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Laura Coates Live
White House Press Ban Awaiting Ruling; New Poll Shows Bleak Midterm Landscape for GOP; Trump Meets with Xi for High-Stakes Summit Amid Tensions; Ex-Mistress Testifies; Elizabeth Holmes Insists She Did Nothing Wrong in New Documentary. Aired 11p-12a ET
Aired September 23, 2026 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[23:00:00]
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR AND SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: -- when Hegseth and the boys discussed extremely sensitive information on an unsecured chat?" Seems like a fair question.
And then we've got one more. This one is from Moses, who says, "I think Peter is an undercover Republican spy. On the weekends, he infiltrates hippie drum circles." True or false?
JOSH ROGIN, LEAD GLOBAL SECURITY ANALYST FOR THE WASHINGTON POST, AUTHOR: Answer the question, Peter.
PHILLIP: All right. Before we go, you can stream the show live or watch it on demand anytime with an all-access subscription. Scan that Q.R. code at the bottom of your screen. Go to cnn.com/watch to learn more.
Thank you very much for watching. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
LAURA COATES, CNN HOST AND SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Tonight, Trump's White House press ban is in the hands of a judge. His ruling could come at any moment as he questions the DOJ's attempt to defend it. Plus, the midterm panic for Trump and Republicans. The new numbers, it has the party fearing a November wipeout. And later, China's Xi Jinping meeting with the president of the United States as A.I. CEOs deliver a new, urgent call for action. That's all tonight on "Laura Coates Live."
At any moment, a federal judge could rule on President Trump's White House media ban. Now, that judge said he would make decision as soon as he could after hearing today's arguments in court. The government tried to argue that this isn't about the First Amendment or discriminating against outlets based on their reporting. No, this was about something else, they say. It's about fitting a square peg into a round hole. And in this case, the square peg, national security. The round hole, the legal precedent.
The administration is trying to claim that national security gave it a reason to ban CNN and MS NOW and Politico, but the outlets say that explanation doesn't hold any water and it came so late as to be pretextual, and the ban violated their First Amendment and due process rights, they allege. The lawyer representing the outlet said that it seemed like a lightbulb went off, that the administration decided to change their reasoning and started citing national security.
You know, it tracks with the timeline. Think about it. Friday, Trump announces the ban. Now, nothing in his post mentions national security. That argument came later. In fact, it came three days later, on Monday, when the president publicly invoked national security in this post. And then yesterday, four days after the ban, the DOJ made national security part of its response to the lawsuit. It attached letters from the White House to each outlet, citing stories the White House claims threatened national security.
Now, the phrase "national security" isn't exactly new territory for this administration or this president. He has used that phrase to justify all sorts of policies, all sorts of projects.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We need Greenland for national security and even international security.
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TRUMP: Tariffs on national security.
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TRUMP: A tremendous amount of what's being done with respect to the bomb is for national security.
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COATES: But in this case, they're just saying national security doesn't actually answer the question. What exactly crossed the line? There's a difference between reporting on matters of national security and actually compromising national security.
And one detail from today's hearing drives that point home. The outlet's lawyer noted that of the multiple CNN stories the administration cited, again, days after the ban, you know, only one was written by a journalist with a hard pass that gave White House access, and her pass was renewed months after that story was published. The lawyer called the stories garden variety reporting, and he said this about the Department of Justice: "They are literally arguing that reporters shouldn't scrutinize national security. That's the sin."
Now, whatever the government's justification is, the national security explanation came after, after the passes were already pulled. And that gets us to the round hole, the legal precedent, two cases from years past that say you've got to have due process. Reminder, that's notice and an opportunity to be heard.
And they set the standard, those two cases, that there has to be a process if the White House tries to yank reporter access, a process that happens beforehand, not days later. That might mean advance notice, an opportunity to respond in advance, a reason for the decision to respond to.
[23:04:59]
Now, while we wait for the ruling on the First Amendment and, of course, due process claims, when it comes to due process, the judge said this in court today: "I think it is fair to say the process the Circuit laid out in those two cases wasn't followed here."
With me now, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, Congressman Jamie Raskin, who has taught constitutional law for more than two decades, and he joins us now.
Congressman, this is mind-boggling to people who have even read or skimmed the First Amendment, let alone understand the idea of access not being restricted based on the content of speech or the coverage, but what did you think about the way that the DOJ raised arguments about national security, about access being a privilege and not a right which, of course, there are limitations to access in the White House? What was your assessment of their argument?
