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The Situation Room

SpaceX Starship Launches; Dangers of AI?; Police Label Canadian Synagogue Shooting Hate Crime. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired September 28, 2026 - 10:30   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 HOST: Happening now: In Nepal, at least four people are dead and more are missing after an avalanche hit a base camp in a remote part of the country. Yesterday's avalanche comes as severe weather batters Nepal.

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(SCREAMING)

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BROWN: Wow. Rainfall remains heavy and even caused this building to collapse into a river. Nepali forces are working to rescue people trapped by high waters.

And the FAA is investigating a potential new safety issue involving Boeing 737 MAX airplanes. According to "The Wall Street Journal," Boeing has identified a software glitch that could cause an automated navigation feature to fail in some instances as the planes are landing.

Boeing reportedly insists the glitch, which it did not publicly disclose, does not pose a safety risk. It also said it's coming up with a software fix.

And, in Atlanta, a new chapter of panda diplomacy. Over the weekend, China said two giant pandas, Ping Ping, meaning peace, and Fu Shuang, meaning double blessings, to Zoo Atlanta on a mission of goodwill. Both pandas will spend about a month in quarantine before visitors get a chance to see the new guests.

It's also like panda therapy watching those videos.

Well, we're going to need that for this next segment, because, happening now, tech leaders are warning about the catastrophic harms posed by artificial intelligence if left unchecked by government oversight. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is the latest to call for legislation.

And here's what he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

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BILL GATES, CO-CHAIR, BILL AND MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION: AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that cause a billion deaths. There's never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intent using the latest AI tools.

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BROWN: So here to discuss is AI safety researcher and computer scientist at the University of Louisville Roman Yampolskiy and CNN contributor and technology journalist Jacob Ward.

Thank you both for coming on.

Jacob, to start with you, what is your reaction to that warning by Bill Gates?

JACOB WARD, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I take away from it, Pam, first of all, that he sees, I think, as the rest of us do, this potential for a runaway piece of AI.

But the thing that he seems mostly interested in is the short-term danger posed by people of ill intent using AI. I think he probably read along with the rest of us the report that came out from Anthropic, what is that, a couple of weeks ago now, in which they detailed all kinds of scary schemes that they have interrupted, including the trying to make a novel toxins and novel viruses, to a Yemeni military cell using Claude as their software engineer for building targeting systems for missiles.

So I think what he's looking at here and what he seems to be suggesting is the idea that these companies need to be able to see into their own systems better and create greater transparency that regulators can also share in.

It seems to me that he's not as worried about the "Terminator" scenario as he is about the short-term effects, which, as he says, could drive incredible death and incredible damage.

BROWN: Do you see those same concerns, Roman? And is that your biggest concern that a bad actor would use AI to cause harm to other humans?

ROMAN YAMPOLSKIY, COMPUTER SCIENTIST, UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE: Right now.

But we're about to experience a paradigm shift, where AI becomes smarter than a human actor. So, the malevolent intent, the adversarial agent would be AI itself. And if Bill Gates says he sees how a billion people could be killed with it, I don't think it's a limitation.

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I think a system smart enough to do that can kill everyone. BROWN: When do you think that could happen, where they become smarter

than us and could have bad intent, when we're talking about AI?

YAMPOLSKIY: So we already don't control those systems. And, right now, leading labs are starting a process known as recursive self- improvement, where AI itself works on the next generation of AI systems, greatly increasing speed of development.

So, a current model will work on a next-generation model. And if previously it took us a year or so to build a new model, now it can take a month, a week. So we can no longer keep up with that process. There is not enough time to test it.

And we're starting to see that many incidents of hacking and other malevolent situations go undetected for months.

BROWN: So, Jacob, are we already screwed then, based on what Roman just said?

WARD: I know it's a bummer of a topic, Pam.

But I think one thing that we just sort of need -- I think one of the things we need to get past immediately is this notion that somehow this is a programming problem, right? We had Representative Jay Obernolte, who's the Republican co-chair of the AI Caucus.

He told CNN, he told Anderson Cooper on Friday -- quote -- "We need to align the values that these models are trained on with human values." I hear a lot of rhetoric around, that somehow we're going to teach this thing manners and morals.

