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Inside Politics

Tomorrow: Cornyn, Paxton Face Off In Texas Senate Runoff; AAA: Record 45M Americans Traveling This Holiday Weekend; Memorial Day Weekend Gas Prices Hit Four-Year Highs; Pope Leo Issues Warning About Risks Of Artificial Intelligence; Pope Denounces "Culture Of Power" Driving AI Race; Trump Gives Remarks At Arlington National Cemetery. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired May 25, 2026 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

ADAM CANCRYN, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: -- and not on, you know, grocery prices or gas prices or the things that people are actually making a decision on come November. And that's where you're getting the frustration, is their jobs are not on the line and they're asking the President, you know, help us help you and he's refusing to do that.

TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION: Yes --

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Because he doesn't think he needs them. I mean, especially when you look at those primaries where he was able to put his finger on the scale and there are some people who are gone now.

SARA FISCHER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST: I mean, my one response to that is President Trump, I remember when he got burned in his first administration with McCain's deciding vote on health care, it kind of made this impact on him that he doesn't need to go through Congress. That's why so much of what he does is through executive actions.

CORNISH: Yes.

FISCHER: It's taking and consolidating executive power. So I think for him, congressional politics is just a game of loyalty. It's not something that he views as a tool --

CORNISH: Right.

FISCHER: -- to help him pass his agenda.

MITCHELL: Which makes me wonder why Republicans in Congress, who we know have always had their concerns and hesitations about Trump, but they've kind of chosen loyalty over staying true to their politics and their true thoughts. Why did it take them this long to realize that Trump was always going to choose himself, perhaps at their own detriment? And they could have -- CORNISH: Yes.

MITCHELL: -- perhaps worked, you know, after January 6th or at other junctures to say, hey, we're going to take some power back and they just haven't.

CORNISH: OK, that's an interesting idea. I think we're going to end up coming back to that. I want to turn to this next. Right now we're waiting for the President who's set to make remarks at Arlington National Cemetery. We're going to take you there as soon as that speech begins.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:36:16]

CORNISH: So there are a record 45 million Americans traveling this Memorial Day weekend, most of them by car. You might be one of them, which means you're probably seeing the gas prices and they are the highest they've been in four years. The national average price of gas right now sits at $4.50 per gallon. It's the most expensive Memorial Day weekend since 2022.

CNN's Ryan Young is with me now. He's in Atlanta. And Ryan, you're out there seeing people get their sticker shock in real time. Can you talk about what people can expect as they're returning home?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, a little bit of a mixed blessing here because we're near an interstate. So we're catching people who are traveling just their normal day to day travel. We're also talking to some travelers and one guy even said to me, I'm not going to expose how broke I am right now, so I'm not going to do the interview with you. But he did tell me off camera there was sticker shock when he went to fill up his gas tank.

You look at the prices here. Not too bad. You see the 3 97. It's sort of dropped since we've been here. So that's good news for some people. That premium number, oh, my goodness. That is a large number.

But back and forth, this is one of the things that you have to do. Look, if you get on a plane, you've already got your fixed prices. When you're driving an -- you got your family with you, you have no choice but to pay whatever the gas says. Yes, you can use gas money and try to (INAUDIBLE) the lowest prices. But sometimes you just get sticker shock.

We look right here, get the 10 gallons right now. That's at $40. So you understand that price is just going to be a set price for people who are traveling. The average family of four who's traveling can expect to spend the $200 to $400 a day as they travel.

One of the things that we noticed is, as we've been talking to people, they've been telling us they wanted to travel regardless. Look, this is summer season. People are excited to get out of school. Graduations are happening and they're headed out. But this is all about an economy. So not only are they stopping and driving and doing all the things they do, you have to stop to get something to drink or eat and try to avoid the rain that started following during this live shot. It's a part of live television.

But take a listen to this driver who said they're doing the best they can and avoiding some states at the same time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: You said you've been traveling for the holiday weekend, what's this been like? Has it been super expensive? Are you been surprised about gas prices?

