Return to Transcripts main page
Laura Coates Live
CNN White House Reporters Denied Access to Xi's Dinner Arrival; Trump Welcomes Xi to White House with Lavish Praise and Targets Democrats; Talarico Offers Paxton a Fox Debate. Aired 11p-12a ET
Aired September 24, 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]
JASON RANTZ, SEATTLE RED RADIO HOST, AUTHOR: Well, the people who don't take him seriously never took him seriously to begin with. I don't like the whole idea that we pretend that his personality just came out of nowhere and that he hasn't always kind of talked like this. Argue that it's inappropriate or unpresidential. I think that's a fair criticism. I just don't like pretending that an obvious joke is an obvious joke.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR AND SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: All right, everyone. Before we go, remember you can stream the show live or watch on demand anytime with an all-access subscription. Scan that Q.R. code at the bottom of your screen or go to cnn.com/watch to learn more.
Thanks for watching "NewsNight." "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
LAURA COATES, CNN HOST AND SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Tonight, round two of President Trump's press fight. The White House bar CNN and MS NOW reporters from an event this evening. Where will this go next? Plus, Trump hands plenty of praise to China's leader and plenty of ammunition to Democrats running against Republicans. And James Talarico issues a political challenge to one Ken Paxton in the most favorable Republican arena he could think of. Tonight on "Laura Coates Live."
So, if you wanted to know if today's ruling would put to bed Trump's push to limit press access at the White House, you're getting an answer tonight. The president was hosting Chinese leader Xi Jinping for a state dinner, but reporters for CNN and MS NOW were denied access to cover the guest arrivals, which makes for some pretty serious whiplash because just a few hours before, Trump was accusing both outlets of the exact opposite, claiming they -- quote -- "refused" to cover Xi at the White House this very morning.
But I don't know what happened. First of all, CNN and MS NOW journalists were literally trying to get into the White House earlier today. Some were still being barred entry until about noon despite a judge's order at 1 a.m. overnight temporarily restoring their access. And secondly, the rest of the networks that make up the T.V. pool is standing with CNN and not providing their video feeds for presidential events. It all means viewers, well, they're hearing things like this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: Normally, Jackie, we'd be watching a pretty elegant affair on the South Lawn, and we don't get access to that now.
UNKNOWN: We won't see it live because the five-network pool that would normally transmit those images is not operating.
UNKNOWN: There are so many images that he would want out for America to see that he's not seeing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: Now, the judge's order got CNN's hard passes back, but the pool still has no guarantee that CNN will be able to participate in pool duties. So, it's not exactly clear how long events like today will go without the usual T.V. coverage.
But you know who was there this morning? Chinese state media. And at one point, Trump reportedly said China had the friendliest press corps because they ask Xi if they can ask a question. Now, sure, it may be perhaps a joke unless, of course, he really does want to emulate Xi or wants it to become policy.
But if we know one thing, it's that the president's words have been used to justify or defend or explain his actions, whether you like it or not. And in a courtroom, it matters whether those words were the catalyst or reverse-engineered as mere pretext.
And the timeline, so important. You know the national security argument the administration is now leaning on to defend the press ban? Well, Judge Tim Kelly wrote this in his ruling: "Nothing in the record that predates this suit suggests that the revocation of plaintiffs' hard passes was motivated by national security concerns. Certainly, that is not what President Trump said when he announced that he was "banning" plaintiffs from the White House."
And he's right, the president's initial post did not mention anything at all about national security, only reporting he didn't like, and this isn't the first time that Trump's comments have now become part of a legal matter.
But we forget this, the infamous Trump post to then-Attorney General Pam Bondi when there was supposed to be a private message which demanded Bondi prosecute James Comey and Adam Schiff and Letitia James, where both Comey and James pointed to that post in court, arguing their prosecutions were vindictive. His words used in the context of litigation.
They also are undermining, I would think, the DOJ's ability to successfully defend their arguments. So, if the administration chooses to keep fighting this case, you can expect the president's statements to keep on coming up because the lawyer representing CNN, MS NOW, and Politico say Trump is giving him more evidence.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TED BOUTROUS, ATTORNEY REPRESENTING CNN, MS NOW, AND POLITICO: He is our lead witness in terms of showing this antipathy towards independent journalism and towards content. And that joke, it's not very funny. He's basically saying he likes an authoritarian government where there's no freedom of the press, and that is just more evidence for us that this is all about trying to control independent journalism.
[23:05:00]
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: Here to help us look where this legal battle might go next is chief supervising attorney for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, Conor Fitzpatrick. Conor, good to see you. Look, journalists were eventually allowed back in after Judge Kelly's ruling, but the White House blocked CNN and MS NOW reporters from covering state dinner arrivals. Does it seem like the White House is trying to get cute with restrictions that don't violate the judge's order but might go to the heart of the matter?