But you can't find two human beings who would agree on a set of universal human values. What I think Bill Gates is calling for and I think all of us should be calling for is transparency, is a looking inside of these models and making it, as a result, the responsibility of these companies what their things do, right?

They -- I think that the use of words like rogue makes it sound as if this thing is normally loyal and then this one special flavor went a different way. It makes it sound, right, as if it's all there. But I think that it's important for us to be thinking, no, no, no, this is a thing that these companies created, they need to take control of it in some way, or at the very least give us a look inside it.

And, for Bill Gates, a guy who famously hates regulation, was on the business end of bad regulation once upon a time, the fact that he thinks governments need to get involved I think really speaks to a shift that's going on in the tech community, as they see that this thing is out of control and that these companies are not taking the steps they need to.

BROWN: So, let's hear from Bill Gates himself. He was asked by CNN's Fareed Zakaria if it'll take some major event for people to realize the need for AI regulation, and this is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GATES: Well, the likelihood of major cyberattacks that are AI-enabled that shut down a hospital or electricity, it's very high. Perhaps it will take some awful events before we will really decide, yes, this is very much worth doing.

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BROWN: Roman, do you agree with that?

YAMPOLSKIY: So I have been collecting AI incidents for many years, and they do get progressively more impactful and impact more people, but we never actually do anything about it. We go, oh, I see. We're still around. Let's just continue as before.

So it's more like a vaccine. We will learn that we survived it. And until it's no longer the case, we will continue doing it. We have two guests here who basically agree on everything. That's unusual.

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YAMPOLSKIY: I would say we need to go a little more beyond just understanding how the systems work to actually putting a complete ban on creating something smarter than humans. We don't need general superintelligence replacing humans.

We need useful tools to make us more productive and more creative.

BROWN: OK, two questions for you, because we have to wrap, but what does winning the race mean when it comes to the U.S. and China? You keep hearing about this AI race. Bill Gates warned against calling it a race.

But what would that look like for humanity if the U.S. -- quote, unquote -- wins the race, Jacob, and is there actually a way -- you sort of alluded to this, but is there a way to actually make AI nicer?

WARD: So, as to this race with China, you have got me, Pam.

What are we racing toward, right?

BROWN: Yes.

WARD: Are we racing toward terrifying autonomous AI weapons? Is that the thing that President Trump thinks we need to win in the race for? I'm not sure that I want that gold medal or that place on the podium, right?

BROWN: Right.

WARD: So the race, I think, is a very convenient way for companies in the past to basically justify their actions and has become a sort of useful way for politicians to understand I guess their own thinking about this stuff.

But I don't buy the race with China notion. And then can you teach this thing rules? No. I mean, what these systems are is inherently Machiavellian. You give them a task, they're going to get it done any way they possibly can.

I think the best that we can do is account for our own rules, right? The reason that we need courts and that we constantly go to court to settle disputes with each other is because not everybody on the playground agrees on what the rules should be.

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And we're going to need to be able to apply that same kind of sorting it out in court logic to these companies and to these AI models. They talk about these things as if they are their own -- as if they're independent entities not under their control.

I think we need to get liability back into the picture here in order for them to take some sort of stand on this. And that's got to happen long before we get into thinking that we're -- we're going to somehow be the globally dominant force in a technology that we haven't even seen, as Roman has pointed out here, the bad -- the worst sides of.

BROWN: Yes.

WARD: So I think we're -- the race is on here to create some liability. That, to me, is the next step.

BROWN: Yes.

I bought a little extra time, Roman.

President Trump says that he's not concerned about basically what we're discussing about what AI could do. He said it wasn't really a topic of conversation with President Xi of China. We are not seeing outwardly, at least, a sense of urgency from the president to regulate.

Now, he did host the Anthropic CEO at the White House last night. There's going to be a big meeting tomorrow at the White House with tech execs. What is your message to the president in this moment, Roman?

YAMPOLSKIY: Yes, he was against regulation completely for a long time. And then we saw White House ban two models. They were too dangerous, presented danger to national security. So we have a precedent of the president banning AI. He understood danger.