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD), RANKING MEMBER OF HOUSE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY: Well, so, the First Amendment covers any kind of government property but in different ways. If you're talking about the sidewalks and the streets and the parks, that's called a traditional public forum where you can't ban essentially any speaker for any reason other than they're committing violence or -- you know. And so, that's clear.
Then there's something that's called a reserved or a limited public forum that's used for a particular purpose, but even if you concede that this is the most restrictive kind of public forum, called a non- public forum, the one thing that is the cardinal sin there is called a viewpoint discrimination where you say, well, these people can speak because they like what they're saying, these people cannot speak because they don't like what they're saying.
And that's precisely what Trump did. He selected out the speakers, the media institutions he didn't like. He said, you are fake news, you're, you know, getting in my way, and I'm going to just banish you from the White House. So, that is a very straightforward case of what we call political viewpoint discrimination. Now, they scrambled after the fact to try to clean it up.
COATES: By offering a national security.
RASKIN: This is really about national security. That's just the last scoundrel of any free speech violator. I'm sorry, that's the last refuge of any authoritarian scoundrel who's trying to violate the free speech rights of reporters he doesn't like. It is to say, oh, this is a national security thing. COATES: Well, they give a lot of deference to that reason. He thinks somehow that, and I mean more broadly, not necessarily this case, but the idea of national security being under the purview of the president of the United States. Is this sort of a remix of the same argument that he thinks has happened before?
RASKIN: He's using national security for anything where --
COATES: Yes.
RASKIN: -- he loses in court, he's using it for the ballroom, he's using it for the reflecting pool, he's using it for the Kennedy Center, he's using it for the arch, and he thinks that somehow there's a magic national security exception in the Constitution that allows him to override every other provision of the Constitution.
COATES: Right.
RASKIN: There's clearly not a national security exception for the censorship of speech. We have the same First Amendment in peacetime as we do in wartime, and so on. Now, you can't incite imminent lawless action, but that's hardly what CNN or MS or Politico were doing.
COATES: What about his critique? And some people have asked this question about, well, you know, can't he have a valid interest in and not having negative reporting which I'm, like, well, no, that's not a valid interest in having -- quote, unquote -- "negative reporting." There's no guarantee you will like what you're being covered around as long as it's informative to the public.
RASKIN: Look, he has a cellphone that a lot of people seem to call up. A lot of people seem to have his number. If he wants to block CNN or MS or Politico on his personal cellphone, he's got a right to do that like every other citizen, but what we're talking about is the use of government resources, government offices, and government property to discriminate based on political viewpoint.
That doesn't mean that every media entity in the world gets to go to those press conferences. I mean, he could set some reasonable content neutral viewpoint, neutral regulations based on the size of the media entity or the reach of the audience or something like that.
But these are media entities that he's invited in. He has been perfectly happy to have them until he got mad about some stuff that they reported. That is classic viewpoint discrimination.
COATES: There is the government arguing that -- quote -- "they may control reporters' access to restricted presidential areas like the Oval Office." Given that the AP has been kept out of the Oval Office and, by the way, Air Force One for --
RASKIN: Yes.
COATES: -- more than a year now while the lawsuit is pending, what is to stop the administration from using that same tactic here? Are there limitations? RASKIN: So, you know, again, I don't know that the Oval Office has ever been defined as, you know, either a traditional public forum or a limited public forum or a non-public forum, but that was also viewpoint discrimination.
[23:10:02]
You can't engage in viewpoint discrimination in any kind of government forum. The difference here, of course, is that the media wisely stood together and showed solidarity with each other and said, we're not going to participate in this and we're all going to object to it. I don't think that the media did the same thing when the Associated Press got kicked out for refusing to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. That, too, was a form of viewpoint discrimination.
If you think about what the viewpoint discrimination is in both cases, it's discrimination against media entities that insist on telling the truth. It is pro-truth media entities that are being punished by the president. The ones who are willing simply to publish whatever the president says uncritically and unquestioningly, well, they're fine. That is essentially to reduce all private government media into state media like China.
It's interesting that all of this is taking place against the backdrop of the Chinese president coming over here and the president lavishing praise on the communist dictator of China.
COATES: And one of the arguments was, at the very least, keep the ban in place until after this visit from the president of China, which is a very interesting idea of a timeline here. But --
RASKIN: They want to show deference to a fellow authoritarian censor.
COATES: I find that shocking for a lot of reasons.
RASKIN: We should teach them a lesson instead.
COATES: Well, one thing I'd like you to give me a lesson on for our audience is what are the potential hypotheticals that the judge is obviously going to be considering? I think others will look at this as well. What could the president do and get away with and still be in line with the First Amendment? Could he, for example, say, you know what, I don't want any press at the White House any longer, no one gets access any longer, I can take corporate questions I want or not? Is that in line?
