort of

both the drones and the ballistic missiles are launched, and then, they need help with defense against ballistic missiles.

If Patriots are not available, we need to look very actively at every other conceivable alternative that we can think of.

ANDERSON: And as I understand it, Ukraine asking for about $27 billion in war funds. Is that a bill European allies are going to be prepared to foot?

(CROSSTALK)

BIDLT: Yes.

Yes, I wouldn't guarantee every single number, but it's fairly obvious that the war is more expensive now than it used to be. We also have a situation

where the Americans have defectively left the entire burden now for supporting Ukraine, is with Europeans and Canadians, Japanese, and some

others has to be said.

There is a massive loan of $90 billion, that is gradually made available. That would cover a lot of these things, but there is no question there will

be need for additional financing from the European side in order to sustain the possibility of Ukraine to defend itself.

We are now in a situation that is different from last year, where there have been sort of the domestic revenue sources of Ukraine are under strain,

which means that they can't pay the military expenditure themselves. They need help with that as well, apart from sustaining everything else. That is

necessary in order to operate the sort of decent society that Ukraine still is in the middle of the war.

ANDERSON: Worrying times. Good to have you on, and I appreciate your time, Carl, thank you very much indeed for joining us.

BILDT: Thank you.

ANDERSON: All right. Ahead on the show, the creators of a documentary about the war in Gaza faced threats from Israel's culture minister. More on

Israel's reaction to the film, "NAZA".

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

Israel's culture minister calling for the citizenships of two Israeli filmmakers to be revoked after their documentary, "NAZA" received the

Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival on Thursday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[10:50:12]

ANDERSON (voice over): Let me tell you that ovation went on and on and on. The documentary, which challenges official accounts of the war in Gaza,

received a 24-minute standing ovation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: Well, joining me now is my colleague CNN's Jeremy Diamond. What do we know about the filmmakers? What do we know about the film, it's

certainly extremely well received in Venice. What's your take?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's certainly not been well received here in Israel, where they have faced a backlash of epic

proportions from the general public, from a number of Israeli ministers. You referenced Israel's culture minister, who called this action treasonous

and called for their citizenship to be revoked.

It's important to look at why there is such a backlash here in Israel. Obviously, first of all, it doesn't make Israel look good because the

central premise of this documentary is the notion that Israel tolerated, accepted, allowed for whatever term you want to use for the killing of

large numbers of Palestinian civilians in Gaza in order to kill a much smaller number of Palestinian militants.

It goes after this notion of NASA, which is an Israeli military term used to talk about collateral damage, basically the number of civilians that

would be killed in a given Israeli strike.

I do have a short clip from the documentary to show you. This is one of the Israeli soldiers who testified, gave an interview anonymously to this film,

describing the targeting system that they used and how they would determine the number of civilians that might be killed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (text): This is the scene. This is a map of the neighborhood. I got a full map of every building in Gaza. I can click on a

house and see how many people will be hurt when I bomb it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have this for all of Gaza, right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. You see it like this: Apartment six, floor five. Ahmed and his family will die.

It shows how many kids he has, his wife. Some strikes killed 20, 30, even 300 people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: And that soldier is one of 24 Israeli soldiers who were interviewed as part of this film, all of them actively involved in the war

in Gaza. Many of them, intelligence officers who were involved in these targeting decisions.

The -- that same soldier describes another incident when he's asked, you know, what the maximum number of civilians was that was allowed to be

killed in one of these strikes. He said that number was 500 civilians, approved to be killed in a single strike that was targeting one Palestinian

militant in the Gaza Strip.

Now, the Israeli military, for its part, has said that it categorically rejects these allegations, reiterating that it takes steps in Gaza to

minimize harm to civilians. We have also just learned that the Israeli military's chief of staff held a meeting about it today, calling all of

these deliberate distortions of reality, and he called for investigations into the film and any of the soldiers who may have spoken to the filmmakers

as his course of action going forward. Becky.

ANDERSON: Good to have you, mate. Thank you very much indeed.

Jeremy is on -- with me on CONNECT THE WORLD here on CNN. There is a lot more news ahead. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:55:03]

ANDERSON: Right, just before we go tonight, I want to bring you this: Celine Dion, fulfilling a promise to her legions of fans with an emotional

return to the stage this past weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CELINE DION, CANADIAN SINGER (through translator): I believed -- I believed, and voila, the sun is here, the sun before me. So, tonight, I

want to sing for you, to sing for me, to sing for life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: The superstar held her comeback concert in France on Saturday. It is the first in a series of concerts that she will hold in Paris. She broke

down in tears during her opening number.

Remember, she stepped away from live performances after she was diagnosed with stiff person syndrome, which is a rare neurological condition which

causes muscle spasms.

Welcome back, Celine Dion.

Well, Germany's Alexander Zverev has won the U.S. Open Men's Singles Championship, capping his breakthrough year with a second Grand Slam title.

The top seed defeated the American Ben Shelton. It would have been the fans' favorite there in New York. In four sets, regaining control after

Shelton rallied to take the third. Zverev then dominated the fourth, denying Shelton the comeback in his first Grand Slam final appearance.

Congratulations to both of them, but boy, what a match!

Well, that's it for CONNECT THE WORLD. Stay with CNN. "ONE WORLD", up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

END