Return to Transcripts main page
The Story Is with Elex Michaelson
U.S. and China Agree to Cut Tariffs; Trump Team Planning Aggressive Midterm Campaign Schedule; Mexico Charts Harsh Conditions as Hurricane Polo Nears Coast; SpaceX's Starship Returns to Earth After First Orbital Trip; Growing Calls for Government Oversight of A.I. Models; Five Men Released on Bail Amid U.K. Air Base Investigation; Pope Leo XIV Wraps Up 4-Day Trip to France. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired September 29, 2026 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[00:00:00]
LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR: Reward for information leading to her recovery still tops more than $1 million. And anyone with information is urged to call 1-800-CALL-FBI.
Remember, you can still stream my show or watch on demand anything you may have missed anytime with an "All Access" subscription. Scan the QR code on your screen or go to CNN.com/Watch to learn more. And thank you all for watching.
"THE STORY IS" with Elex Michaelson is next.
ELEX MICHAELSON, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Elex Michaelson live in Los Angeles.
Coming up, THE STORY IS how far will they go to win the midterms. President Trump all in on campaigning for his party. But can he use your tax dollars for what looked like campaign ads?
THE STORY IS tracking Hurricane Polo. The storm is approaching landfall in Mexico as we speak. Flooding could be felt all the way here in California.
THE STORY IS regulating A.I.. The White House expected to host tech CEOs for a meeting to get on the same page in the hours ahead. But what page is that? California Democratic Congressman George Whitesides sitting down with me live.
ANNOUNCER: Live from Los Angeles, THE STORY IS with Elex Michaelson.
MICHAELSON: And welcome to THE STORY IS, and yes, the show looks a little bit different this week if you're a usual viewer. We are in the newsroom because our usual studio is being transformed to host the California debate. Our panel is standing by, looking very nice on the new set. Great job by our crew getting this all ready. We'll have more on that debate in a bit.
But our top story is ad campaign. The White House releasing new taxpayer-funded TV ads promoting the president and his policy. A source tells CNN the president is personally driving the campaign to help select the video and the imagery. And despite the president repeatedly saying he's on the ballot in November's midterms, the White House insists they are not campaign ads.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We will liberate America from these villains once and for all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin says the ads may be felony criminal theft and a violation of the Hatch Act, which limits political activities by executive branch employees. That hasn't been enacted very much in the last few years. Even some Republicans are speaking out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN THUNE (R-SD): I like the message but it shouldn't be paid for with taxpayer dollars.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: Meanwhile, the president's team is planning an aggressive campaign schedule for the president and vice president in both battleground and deep red states alike. He welcomed Iowa's Republican Senate candidate, Ashley Hinson, to the White House on Monday, where he downplayed Republican struggles.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The polls are fake. I've always been very strong with Iowa. There's been some things that the Democrats have done that are very bad for our country. You know, they had high prices. I reduced the prices. But they like to say affordability, but they're the ones that caused the affordability problem.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: Republicans could pay a heavy price in the midterm elections due to President Trump's war with Iran. A U.S. official told CNN that President Trump is willing to give Iran sanctions relief and release frozen funds as part of a final deal, but only if Tehran offers concrete progress. According to officials both countries spoke Monday with mediators as part of a new effort to end the war that has resulted in rising gas and grocery prices.
The Trump administration is also trying other ways to bring down rising prices. The U.S. and China have agreed to slash tariffs on $60 billion worth of goods. That announcement comes just days after a highly anticipated meeting between the president of the United States and the leader of China in Washington last week. That tariff relief extends to a wide variety of products. The U.S. has agreed to lower tariffs on 77 Chinese goods, including toys, car seats, fireworks and a number of household items. Meanwhile, Beijing has agreed to lower tariffs on more than 1600 U.S.
goods, including meat, seafood, agricultural products, just to name a few.
CNN's Matt Egan has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: $60 billion. Yes, that is a big number, right? That's the amount of goods that are facing lower tariffs. However, as this chart shows, $60 billion, that's just the blue part here. This is a much bigger trading relationship worth $415 billion in goods exchanged between the two countries last year. And it's also worth noting that while tariffs have come down, they've come down significantly from the height of the trade war last year, they are still historically high.
