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The Situation Room

Court Delays Tennessee's First Execution of a Woman in 200 Years; Trump On AI: "I'm Seeing Tremendous Self-Policing"; Passengers Arrive In Israel After Violent Incident and Diversion. Aired 11:30a- 12p ET

Aired September 30, 2026 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news. Just about an hour before Tennessee was set to execute a woman for the first time in more than 200 years, a court has intervened. Christa Pike was 18 years old when she killed a classmate. She was convicted along with her boyfriend in 1995 for that murder. Pike has not denied her guilt, but her attorneys argue she suffered from untreated mental illnesses and childhood trauma. Now, a federal appeals court wants to look at whether that was considered before she was sentenced to death.

So, let's bring in CNN senior national correspondent Ryan Young in Nashville. What's the latest on this Ryan?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, a lot of curiosity in terms of what's going to happen next in this case. The federal appeals court putting that stay in in the last hour or so. I can tell you we're just outside this prison and there's been a lot of curiosity, people driving by trying to figure out exactly what's going to happen next. People actually taking video of the outside. We do know the victim's mom also traveled here to be here for today's execution. That was what was being reported on the local news here.

But the conversation really is about the background of this woman who obviously had been convicted of murder back in 1996. So, there's the questions about how this case will move forward. What her attorneys want the court to listen to is the fact that she said she was suffered from sexual abuse and child rape and they want that part of her background to be put into this case to see if it has anything to do with how she ended up murdering her classmate. But let's take a listen to the victim's mother talk about how long of a road this has been to get to this day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAY MARTINEZ, MOTHER OF MURDER VICTIM COLLEEN SLEMMER: Somebody's got to talk. They have forgotten her. They don't care. It's a back for stuff. And when you forget about everything and not even remember the victim in all these posts has been done, that's wrong. It's never about the victims. It's like coming was never there. Like when I sat in the court for three weeks in a row, they didn't see that I was by myself. I didn't see that I was in the hotel and nobody with me. (END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: Yes, calling summer was her name. And of course, one of the things we've noticed is there has been a lot of talk, especially here locally, just about. Let's talk about the victim a little more. But of course, this case is bringing so much national attention because this would be the first woman executed in the state of Tennessee in 200 years. This was supposed to happen by lethal injection.

Now, we're all sort of waiting to see what the next step is. It's a Tennessee. A. G. Make an appeal. Does this execution move forward at a different date? Does it happen tomorrow? These are all questions that we're still trying to work our way through. But at this point, so many questions that are left unanswered. But you have a family that's been in pain and wondering when the next step was going to be served. When it comes to justice, you're talking about 1995. And now, finally, this family traveling here to see what's going on and then finding out that this day was put into place probably about an hour and a half ago.

So, we continue to follow this, Pamela. And of course, we'll see if there's going to be any reaction outside. There's even been people who were on death row before who's shown up out here to talk to us and talk about the process here and what the next steps would be. But all that right now doesn't really matter because we're everyone's looking to see what will happen in the courts next.

BROWN: All right. Ryan Young. Thank you so much. More news when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:35:00]

BROWN: Happening now, President Trump is cheering a new agreement on A.I. safety after his meeting with top tech leaders at the White House. Some of those executives warned him that artificial intelligence could go rogue and actually threaten humanity, and they want stronger regulations. The president posted the agreement on social media. It is a one-page document with just four bullet points of voluntary safety standards. The key word is voluntary, with no government enforcement. Here is the president's reaction, and a more cautious tone from one of the A.I. leaders.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Well, I think I'm seeing tremendous self-policing, and they understand that they have to self-police. And it's very hard for somebody to come outside, get into these models. These models are very complex. And again, I believe they're going to be used for the good, and when they're not, we're going to be able to nab them. But there's going to be a tremendous self-policing aspect.

[11:40:00]

DARIO AMODEI, CEO, ANTHROPIC: As the president has said, you know, whoever wins A.I. wins. I think that's very important. But I think the technology has very real risks. And, you know, the mechanism, how we address those risks is still under discussion. But we all need to work together to make sure that we can win, and we can win safely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: All right. So, let's continue this important discussion with Timnit Gebru. She's a prominent A.I. ethics researcher and author of the upcoming book, "Deep Unlearning: The Rise of A.I. and the Radicalization of a Tech Idealist." Thanks so much for being here with us. So, what is your reaction to A.I. companies being empowered in this document to, quote, "self-police?"