RASKIN: Well, I don't think there's any constitutional compulsion for him to do press conferences. If he doesn't want to do press conferences, he can go without them. That's obviously not what his urge is. He loves doing press conferences, and then berating and dressing down the reporters.
But yes, he could decide to do just a bunch of private interviews with the media people he wants to do. The question is, when you've constructed a forum out of government property and using government resources and government-funded employees to set it up, at that point, you can't do it in such a way as to violate the free speech and free press rights of the people who come in.
COATES: We'll see what the court actually ends up saying about this. But I want to turn to another issue because it has been reported, and one of the things we'd like the press to do is to ask questions that are important for the audience and the voters and the American public and the world to understand.
And there are some prominent Republicans, Senate Republicans, who are pushing for a probe into Donald Trump Jr. Why? Because there are reports that his wedding party was bankrolled by somebody who was a Russian oligarch. Why do you think this particular story is breaking through to Republicans in ways that others have not?
RASKIN: Well, the American people are rightfully shocked by what we're seeing, that you've got a Russian oligarch who is a couple steps away from Vladimir Putin, who has been involved in all kinds of war crimes against Ukrainians, involved in mass kidnapping of Ukrainian children, all of these appalling forms of corruption and lawlessness, and that guy is just routinely funding the wedding festivities of the son of the president of the United States, and they act like it's no big deal.
The amazing thing is that they didn't even realize that there would be this profound public revulsion at what they are doing because they are so deeply in the world of the autocrats and the plutocrats and the dictators from all over the world. That's who they hang out with, Vladimir Putin in Russia and Erdogan in Turkey and Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia. These are the people they identify with. It's the opposite of America first. It's the autocrats first, and that's who Donald Trump and his family associate with. They've made billions of dollars doing that.
Americans understand now they don't have a program to offer America in terms of getting health care for everybody or rescuing the environment from climate change or what have you. Their program is self- enrichment, and they've made billions of dollars already from rivers of cash flowing in through all of the crypto corruption and the foreign government and monarchical emoluments that they're lining their pockets with.
COATES: Congressman Jamie Raskin, thank you so much.
RASKIN: You bet. Thanks for having me, Laura.
COATES: Up next, 41 days to go until November, the elections, I mean, and the hits keep on coming for Trump and his party. We have new data that has Republicans starting to sweat. Plus, ICE operating in Kansas. And now, one of the state's Republican senators is calling out the agency. The panel is live with me next on that and more.
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COATES: Forty-one days to go before the midterms and warning signs keep flashing for Republicans. The latest alarming number for the GOP, CNN's newest poll numbers that show the president's job approval stands at just 33 percent, and the economy, which used to be one of Trump's strongest issues, well, that's now one of his weakest. I mean, across the board, voters give Trump low marks on tariffs, on helping the middle class, inflation.
Well, now, some Republican candidates are taking notice and putting some daylight between themselves and Trump, especially when it comes to the economy and the Iran war.
[23:19:59]
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MIKE ROGERS, MICHIGAN SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: The war with Iran needs to end and end quickly. When it does, energy costs will plummet, but Michigan families can't afford to wait for that to happen.
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REP. TOM TIFFANY (R-WI), WISCONSIN GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: The president has final say in regards to this. But I just believe that we should be exiting Iran, that it's time to move on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: Let's talk more about it with the co-host of the Party Lines podcast, Kurt Bardella, the publisher of "The Watchdog Report on Substack, and Republican strategist Erin Maguire. Also with me, Scott MacFarlane, chief Washington correspondent for MeidasTouch Network. Glad to have all of you here. Your podcast is hilarious. I'm glad you guys are here.
ERIN MAGUIRE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST, PODCASTER: Thank you.
COATES: Informative as well.
MAGUIRE: I feel like time to have a good time.
COATES: But let's talk about this.
KURT BARDELLA, PODCAST CO-HOST, PUBLISHER ON SUBSTACK, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER FOR REPUBLICANS AT HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: She bullies me.
COATES: Oh, I didn't want to say it, but let's talk about for a second.
(LAUGHTER)
MAGUIRE: Drama queen.
COATES: OK. How about the drama that is these poll numbers? And I -- you used to be a Republican.
BARDELLA: Yes. COATES: Are you surprised other Republicans or more Republicans are not looking at these numbers 41 days before the midterms and saying more daylight, longer poll?
