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Russian Satellites May Have Helped Iran Strike U.S. Base; Four Years Since Death Of Mahsa Amini In Iranian Custody; GOP Congressman Introduces Articles of Impeachment against Hegseth; Kennedy Center Board Votes to Close After "F**king Crazy" Trump Call; UAE under Threat from Hackers Targeting Critical Infrastructure; The Pro-Human Assembly Call for Curbs on AI. Aired 10-10:45a ET
Aired September 16, 2026 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from CNN Abu Dhabi, this is CONNECT THE WORLD with Becky Anderson.
BECKY ANDERSON, CNN HOST (voice-over): And welcome to the second hour of the show from our Middle East broadcasting headquarters in Abu Dhabi, where
the time is just after 6:00 in the evening. Wherever you are watching, you are more than welcome.
We begin this hour with Iran's major diplomatic mission to Beijing. Iran's foreign minister meeting face to face with his Chinese counterpart in
Beijing.
Keep in mind, Tehran sees China as a quote, "leading economic partner" and Iran's charm offensive in the Chinese capital coming ahead of this month's
planned Washington meeting between China's leader Xi Jinping and U.S. president Donald Trump.
As we keep an eye on Beijing, a new CNN investigation reveals how Russian spy satellites orbiting over the Persian Gulf likely helped Iran hit U.S.
assets with devastating precision. Personnel were injured and key resources destroyed, including AWACS, Washington eyes in the sky in this region.
CNN's Tamara Qiblawi now reports.
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TAMARA QIBLAWI, CNN SENIOR DIGITAL MIDDLE EAST PRODUCER (voice-over): This is the launch of Kosmos 2573, one of Russia's elite spy satellites
currently collecting intelligence across the globe.
Now CNN has learned that these satellites have likely given Iran a considerable advantage in its fight against the U.S., capturing not just
what U.S. military sites look like but also exposing their inner workings.
Our sources, including two U.S. officials, tell us they have evidence that those satellites are feeding some of that intelligence back to Iran, aiding
at least some precision strikes. The apparent synergy between Russian satellites and Iran's rockets is laid bare here, Prince Sultan Air Base.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Then we begin with the breaking news, Iran striking a U.S. base. Iranian state media releasing this image, which shows
a strike at the Prince Sultan Air Base near Riyadh in Saudi Arabia.
QIBLAWI (voice-over): A major Iranian attack on March 27th. The U.S. has had a strategic presence here for decades. According to our sources,
Russian satellites played a vital role in these strikes, which wreaked havoc on the base and injured 12 U.S. personnel.
Now we do not have access to Russia's satellite images but we looked at the orbital data tracking satellites and assessing their visibility over sites
of interest with help from space technology experts Project Aurora and Kayhan Space, who provided us with the images you see.
Here's the Kosmos 2573 again, just two days before the attack. It flies over the base, along with 13 other Russian spy satellites. Our analysis
shows that these spacecrafts moved in both a perfect sequence and had a perfect view to collect rich, multisensory data.
Each of these satellites contributes a different part of the intelligence picture. Kosmos 2573 captures deep and detailed military-grade satellite
imagery. These eight are signal satellites. They can intercept radio and radar emissions, allowing them to locate air defenses that can shoot down
the incoming missiles.
These two are infrared satellites. They pick up heat signatures, the kind that comes from rocket launchers.
And finally, three synthetic aperture radar satellites, known as SAR. They're able to see through clouds and darkness and flag physical changes,
showing, for example, where a movable, high-value asset might be repositioned, like this plane.
The Airborne Warning and Control System, AWACS for short, America's eyes in the skies in the Middle East. Crucially, the AWACS was not parked in its
prewar location. On March 27th, Iran destroyed it. An aircraft worth hundreds of millions of dollars and very, very difficult to replace.
The scale of the damage to the base and the accuracy of the strikes would have been nearly impossible without Russian geospatial intelligence,
according to our sources.
QIBLAWI: And this isn't an isolated incident. Now there is some debate among U.S. officials over just how consequential Russian support has been.
But our sources broadly suspect that Russian satellites gave Iran targeting information several more times over the course of the war, including at a
CIA facility in the Saudi capital.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NAWAF OBAID, SENIOR FELLOW, KING'S COLLEGE: We wouldn't be in this situation today. The war wouldn't be where it is today if it wasn't for
this unique capabilities that the Russians gave to the Iranians.