TIMNIT GEBRU, FOUNDER, THE DISTRIBUTED A.I. RESEARCH INSTITUTION: My reaction is that they got what they wanted. I think that this whole, we have created machine gods that can render us extinct kind of hysteria was about capturing regulation and marketing their products like they are unprecedented. And so, instead of holding them liable with existing laws, and we don't even need new laws to hold them liable for some of the things they've done, they successfully managed to perform regulatory capture, which is what just happened.

BROWN: Yes, but you have the A.I. leaders of these companies, but also researchers within the companies and those who have left, who have also raised the alarm with the same, quote/unquote, "kind of hysteria" that like, if we don't do something, A.I. could kill us all. So, what do you make of that?

GEBRU: You know, yes, so this kind of A.I. can either bring us utopia, like bring world peace, solve poverty, or stop climate change or apocalypse, if the right people don't control it. Narrative has been going on since at least 2012. And it was seeded by the very people who fund and create these A.I. companies themselves. Peter Thiel in 2013 said that A.I. was a higher existential risk than climate change. Elon Musk said that A.I. was summoning the devil. So, what's interesting to me is it's the same playbook as the tobacco and fossil fuel companies.

To the public, it seems like many independent voices, concerned voices are pushing this narrative. But when you actually look very closely, it's the same, even the researchers who work at these companies or so- called external parties who are not actually independent are funded by the same exact people who led Anthropics Series A or OpenAI's investment.

So, one example is, for example, Jaan Tallinn, who led Anthropics Series A, also co-founded the Future of Life Institute, which is advising Bernie Sanders and telling us that A.I. poses can kill us all, also funds the METER Institute, which is being treated like a third party, telling us that these agents went rogue all on their own and created their own civilizations.

BROWN: OK. Just really quickly, just to follow up with you, do you not see the concern of A.I. becoming more intelligent than humans and not being aligned with humans and that causing, do you not see that as a concern? Why not? I see this as a very dangerous rhetoric. GEBRU: I see it as a way to make the public believe that these companies are building something that is akin to a machine god. And so, when you do that, instead of now talking about what the companies have actually done, which is unleashed malware worldwide because of their incompetence and their basic lack of security practices, if you speak to cybersecurity experts, they'll tell you how laughable their security practices were.

So, now, instead of us talking about what these companies have done and how to hold them liable, like Lina Khan had said, we can hold them liable with existing laws, we're now completely changing the conversation to some fictional super intelligent being that is out of their control. So, it's a very dangerous narrative setting.

BROWN: How do you know --

GEBRU: Oh, it is fictional. I am a researcher in A.I. I got my PhD from what's called the A.I. lab. And I actually asked Elon Musk point blank in 2015 in person why he at that time was telling us that A.I. was an existential risk and why it wasn't climate change. So, I've been talking to, dealing with these people for a long time.

I mean, to give you an example, Ray Kurzweil, who's well known from the '80s for creating a particular type of model, wrote a whole entire book called "The Singularity Is Coming in 2012," telling us that that model from the 80s was going to be super intelligent and either bring this utopia or apocalypse. So, this kind of narrative is not new at all.

[11:45:00]

BROWN: All right. We have to get to some breaking news. Timnit Gebru, thank you for coming on to share your perspective on this important issue. We appreciate it.

And to get to that breaking news, passengers who were on board that Fly Dubai flight diverted to Saudi Arabia have now landed safely at a Tel Aviv airport. Joining us now is a correspondent, Eleni Giokos and John Pistole, who served as TSA administrator and FBI deputy director. First of all, Eleni, tell us the latest.

ELENI GIOKOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, All right. so we're seeing live images there from Ben Gurion Airport where we are expecting the passengers to disembark. From what we understand, a Fly Dubai aircraft was sent to Tabuk and it landed a short while ago, bringing the passengers that had this harrowing experience throughout the day where they experienced 17,400 feet drop in altitude in the span of two minutes where these two pilots were in a violent altercation. Passengers had to get involved to try and subdue the co-pilot.

And then luckily, according to Fly Dubai, there were other crew that were able to stabilize the plane and land safely in Saudi Arabia. So, this is the first tranche of the passengers that were able to be repatriated to Israel. We also understand from Israeli officials that Riyadh has rejected allowing an Israeli plane to land in Saudi Arabia. This is because other passengers refused to get on a Fly Dubai plane to get back to Israel. So, this is what we understand right now to have happened in the last few minutes. This is after a harrowing day where Israeli officials say this could have been a terrorist attack. Investigations absolutely underway.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a short while ago was actually saying that one of the pilots had attempted to crash the plane after the stabbing incident. By all accounts, by everything we've heard, this is a miracle. Seeing the passengers getting back safely and obviously landing safely in Saudi Arabia after such a harrowing experience. And importantly, and I've spoken to aviation experts, a drop of that magnitude in the span of two minutes could have ended very badly, Pamela.