BARDELLA: Yes. I think I'm more surprised that this, what we're seeing now didn't happen 30, 40, 50, 60 days ago when it might have mattered and could have helped their situation politically. Now, it's too late. And it looks so brazenly political, so brazenly full of self-interest. It's not genuine or authentic.
So, it's not going to score them any points with voters coming up with this act at the 11th hour. Oh, Donald Trump, never heard of him, I don't know what you're talking about, don't tie him to me. It's not going to work when you spent the bulk of the last four years lockstep with every single thing he has done. And now at that 11th hour, when your numbers are upside down, you're going to decide to all of a sudden say, oh, I don't like what he's doing. Voters are not going to fall for it. They're not stupid.
COATES: I wonder if Democrat voters, though, are looking at this and saying, OK, well, I don't like either of you then, I don't trust what Republicans are saying or Democrats, I'm not convinced that they can actually turn it around. Is there a risk that Democrats might look at this and say the poll numbers are horrible, that must mean they'll vote for us?
MAGUIRE: Listen, complacency could lose elections for anybody. And so, if Democrats believe, hey, we don't need to show up, that's an enthusiasm problem for them that they'd have to scale going into the midterms. And it is clear Democrats don't have much better approval ratings than Republicans when it comes to support within their party.
So, I think, overall, Democrats have been able to maintain the enthusiasm more across the board, and they've turned into a higher propensity voter. Republicans became that lower propensity voter where -- in terms of I don't want to take the Democrats' term "big tent" party where we brought all the people in who were newer to voting in the 24 cycle. Those were voters we needed to maintain going into this cycle. It doesn't look like we have been able to do so.
But the cash advantage that Republicans have is a significant one and is one that I think is being underestimated a bit in this election. Money can't buy a class and it can't buy you an election, but it can certainly make -- gain ground in these closing days.
BARDELLA: I think that money came in too late. But that's the thing.
MAGUIRE: No. It's after Labor Day. You know that.
BARDELLA: The Republicans gave Democrats an open runway like in Texas. Talarico have airwaves all to himself for a better part of a month.
MAGUIRE: That's true.
BARDELLA: Like you're going to come in now at the last second with this big influx that could have -- they should have done it sooner.
MAGUIRE: You and I talked about it. I said that Maine, when they were going through their interviews with Graham Platner and they were sitting there empty, Susan Collins, this team should have been up on air just doing pro-Susan ads at that point because it was empty space.
BARDELLA: Yes.
COATES: Scott, let me ask you because, you know, "The Wall Street Journal" is reporting there are mentions of Trump on conservative podcasts that they've fallen nearly 70 percent from their peak, which is in 2024. These voices are normally young and male, a category that both parties want to have. What happens if those decline in numbers and mentions translate to declines in votes for Trump or Republicans more broadly?
SCOTT MACFARLANE, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, MEIDASTOUCH NETWORK: Well, the subtle delta that some Republicans are trying to draw between themselves and Trump is just that it's very subtle. You saw the Mike Rogers video. You saw Tom Tiffany. They weren't calling Trump out by name, but just saying the war should end soon. We saw Roger Marshall, the Kansas senator who's in a tough reelection fight, distance himself with Trump on immigration issues, but he didn't name check Trump.
This is not a moment for subtlety, if you're trying to draw a divide between you and an embattled president. If conservative podcasters are defecting, well, that's an indication of where the base might be.
But these statewide candidates, especially in the Midwest, who need to win independent votes, need to win Democratic votes, if they're going to do that with a 33 percent approval rating for Trump, they have to be less subtle.
COATES: On that point, I mean, a prominent conservative radio host said about the war in Iran, and I'm quoting that pollster, saying -- he says a pollster told him -- quote --- "If you were in a +15 district, you're within the margin for error. If you're in a +10 district, you're underwater, and that this might end being an even worse midterm environment than 2006." And he wants Trump to campaign more. Would that work?
BARDELLA: If you're a Democrat, you're saying, yes, please put Donald Trump on every stage, in every battleground district next to every candidate that's on the front-line map. That will help Democrats at this point because, again, it's a historically unpopular president at this point in the midterms.
[23:25:00]
It does remind me of '06. That's the first election I worked. That's what brought me to Washington. And we had a race where we were offered the White House, the president to come campaign for us. The president was so unpopular at the time. We actually said, no, please don't do that, that's going to hurt more than it's going to help. And they couldn't believe it. They were -- they were perplexed that we would actually say that to the White House. But, you know, it was a San Diego Republican border district where immigration was a number one issue, and we were like, please, don't send George W. Bush to our district.
COATES: Well, now we're 20 days later -- 20 years later, excuse me, and a request for him to campaign more with the popularity ratings being so low. Is that the right move for Republicans?