CONOR FITZPATRICK, CHIEF SUPERVISING ATTORNEY, FOUNDATION FOR INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND EXPRESSION: I think being cute with the order is being charitable. What we saw this morning was a nearly 10-hour delay between when Judge Kelly issued his temporary restraining order and when the hard passes were actually issued to the journalists and they were allowed to go back on the White House -- on the White House grounds.
Court orders are not optional. It is not up to the White House whether they want to abide by a court order. This is a federal court order that they had to comply with. And I think you're absolutely right. It seems like they are playing games and trying to walk right up to the line of contempt while seeing how little they can do to comply with this order.
COATES: I mean, the judge's order is actually for 14 days. It's part of the temporary restraining order process. It's not intended to be a full-blown evidentiary trial and beyond. It's not yet there. But during that order and in that order, he leaned heavily on the due process argument about notice, opportunity to be heard, the proper interest of the actual hard pass. How much more complicated does the legal fight get once it goes from this TRO stage to a more permanent litigation?
FITZPATRICK: It shouldn't get that much more complicated at all, and the reason for that is the law doesn't change. The First Amendment does not change. The Fifth Amendment does not change. And the fact is that President Trump issued these Truth Social posts on Friday afternoon over the weekend saying exactly why he was banning CNN and these other outlets from the White House grounds. He didn't like their coverage.
And the idea that they're going to submit these letters at the 11th hour in response to litigation to make it all OK is contrary to law. The Supreme Court was very clear on this just a few years ago in the Kennedy versus Bremerton case when they held that justifications for infringing on First Amendment rights must be genuine, not made up in response to litigation, but it seems like this national security excuse is exactly that.
COATES: It's interesting because what's that phrase? When somebody shows you who they are, believe them the first time. That's often left out. Believe them the first time, right? That's what he said. He did not articulate national security at all. He talked about the idea of essentially viewpoint, right? The context and the actual content of the report.
But Judge Kelly noted as much the skepticism that the original statements were undermining the national security argument. But they are hoping, I would assume, that that national security deference that Trump has seemingly become accustomed to -- he thinks it's a carte blanche. There's no exception, though, that says just if you say those words that you can undermine the Constitution.
FITZPATRICK: That's exactly right. And there is consistent Supreme Court precedent on the issue that the First Amendment does not go away just when someone says national security. We know that from the Pentagon papers case. We know it from cases like United States versus Robel where the Supreme Court has made clear time and time again that national security is not a magic incantation to make the right to free speech and a free press go away.
COATES: Indeed. We'll see what happens 14 days from now and every day in between. Conor Fitzpatrick, thank you so much.
With me now, creator of "Blow the Stack" on Substack, Charles Blow, CNN political commentator Brad Todd, and CNN analyst Zolan Kanno- Youngs. I'm glad to have all of you guys here on this. I love the name of the Substack, by the way.
(LAUGHTER)
I keep saying it. It all gets more creative as we think about it. But let me start with you, Charles, on that. What exactly does this president get from this fight with the media? Because one thing that he is known for and praised for among a lot of his base members has been that he can, you know, fight with the press, that he gets to spar, and he believes to show his force and authority.
CHARLES BLOW, CREATOR ON SUBSTACK, LANGSTON HUGHES FELLOW AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY: Yes. I do believe this is just part of the character. Man, he really does hate the fact that people are not praising him. But the problem is that he confuses decent, good coverage of bad ideas and bad policies as being unfair to him.
But if you look at the policies, I looked at part of the media research centers that he often quotes, you know, 92 percent of my coverage is bad, well, that's not exactly what that shows. But I looked at what they looked at, tariff policies. Well, you can't -- what is somebody supposed to do when they're writing about tariff policies if we see the impacts are happening on American people and the American people don't even like it? They talked about DOGE and how much bad coverage he got off of that.
[23:10:00]
Look at what DOGE did. They lied about how much they were going to save. They took credit for other people's cuts that were not even their own. They lied about that. They cut so much that particularly Black women saw disproportionate releases from federal government workforce. There are now hundreds of thousands, literally hundreds of thousands of deaths in Africa alone, most of them women and children. How are you supposed to write about that? How do I put a positive spin on that?
That is not the reporter's job. The reporter's job is to go out and figure out these are the facts of the case. So, what that report relied on is what they call evaluative statements, right? So, it's not even all the news. It's not even like they said we're going to look at every bit of news that was produced that had Donald Trump as a subject. That's not what they did. They said let's find 2,000 evaluative statements, we're going to look at those only and of those, how did they evaluate what the president had done? That is what they mentioned.