BROWN: Yes, let's bring in John on that point. What do you make of that drop?

JOHN PISTOLE, FORMER TSA ADMINISTRATOR: Yes, that is just terrific, Pamela. And the idea of the passengers and the crew who were able to intercede and prevent the co-pilot from crashing the plane is just remarkable and miraculous, I would say. I'm sure your viewers of a certain age recall the Egypt Air 990 flight from JFK to Cairo that took off Halloween night, I believe it was, 1999. And the co-pilot put the plane into a nosedive very similar to that. And the pilot was able, who just stepped out to the lab, was able to get back in and get the yoke and said, pull with me, pull with me to try to get the aircraft. And they did get it up several thousand feet. And then the co-pilot was able to shut off the engines.

And so, they plummeted into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Rhode Island. 232 people, I believe, were killed because of that. And then I think it was a Lufthansa subsidiary, German Wings, same thing, that crashed in the Alps due to the co-pilot. It's a very challenging threat and that insider threat, if you will, that airlines and aviation security and safety people deal with on a regular basis in terms of the vetting. And so, what is going on in the person's mind, those things, so.

BROWN: What is the vetting for pilots? I actually covered that German Wings crash. It was so sad.

PISTOLE: Yes.

BROWN: What that pilot did, crashing that plane into the mountain. But what kind of measures are in place for the pilots themselves? We know what passengers have to go through, but what about the pilots?

PISTOLE: Right. So, it varies between, for example, U.S. carriers and the International Civil Aviation Organization, ICAO, in Montreal, which is part of the UN, sets international standards for, obviously, the onboarding vetting of any future pilots, and then the recurrent vetting. So, is it something that they have, obviously they have to have their physical fitness and all that, and then the question is, what's their mental fitness? And is that an annual or every other year or every five years? And so, that's when pilot unions get involved as mental fitness. And is that an annual or every other year or every five years? [11:50:00]

And so, that's when pilot unions get involved and say this is -- unless there's some indicators, as there was, as you recall from the Germanwings co-pilot, and there was, with the Egypt Air 990 pilot, there were 31 Egyptian military officers on board that he apparently had a grievance with the Egyptian military. So, it varies by where you are and who your airline employer is, all within the parameters of the International Civil Aviation Organization standard. So, there's a baseline and then it goes from there, depending on, now this will obviously cause airlines to revisit.

BROWN: As often these incidents do. John Pistole, Eleni Giokos, it's just incredible that that plane was able to land safely, that the passengers are OK, the pilots are injured, but wow, what an outcome. Thank you all so much. More when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:55:00]

BROWN: All right. Back to that breaking news we've been covering throughout the show. Passengers who are on board that Fly Dubai Fly diverted to Saudi Arabia have safely landed at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. You see the pictures right here. Security, it looks like security personnel and others who were there at the airport waiting for them to go through security. They have been through quite a traumatic experience, but also what an outcome with everyone on that plane surviving what could have been really a deadly crash according to the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

I want to turn to some other breaking news we're following. That's Attorney General Todd Blanche. He has just announced that the Justice Department has filed a complaint against nearly all federal judges in Minnesota. CNN Senior Justice Correspondent Evan Perez is at the DOJ. What's going on here? Explain this complaint, Evan.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Pamela, this is a complaint that has been filed against six of the seven judges there in Minnesota. The Justice Department says that an interview that happened in the last few weeks with the, that was published in the last few weeks by the New York Times with six of the seven judges, according to the Times, who, these judges were essentially raising concerns with the way the Justice Department and the Homeland Security Department have been doing business in the wake of that surge, that immigration surge earlier this year in Minnesota.

And one of the complaints that the judges have been making is that the Department of Justice and Homeland Security have been essentially defying or ignoring court orders that are issued by judges, and they've raised concerns about the threat to democracy from the conduct of the Justice Department. And so, that's one of the things that this complaint is about.

This is a complaint that is pushing back on those judges that presumably what the department wants to do is for them to recuse themselves because the Attorney General points out that there are a number of active cases that are still pending before these judges, and they believe they're showing bias. Pamela.

BROWN: Has this ever been done before, Evan? I mean, is it something similar? Is there any precedent?

PEREZ: We've never seen DOJ do this in this aggressive manner. This is an escalation. But Pamela, you and I know from covering these cases over the past year that the concern that judges have about the conduct of the department and the willingness to overlook and to defy court orders is not confined to that district. It's around the country at this point.

BROWN: All right. Evan Perez, thank you so much. And thank you all for joining us on this Wednesday Inside Politics with Dana Bash starts after a quick break.

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