MAGUIRE: It depends on what your district is and where you're running. Each race is different, and they need to be treated as such. And I also think it's important. Even if you look back 20 years to 2006, we're looking at a very different map, a very different time, a very closely divided but polarized electorate in this country.
So, we're not going to be looking at what could have been 60, 70 seats that you might have seen in those previous cycles where those big swings would happen. These are small margins now because, structurally, we're looking at a very different dynamic in the country, even if you put redistricting aside. So, when you look at what's happening in this country, whoever wins the House, I still -- right now, I'm going to put good money on the Democrats for that. In that case, it is going to be a very small margin.
And if you are Hakeem Jeffries right now, you've got to worry more about what it looks like for you over the next 40 days, trying to keep that coalition together when you've already seen fractures and fissures, if you think you're going to be speaker in November.
COATES: Here's a coalition that has been brewing, and that's with news organizations. Fox News standing with CNN, MS NOW, and also Politico in the battle over press access at the White House and isn't part of the traveling pool. But Trump adviser Peter Navarro told an advocate for a ban against -- excuse me, wants a ban against Fox, excuse me, and he says that he thinks that they should have no cabinet secretaries appearing as a kind of punishment.
What does that suggest to you in terms of their positioning and what happens then being the most accessible administration ever if they do that?
MACFARLANE: Well, they sure have figured out a way to marry up Fox and MS NOW --
(LAUGHTER)
MAGUIRE: The season of strange bedfellows.
BARDELLA: It really is.
(LAUGHTER)
MACFARLANE: But this is the thing. What unifies media is much larger than what divides media. They are there to have a chance to ask questions of newsmakers. It's a fundamental thing. Everybody wants a piece of that. And they all see the long game here. Tables turn in politics and in government. If we start banning people for viewpoints, we're going to ban the next set of people for viewpoints. Everybody is up on the joke here.
I'm going to be surprised if Trump fights the court ruling tooth and nail because the court is sitting there with a chance to knock down this media ban. The media ban is starving him of his oxygen, which is media attention. I'm not sure how much he wants this ban to persist himself.
COATES: Especially this week in particular. Thank you so much, everyone.
BARDELLA: I mean, up to an election where you think you'd want as much oxygen and airtime, especially for Republicans on places like Fox. It is politically malpractice to say, don't go on T.V. right now, let's not get the message out to anyone or anywhere.
MAGUIRE: Look at Kurt and I, Democrat, Republican, and we agree.
BARDELLA: How about that?
COATES: My God. My eyes just crossed. Thank you so much, everyone. Still ahead for us, Trump rolls out the literal red carpet for China's Xi Jinping as Republican senators suggest Trump is making a major mistake. Plus, Trump threatened to annihilate Iran at the United Nations. And now, Iran's president has a message for this president, next.
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[23:30:00]
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COATES: Talk about rolling out the red carpet. Tonight, President Trump welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping with a 100-foot long red carpet and a military flyover. And this marks Xi's first visit to the nation's capital since 2015 when he met then President Barack Obama. A lot has changed since then. Some Democrats argue the balance has shifted in China's favor.
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SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D), MASSACHUSETTS: This is actually pretty consistent for Trump. He loves dictators, and he loves the power that Xi Jinping represents. And I think this is the president really saying to the leader of China, don't hurt me.
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COATES: Let's bring in our experts to break down what's really at stake and on the table. CNN political and national security analyst David Sanger and former director for China at the White House National Security Council under the Biden administration, Henrietta Levin. Glad to have both of you here. Let's talk, David, first about the red carpet and the high-stakes optics at the White House. What are the real expectations for this summit? DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES: I think the expectations are pretty low at this point, Laura. I think you're going to see a continuation of what we saw in May when the president went to Beijing, which was also one that was sort of long on optics and short on real agreements.
On the flight back from Beijing on Air Force One, the president was asked about aid to Taiwan and arms package he has held up. He said, well, I'll talk to the Taiwanese which, of course, the president does not do. That's part of the set of no-go area. But -- and I'll make decision. He has made no decision. And my guess is that what Xi wants to do at this point is bottle that up as long as they can.
A lot of talk about A.I. and whether or not there could be some agreement that is some of the beginnings of arms control.
[23:35:02]
I think the Chinese view this very much as a way to try to contain their own ability to keep up with or leap ahead of the United States. I don't think they have much of an interest in it. And the president himself has said he believes that the safety concerns are a hoax. So, if he believes that, he's not likely to agree to some international constraints.
COATES: Well, talk to me, Henrietta, about that because, you know, you've got Sam Altman, Dario Amodei delivering a message to security council today about this very topic of A.I. Listen.