COATES: Brad, I mean, the voters know we're 40 days from an election. There are a number of concerns that are going to be very high on lists. I suspect at the very bottom, if it even made the cut, would be these evaluative statements. Why do you think Trump believes this is additive or helpful in the overall strategy of trying to secure Republican majorities?
BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: I think he got bad advice. I think it was a bad decision. I think he's going to lose in court, too. I think Sherrill v. Knight in the 1977 case is going to be pretty clear.
You know, to the extent his base wants him to fight with the press, that requires the press to be in the room for him to fight with them. And so, I do think his base likes that. I think -- I think that that is a thing that -- having this court fight with the press doesn't solve anything. And he's going to lose.
And the other thing about Trump's brand is it's a winner brand. A lot of people support Trump because they think he's a winner. He's not going to win this case in court, and they know that. The White House counsel has to know that. They wouldn't have advised it if they'd gone on that basis.
And so, I think it's going to cost him in the end. I think it's also a side issue, as you point out. It's a processed issue when the voters tend to vote on substance, things that are affecting them in their lives, not things that are happening to the president in his life.
ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES: I don't think this was part of the calculation for the midterms or there was any grand strategy here. The president did this because the president thought he could do this, right? He was very explicit and candid when he first announced this ban.
You know, he said to the pool that was in the Oval Office, I want better coverage, right? I'm paraphrasing. But he even said at one point, maybe we will let them back in if they fix what he has described as fake news, which tends to just be fair and critical coverage, right?
I also think it's important to note that this is a piece of a broader kind of -- a piece of a broader effort we've seen from this president and his administration when it comes to cracking down on those that question his power.
I know a lot of the attention is on this right now, but it's important to note we've already seen AP get restricted in terms of going to parts of the White House, members of Stars and Stripes be fired from the Pentagon because of coverage that the administration didn't like, not to mention the president also urged the FCC to restrict licenses, restrict visas from people that, you know, display views that they deem to not be aligned with the administration.
COATES: All of which puts into a different context the joke today about President Xi Jinping and China having what is the friendliest press corps. I know we are so accustomed to, oh, that's a joke, and someone saying don't take him seriously, literally, whatever the phrase is. But when you articulate it in that very fashion, it puts a whole different perspective on whether it's a joke with an intention to actually share one's true views or not.
But I want to turn for a second to this White House, that they're airing a new government-funded, that's an important phrase, a government-funded T.V. ad that they say is a PSA to remind Americans to love their country. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Together, we will defeat communism, socialism, and Marxism in America.
America will never be a communist country.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: So, first of all, I wonder if Kanye has said that he can play that music in the background. That's a whole different conversation, different day. However, let me turn to you, Brad. The idea that that's kind of a campaign ad -- I'm taking out the word "kind" and saying that's a campaign ad. It looks a lot like it, doesn't it? Should taxpayers be the ones to try to have to fund this and why?
TODD: Well, I make campaign ads --
COATES: Yes.
TODD: -- and that does look a lot like a campaign ad. I've never liked these things. I've never liked when politicians use government money for PSAs, whether they're pushing an accomplishment they just did or they're asking people to join in a program. I really never -- I've never been a fan of them.
And, you know, public funding of campaigns is something Democrats push. Republicans tend to oppose public funding, using taxpayer money for campaigns, and the taxpayers are against it.
[23:15:00]
By 80-20 margins, taxpayers don't want to see government money go to campaigns. Democrats tried to jam a bill through the Congress three years ago to make it the law of the land. So, I'm against it.
BLOW: That's a whole other -- that's a whole other thing.
TODD: I'm against it. I'm against it.
BLOW: That's a whole other thing.
TODD: No, it's not. It's taxpayer money for campaigns.
BLOW: They were literally trying campaign reform to get wealthy -- the billionaire money out of -- out of politics. Did it have taxpayer money paid for campaigns?
BLOW: And that is --
TODD: Yes or no?
BLOW: You're trying to confuse the issue here.
TODD: No, I'm not.
BLOW: The point --
COATES: I want to hear you. Go ahead.
BLOW: The point was literally, yes, to use taxpayer money to make sure that rich people did not overwhelm the system.
TODD: Did it have taxpayer money paid for campaigns?
BLOW: What's that?
TODD: Did it have taxpayer money paid for political campaigns?
BLOW: Absolutely. But in the context of campaigns -- you can't just shake your arms like I'm going to stop talking. This doesn't do anything.
TODD: I know. You don't stop talking ever.