QIBLAWI (voice-over): According to experts like Dr. Nawaf Obaid, one of the reasons Russia has been helping Iran -- Moscow calls this fake news --
is because the U.S. is working with Ukraine in a similar way, through intelligence sharing, to support strikes similar to these.
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OBAID: You have to see it in this way. This is Russian payback with interest. It's monumental in terms of the consequences of what this has
done to not just to the U.S. standing in the region but to the security architecture of the region going forward.
QIBLAWI (voice-over): Tamara Qiblawi, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANDERSON: Well, today marks four years since 22-year-old Iranian student Mahsa Amini died in police custody after being detained over Iran's
mandatory hijab law. That triggered massive protests across the country.
Despite the government's crackdown on those demonstrations in 2022, we are still seeing signs of the movement sparked by Amini's death. More Iranian
women are going out without headscarves, even as social media videos show hardliners increasingly targeting them for how they dress.
Well, my next guest explained more about what current daily life in Iran is like to "Newsweek," saying this.
Quote, "Compulsory hijab remains legally in place but its widespread rejection has transformed public urban life and forced the state to
tolerate forms of personal freedom and everyday defiance that were previously unthinkable, even as it continues to repress organized political
dissent."
And Sanam Vakil joins us now. She's director of Chatham House's Middle East and North Africa Programme.
Four years after the death of Mahsa Amini, we should talk about where women's rights stand in Tehran.
SANAM VAKIL, DIRECTOR, MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA PROGRAMME, CHATHAM HOUSE: Yes, we should. I think Amini's death, certainly, tragic as it was.
And there are many young women that also died alongside her. This became a nationwide uprising, not just local.
And it brought together young people, various ethnic groups. And we have seen a social transformation and a tolerance of choice over the hijab
across the country. And that has been the success of that movement.
ANDERSON: With the constant U.S. strikes on Iran in the past six months, anti-American sentiment, certainly among parts of the population -- it's
not a monolith, of course -- but certainly, you know, there is this anti- American sentiment growing.
What's your sense of how that plays into any of the current thought amongst Iranians?
VAKIL: Well, I think certainly contradictory impulses can coexist. Iranians, as you said, not monolithic -- it's a huge country -- have been
nevertheless seeking political and social freedom for many decades now.
We shouldn't forget that, in January of this year, there were widespread nationwide protests that were brutally cracked down. And we don't really
have investigation or true understanding of what took place on the streets around Iran and how many people were brutally murdered.
And so we'll have to see how that plays out. The government has survived this war and many people are very angry and frustrated by the U.S.
approach, having let them down, promising to come and help ordinary people. And at the same time, many just want to get on with their lives are seeking
social freedoms, worried about the economy. Becky.
ANDERSON: Yes. And we should talk about that. You are right to point out that, at the start of this conflict, Donald Trump, Israel, calling for the
Iranian people to take up arms against the regime, even though we'd seen thousands of Iranian protesters killed just earlier this year, in January.
So that begs the question, what options do Iranian people have at this point when it comes to political opposition?
I'm sure you're going to underscore that's difficult.
And then how does the state of the economy impact people's willingness, perhaps, to actually show their dissent to this regime?
VAKIL: I think it's hugely difficult. We are -- Iranians are living in a state of war and that war by the government is a challenge to the U.S. and
Israel. But it's also an internal war.
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They have represented the protests in January as being inspired from abroad and trying to justify their broadspread crackdown, because of Israeli
infiltration, for example, and the infiltration of the Iranian diaspora as well.
I think ordinary Iranians are under unprecedented pressure. Food prices have doubled. Inflation is up by 70 percent. These are very difficult days
ahead. And in this climate of uncertainty, anxiety, it's very hard to think about a political challenge while also this system of government has
dispatched its repressive capacity across the country.
They're present everywhere. And let's not forget that. To make matters worse, they're very clearly punishing protesters, dissenters, anyone who
has contacts with foreign agencies and they're even trying to pass a bill through parliament to punish that kind of interaction with the outside
world.
ANDERSON: We are more than six months into this current conflict; nine months, let's remember, after those protests, during which so many people
were killed four years after Mahsa Amini's death. Let's talk about diplomacy at this point.
Abbas Araghchi, the president of Iran, in Beijing, meeting with his Chinese counterpart. We know, that China is Iran's biggest trading partner. We know
that there is certainly some leverage that Beijing can bring to bear on Iran, should it decide to do so.
This meeting coming just, what, a couple of weeks, 1.5 weeks, couple of weeks before Xi Jinping is meant to be in Washington.
Do you see any evidence that Beijing is prepared to wield any leverage?
