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Big Tech Leaders Call for A.I. Slowdown Amid Safety Concerns; D.C. Police Search for Single Mother Who Vanished Ten Days Ago; Rushing Floodwaters Swamp Connecticut Neighborhoods. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired September 14, 2026 - 10:00   ET

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

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, A.I. alarm, competing CEOs now joining forces to warn about the pace of A.I. development and its potential threat. We are live on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are under pressure to act.

Plus, record highs, diesel, oil, gas. The war with Iran keeps driving up prices. How much more you might pay to stay warm this winter.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Also, growing measles outbreak. Pennsylvania officials now say a third person has died. What we're learning this morning.

And secret benefactor, a ProPublica investigation reveals that a Russian oligarch reportedly footed a big part of the bill for Don Jr.'s wedding in the Bahamas. Why would someone so close, closely linked to Putin spend thousands on the president's son?

Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer with Pamela Brown, and you're in The Situation Room.

Happening now, lawmakers returning to Capitol Hill and facing ominous new warnings about artificial intelligence and its potential threat to humanity. One of the technology's pioneers, the CEO of Anthropic, is now calling for the industry to work together and slow down the rapid acceleration of A.I. And this morning, another tech giant echoed that message.

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SAM ALTMAN, CEO, OPENAI: I think it can simultaneously be true that if the world and the companies building this technology did not do things any differently they've been doing them in the past, there might be significant risk. But it would be insane not to adjust the way we all work and the way that we make decisions and the way that our governments understand and put guardrails around this technology.

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BROWN: Elon Musk is also joining the call for new regulation. But in Washington, this issue is largely divided along party lines.

And we're also hearing from top A.I. researchers who have resigned in protest from the industry. They are deeply worried that this independent super intelligence is racing toward a point that humans will no longer be able to restrain it.

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JACOB COXON, QUIT ANTHROPIC OVER A.I. FEARS: I think that if you extrapolate into the future the level of capabilities of these A.I.s with the same independent volition, they could cause extreme havoc, for example, hacking critical infrastructure, building extinction- level bioweapons. There's a lot of ways that the A.I. could actuate itself in the world.

JOE BENTON, QUIT ANTHROPIC OVER A.I. FEARS: I think that these technologies could impose, like a really, really dramatic level of risk on humanity, like up to potentially kind of being fatal for all of us in the next few years. And I think that it's really important that actually the public kind of -- the public knows about that. These labs should talk about what they're doing to mitigate those risks. And if we don't feel like it's enough, then we should do something about that.

JOSH ENGELS, QUIT DEEPMIND OVER A.I. FEARS: I'm most worried about, like, a, a second species kind of argument where these systems are eventually going to be much, much smarter than us. And then it doesn't exactly -- I don't exactly worry. I don't exactly know how this will play out, but it's kind of like saying, oh, well, we're ants. Let's invent humans. How -- what will they do? Will they kick over our anthill? Will they burn -- it doesn't really matter. It's just they won't -- we won't be in control of the future anymore. I think that's the important thing.

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BROWN: Pretty scary stuff. We're covering all the angles of this developing and deeply consequential story.

Let's begin with CNN A.I. Correspondent, Hadas Gold. Hadas, you have new reporting on what safeguards this industry is considering. What more can you tell us about that?

HADAS GOLD, CNN A.I. CORRESPONDENT: Yes. According to sources I spoke to in the industry, Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google have actually been in discussion for several weeks, if not months, about establishing an industry-wide standards body that would help set some sort of safety standards and do some evaluation and testing before models are deployed.

As it stands right now, there are no standards or regulations when it comes to most A.I. model development or their testing. So, what we saw, what happened with OpenAI, where their agents went rogue, escaped their lab environment, hacked into a completely different company's systems, there are no set standards for what those tests should look like or any safety standards. [10:05:02]

So, we now understand, according to my sources, that there have been conversations around this, and this was prompted in part back in July when Google DeepMind Founder Demis Hassabis posted a very long essay about the need for a sort of independent regulator of some point.

He modeled it under the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, calling it -- it would be a U.S.-led public-private partnership. The government would oversee it. It would be funded by the industry and staffed by independent technical experts.

Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, over the weekend in his proposal also suggested having independent third-party watchdogs embedded within the A.I. companies, referring also to the financial industry as a model for how this should be done. Take a listen.