COATES: Hold on. I want --
BLOW: I'm not going to stop talking at this point because I'm going to --
COATES: I want to hear what you say and make the point that you want to make.
BLOW: Right. Exactly. So, that is in the context of campaign reform. What we were trying to do is get dark money, wealthy people out of the system. And if we could agree to say that we will match funds from the public using, yes, tax dollars, then we would get the rich money, the dark money out of politics. That's a whole different scenario than what is happening here, where this looks like exactly what happened at that ridiculous midterm RNC. You cannot take those words.
TODD: Can I answer your first question?
COATES: I want to hear it after.
TODD: He's going to start a whole other line of conversation.
COATES: Well, no. Well -- gentlemen, gentlemen, this is the 11 p.m. I'll let both of you speak. I want to hear what you have to say, and I'll give you a chance to respond.
BLOW: Let him be --
COATES: But you wanted to finish the point about the midterm convention, and then you'll go on.
BLOW: Right. Well, I'm just saying, how do you separate what that ad was saying from what exactly the language that was used in that midterm convention, which means that it was definitely a political ad coming from the White House, whole different thing than a political campaign?
TODD: I told you it looked like a political ad. I acknowledge that. I'm violently agreeing with you. The point is, you did say you would like to put government money back in campaigns. Now, you have a reason for it.
The First Amendment is still going to let anybody who's rich advertise and speak as they should in this free country we still have. Government money for campaign ads is something the public opposes. For your reasons, for Donald Trump's reasons, for anybody's reasons, it's an 80-20 issue. And Democrats in the United States Congress tried to make it the law of the land. I'm glad it didn't pass then. I wish they weren't doing it now.
COATES: The name of the new show, violent agreement.
(LAUGHTER)
Stand by, gentlemen. Still ahead, Trump gives Republicans one more thing to complain about, his lavish praise of President Xi Jinping. And later, Trump's "pretend I'm on the ballot" tour gets two new stops. It has some Republicans, shall I say, a little worried.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [23:20:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COATES: Right now, the state dinner between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping is wrapping up at the White House. And on the menu, sesame-crusted sea bass for dinner with conversations about the future of A.I. on the side. And the biggest tech titans in the world were invited to this dinner, including the leaders of NVIDIA and OpenAI and Google and Microsoft.
But Trump's tone has clearly shifted on the U.S.-China relationship. You know, when President Obama hosted Xi for a state dinner a decade ago, Trump said it was -- quote -- "so wrong," and he blasted the pomp and circumstance that accompanied that visit.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs is back with me. And joining us now as well, Josh Rogin, lead global security analyst for Washington Post Intelligence and the author of "Chaos Under Heaven: Trump, Xi, and the Battle for the 21st Century," making you a perfect addition to this conversation.
I'll begin, though, with you, Zolan, because you were in the room tonight and noted that Trump said that he and Xi have -- quote -- "never gotten along better." But both sides are really just trying to hammer out policy related to A.I. So, is this summit going to move the needle or is this sort of just described as a potential point of dialogue?
KANNO-YOUNGS: If the summit is moving the needle, there's absolutely little sign of it, and officials from either side haven't shown us anything to really think that, right? There are significant issues and points of concern hanging over this summit. It is an important one, right? Concerns over A.I., despite the fact that the president just a couple of days ago dismissed those concerns. Not to mention Taiwan, as well as a shaky trade truce. They did announce an extension by two months, but that's still up in the air. What China's policies mean for the agriculture community in the United States. There are significant concerns at play.
But today, instead of really hearing any detailed explanation of a collaborative solution moving forward, you saw a president that appeared, at least in public, we don't know what happened in private, to be more focused on the lavish display, the pomp and circumstance. It almost seemed like he was leaning into his -- what he deems to be a growing personal relationship to strengthen ties here. While Xi, on the other hand, was more pointed at times, right? He did have that comment about wanting more human control over A.I. That's more than we've heard from President Trump at this point.
COATES: What do you think?
JOSH ROGIN, LEAD GLOBAL SECURITY ANALYST FOR THE WASHINGTON POST, AUTHOR: Yeah, I've interviewed President Trump about his relationship with Xi Jinping. President Trump thinks they're friends. He thinks they really, really like each other. He thinks that that friendship can get all sorts of things for Trump and for the United States. He thinks that President Xi is not going to attack Taiwan because he wouldn't do that to his friend, Donald Trump. That's how Trump really thinks about it.
Trump is also not a China hawk.
[23:24:57]
You know, in his first term, he had a lot of China hawks around, Pompeo and Pence and these kinds of guys. Not so much anymore. What Trump believes, again, I've talked to him about this a lot, is that the U.S. and China should have sort of an agreement to sort of divvy up the world, spheres of influence, and then just sort of get along as much as possible. That's what Xi Jinping believes.