[00:05:04]
Capital Economics estimates that even after accounting for these lower tariffs, U.S. tariffs on China will be roughly twice as high as they were before the president started his second term. Now, all of this comes as polling continues to indicate Americans are frustrated with this economy. They continue to give the president low marks on the economy in general and on trade and inflation in particular.
A recent CNN poll showing that 71 percent of Americans disapprove of how the president is handling tariffs. Just 29 percent approve. Keep in mind, this is a signature issue for President Trump. Not only that, but most Americans, they say that the tariffs have had a negative impact.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAELSON: Our panel is here to talk more. Media consultant Marc Adelman, founder of Adelmania Consulting, and Mike Madrid, co-founder of the Lincoln Project and founder of the Latino Working Class Project.
Gentlemen, welcome back to THE STORY IS and welcome to our newsroom. Let's start with President Trump's midterm message. He was asked specifically about that today at the White House. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We have great people, and we're running against a communist lunatic socialists. So we have the best crime numbers. We have the best economic numbers. We have Iran, will never have a nuclear weapon. We're going to win that war very soon. That will be over. And the gas prices will come tumbling down. So nobody else could have done that. The inflation is coming way down. And when you see what happens, as soon as that war ends, inflation is going to be eradicated totally. But nobody talks about that.
(END VIDEO CLIP) MICHAELSON: Mike, you've helped to craft Republican messages before. You've helped to craft messages against President Trump before. What do you make of that message?
MIKE MADRID, CO-FOUNDER, THE LINCOLN PROJECT: In 35 years of doing politics, Elex, I've never seen a worse issue set for an incumbent party ever.
MICHAELSON: Wow.
MADRID: Including 1994, where I was old enough to be involved in campaigns. 2006 complete bloodbath. This is by far the worst. Overwhelmingly, the economy is driving what is causing the consternation and anxiety with the American voter, including the MAGA Republican base. You don't get to 29 percent approval ratings unless you're losing hard core GOP voters, a historic shift of independents away from the president's messaging and a volcanic eruptive turnout that's likely to happen with Democrats heading into November, just 37 days away.
MICHAELSON: Yes. And to that point, Marc, the president is saying, well, inflation will go down and all the prices will go down after the war is over. Yet there's no, you know, pathway to end the war.
MARC ADELMAN, MEDIA CONSULTANT: You know, it's like "Miracle on 34th Street," you know, like we're waiting for Santa. And as we keep hearing what he says every day, it does not comport with reality. And you can't tell somebody how they're feeling. And so when we hear him say everything is the best, everything is the lowest, that is not what everyday Americans are feeling.
And you're seeing that across the board in districts across the country that are not necessarily Democratic blue districts. Iowa for one, exactly, which is, I think, why we saw the governor and the candidate for Senate in the White House today.
MICHAELSON: Right, which is not the state you want to be campaigning on at this point if you're going to do Iowa.
ADELMAN: Correct.
MICHAELSON: And to that point, let's put up some more poll results. CNN has a headline that says, "The GOP wants to talk about crime, immigration, and trans issues. Voters don't." So let's show up some of the numbers from our recent CNN poll in terms of what are the issues that voters find extremely important. The economy, 68 percent. Voting elections, 61 percent. Inflation, 60 percent. Health care, 54 percent. Immigration at 50 percent. The war in Iran, 48 percent. Then crime, tariffs, data centers, A.I., abortion, trans policy down at 25 percent.
The hits, you know, like Rolling Stone plays Satisfaction." There's been certain hits that the Trump administration has been able to play since he started running back in 2015. And those hits don't seem to be working as well. MADRID: No, and they're about as old as Rolling Stones' debut albums.
I mean, this is just old stuff. There's nothing that is new. It's rehashed. And to your CNN, you know, to the polling's point, this is not what is on the minds of voters' concerns right now. And the last thing you want to be doing in the midst of a campaign is not talking about issues of where voters are at. If you're talking about where you want them to be, you're losing.
And that's why you're getting this darkening sense of where the Republican base is at, where Republican voters are at, where Republican elected officials are at. And he won't make the pivot. He won't acknowledge his defeats. He won't say, I'm going to do something different. He's still trying to convince people that he's doing the right thing, and nobody is believing it anymore.