JAMES KELTER, TRAVELER: It's been decent in Georgia, Tennessee and Missouri. But Illinois has been roof. It's like $4.50, $4.99 some places, I think we saw in O'Fallon, Illinois is $4.99 BP down there. But (INAUDIBLE) just like avoided filling up our tanks in Illinois.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: Look, one of the best things about doing a story like this is you really get to feel the economy and how it's impacting people, especially on a day to day basis.

What's going on, guys? So we've been coming in and out of this store all day long. The energy here is high, but just think about it. Certain cities are really being impacted by this. Orlando, Vegas, even New York is seeing a lot of people fly into the city. You also have Miami that's at the top of the list where people are traveling.

So not only are people getting impacted by the overall prices just trying to get from point A to point B, they also getting the sticker shock when it comes to inflation. We even talked to one business owner who runs a lawn cutting business here. He's like the gas prices are affecting my bottom line. I'm probably going to have to raise my prices.

So you understand this impact is far reaching. Audie?

CORNISH: That's right. Thank you so much.

And when we come back, I want to turn to this. The Pope. He's released a letter to the world about the risks of AI. They may have a message for President Trump.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:44:20]

CORNISH: Straight from the Vatican, a call to regulate Artificial Intelligence. So Pope Leo today used his first major letter to the world to push for guard rails on the new technology, saying, quote, "We cannot consider AI to be morally neutral." Now, the document outlines his fears about mass job displacement, AI weapons of war and profits only going to the top while the rest of the world suffers. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POPE LEO XIV, HEAD OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: Let's not fear artificial intelligence, but constantly keep the question of the human in play. We cannot be careless with our most powerful technical instruments. Only together, those who design systems and those affected by them, richer countries and poorer ones, institutions and individuals, power centers and peripheries. Will we be able to build a future not for a privileged few, but for the entire human family?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:45:18]

CORNISH: With me now is Paolo Carozza, he's a professor at Notre Dame Law School where he teaches on this topic. He's also a member of the Pontifical Academy of the Social Sciences in the Vatican, which is a great sign that the Vatican has been thinking about this for some time.

So, Paolo, I want to ask you about this document, specifically how much it spends on war, how much it spends on how AI tools could be used in battle. He writes, "Sometimes there is talk of artificial moral agents, as if machines were able to distinguish between right and wrong with greater consistency than a human being. Yet moral judgment cannot be reduced to calculation. Therefore, it is not permissible to entrust lethal or otherwise irreversible decisions to artificial systems."

Can you talk about this in the context of the U.S.'s back and forth with, say, anthropic and the Defense Department?

PAOLO CAROZZA, PROFESSOR, NOTRE DAME LAW SCHOOL: Sure, Audie. Obviously, the Pope in the document draws some clear red lines like you cited. No automated lethal killing. He also expresses a great deal of concern about the way in which artificial intelligence accelerates the processes of war and decisions, which can be great from an efficiency point of view, but can lead to massive destruction and more indiscriminate kinds of targeting.

And so I'm sure that the increasing prevalence of wars around the world over the last few years been a provocation for the Pope to explore these things. But I also think it's important in the context of this encyclical to put it in a little bit of a broader context. It's not an encyclical about war. It's about encyclical about AI and in the context of AI.

What he's really concerned about is what he calls a culture of power. What he's calling for is attention to the dignity of every human person. He's saying if we don't worry about the potential dehumanization of individuals through the uses of these technologies, then what we're going to end up with is a moral framework where the only thing that matters is power.

CORNISH: Yes -- CAROZZA: And that's when he points to the problem of war. He says the

increasing use of warfare as a tool without ethical constraints is a sign of this culture of power taking hold in our society.

CORNISH: Can I nerd out on the symbolism? Because I understand, obviously, this is Pope Leo XIV.

CAROZZA: Yes.

CORNISH: But looking at the original Leo, he also presided over a period of massive technological advance.

CAROZZA: Absolutely. Leo XIV, the current one deliberately chose that name, hearkening back to his predecessor from the 19th century who wrote about the Industrial Revolution and was really concerned about the massive social displacement and economic upheaval that was taking place then, in particular, what was happening to workers at that time, workers and their families.

And this current Pope chose that as a way of signaling that he thinks that we are in an analogous kind of massive social upheaval, one that again is going to affect and already is affecting workers tremendously economics. But also beyond that, it affects education. It affects our democratic politics. It affects the healthy development of children psychologically and so forth.