Now, the problem, of course, is that on the Chinese side, they're doing a lot of things that threaten our national security, our public health, our prosperity.
COATES: Why the plays?
ROGIN: Well, because Trump is not a China hawk. He doesn't really care about that kind of stuff. It's about business. It's about, you know, investment. It's about keeping sort of, you know, keeping the relationship in check so that he can pursue his other adventures like in Iran, etcetera.
And you could say that plays into Xi Jinping's hands because if you think about the things that are really threatening us, well, China is expanding militarily. They're interfering in democracies. They are, you know, stealing our intellectual property. There's a long list of things. They're providing intelligence to the Iranians to kill Americans in the Middle East. It's really hard to address those things when the main goal of your policy is just to keep everything really copacetic.
COATES: I want to hear both your opinions on the fiery speech of President Benjamin Netanyahu, where he went after Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL: Shame on you. Shame on you for distorting the facts. Shame on you for inverting victim and aggressor. Shame on you for spitting in the face of truth. Mr. Mamdani, since you were elected mayor of this city, many Jews no longer feel safe in New York. They talk to me. They tell me. This isn't the city we remember.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: You know, first of all, many delegates did walk out, and Mamdani did respond to that attack, saying Netanyahu's statements are -- quote -- "meant to sanitize his genocide of Palestinians" -- unquote. Zolan, how is this speech going to be received?
KANNO-YOUNGS: Well, I think what the reporting shows is that this speech, the fact that you saw so many people exiting as well, the fact that so many people have already, in their lead-up to this speech at the U.N. General Assembly, criticized Israel and criticized its handling of the war in Gaza and what have you, it shows just how isolated Israel is, right, and the global stage right now, probably with the exception of the U.S., actually, which seems to be one of the few that are supporting them.
And even the U.S. in recent months, when you look at Vice President J.D. Vance, when he was at the lectern, he had that quote about how Israel should stop criticizing the U.S. because they're so isolated. So, even the U.S. and the Trump administration has had some criticism from them recently.
COATES: Quick.
ROGIN: Yeah. He says -- Benjamin Netanyahu says that New York Jews tell him that New York is not safe. I know a lot of Jews in New York. I talked to them. I'm related to some of them. They have lots of different views about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict all over the map. Many of them are horrified by what Israel has done. Many of them support Israel.
So, he doesn't speak for New York Jews and nobody really does. I think what you're seeing here is that he's reacting personally to Mamdani's attacks and failing to realize that actually Israel's support amongst young people, not just in New York, but on the left and the right in America, is going down. But he doesn't want to deal with that. He can't help but fighting the personal battle.
COATES: Gentlemen, thank you both so much. Up next, the midterm panic continues as Republicans find out where Trump plans to campaign next. Just wait until you see where he's going. Plus, James Talarico makes a brand-new debate offer to Ken Paxton that, frankly, may be hard for him to turn down. What is he going to do? We'll talk about it, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JAMES TALARICO (D-TX), TEXAS SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: Ken Paxton has been dodging debates all year, and it's why today I'm challenging Ken Paxton to a debate on Fox News. Let's go to Ken Paxton's safe space. Let's do -- let's do Bret Baier on Fox News. I'll go into the lion's den because I know what I believe. I am proud of my record, and I'm not afraid of hard questions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: I think that's the equivalent of meet me in the parking lot, right? Democrat James Talarico stepping on the gas in his race for Senate in Texas. You heard the man. He's willing to go on Fox News to debate Ken Paxton. And as of this hour, no word of Paxton will take him up on that offer.
But the challenge comes as poll after poll suggests that the race is a real toss-up. And "The New York Times" is giving us some insight into just why that may be. They actually held a focus group with some Texas Republican voters and asked them this question: When you hear the name Ken Paxton, what comes to mind? The answers? Bad; amoral; two words, morally corrupt; disgusting; womanizer; crook. Perhaps there were some good words in there. They didn't highlight those.
But Charles Blow and Brad Todd are back with me now. Brad, I mean, if you were advising Ken Paxton, what's the case to be made for accepting or rejecting that Fox News debate offer? And by the way, I don't know that Fox News has agreed to it, but Talarico wants it.
TODD: Well, moments of strength are really important in a campaign. And I would not blow this off if I was Ken Paxton. I think that he has to prove that he is the stronger candidate in the race, and he is the most confident candidate in the race.
[23:35:00]
And so, if I were him, I would one-up him and say, no, in fact, I don't want to debate you there, I'll debate you in Texas at anywhere you want, let's debate five times, let's debate every week between now and the election.