It continues to talk about de-escalation. It continues to say that there must be a diplomatic path, an off-ramp out of this. It continues to say all
the right things.
But do you believe we are at a point at which China may act rather than just talk?
VAKIL: Well, I think it's no coincidence that Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister, is going or has been to Beijing just 1.5 weeks before president
Trump. There are certain messages, I think, that are being conveyed.
China has been working behind the scenes through Pakistan to support diplomacy. It has, certainly, we can argue, benefited from the conflict.
But at the same time, the longer this goes on, it is seeing the conflict metastasize.
It's putting pressure on energy prices, shipping, instability also across the Middle East, where it has also strong economic partnerships with the
Gulf countries.
We have seen China over the past few weeks, also through their announcements in Egypt, begin to call for stronger diplomacy, calling on
Iran to be productive. It suggests that there is some pressure going on behind the scenes. It will, really, I think be ironed out in and around
president Trump's trip.
Will they discuss it?
Will they come to a plan of action where they put pressure on Iran but open the pathway for a diplomatic track to really materialize?
It will require a return to the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, de- escalation with the Houthis and a nuclear discussion. And all of this can't happen on Donald Trump's touch-of-a-button timeline or, you know, all
written down very quickly on a piece of paper to declare victory.
It will take time and discipline but it can be done. And China has in the past pressured partners.
ANDERSON: Yes, absolutely. It's good to have you, always good to have you, Sanam. Thank you very much indeed -- 3:15 in London or just shy of 6:15 or
just shy of here in Abu Dhabi.
Political pressure mounting on the Trump administration to end the war with Iran. The U.S. House of Representatives has, for the third time, approved a
measure that would require Trump to halt the military action.
Seven Republicans backed the measure, an increase of three from last time. And a House Republican, Thomas Massie, has stunned senior GOP leadership in
his push for a surprise impeachment vote for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
While the push is frankly doomed to fail, it has come at an interesting time, as Thomas Massie himself explained to CNN.
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REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): If I were to offer this tomorrow instead of today, they could have punted this until after the election.
This is a hot war, you know, this could become a nuclear war. And in the interim, even if it doesn't, there are civilian casualties that are racking
up greater than they would have otherwise because another one of my articles of impeachment shows that Peter Hegseth has degraded the ability
of the DOD to minimize civilian casualties.
He asked Congress to repeal a law that requires him to minimize civilian casualties. Congress didn't do it, so he went ahead and did it on his own
within the DOD. And the results were predictable. That's why 200 school kids were killed in the first attack on Iran.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON: Well, still to come, we are following a heated showdown at the Kennedy Center after a U.S. federal judge blocks the latest effort to add
president Trump's name to that building. More after this.
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ANDERSON: Well, happening today, a key announcement that will determine how much it will cost for Americans to borrow money in the future.
In just a few hours, chairman Kevin Warsh is set to announce the U.S. Federal Reserve's decision on interest rates. The Fed is widely expected to
raise its benchmark interest rate for the first time since 2023 as they try to tackle surging inflation.
That, of course, would put Warsh in an awkward spot. He was hand-picked by president Trump, who has repeatedly called for lower rates.
Well, a federal judge has blocked the latest attempt to add U.S. president Donald Trump's name to the Kennedy Center. Tuesday's ruling came just hours
before the center's board voted to close the building for renovations.
Democratic congresswoman Joyce Beatty is challenging the name change in court, arguing only Congress has the authority to rename the center. CNN
White House correspondent Alayna Treene joining us now.
And this is -- this has just been a ongoing heated exchange between president Trump and congresswoman Joyce Beatty. And we've got this judge's
decision now.
What are your sources telling you?
And why is -- just remind our viewers why president Trump is so determined on this one?
ALAYNA TREENE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this has been such an ugly fight that has been going on for months, Becky. Into the latter question, you
asked me about, his fixation and determination on this as he really has become wanting to become almost the leader of the Kennedy Center.
We know that he loves different cultural institutions but this is all part of a broader change.
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We've seen the president really kind of become obsessed with during his second term in office and wanting to kind of reinvigorate different
cultural landmarks around Washington, D.C.
And all of that stemming back to the president's idea that changing, D.C., adding, you know, he wants to add an arch, a triumphal arch on the space --
on the bridge between Washington, D.C., and Arlington, Virginia. He's been doing all of these renovations to the Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln
Memorial.
The Kennedy Center is just one of those things that he's been really wanting to put not only his mark on but physically and literally his name
on.