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SAM ALTMAN, CEO, OPENAI: We need accurate and speedy incident reporting, classification and reporting protocols, so the world can learn from failures before they become catastrophes.
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DARIO AMODEI, CEO, ANTHROPIC: I believe that this is the most important global security issue facing the world today. For all the differences of the people in this room, we must put aside those differences in order to confront this global opportunity and global threat that is being presented to us at the same time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: And you combine that, Henrietta, with Senate Democrats who are calling on the president to reach some agreement, maybe behind closed doors, about either slowing or pausing A.I. development. You've got what they're saying in terms of regulation. And then you've got to your point, David, the White House not buying that this is even an issue and thinking it's all hyperbolic. So, who fills in this vacuum to try to keep A.I. in check in a conversation with China? Is that even a fool's errand? HENRIETTA LEVIN, SENIOR FELLOW AT CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, FORMER DIRECTOR FOR CHINA AT WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: Oh, right now, it's Secretary Bessent talking to his Chinese counterpart about A.I. And so, they had an announcement that they have agreed to establish a hotline to address worst case risk scenarios when it comes to A.I. And that's great, except that, apparently, the hotline is just Bessent calling over to China and hoping someone answers. So, you know, we're not really seeing the kind of progress that's needed to deal with a threat of this scale.
One other thing I was surprised to see from Secretary Bessent, he said that he wants to develop a common vision with China on the goals of A.I. I do not want a common vision with China on the goals of A.I. because China wants A.I. that will keep the Communist Party of China in power. That is their number one goal. That is the safety risk they're concerned about. It's their own safety in power.
And so, we should be developing the rules for the future of A.I. with our democratic allies around the world who share our values and making China fit into that world rather than starting with an adversary in developing the framework for what's going to be one of the most important technologies of the next century.
COATES: So, how will President Trump capitalize on this opportunity given those concerns?
SANGER: I'm not sure he is going to capitalize on this because there is no regulatory framework that the president has in place for home. So, if you don't have one here, it's really hard to have a basis for a discussion elsewhere.
Henrietta is right. You've got to start with the core of democracies, right? Europe and the U.S. don't see eye to eye on this. But Europe does not have any of the frontier A.I. companies either. You didn't see many European executives up there in front of the U.N. today. But you've got to start this with the allies and with some common understanding of what it is we're trying to get done.
And you have to also recognize this isn't like nuclear arms control. You know, in the nuclear age, it was only states that had the weapons, mostly the United States and the Soviet Union. You could count them. You understood what verification looked like. There are some lessons from that age.
And you've heard both Anthropic and OpenAI discuss some of these, including having inspectors basically come in and live in the labs, and raise an issue that's sort of drawn from the International Atomic Energy Agency role.
COATES: Right.
SANGER: But that doesn't mean you're going to be able to do nuclear style arms control or have a hotline because who are you going to call? COATES: Well, not Bessent. David Sanger, Henrietta Levin, excuse me,
thank you so much for joining tonight. And still ahead, Elizabeth Holmes reportedly set to leave prison early as she appears in a new and gripping documentary that's raising all sorts of questions. Plus, a former "American Idol" contestant on trial for the murder of his wife, facing some tough testimony from his alleged mistress.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: How often would he make statements about wanting Ashley to die?
ALLEIGHA BOTNER, CALEB FLYNN'S ALLEGED MISTRESS: That's probably at least once a month.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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[23:40:00]
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COATES: You know, every case has that moment when a witness could take the stand and make or break the case. Well, today may have brought that moment in the murder trial of a former "American Idol" contestant who was accused of killing his wife in Ohio.
Caleb Flynn is accused of killing his wife, Ashley, and then staging the murder scene to look like a burglary. Prosecutors say that he did it to be with his mistress. And today, that mistress, Alleigha Botner, spoke about their years-long relationship. She says she gave him an ultimatum, leave your wife or end the affair. And she read in court through of his messages where Flynn wished his wife would die.
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BOTNER: Caleb said on the same day, I'm sorry to what she does to both of us, but mostly you. I hate her as well, and I want her gone. Caleb said on March 21st, 2025, I miss you already, and I hate her with all that is in me. He said, yep, crying.
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UNKNOWN: Nineteen thousand, seven hundred.
BOTNER: I said, what can I do?
UNKNOWN: Nineteen thousand, seven hundred and one.
BOTNER: And he said, kill her.
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COATES: Now, those are some of the 100,000 messages that prosecutors say Botner and Flynn exchanged. And when Alleigha Botner heard about Ashley Flynn's death on the very same day, Botner says Caleb planned to divorce his wife, Ashley, Botner says she was shocked.