COATES: Why not Fox, though?
TODD: Well, I think it's a trick. This is a Talarico trick. It's a gimmick. But I think he should say, no, I don't want to be in any ideological safe space, I want to be with a wide-open spectrum of people in Texas. And so, I would go, let's go to Midland one day, let's go to Dallas one day, let's go to Houston one day, let's just get a flatbed trailer and debate out in the parking lot somewhere and let constituents come.
But Ken Paxton is in trouble. He's going to win. But he shouldn't be in this much trouble in the end of September. And it's costing Republicans in other races. He's a weak fundraiser. He is a tougher general election lift than John Cornyn would have been if he'd been the nominee. But he's draining money that should be going to races in states that are harder than Texas.
COATES: Yes. Let me talk about that because we found out tonight, by the way, Charles, that Trump is making good on his promise to go out and campaign ahead of the midterms. But just look at some of the places. You've got Mobile, Alabama. You've got Durant, Oklahoma as well. Durant is one of the reddest districts in the country and Trump, by the way, carried it with 77 percent of the vote in 2024. Given what we talked about in Texas, for example, does this make sense to you, his plan?
BLOW: Well, they're desperate, so they're going into red places that you should never have to go into. And also, on Paxton, he can't debate because President Trump has already set the bar in the basement. He has basically said he is not good at talking on T.V. He says he wears ugly suits, and he's ugly. So, what's he going to do, show up and confirm what the president has said about him already? He can't do it at that point because the bar is literally in the basement.
But the president now has to go out and Republicans now have to spend tons of money in Texas to try to make up for the fact that they had a candidate who had a real measurable scandal and they kept trying to manufacture scandals around Talarico by saying, oh, he doesn't eat meat, this is Texas, and he's not man enough. They tried to sissify him, right? Constantly. I saw Ted Cruz on T.V. talking about if I had a thousand words to describe masculine, none of them would be Talarico. They tried to emasculate --
TODD: No. They --
BLOW: I will finish. They tried to emasculate him, and it didn't work because what they're basically saying to all the women of Texas is that if you're a gentleman, you're not a man. That just didn't work. And now, they realized that now they have to go and spend a bunch of money to make up for the fact that their strategy didn't work.
COATES: It does strike me when in a place like Texas, where it has been almost 30 years since you've had, you know, the true prospect of maybe a toss-up flip, that that would be the tactic, at least in part, to go against Talarico. I mean, Ken Paxson, certainly scandal-plagued, certainly justifiable criticism, but he has also been successful at running and winning in Texas. Why do you think it is he is in such trouble? Is it because of the scandals or is it because of the campaigning of Talarico and the shift in how voters in Texas think?
TODD: No. I think it's because we had a competitive Republican primary that divided the party right down the middle, and the scandal certainly played a role in that. But James Talarico is exactly the wrong candidate for Texas for Democrats. Partly, I mean, the beef thing was one thing, but it's a long, long list.
If Texas Democrats were serious about winning this race, they would have found a Hispanic sheriff who is a devout Catholic, is pro-life, pro-gun, and pro-border security, but pro-labor, pro-health care, pro- public schools. That's the kind of Democrat that can win in Texas. You can't win in Texas with an Austin Unitarian, and that's essentially what James Talarico is trying to project himself as. He's just too far left of the people of Texas. It's not going to work even against Ken Paxson, which is saying something.
BLOW: It's fascinating, but the polls are saying that it's a toss-up.
TODD: It's going to be close. It's going to be close.
BLOW: The polls are saying it's a toss-up. And, you know, I went back and I tried to see if Beto O'Rourke was ever leading. He let in one poll very early in the race. That is not the case with Talarico. You know, depending on which poll you get, whichever week, he's up in some of those polls. That is -- you know, Texas has been the white whale of the Democratic Party for decades. We kept aiming, aiming, aiming, aiming. He has a real shot. Now, I don't know that you say you're confident that Paxton is going to win, but I can't call it because the polls are all over the place and some of them put him ahead.
TODD: It's going to be close.
COATES: We'll see what happens in about 40 days from now. I wonder if everyone will be so sure-footed.
[23:40:00]
Charles Blow, Brad Todd, thank you both for coming.
TODD: Thank you.