But just to give you a sense of where we are now, I mean, one of our sources who was describing just this tense exchange between the president
and this congresswoman, Democratic congresswoman, I should say, Joyce Beatty, yesterday, called it "effing crazy."
That was how they described this Kennedy Center board meeting that took place yesterday when the board voted to shutter the doors to the cultural
arts institute for two years for renovations.
The president dialed in to that board meeting and essentially, we're told, that there was a very bitter and lengthy exchange between the president and
Joyce Beatty. At times, the president, according to the source, screamed at the congresswoman and berated her for not -- for, excuse me, for getting
the courts involved.
And he also blamed her for what he argued was allowing the Kennedy Center to fall into disrepair. Beatty, for her part, said that the president --
this was in an interview later with CNN's Kaitlan Collins -- that he was throwing a tantrum and that she had told him that he was putting the
Kennedy Center into debt.
Now all of that was playing out just moments after this federal judge had said, look, you just got to press pause on these efforts to try and add
your name. This is the third time this judge has had to rule on this to re- add your name to the Kennedy Center.
We know the president wants to have it read, essentially, to thank the president for renovating and restoring the institute's edifice and also to
rename the center's campus after him.
The judge wrote this --
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TREENE: -- oh, yes, that was yesterday. And the judge said, simply put, defendants cannot install memorials for president Trump or anyone or
anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress' blessing. So a lot of movements here. But the board did vote to shutter this. But this is going
to continue likely to be caught up in the courts, Becky.
ANDERSON: (INAUDIBLE).
Thank you.
All right. Still to come, AI and advanced tech advances helping hackers up their game with critical systems like water and power in their sights. I
want to talk to the UAE's cybersecurity chief about the new threats and how he is working to defeat them.
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ANDERSON (voice-over): Welcome back. I'm Becky Anderson in Abu Dhabi. You're watching CONNECT THE WORLD. These are your headlines this hour.
Iran's foreign minister is on a diplomatic mission in Beijing. He is meeting today with his Chinese counterpart. Iran's top diplomat recently
described China as Tehran's leading economic partner. He's back in Beijing not long before China's president heads to Washington later this month for
a meeting with Donald Trump.
Saudi Arabia says it shot down a Houthi drone near Mecca, Islam's holiest city. Riyadh is calling it a, quote, "red line attack." And Iran-backed
Houthi militants are facing outrage from the Muslim world. The Saudi-led coalition forces say this is the first time in almost a decade that the
Houthis have targeted that site of Mecca.
Poland's defense minister says his country is reinforcing security along its border with Ukraine after recent Russian drone attacks near border
crossings.
The government says Russia's actions, quote, "threaten the security of all of Europe," end quote.
ANDERSON: Well, the UAE's top cybersecurity official says the UAE recorded as many as 640,000 cyber attacks in a single day.
Mohamed Al Kuwaiti, head of the UAE Cybersecurity Council, said the impact of such attacks can go far beyond temporary service disruption, with
hackers targeting data and critical sectors like electricity, water and the wider economy.
Well, cybersecurity is fast becoming a new geopolitical war ground, with heightened threats of Iranian cyber attacks in the region. The threat is
also fueling concerns about the growing power of artificial intelligence within those cyber attacks.
Well, major tech companies, including Microsoft, OpenAI, Alphabet, Anthropic, Amazon have all called for collective action, warning that cyber
attacks will become much more widespread and sophisticated in the coming months.
Well, that threat has certainly been front and center here in the UAE at GISEC Global 2026. Al Kuwaiti says artificial intelligence, geopolitical
instability and rapidly evolving technology are reshaping the cyber landscape, warning that, quote, "no single nation or organization can
address these challenges alone."
And he joins me now live.
And it's good to have you, sir. Thank you. I do want to start with that --
(CROSSTALK)
MOHAMED AL KUWAITI, CHAIRMAN, CYBERSECURITY COUNCIL UAE: It's my pleasure.
ANDERSON: -- 640,000 number. I mean, all those attacks in a single day.
When was that, sir?
And on what sectors?
What sectors were being attacked and by whom?
AL KUWAITI: So that number was yesterday. And if we go back, as a matter of fact, for the peak of many of those attacks, we go back toward April
timeline. And we reached almost 800,000 attacks.
And here we're not talking about the regular D-DOS (ph) type of attack here. We're talking about ransomware, supply chain or even wider (ph)
malware attacks that needs to target our critical infrastructure, try to distract or disrupt many of those critical infrastructures.