The things are getting worse now. They are more capable. The number of systems they can attack increases. So, if he wants to stay in control, he needs to make sure superintelligence is not created. Nothing is more important than his agenda. This is the main issue for the next election.

And I think we can make a beautiful deal with China and get him a Nobel Peace Prize.

BROWN: All right, Roman Yampolskiy, Jacob Ward, important conversation. Thank you both. And I hope you will come back on again soon. WARD: Thanks for having us.

BROWN: All right, coming up, police in Ontario now say that a shooting at a synagogue was indeed a deliberate hate attack. We're going to speak to the president of the synagogue about the concerns from the community up next.

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BROWN: Well, new this morning, police say that a shooting last week near the Canadian Sons of Jacob Synagogue was a hate attack aimed at the Jewish community. In video from near the scene, you can hear shots ring out.

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(GUNSHOTS)

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BROWN: A police officer is being credited with stopping the attack after he exchanged gunfire with the attacker. It all took place on Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. The officer was wounded, and the attacker later died in the hospital.

Canada has seen numerous antisemitic attacks just this year, including firebombing, shootings, and vandalism. And in June, a police officer and an Israeli citizen were killed by a gunman who opened fire in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in Montreal.

Norm Weddum is the president of the Sons of Jacob Synagogue, and he is here with us now.

First of all, thank you for coming on.

How are you doing? And how is your congregation doing?

NORM WEDDUM, PRESIDENT, SONS OF JACOB SYNAGOGUE: Well, I was thinking it's been a week now since the shooting.

Myself, I'm doing OK because I have been so busy, I mean, constantly busy doing -- answering e-mails, doing interviews. But the congregation is different. I mean, they don't have this distraction that I have. We did have a service. We reopened and we had a service this past Friday.

And I think it was good. It was a good healing point for those that were involved in the shooting. So I think they're doing a lot better than what they were.

BROWN: I'm glad that you all came together in the face of all of this and had that. You kind of think about this officer, this police officer, Constable

Jeff Smith, who is credited with stopping the government from entering the synagogue. What can you tell us about him and what you know about his recovery from his injuries?

WEDDUM: He's doing a lot better, fortunately.

I mean, it was amazing, when we watched the video. There was actually a couple, I guess, that was out walking or whatever, and they filmed on their phone the entire shooting incident, which we didn't know when we were inside. I mean, we didn't know exactly what was going on.

Obviously, we heard shots. And we were laying on the floor and that. So we weren't really -- didn't really have the knowledge of exactly what was going on until we saw the video. Now -- and when I arrived at the synagogue, it was about 6:45. And I actually saw the constable in his unmarked car.

And I went over and I introduced myself and said hello to him and thanked him for coming.

BROWN: Yes.

WEDDUM: So then the shooter -- and as it shows on the video, the shooter, he actually was doing reconnaissance. He went up and down the street a couple times to see what was going on.

He spotted the officer in the car. And I would say he -- now, he was using the cars as protection that were parked for people -- from people who were going coming into the synagogue for services. So he was kind of hiding behind those cars. And he approached the police car, the unmarked vehicle where the officer was.

And he just -- I'm going to say maybe 50 feet away, and he just opened fire on the officer. He didn't have a chance.

BROWN: Yes.

WEDDUM: Like, he didn't know what was going on. The officer managed to kind of stumble out of his vehicle, and he was able at that point to return fire, and that's where the gun battle continued on for about -- it was a good two minutes before the second officer arrived on the scene, and then the two of them were able to engage the suspect.

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BROWN: Wow.

WEDDUM: And he's doing -- I know he's still in hospital. He's got a long road to recovery, but last I heard, he was at least conscious and he was communicating. And so that's really good.

BROWN: Yes, we are wishing him the best.

WEDDUM: And, of course, if he hadn't been there...

BROWN: Yes, you -- exactly. It's scary to think.

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WEDDUM: If he hadn't been there -- yes. Yes, I mean, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now if he hadn't been there.

BROWN: Wow.