COATES: Up next, Trump says he and Xi are aligned on A.I. Their alignment? Not changing a damn thing. My next guest is one of the leading A.I. experts who briefed Congress about the risks, and he'll join me live to respond to the president, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COATES: A.I. may have a P.R. problem. Its biggest boosters say the fears are overblown.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JENSEN HUANG, CEO, NVIDIA: I said there's zero chance that it is end of humanity by 2030. Twenty-thirty is around the corner. Of course, there's going to be -- there's going to be risk, but there's a lot of people working on really, really genuinely good.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: But Americans aren't exactly buying it. A new CNN poll shows that 82 percent are very concerned by how fast A.I. is moving. Today, President Trump said he wants to leave A.I. exactly where it is as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
[23:45:02]
According to a Chinese foreign ministry statement, Xi told the president, "Each side should play to its strengths rather than guard against each other and jointly guard against the misuse and malicious use of A.I."
With me now, Professor Max Tegmark of A.I. research at MIT and co- founder of the "Future of Life Institute." Now, he has been one of the world's leading voices, calling for urgent global oversight on this very technology. Professor, thank you for being here.
I want to pick your brain, if I can, because President Trump says leave A.I. as is, while President Xi wants to make sure A.I. is always under human control. So, tell me about this split screen between the two leaders on A.I. Which sounds like the better plan or one that will actually happen? MAX TEGMARK, PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS AT MIT, PRESIDENT OF FUTURE OF LIFE INSTITUTE: Well, I think that President Trump obviously wants to be humans in charge of the machines going into the future also. But it takes a bit of time for a lot of folks to just realize that the idea that we could actually lose control of A.I. is no longer something that sounds like science fiction in the future. It's something that's actually in the past now.
We've had these crazy incidents like most recently today. The Australians getting upset that an American bot went and hacked them. We had 1,200 bots that went rogue this summer, set up a secret message board, spent weeks doing weird things, and then went on a cybercrime spree without humans even knowing about it. You know, 1,200 of them, none of them snitched on the humans.
So, control loss is real, it's here, and that's why it's so important to remember that, you know, this stuff that has happened now would have sounded like total science fiction four years ago when we didn't even have talking A.I. like ChatGPT. So, the things we need to worry about that could happen in four years will sound like science fiction to us today.
COATES: I mean, even a year ago, four months ago, people might have thought this was hyperbolic or, you know, straight out of Hollywood in their scripts. And yet, you've got the NVIDIA CEO, Jensen Huang, who recently said, look, software breaks out of sandboxes all the time. That was -- again, in the new interview with my colleague, Anderson Cooper, though, he offered up this solution. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HUANG: Sandboxes can be built to be secure. We should containerize these agents. We should monitor these agents. We should containerize it. We should monitor it. We should develop that.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: But do you know how to?
HUANG: If we do those things, it is my belief that the incidents would not have happened.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: OK. So, let's use the word he used, containerize, OK? Do you buy that? Is that possible to do so when you've got A.I. that is rapidly outsmarting its creators? Can you so-called containerize it?
TEGMARK: Well, these companies claimed that they were containerizing them, keeping them locked away from the internet, and that they were monitoring them. This happened, anyway. It's only going to get worse, of course, as these A.I. systems get ever smarter, which is exactly what these companies are trying to do. They're trying to have machines improve themselves until they get so-called superintelligence, vastly smarter than any of us.
I think it's obvious that this is a national security threat, and the companies are only going to be sufficiently careful with this once the government tells them they can't sell their products until they're safety-tested, you know? We do that with all the other companies. You can't sell baby food or --
COATES: Any number of products, right, that don't have oversight. That's a good point to look at. That's interesting because we've seen multiple tech CEOs who've been going on quite the massive P.R. press tour lately.
And I do wonder, given their request for regulation and that many people are skeptical about when anyone says, please, please regulate me, I'd like you to regulate me, but is it a quiet admission on their part that they're aware that there are some problems that they don't quite know how to solve yet or they are concerned about the safety of even their competitors and their ability to solve those problems?
TEGMARK: They are absolutely concerned. The concern they have is real. But self-regulation is a joke. That's what got us into this mess with these rogue bot swarms. So, the only way to fix this is if we have binding safety standards that the companies have to meet. That's why our medicines are safe, because the companies can't sell them until they've gone through a clinical trial, right?
[23:49:55]
What I'm encouraged about is something really new here, which is it's not just those CEOs that are reacting, but there's this incredible bipartisan awakening. You know, just last week, I was introducing Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon back-to-back, and they were basically both saying the same thing, got to keep humans in charge of this, got to keep those companies accountable. We had the head of the AFL-CIO speaking. We had the heads of leading faith groups. I've never been in a meeting with so much bipartisan consensus, and this gives me hope that we're going to start steering this powerful technology in a better direction.
COATES: Well, here's to the glass half full. Professor Max Tegmark, thank you so much.