The main three major critical infrastructure that were actually attacked are the energy, oil and gas, electricity, water. That was one. The second
is focused on the government as our government moving toward many of those digitized perspective. There was many attacks toward the critical
infrastructure of the government in that perspective.
Financial sector as well is the third sector. And yes, all of those attacks were, as a matter of fact, detected proactively in one matter or another.
We have great partners, actually really even responded to those attacks at the concept of operation that we work on.
And as we are here in GISEC and many of those great partners are presenting their solutions or powered by AI, working together to, as a matter of fact,
build up that resiliency. And that's where we're at now.
ANDERSON: So how serious were those attacks?
And were any successful, I mean?
Or how many were successful?
AL KUWAITI: As a matter of fact, there were two of them successful but toward the private sector, not toward the government sector. And those are
actually resulted in wiping some of the private sector specified data.
There were ways of actually recovering these, with many of the backups, with many of the historical backups, yes. Maybe it's not a clean copy of
what was really destroyed.
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But yes, the cost of any of those cyber attacks or data breaches actually reached to more than $4.4 million in some respects. And the cost as well
increases as the type of data that are actually sensitive, top secret, secret or different type of data associated with that.
The message that we're sending here is the resiliency. Many fragile and many investment infrastructure that we are really investing on are depends
on technologies.
And they are and could be, God forbid, if there was an attack, could destruct, could destroy, could disrupt many of those critical
infrastructures or the lifestyle that we are actually really depending on.
UAE is one of the Alhamdulillah nations that are actually already shifted toward digitization, toward all of our government services or many of the
critical infrastructures that we have. So we need to protect that really in a timely manner.
ANDERSON: You cited higher numbers earlier on in this -- in the year. That, of course, was at the height of the Iran conflict.
Have these cyber attacks then gotten worse since the start of the U.S. war with Iran?
Who's behind these cyber attacks?
Do you have any evidence that these are Iranian?
AL KUWAITI: There are, yes, so many attributions. And this is what we call it when we find who is behind any of those attacks, the root cause analysis
that we've done, that conducted of many of the great partnership, the information sharing that we have.
The TTPs, the tactics and techniques and procedures used in order to conduct such attacks and, guess what?
There was no internet in Iran if we are really specifying that perspective. But the internet or the infrastructure that are used and built, even prior
to the war itself. this is where the most of those attacks were coming from.
There was a whole botnets that are actually leveraged in order to conduct or perpetrate such attacks. And yes, there are great footprints that
actually shows who's behind those attacks. Yes, Iran is one of the main player. IRGC is the specific one actually behind many of those aspects.
But if you look around as well, who's supporting them?
Who's actually funding them from a virtual type of currencies?
All of these are detected. All of these are actually, as a matter of fact, already proven with the great attributions of who's behind those attacks.
The impact, though, were not that devastated.
(CROSSTALK)
ANDERSON: Do they -- ?
AL KUWAITI: -- that allows us to do actually this. And they do continue. Yes. Until today, the 640 --
ANDERSON: And these attacks continue?
AL KUWAITI: -- yesterday, for example, was that. And it is continuing to attack in that perspective, yes, with a lower number, as we've seen --
(CROSSTALK)
AL KUWAITI: -- previously in the start.
ANDERSON: How quickly is AI accelerating the cyber threat?
And conversely, how are you using AI to combat these cyber threats?
AL KUWAITI: So definitely AI have accelerated the cyber attacks dramatically. There are the way of coding, the way of actually exploiting
data, the way of coding and really writing this ransomware or cyber in many of those aspects.
Now those are malware GPTs or ways of actually developing such attacks or such weapons or cyber weapons are really exceeding in many of those as,
again, those who use this technology in a negative way.
And yes, there are so many of those entities who could leverage or use that in that negative way.
However, in the contemporary, where we actually leverage AI to detect, to defend, to disrupt, to really take care of many of those protect and
prevent many of those attacks, we leverage those data.
And we actually distinguish between the right data and the noise data and that perspective and come up with the right detection measures as well as
response in this perspective.
It's very important to bring the partnership piece on that aspect since we are depending on so many of our partners, service provider, critical
infrastructures, entities who are actually helping us in doing many of those aspects.
And that's the message we are sending here, as a matter of fact. Partnership is the key behind many of those attacks --
ANDERSON: What do you make --
AL KUWAITI: -- the real kinetic type of warfare as well.
ANDERSON: And you're talking about -- and you're talking about human partnerships, of course. And I do want to press you on the news of the past
week or 1.5 weeks as we digest the reports of the Hugging Face incident. This wasn't a person or state.