Well, Norm Weddum, thank you so much for sharing your story with us today, and best of luck to you and your congregation as you continue to heal.

WEDDUM: Thank you very much.

BROWN: And here's what's coming up all new at the top of the hour.

Shifting strategy, the new ads featuring the president hoping to boost the GOP in the final midterm sprint.

Plus, we will speak to a woman who says she was wrongfully arrested and put behind bars, all because of a Flock camera. How the company is responding this morning.

And the Trump administration wants school lunches to be made from scratch. Why that's a lot easier said than done.

That's all new next hour.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Four, three, two, one.

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BROWN: Look at this, incredible pictures of the SpaceX Starship rocket taking off this morning. It is the most powerful rocket ever made. Today's mission is the first time the SpaceX Starship has made it to orbit, and its success could mark a monumental step forward.

SpaceX is facing intense pressure to get Starship ready for a crucial NASA test flight next year, and that could pave the way for the next moon landing.

With us now is former NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao, former commander of the International Space Station and author of "Dinner With an Astronaut: Serving Space Stories."

A real underachiever there, Leroy.

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BROWN: So, this is the most powerful rocket ever made. What was your reaction in seeing it lift off today?

LEROY CHIAO, RETIRED NASA ASTRONAUT: Oh, it was a thing of beauty, wonderful, looked like a flawless liftoff.

As you said, this is more than twice as powerful as the Saturn V moon rockets and almost twice as powerful as NASA's Artemis Space Launch System, SLS, rocket. And so they did get into orbit. The first time the ship tried to get into orbit was successful. They did have one engine go out going uphill, and one of the engines shut down prematurely on the ship.

Nonetheless, they got the go for the orbit burn. They did that, deployed successfully 26 Starlink Version 3 satellites. They are all reported to be healthy and initializing now. So the only thing left is for ship to come back down. And we did have a successful boost back by the booster coming down and splashing down in the Gulf as planned.

And so now we're just waiting for the final maneuvers of the ship to come down on its own.

BROWN: So, how do the risks shift when you transition from a passively safe flight to being committed to orbit like this?

CHIAO: Well, sure.

You know, the past missions were suborbital. That is, the ship almost made it into orbit, but intentionally did not go, intending instead to coast and splash down where it was planned to do so in the Pacific. This time, they did the burn. They assessed that the system was healthy, and they got into orbit, deployed those satellites.

And now it's going to come down and kind of do what happened with the other ships, come down in the same area of the Pacific, hover over the ocean, demonstrating that, in the future, it could also be captured by the so-called chopsticks aboard a drone ship or something like that, and be successfully recovered to be refurbished and reused.

And that's the beauty and the disruptive part of the Starship system. It's designed to be fully reusable. It's going to dramatically bring down the cost of launching things into space.

BROWN: I mean, these pictures are incredible. It looks like AI, but it's real. And as you have been saying, this launch is significant. SpaceX is facing intense pressure to get Starship ready for this crucial NASA test flight next year that could pave the way for the next moon landing.

Starship has a multibillion-dollar contract to carry NASA astronauts to the moon's surface. What does a successful launch mean for the future of space travel and exploration?

CHIAO: Sure.

This is a big step towards that goal of creating a human lander for the moon, for NASA's lunar program. And so hopefully SpaceX -- and, of course, Blue Origin is also working on their lander. They're making great progress, I understand, but hopefully one or both will be ready for a flight test in orbit with Artemis III hopefully by the end of next year, a very ambitious timeline.

But we're going for it, and hopefully we will make it. But this is a big -- today's flight was a big shot in the arm for progress towards that end. So, we have seen Version 3 ship. This is, I believe, the third flight of Version 3 ship, and it is doing great.

BROWN: All right, Leroy Chiao, thank you so much. Always nice to have you on the show.

CHIAO: My pleasure.

BROWN: And the next hour of THE SITUATION ROOM starts right now.

Breaking news: an alleged terror plot foiled, five men arrested near a British air base where the U.S. keeps its bombers used in the war with Iran. We are getting some new information from authorities.

And paid for by the U.S. government, Another political ad featuring President Trump interrupts football Sunday, and you footed the bill.