[00:10:06]
MICHAELSON: But yet the counterargument, of course, for the Republicans is that the Democrats are scary, that they have communists leading tendencies, is what he's saying. You know, the Democratic socialists, using the most extreme examples of the Democratic Party. Is there some value in that?
ADELMAN: Well, look, Donald Trump is not Mick Jagger. And so I think that's important to put out. And I would say, you know, that's not what people are worried about every day. You know, if you go out and you actually meet people where they are and you go to people's homes and you ask them what's bothering you, those are the issues that are not bothering them. It's, can I send my kids out to school? Can I put food on the table? Can I send my kid on a field trip?
Is there money left over to go to the movies? You know, that's what people think and that's what they feel, and that's what they worry about. Nancy Pelosi generously calls it kitchen table issues.
MICHAELSON: Right. Can I afford to fill up my gas -- my car, to even drive? Can I go on vacation because of that? Yes.
ADELMAN: And we're here in Southern California and you're looking at, you know, $6.
MICHAELSON: $6.
ADELMAN: And higher.
MICHAELSON: And higher for diesel.
ADELMAN: Hundred percent.
MADRID: I was going to say, where are you finding $6 gas?
ADELMAN: Yes, let's go. We could --
(LAUGHTER)
MICHAELSON: But, but, Mike, you have worked on so many Republican campaigns in the past. You were part of that '94 wave that that that helped, you know, usher in Newt Gingrich and the Contract for America.
MADRID: I was.
MICHAELSON: If you were a Republican consultant right now, what's the message?
MADRID: Well, that's the conundrum that they find themselves in. And there actually is a message, which is you're going to have to either distance yourself from Trump, which is what you're seeing, you know? Maria Salazar in Florida running ads against her. You're seeing Byron Donalds in Florida running, you know, taking off his name from Web sites.
Either distance yourself or use that to contrast directly opposed to Trump and Trumpism. Thune, the Senate majority leader, the Republican majority leader, is saying this is not what we should be doing. This is very novel language for Republicans during the Trump era. But the problem is it's not enough. You're going to have to literally say the tariffs are problematic. They are causing the problem.
We're paying $6 a gallon plus gas in California because of this war that nobody wanted in Iran. And until that happens, Republicans are going to go down with the ship. And the ship is called the SS Trump. It's going down.
MICHAELSON: And yet, you know, this big meeting with China, this big meeting with the A.I. CEOs happening this week, changes in some of the tariff policy we found out about. But one win for the country, pandas.
ADELMAN: Yes. Finally.
MICHAELSON: The pandas have arrived in Atlanta thanks to the Chinese government. We've got --
(CROSSTALK)
ADELMAN: It turns out, so we lease the pandas, actually, which is fascinating to me. But this is left over from the Nixon administration. And when Pat Nixon went with Richard Nixon to China, she commented on the pandas, and we got them. And they're in three different places. They're in San Diego, they're in Atlanta, and they're in Washington, D.C.. It's the only place you can see giant pandas.
And I think this is a really great example of, you know, you can get very scared reading the newspapers every day about other countries and what they're doing and what we're doing to them. This is something very nice. This is exactly what soft power is. And you know, hey, come on.
MICHAELSON: Maybe we all can get behind the pandas.
ADELMAN: I am behind the pandas. I am pro-panda.
MICHAELSON: And a shout-out to Richard Nixon, which we didn't expect.
ADELMAN: And Pat Nixon.
MICHAELSON: And Pat Nixon. There you go.
Marc, Mike, both coming back for our next hour. A lot to get into, especially on the issue of immigration, which we're going to delve into in the next hour.
But we do have some late-breaking news from Washington. Attorneys for CNN, MS NOW and Politico are asking a federal judge to stop President Trump from reviving his White House ban. New court filing, which was just put in within the last hour, says the administration's retaliatory actions underscore that its motive to punish and chill journalism it doesn't like. The administration has tried to claim reporting by the outlets threatens national security.
The U.S. Senate has passed a major bill to overhaul college athletics, but its future in the House is uncertain. The bill, known as the Protect College Sports Act, would set national standards for how college athletes can profit off their name, image and likeness. One of the sponsors says the legislation will encourage colleges to spend money on education and research, rather than paying huge sums of money to fund their sports teams.
The NCAA and top conferences support the measure, but opponents say the bill protects universities and the NCAA's interests without sufficient protection for the rights of student athletes.