[10:35:00]
It was AI itself, collaborating and launching an attack or a cyber attack effectively itself out of the control of humans.
How worried should we be?
How worried or concerned are you about that as a threat, the very threat of AI itself on critical infrastructure and other assets here in the UAE and
around the world?
AL KUWAITI: So definitely, we need to worry about many of those, again, agent or agentic frameworks.
If we are not putting the right guardrails, if we are not putting the right compliances, everything that we bring toward the government
infrastructures, there is a whole test and validation perspective we do for that technology in order to see what is the input, what is the output.
What is the action or the ways of actually really treating or analyzing many of these data in that perspective?
So yes, if it's not followed, those right compliances, those agents could do something that are not intending to. And this is why we need that
collaboration with everybody on this.
Everybody designing their agent differently. Everybody has different APIs or even tools to allow these agents to actually go to. And this is where
that specific Hugging Face, as well as that specific agent, it was in a sandbox.
Yes, it was in a controlled environment, though it's a proof that this could go wrong. And this is where we need definitely to take care of many
of these technologies as we design it. We need to have security from the beginning, always in developing any of those agents.
And that's what we are actually really putting in that perspective. UAE was one of the great (INAUDIBLE) nations who actually issued ethics of AI,
using of many of those compliances whenever we're building an agentic framework; 50 percent of our government services will be moving toward an
agentic framework soon.
And this is where many of those compliances are based on those best practices, as well as many of those international standards as well that we
leverage and we use.
ANDERSON: Part of the conversation, of course, this week -- thank you, sir.
Part of the conversation this week has been the sort of, you know, the keeping-you-awake-at-night risk or thought that, you know, there would be
some agentic attack on, you know, critical infrastructure, be that, you know, desalination plant or the financial system somewhere in the world.
And it's -- and it's, frankly, what's, you know, you know, it's what's really fueled people's concerns, I think over the past couple of weeks,
about AI in and of itself as such a powerful technology.
We also know, of course, how beneficial it can be. Thank you. It's really good to have you on. Thank you very much indeed, sir.
Well, you're watching CONNECT THE WORLD. There is a lot more news ahead. Stay with us.
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ANDERSON: Well, the fears about the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence are creating strange bedfellows. Figures from America's
political Right and the Left came together at an event in Washington to demand urgent action to rein in AI. CNN's Donie O'Sullivan was there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): Superintelligent AI that escapes human control will not simply be an American problem. It will not be a Chinese problem.
It will be humanity's problem.
DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: This is the Pro-Human Assembly in Washington, D.C. It's been organized in response to the panic about
artificial intelligence.
Concerns about AI have brought people on very different sides of the political spectrum together. We heard from Steve Bannon on the far right
and we heard from Senator Bernie Sanders on the left. Both Bannon and Senator Sanders said the U.S. government needs to act now. They both
compared the AI issue to the Cold War.
STEVE BANNON, ADVISER TO FORMER PRESIDENT TRUMP: This is a Cold War moment. This is like the nuclear age.
SANDERS: We are at a moment in history where the leaders of the United States and China must come together in a symbolic way to bring forth a ban
on AI super intelligence.
O'SULLIVAN: But they have quite different ideas for solutions.
BANNON: We have to rise above it. We're trying to raise above partisanship. We have to handle this right.
O'SULLIVAN: Bannon and Sanders spoke about the upcoming meeting between president Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping. Sanders says the U.S. and
China need to come to an agreement on AI.
SANDERS: I hope very much that, at their AI summit next week, president Trump will negotiate a comprehensive treaty with president Xi to establish
a pause on advanced AI development and a ban on superintelligence.
O'SULLIVAN: Whereas, Bannon said that that is never going to be a possibility.
BANNON: We should quarantine now every aspect of the ecosystem of artificial intelligence away from the Chinese Communist Party today.
O'SULLIVAN: Both men were very critical of leaders of the AI industry in Silicon Valley.
BANNON: Number one, we can never trust what a oligarch says because all they do, they're disingenuous and they lie.
SANDERS: The Big Tech oligarchs must no longer be allowed to determine the future of humanity.
O'SULLIVAN: All of this is going to be a very big issue as we go into the midterm elections and the 2028 presidential campaign.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANDERSON: Well, that is it for CONNECT THE WORLD. You can find me @BeckyCNN on Instagram and on X. Stay with CNN. "MARKETPLACE ASIA" is up
next today.
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