So he is trying to place himself in that same tradition of responding to the fundamental challenges and needs of our times and adding the church's moral voice to the conversation on these issues.

CORNISH: I think he would have sort of responded to this moment no matter what. But I have to wonder if it's also in part because so much of Silicon Valley, so many of these tech executives talk in terms of AI as a kind of religion, right? That there's a sliver of that world that uses phrases like Godhead that talk about the soul or the morality that can come with AI sort of its logical conclusion. Is that something that the Pope is trying to respond to as well -- people using that language?

CAROZZA: There's a short but very, very intense passage in the new letter, the document that you're referring to that spares no words of criticism exactly for an ideology of what he calls transhumanism or posthumanism. The idea that technology can bring us beyond the value of human beings themselves. And in some ways, you know, I mean, this is not what the Pope says, but as you say, almost its own religion, recreating its own God.

And he makes it very clear that that is, in fact, a deeply dehumanizing way of understanding the role of technology. We have to use technology to serve human beings, not the other way around, right? Otherwise, we'll just become slaves.

[12:50:08]

CORNISH: OK, Paolo Carozza, thank you so much. Hope to hear from you again. I know the Pope is keeping a close eye on all of this. Appreciate your time.

CAROZZA: Thank you, Audie.

CORNISH: In the meantime, I want to bring all of you back to this, a live look at Arlington National Cemetery. There you can see Vice President JD Vance making his remarks. The President is set to mark this Memorial Day. He's already been to the wreath of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

We're going to bring you more live as Trump comes to the podium, and we're going to hear his remarks soon.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:55:05]

CORNISH: OK, this is a live look at President Trump speaking at Arlington National Cemetery.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: -- around the world, we unite in solemn observance. With reverent hearts, we honor those who fell so that our republic might stand, those who died so that our nation could live, those who gave up their sacred light on Earth so that the sublime light of American freedom would shine forever and ever.

This Memorial Day, we salute them, we exalt them, and we thank them for all that we have for all that they gave. They gave everything. God bless our fallen heroes were joined today by some of those they left behind, our incredible Gold Star families, credible people, to every person here and across America who holds tight to the memory of a warrior taken from them. We will never, ever forget the ones you loved.

Gold Star family members, please stand. Receive our thanks, please. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Thank you very much, my honor. Less than six weeks from now, our nation will reach a historic milestone. 250 years of majestic American independence, something.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: But it's only right that first we remember the immense sacrifice that has been brought to us and this momentous anniversary year. That's what it is. It's a momentous year. Before we held the founding, we honor the fallen. Before we celebrate the triumph, we pay the tribute. Before we crown the victory, we count the cost.

Today, we are reminded that there could be no Fourth of July without America's Armed Forces, and there could be no Independence Day without Memorial Day. We owe our liberty, our self-government, the glories of our history and our very nation itself to the generations who paid for it with everything they had, the ultimate sacrifice. The first Americans to give their lives in battle fell on April 1775, when eight patriots were cut down by redcoats. Those guns, they were shot on Lexington Green. They had answered the call to muster against the force five times their strength.

They said at the time the greatest in the world in defense of their cherished rights and their cherished liberty. As the British approached the Massachusetts militiamen summoned destiny itself, saying if they mean to have a war, let it begin right here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Caleb Harrington was 23 years old when he accompanied his father to the green that day, torn apart from each other in the chaos of combat. That American son died trying to fight his way back to his father. He wanted to get back to dad. Caleb's cousin, Jonathan, was struck down at age 31, shot within the side of his home and his young wife and child who awaited his return.

Jonathan crawled, bleeding back to them to die on his own doorstep for a final, terrible but beautiful farewell. His widow and orphan were perhaps the very first Gold Star family in a long and broken chain that reaches up through the ages to us right here today. When our founding fathers put the ideas of the Declaration of Independence to paper in Philadelphia, they signed and sealed an oath that had already been written in blood by patriots at Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill.

Their sacrifice birth the most incredible and exceptional nation in all of history, and our nation is doing better today than it's ever done before.

(APPLAUSE)