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DARIO AMODEI, CEO, ANTHROPIC: There is precedent for this. If you look at how banks are regulated, right, there's all kinds of, you know, there's all kinds of rules about, you know, how banks are allowed to do their business, right, because, you know, we don't want to have financial crises. And one of the things that are done in some cases is, I think they're called supervisors in the financial industry, but they're folks who are independent of a company, who are embedded in the company day to day to check their practices.

And I think we can do the same thing in -- I think we can do the same thing in A.I.

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GOLD: And that got the rare endorsement from rivals Elon Musk and Sam Altman. The big question now, Wolf and Pam, is when will this actually happen? When will we see some action on any of these standards or any of these regulators or any of these embedded evaluators within these companies that will help assuage a lot of the fears we're hearing from the industry and from the public writ large?

BLITZER: All right. I want to quickly want to go to Lauren Fox, who's up on Capitol Hill. How much is this issue, this call for new A.I. safeguards, split along party lines?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, Wolf, right now I think a lot of lawmakers are just trying to wrap their heads around what is even possible given the fact that lawmakers are only in Washington for a couple of weeks.

The House is in session this week, then they depart for the October recess until after the midterm elections. You have the Senate in town for just a couple of weeks. And you do have a very stark divide that is emerging right now between Democrats, who are arguing that Congress needs to face this issue head-on. You had Sam Liccardo and Lori Trahan send a letter to the speaker on Friday asking Speaker Johnson to keep Congress in session so they could continue working on this, or at the very least have some kind of working group in town to try to put together legislation that everyone could agree on so they could deal with this head-on once they returned after the elections.

But you also have Republicans arguing that this is essentially right now up to A.I. industry itself, that they should be regulating this, that they know their industry better than Congress does. Take a listen to this divide that's emerging between Jeffries and Speaker Johnson.

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REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): We should take decisive action now so that we can slow down, as the CEOs have recently acknowledged, slow down the pace of development in order to protect the American people and ensure that A.I. is proceeding safely.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): The problem is they all have a different prescription on what they say the regulation is supposed to be. The problem is they're all competitors. Each one of them wants to maintain an edge over the others.

And Congress is obviously less qualified than the people who are pushing this frontier to know all the ins and outs of it.

If we overstep it, I'm telling you again, Jake, it could be a national security threat for every American.

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FOX: Now Leader Schumer, who's the Democratic leader in the Senate, he has actually called for a classified briefing for all members of the United States Senate to learn more about some of these potential issues with A.I. But, again, it's just not clear that any legislation's going to come together in the next five days. Pam, Wolf?

BLITZER: All right, stand by. Kevin Liptak is reporting from the White House for us. Kevin, the tech giants say slow down, but President Trump says essentially speed up because he views it as a race with China. How will that shape the Trump administration's approach?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, that's exactly right. And you're hearing real skepticism across the entire administration at these calls by the industry leaders to put new regulations in place, and questioning in some ways what their motives might be.

President Trump has just posted about this on Truth Social in the last couple of minutes or so. He said that the only control or guardrails that A.I. needs is a strong and smart president, and he says the U.S. has that in spades. And he says, in fact, that there are, quote, sick conspiracies going on against A.I. and data centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China.

And so the president really downplaying in a serious way the need for the administration to put any check on some of these models and some of these companies. We heard a similar perspective from the vice president, J.D. Vance. He was just out at Joint Base Andrews, headed out on a campaign swing.

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Here's what he said.

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

So, there are obviously risks to A.I. There are some benefits to A.I. I have to say, just personally, I feel a little bit weird about the fact that you have so many frontier A.I. tech companies kind of coming to the government and begging the government to regulate them. It feels a little bit to me like a bit of a Trojan horse. So, I think we just have to be careful about this.

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LIPTAK: Now, despite Vance and Trump's apparent lack of concern about this, you do hear from White House officials that they are planning to convene meetings this week with A.I. officials, with technology officials, to try and plot a plot a path forward. The other very important date on this will be next week when the president of China, Xi Jinping, will be here at the White House for a state visit.

A.I. almost certainly will be on the agenda there, and you've heard from the president, you've heard from Vance, concerns that if the administration tries to restrict American companies, that that could just allow China to get the upper hand here.

The last time President Xi and President Trump met back in May, they were not able to come up with any agreements on A.I., and certainly it does seem as if this time around the president is casting some skepticism that regulation is needed. But, obviously, that will be a very important moment in this ongoing debate.

BLITZER: It certainly will be. Kevin Liptak thanks very, very much, and thanks to Hadas Gold and Lauren Fox as well.