TEGMARK: Thank you.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALLEIGHA BOTNER, CALEB FLYNN'S ALLEGED MISTRESS: Sorry. I just wish I didn't say this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: Another day of gripping testimony from the ex-mistress of Caleb Flynn as she reveals that she once texted that she wanted his wife dead. Lots to unpack with this testimony, and we'll do it, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:55:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COATES: The murder trial of former "American Idol" contestant and youth pastor Caleb Flynn took a dramatic turn. Flynn is accused of killing his wife. And his alleged mistress, Alleigha Botner, returned to the stand today, and she read more of a hundred thousand messages between the two of them, and one had an explosive twist.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOTNER: Sorry. I just wish I didn't say this.
UNKNOWN: What was the message said?
BOTNER: It says -- it says, I want to kill her, Caleb.
UNKNOWN: Who said that?
BOTNER: Me.
UNKNOWN: Next message.
BOTNER: I said it's so bad.
UNKNOWN: Next message.
BOTNER: He said that makes two of us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: Ashley Flynn was killed earlier this year, on the very day that Alleigha Botner says that Caleb vowed to file for divorce. Prosecutors accuse Caleb of killing his wife, but he denies doing it.
I want to bring in former state attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, Dave Aronberg. Dave, I mean, do Botner's messages change anything about how the prosecution will approach this case? They're not co-defendants. He's the defendant, the lone defendant. She is the alleged former mistress reading through their messages. But does this change their approach? Should it?
DAVE ARONBERG, FORMER STATE ATTORNEY, PALM BEACH COUNTY: No. Laura, they brought out the worst. They took the sting out of it by bringing out the worst text during direct examination. So, it wouldn't be a surprise on cross when she was wishing that her boyfriend's wife would be killed. And that is wishful thinking.
It's not a crime, though. And that's where people are like, why would they put handcuffs on her? Well, because there's no proof that she was an accomplice. She didn't take any action. She didn't even encourage him to kill her. She's engaging in this fantasy, this wishful thinking.
And that's not a crime. And you can tell because the prosecution didn't even offer her a deal. There was no immunity here. They're not focusing on her. They know she's a key witness here because she can authenticate all those hundred thousand plus text messages. Plus, she provides the motive that's so crucial to prove this case and evidence of premeditation.
COATES: You know, she did tell Caleb he shouldn't kill his wife, he should get a divorce instead. I should mention that. But the jury is going to look at what she said and the context overall. And Dave, during cross, Botner actually walked back her messages saying she wanted to kill Ashley. And listen to what she had to say about Caleb's threats against his own wife.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: You made a comment during direct examination that when you had said that you wanted to kill Ashley, that you didn't mean it.
BOTNER: I didn't.
UNKNOWN: And at the time, you didn't believe that Caleb meant it either when he said it.
BOTNER: I did not believe he meant it.
UNKNOWN: And why didn't you believe he meant it?
BOTNER: I don't think he could ever be capable of doing something like that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: That's helpful for the defense, don't you think?
ARONBERG: Yes, but there's so much evidence here. I mean, they got hundred thousand text messages where he's saying that he wants to kill his wife. That is like -- they call her by such a disgusting name, I'm not going to say it here, that the jury is going to hate him and not necessarily like her.
But she did write, and you pointed this out, I'm not asking you to take her life, obviously, because that's not what you should do. And then once she found out that his wife was killed, she said, what just happened? Were you involved in this? And so, she wasn't, even though she's morally reprehensible. But a criminal, maybe. When it comes to destroying evidence, she did that with her phone and her computer and lying to investigators, but --
COATES: On that point, let me talk about that because, you know, the defense questioned her about the phone and laptop she lost during the trip to Florida. She also told the defense that she had built up resentment and jealousy against Ashley because Caleb hadn't left her yet. Again, these are comments she has made. She is not the defendant. But there is also no murder weapon here. Is the defense setting up possibly implanting this seed of doubt that somebody else was involved, even if there has not been the allegation or indictment?
ARONBERG: Yes. They said some intruder came in, and it was a home invasion robbery where nothing was taken, nothing except for the gun that was owned by Caleb Flynn that was stolen from the console of his truck. [00:00:00]
Ah, what an unlucky guy he is, that the murder weapon, it looks like it disappeared and was stolen from his car or else, he would have protected his family. The guy is dead to rights. They got so much evidence about him, so many text messages, so much motive. Done.
COATES: We'll see what happens. Dave Aronberg, thank you so much.
Remember, you can watch the show and stream my show live or watch on- demand any time with an All Access subscription. Just scan that Q.R. code on your screen or go to cnn.com/watch to learn more.
And thank you so much for watching. Here comes "The Story Is with Elex Michaelson" next.