Still ahead this hour, Hurricane Polo is battering Mexico's Baja California Peninsula as we speak. We have the latest on its path and the flood threat with a meteorologist next.
[00:15:01]
Plus, SpaceX makes its latest trip to orbit, sending a massive Starship rocket to deliver satellites into space. We'll tell you how it went next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MICHAELSON: Happening now, Mexico is bracing for life-threatening winds and flash flooding as hurricane three -- category three Hurricane Polo nears landfall in Baja California. Despite hitting the peninsula first, Polo is expected to remain a hurricane as it makes a second landfall in mainland Mexico. Forecasts show the storm system will rapidly weaken on Tuesday as it tracks further inland.
[00:20:03]
Moisture from Polo is also moving north, raising the risk of flooding across parts of the southwestern and central U.S.
Joining us now live from Tucson, Arizona, is Eyad Atallah. He's a meteorologist and associate professor of Practice for Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Arizona. Go, Wildcats.
Welcome to the show. So talk to us about what we can expect in the hours ahead when it comes to Polo, especially for our friends watching in Mexico right now.
EYAD ATALLAH, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, HYDROLOGY AND ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES, UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA: So right now, I think the biggest concern is going to be a lot of rain on the Baja Peninsula, where it's making landfall. I would expect to see some areas that receive upwards of 10 plus inches of rain. And of course, any area that receives that much rain and has some mountainous terrain, you're always going to have the threat of mudslides.
And then it should -- like you said, it should remain a hurricane as it crosses into the Gulf of California. And then as it makes its second landfall, then we'll start to worry a little bit less about the wind, but we'll still have a huge rain threat all through Sonora and then into the southwestern U.S..
MICHAELSON: And then it heads towards the United States of America. What should we expect from that?
ATALLAH: So it's kind of a complicated interaction. So there are two things going on. There's Hurricane Polo itself, but there's also sort of a more typical mid-latitude weather system, the kind of front that we normally associate with garden variety thunderstorms. And what is going to happen is that the moisture from Polo is going to get caught up in this big sort of upper level system, and the two are likely going to merge, and that's going to be the problem.
So we're going to see a lot of sort of accentuated rain as this comes up. And my -- there's a really big worry because the track of the storm, the circulation is going to probably go up through New Mexico. And we know that over the past week, New Mexico has already seen a lot of rainfall. So one of my biggest areas of concern would actually be New Mexico. And then that moisture is going to get passed off into Colorado and upwards into Kansas and Nebraska.
MICHAELSON: We know that we're in this Super El Nino cycle right now, which means warmer waters. It certainly seems to be impacting a lot of what we're seeing. Hawaii has had multiple hurricanes now, which is very unusual. What should we expect in the months ahead because of that Super El Nino?
ATALLAH: Yes. So this is exactly the kind of pattern that we can sort of expect in a really strong El Nino, where we get a number of tropical cyclones developing off of the coast of Mexico. And any time that that happens, there's always a danger that that moisture is going to get picked up and thrown into the United States. With the warmer temperatures the way they are, these storms are actually going to remain stronger and a little more intense further north than they would normally.
And also the number of them, like you've already noted, is actually considerably more than we would normally see. The Atlantic is (INAUDIBLE) but the Eastern Pacific is basically making up for all of it.
MICHAELSON: Yes. Not seeing the typical hurricanes in the Atlantic, but we certainly are in the Pacific, as you mentioned. Eyad Atallah, in Tucson, Arizona, thanks so much for joining us.
Really appreciate it.
Now to this.
(VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: Cheers coming from SpaceX mission controllers as the company's so-called Starship returns to Earth. The rocket made its first trip to orbit on Monday and deployed 26 new Starlink satellites. Starship's original 10-hour flight plan was cut down due to an engine issue. It splashed down in the Pacific Ocean and burst into flames after just three hours in space. Despite all that, CNN's aerospace analyst Miles O'Brien says this mission went very well.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AEROSPACE ANALYST: Huge success. Don't worry about that splashdown. They weren't trying to recover this vehicle at all. So anything that's even sort of a soft splashdown, which was what we saw with a subsequent fire, to be sure, was not anything of great concern. The important thing to think about here, there are two things. First of all, it's a big rocket. Maybe we'll get three things. Big rocket, but it's designed to be completely reusable, as if it were like an airliner.