On this note, later tonight, you can watch Anderson Cooper's full interview with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. That's at 8:00 on AC360, 8:00 P.M. Eastern right here on CNN or stream with your All Access subscription. Pamela?

BROWN: And still ahead, will vanish without a trace. D.C. police are urgently searching for a mom who's been missing for ten days.

BLITZER: And later, you've heard of El Nino, but what about super El Nino? We'll explain what it is and how it could affect your weather.

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[10:15:00]

Happening now, the search for a missing single mother in the nation's capital is gaining more urgency right now. Police say 53-year-old Antoinette Forbes was last seen ten days ago near American University here in Washington.

Her loved ones say her disappearance is alarming because she left her car, her phones, her wallet, laptop, and her dog at home, and her front door was unlocked.

CNN National Correspondent Dianne Gallagher is joining us right now. So, Dianne, what leads are police chasing?

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, Wolf, I think that what's most important is how alarming that the loved ones of Antoinette Forbes have said that those circumstances you just described are in terms of her disappearance. The fact that her front door was unlocked and so many of those belongings, her laptop, both phones, her beloved dog, Max, and her car outside all left in the home. They say it is extremely out of character for this single mother of a ten-year-old son, who they describe she is so dedicated, to just vanish on her own accord, and do not believe that is the case.

Now, police say they do have an open investigation, but they have not given any additional details into that. No one has seen or heard from Antoinette Forbes in more than a week. They held a vigil on -- excuse me, on Saturday night, where friends continued to try and get the word out about her disappearance. Her sister last night, Aileen Forbes, sent me another statement saying that they are asking anybody to look through their doorbell cameras, their dash cameras, any kind of footage you may have security-wise if you live in that area around the 3200 block of Nebraska Avenue Northwest in Washington, D.C., to see if you have footage from over Labor Day weekend that may offer some clues as to where she may be or what may have happened to her. Wolf?

BLITZER: It's a really nice part of Washington, D.C., near American University, as many of us know.

Dianne Gallagher, thank you very, very much.

Coming up, a key oil pipeline attacked and shut down. How that could affect what you pay at the pump. That's ahead right here in The Situation Room.

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BROWN: Heavy rain leaving its mark on roads and neighborhoods in Connecticut. Some areas saw up to five inches in a matter of hours this weekend, and this was all part of a storm system that also sparked flash flood warnings in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

So, let's bring in meteorologist Derek Van Dam in the CNN Weather Center. Derek, another part of the country could also get severe weather this week, right? DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. That's right. We didn't think that Des Moines was going to be part of this weather that is going to cause so much trouble this week, but now we're looking towards the central plains as our trouble hotspot for severe storms, also the potential of flooding.

It's kind of the broader perspective. We've got a large storm system bringing a lot of heavy rainfall to central Iowa and even southern Minnesota as well. But Des Moines in particular these areas have already had a very wet September. They've already seen double their amount of average rainfall for the entire month of September, and we're not even rounding off the second half of the month just yet, right?

So, another seven inches potentially with this rainfall moving through and what's still to come this week. This could tie or at least break the potential for the rainiest September on record for Des Moines. So, that's what I'm talking about. This is this is the area that we're concerned about in terms of severe weather, damaging winds, large hail, a few tornadoes.

But timing things out, it's not just this first batch moving through, it's a secondary batch of rain as we see this kind of line up one after another after another. Pam?

BROWN: And so you have the Super El Nino that has officially developed. It's going to only get stronger. What exactly does that mean, and how will it impact our weather?

[10:25:00]

VAN DAM: Yes. Today's a really big milestone for that because what we've just seen from NOAA is that this area where we measure the surface temperatures of the ocean across the Equatorial Pacific has reached a threshold we call very strong El Nino, two point -- or two degrees Celsius above average.

And when you look at these other red lines, there's a lot of lines here, but these are the three other previous strongest events, '82 and 1997. And we're now reaching a point where we believe this trajectory, this breakneck speed that the water temperatures are warming, we're at a 75 percent likelihood, according to NOAA, that this could be the strongest El Nino, and that will impact our weather patterns, especially in the south heading into the winter.

And, Pam, this is different because look at the previous El Nino events. Remember, we're talking 30 years ago. We didn't have climate change baked into the equation there.

BROWN: Yes, that's an important point.

Meteorologist Derek Van Dam, thank you. Wolf?

BLITZER: And coming up, incredible rescue. How this 70-year-old hiker was found and lifted to safety after being missing for a week. We have details. That's next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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