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BOTNER: My heart started pounding. And, you know, in my mind, it just -- it seemed like too much of a coincidence that the day he's divorcing her, she's just dead all of a sudden.
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COATES: Now, Flynn has denied any involvement in the death of his wife. I want to bring in former federal prosecutor and the president of West Coast Trial Lawyers, Neama Rahmani. Neama, good to see you. We keep meeting like this on cases like this. And Botner's testimony was incredibly damning, especially reading all the times that Caleb texted her that he wanted his wife dead. So, how does the defense respond to that convincingly?
NEAMA RAHMANI, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR, PRESIDENT OF WEST COAST TRIAL LAWYERS: Laura, you're right. Unfortunately, we always meet and talk when something bad has happened. And today was very bad for the defense. They're going to have a difficult time overcoming this.
And you touched upon it. One hundred thousand messages between the two, 300 a day. And the substance of those messages. Flynn saying that he wanted his wife actually dead and wish there was some way it could happen without him going to jail. And just the cringe worthy nature of the discussions of Ashley Flynn. They called her spawn of Satan, a douche.
And I think really the timing is the most damaging thing for the defense. The fact that that night before Ashley Flynn was murdered, Caleb sends Botner a text message saying, tomorrow is the day I'm going to be a free man. She, of course, interpreted that to mean that he was finally divorcing his wife. But lo and behold, she was shot three times in her own home. I think it's going to be very hard. But tomorrow is going to be key. That's when the defense begins this cross cross-examination of Botner.
COATES: And the defense was able to get an FBI special agent to reveal that Botner had a contentious relationship with Ashley Flynn and that Ashley suspected the two of having an affair. I wonder how much that's going to come into all of this.
But Neama, Botner got some credibility issues of her own. I mean she admitted that she lied to the FBI when they first interviewed her. Listen.
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UNKNOWN: Why did you lie to the FBI during that first interview?
BOTNER: I was selfishly afraid that my reputation was going to be ruined and that I was going to lose my job. And now that there was a murder attached, I didn't want -- I didn't want to be attached to them, anyway. So, I was, unfortunately, just trying to save myself from my reputation being ruined and from losing my job. UNKNOWN: What caused you to tell them more of the truth that day?
BOTNER: It was when they found text messages on Ashley's phone.
UNKNOWN: Text messages between them?
BOTNER: Her and a friend.
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COATES: So, do you think that her credibility issues now that she said that she initially lied, whatever reason she gave, is that going to undermine and overshadow the rest of her testimony?
RAHMANI: Potentially, yes. The defense is going to have to go after her very aggressively tomorrow, argue that she's a jilted ex who has a reason to lie because really what came out today, I couldn't believe the defense didn't object. They allowed her to testify that she believed, Botner believed that Caleb Flynn murdered his wife, Ashley. I mean, that's completely objectionable.
But you touched upon it. Here's how I expect the cross-examination to go. The lies to FBI, the fact that she used ChatGPT and sent it to Caleb, and advised him how to delete messages. Speaking of deleting messages, she had two electronic devices, a laptop that was lost on an airplane and the phone that fell into the ocean while she was kayaking.
So, the defense is going to say that this is someone that has every reason to lie. She has already lied to law enforcement, and she's lying on the stand. This is the prosecution star witness. So, they're not going to hold back, pull any punches tomorrow. Expect to see fireworks in that courtroom, Laura.
COATES: I mean, the prosecutors, they continue to accuse Flynn of staging the home to look like a burglary. And today, they literally brought the garage door and frame from his home to illustrate the point. And detectives who testified, the damage that was on it did not show any evidence of any forced entry. That's quite demonstrative. I mean, a garage door.
RAHMANI: Yes, we've seen it all. Usually, you go to the scene of the murder. In this particular case, they brought the scene into the courtroom. And this is one of the prosecution's big theories of the case, that the entry into the home, it only could have happened with someone with access to the inside.
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So, the murder weapon was the firearm that was in Caleb Flynn's vehicle. And we heard his mistress today testified that she actually saw that murder weapon. Now, of course, the defense is arguing that the intruder broke into the home, broke into the car, got the firearm, and used it to kill Ashley Flynn. The prosecution is arguing, no, this was an inside job and completely staged. And I think that garage door testimony and the refrigerator that was blocking that door, it's going to be very important. The prosecution talked about that a lot in the beginning of this case and it's opening.
COATES: We'll keep following it. Neama Rahmani, thank you.