[00:25:03]
You fly to space, you return it, refit it, send it off on its way again. That obviously, if you can do that and pull that off, and that's a big if, that would save a lot of cost and reduce the cost of getting to space. The important thing, however, though, is in the previous 13 missions, they were unable to achieve orbit. And until you get to orbit, you're not in space. But once you're in orbit, you've got the whole universe as your oyster.
The first 275 kilometers, the first 28,000 kilometers per hour are the hard ones. And once you're up there Newton takes over and you can make your way to the moon or Mars with a lot less effort. So that was the milestone that happened today, and it's one for the books.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAELSON: Thanks to Miles O'Brien for that.
Still to come, tech industry partners come together to launch their own solution to rogue artificial intelligence. What the face of the platform is saying about the future of A.I., just ahead. Plus, a Democratic congressman who wants to regulate those industries. George Whitesides live on set with me next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ELEX MICHAELSON, CNN ANCHOR: As we take a live look at the White House, President Trump is set to host the CEOs of top A.I. companies in the coming hours, in the day ahead, for a meeting there. [00:31:00]
The heads of Anthropic, Nvidia, Palantir, OpenAI, and Meta's Mark Zuckerberg all among those expected to attend.
Sources said the meeting is meant to get the government and top tech officials on the same page in regards to A.I. oversight. It comes amid increased calls for A.I. regulations and recent threats to government security.
House Speaker Mike Johnson is also expected to attend that meeting.
Meanwhile, chipmaker Nvidia has released new software to help stop A.I. agents from going rogue. It's called the Open Agent Safety Platform. The CEO of Nvidia Jensen Huang says the company has worked with more than 100 industry partners on the project.
In a statement, Huang said, in part, quote, "Trust and innovation are not in conflict. Safety is how trust is earned. We must build not only the most capable A.I., but the most trusted A.I., so that this extraordinary technology can realize its enormous promise for the world."
Joining me now is Democratic congressman from here in California, George Whitesides. He's also the host of the new YouTube series "Capitol Heat." We'll talk about that in a moment.
Congressman, welcome to THE STORY IS for the first time. Great to have you here.
A.I. regulation, front and center. Here's what the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, said about his perspective on the matter. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): They have a corporate responsibility, as every corporation does, to -- to create safe products. Right?
And there's product liabilities laws that apply and a labyrinth of federal regulations on all this stuff already.
We do not need a moratorium. We do not need to jump in and hyper- regulate this, because we'll lose the race to China. The innovation is important to continue, but we have to strike the right balance.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: So, for people that don't know your background, you were the chief of staff at NASA. You were the CEO of Virgin Galactic. So, you know about rockets and space.
Your thoughts on A.I. in terms of this tech, what we should do?
REP. GEORGE WHITESIDES (D-CA): Well, look, I think the American people are scared, and they feel like nobody's in charge; and they don't trust the White House. They certainly don't trust Speaker Johnson. What I called for two weeks ago was for the companies to take a one-
month safety stand-down.
You know, in aerospace, when we have a big accident or have an anomaly, we stop flying. We try to understand what happened. We write down what we're going to do to make it safer, and then we only then go back to flight.
It's so obvious to me that that is what we need for the A.I. industry right now. We need to stop development of these A.I. models right now for -- for a bit of time, so we can get the right people in the room, including government experts, to figure out how we're going to do this going forward in a safe way.
MICHAELSON: Did anybody listen to you when you said that?
WHITESIDES: Well, the interesting thing is that OpenAI basically agreed to do that today. They said that they're going to pause development of their frontier models.
And one of the things that I hope comes out of this meeting tomorrow is that the other companies also agree to pause so that we can have that conversation. And then legislate what they're talking about, put it into law, because the rest of the company does not -- country does not agree with Speaker Johnson.
MICHAELSON: If you had a seat at that table, and you're sitting there, and the president called on you, what would be your message?
WHITESIDES: Well, my message to the president and all these people is that, you know, really, these models have shown that they are tremendously powerful and also that the companies do not fully understand what's happening.
I don't know if you heard what happened over the weekend, but they discovered almost a million new websites that these models had created.
We need to get on top of this. The best way to do that is to pause for, you know, some period of time, not so long that we get, you know, behind the Chinese, but for some period of time, so we can get back on top of it and legislate it.