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NATHAN FIELDER, DOCUMENTARY DIRECTOR: So, where did things get lost? Like, how are you where you are right now?
ELIZABETH HOLMES, CONVICTED OF FRAUD: I -- I wish I knew, you know? I -- I don't know.
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COATES: Elizabeth Holmes getting her close-up after a secret production before she got locked up. This incredible trailer has everyone talking and you're going to see why, next.
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FIELDER: Does any part of you worry about me being here 24-7?
HOLMES: I don't think so.
FIELDER: What if I see something that makes you look bad?
HOLMES: I think this is the moment in time to capture this story before I'm gone.
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COATES: A new stunning look at Elizabeth Holmes 34 days before she reported to prison for defrauding investors while running her failed blood testing startup Theranos. And tonight, ABC news reports her next chapter may already be taking shape. The DOJ has greenlit a plan to move Holmes to a halfway house in August of 2027. Her more than 11- year prison sentence has already been reduced by a year.
Well, my next guest knows this story inside and out. He covered her federal fraud trial. CNN contributor Jacob Ward joins me now. All right, Jacob, I mean, she insists in this new documentary that she did nothing wrong.
JACOB WARD, CNN CONTRIBUTOR, TECHNOLOGY JOURNALIST, PODCAST HOST: Yes.
COATES: Are we actually seeing the real Holmes here? WARD: I mean, that seems to be the theme. There was a tremendous portrait of her done by "The New York Times" back in 2023. And, you know, at that time, too, that reporter came away utterly flummoxed by who she was. Is she a real person or, you know, was she constructing this other thing?
I will say, you know, she, by her own account, says that who she was, as the founder of Theranos, right, 19-year-old Stanford dropout, suddenly wearing the turtlenecks of Steve Jobs and speaking in this very low voice which she no longer speaks in, she says that that was an act in order to project a certain kind of business acumen, to be taken seriously in a man's world. So, is this a new act? Is this what she is and who she is? We don't know, right?
The motivations here are so -- are so complex. I am so interested by the access that this movie seems to have gotten and so impressed by Nathan Fielder getting that close to somebody. So, I'll be very curious to see what people think.
COATES: There's a moment when it's a very buzzworthy one in which she talks about vulnerability. Listen.
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HOLMES: I mean, it took me a really long time to be OK with -- with letting someone see me cry.
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COATES: And almost right on cue, by the way, she sheds like a single tear.
WARD: Yes.
COATES: Read that moment for me, based on what you know.
WARD: I mean, I would just say that to understand someone like this, I think it's important to understand the culture of Silicon Valley. That is a very constructed set of people.
You have very outcome, oriented professionals raised intellectually from the moment certainly they enter college, sometimes beforehand, to be a certain kind of highly-effective person to the point where, you know, today, you can buy the services of these firms that will try to turn, you know, a dollars and cents entrepreneur into like a character because they do so much better in their lives and they get so much attention, right?
Elon Musk gets by without a P.R. department or without any kind of marketing surely through the force of his or the colorfulness of his of himself, right?
And so, someone like Holmes, I think, being perhaps sort of adrift as to who she really is, makes perfect sense to me considering she comes from this culture in which there is a literal industry built around constructing a persona for who you are and a world in which you are so deeply judged, not on the content of your character, but on how much money you have.
COATES: You know, she stood out for a number of reasons, not the least of which being somebody who was a woman founder.
WARD: Yes.
COATES: What is the legacy of what has happened to her? How does that impact others who come after her?
WARD: Well, I mean, let's consider for a second the numbers. Last year, 1.1 percent of all venture capital money went to all female teams, 1.1 percent. There are no all-male, all-female teams in the list of unicorns, the billion-dollar companies that are out there right now. And yet women, when you give them a company and they run it, the studies show they make 78 cents on a dollar of investment, whereas male-funded companies on average make a 31-cent return on a dollar investment.
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They run more efficient companies, and they get a tiny fraction of the numbers. So, do I think that's a reason to lie to investors? No. Is there an enormous world in Silicon Valley of people outrunning the truth of what they've made? Elon Musk has done it for years. But our federal securities laws, as you know, they punish you for lying about what you can do now, not for falsely promising what you're going to produce in the future.
COATES: I'm curious if they've learned anything from her. Jacob Ward, thank you for coming.
WARD: Appreciate for being here.
COATES: Nice to see you.
WARD: Thank you.
COATES: Remember, you can stream my show live or watch on demand any time with an All Access subscription. Scan the Q.R. code on your screen or go to cnn.com/watch to learn more.
Thanks for watching. Here comes Elex Michaelson with "The Story Is."