What's crazy is that Speaker Johnson has taken Congress off the field and told us to go home during this moment where we have high costs, you know, this crisis in the Middle East, and the A.I. issue which is going on.
MICHAELSON: It certainly appears that the Democrats are going to win the House, could win the Senate. If you do, what's issue one on -- on A.I.? What does that actually look like, the regulation from your side?
WHITESIDES: Well, look, there are a lot of different bills that talk about how we can help the companies do this safely. We need to make sure that we're on top of something called recursive self-improvement. That's when the models program themselves to get smarter. That's what people are really worried about.
[00:35:12]
But we also need to make sure that we're taking care of our kids. Right? I've got a bill that's going to be looking at how A.I. will be deployed in the classroom. Do we really understand the safety? Chatbots, it's a really big issue.
So, these are the kinds of things. We need to look at digital health for our kids and for ourselves, as well as these big macro issues like the economy and how it's going to take over part of the labor force.
MICHAELSON: So, there are -- that's a very serious issue. There are so many serious issues that are important to have policy discussions about.
But you also get people to listen to the policy discussions, and you've got to find creative ways to do that. And so, what you've done is you've created a show called "Capital Heat," which you are loosely based off of the -- another show that focuses on eating hot wings.
And here's a clip of you interviewing fellow Congressman Derek Tran.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. DEREK TRAN (D-CA): Oh my God, this is hot.
WHITESIDES: This is the worst one. This is the bomb. It's in, like, the -- the lips now and the -- the tongue.
TRAN: I might hate you more than --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: OK. And so, we brought in some wings here. We're going to try this as we talk about this. I guess this gets hotter as we go.
WHITESIDES: Is this the first time you've done this?
MICHAELSON: This is the first time I've done it. I do not like --
WHITESIDES: This is exciting television.
MICHAELSON: I don't like spicy foods.
WHITESIDES: OK, that makes for better television.
MICHAELSON: So -- but I'm doing this for you and for the sake of being humiliated on CNN.
WHITESIDES: OK.
MICHAELSON: But I'll start with this.
WHITESIDES: Yes.
MICHAELSON: The first one.
WHITESIDES: Yes.
MICHAELSON: And talk to us about the concept behind this.
WHITESIDES: Well, the concept here is really to break through the inauthenticity that we see in so much of political communications.
We wanted a way to show my colleagues, you know, in -- in their personal side. You know, learning about Derek Tran and how he went off to the -- join the military at age 18, you know, without telling his -- his folks.
But also, to do it in a fun way, because so many people tune out politicians these days.
MICHAELSON: Right.
WHITESIDES: And this is a way to sort of break through and also have a little fun.
MICHAELSON: OK. So, that was the mild one.
WHITESIDES: That was easy.
MICHAELSON: Not too bad.
WHITESIDES: Yes. This one --
MICHAELSON: Now we're going a little spicier.
WHITESIDES: A little spicier. Yes.
MICHAELSON: Mm.
WHITESIDES: Yes. You can tell that -- that one's a little -- a little hotter.
But you know, what I say to people is wait until the end. It sort of takes a little second to -- to kick in. And I know you have to do an entire show after this, which I -- you know, I got to leave.
MICHAELSON: Yes. I have another hour and a half. Yes.
WHITESIDES: Now, I usually ask a question of my audience. I'd love to ask you a question, if that would be OK.
MICHAELSON: Sure. Go ahead.
WHITESIDES: So, I understand that your mother would actually cook baked goods for your early interviews.
MICHAELSON: Yes.
WHITESIDES: And I was just curious, like, how did that get started? Like, who had that idea? MICHAELSON: That's a good question.
WHITESIDES: I do my homework, Elex.
MICHAELSON: It started when -- when I was an intern. We used to bring, on the first day and the last day, cookies and brownies for everybody, so that it would get people from the staff to come by. It was a great way to meet people.
So, their first interaction was a positive one. They didn't necessarily like me or care about the intern. They just wanted the baked goods.
So, it was a way to -- for people to remember you. Your first impression and last impression was positive.
WHITESIDES: I love that, I love that.
Should we go into the top?
MICHAELSON: Let's go.
WHITESIDES: OK, so this is the hottest one. Now this may be a little warm for you. We'll see.
This is the part where we normally zoom in on your face as the guest. And -- and I -- and I love that you're doing this.
MICHAELSON: It's pretty hot.
WHITESIDES: Yes, it's pretty hot. So -- yes.
MICHAELSON: Well, let me ask you your signature question.
WHITESIDES: Yes.
MICHAELSON: You ask everybody, what's one piece of legislation you wish you could pass? What is that?
WHITESIDES: I really want to help folks recover from wildfire and be ready for wildfire in -- in the West. Right?
We know we have this huge issue. Three days after I was sworn in, we had massive wildfires. It is crazy that the administration has not yet sent disaster relief to California, even though we're approaching two years later.
So, I want to help us recover from the fire and also be more resilient from the fire going forward. So, we've got a lot of bills focused on using new technologies to put out fires quickly; to pay firefighters what they deserve; and to protect communities to make them more resilient from wildfire.
MICHAELSON: OK, this is really hot.
WHITESIDES: Yes. This is 2 million Scovilles. I don't know if you know what that means, but that is the hottest sauce that is on the market.
I'm going to break out the milk, as well.
MICHAELSON: That milk's good.
WHITESIDES: And you're brave for doing this on --
MICHAELSON: Cheers.
WHITESIDES: Cheers.
MICHAELSON: Thank you very much. Man, that's really something. All right. So, people can check this out on YouTube.
WHITESIDES: Yes, you can check it out, "Capitol Heat." It's on my YouTube channel, with George Whitesides. And I think you'll get a great sense of -- of how these people who are serving in Congress are as real people and what motivates them.
[00:40:08]
MICHAELSON: I had you say that, trying to give myself a second to recover. Because this is -- this is going to be challenging for the rest of the night.
But thank you so much. And it's an interesting way to have this conversation.
Speaking of interesting conversations, the reason we're in our newsroom is because they're preparing our set for the California governor's debate.
Be sure to tune in Wednesday at 9 p.m. Eastern Time, 6 p.m. Pacific for the California governor's debate. Democrat Xavier Becerra will face off against Republican Steve Hilton.
CNN's Jake Tapper and Dana Bash will moderate that. We will have a special edition of THE STORY IS right afterwards at 10 p.m. Pacific Time, right here on CNN.
We will be right back. I'm going to drink some more milk, and hopefully, I'm recovered by the time this commercial break is over.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[00:45:38]
MICHAELSON: Welcome back. Let's take a look at today's top stories.
Former special counsel Jack Smith, set to testify before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in the coming hours. He'll face questions about his investigating -- investigations into Donald Trump's alleged mishandling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Republican lawmakers have accused Smith and his team of spying on members of Congress and giving misleading testimony late last year.
Lindsay Clancy will be in court on Tuesday for a potentially significant hearing. It will be the first time she's appeared in court since her triple murder trial ended in a hung jury.
Clancy's defense team hopes to get more information about the lone juror who prevented the panel from unanimously finding Clancy not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility.
Meanwhile, prosecutors, who have not said yet whether they want to retry Clancy, could signal their next moves.
Public sector workers across France are set to strike on Tuesday, with demonstrations planned nationwide. Healthcare workers, teachers, railway workers, police, and firefighters are among those expected to take part.
They're protesting plans to freeze their base pay as the cost of living continues to rise.
The demonstrations come days before the government is set to submit its draft 2027 budget.
U.K. authorities have released on bail five men arrested on suspicion of terrorism and explosive offenses. They were initially detained near an air base used by U.S. long-range bombers for missions in the war with Iran.
President Trump criticized the decision to release the men and suggested he knows who is responsible for the alleged plot.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT; I'm surprised that they released them. I wouldn't have done that. Look, they've been very good. They're working with us very closely. We know everything about them. We would not have released them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, you said it might be Iran. Might be. Can you elaborate on that?
TRUMP: Oh, I don't know. I'd rather not. I mean, I know the answer. I can be very specific, but I'd rather not say. But I would not have released them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: CNN's Nic Robertson is in Fairford, England, with the latest on the ongoing investigation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR (voice-over): Early Sunday, they were cuffed, in police custody. Now, the five men arrested on suspicion of terrorism and explosive charges outside a U.K. base used by the U.S. Air Force, are out on bail. LAURENCE TAYLOR, ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER, U.K. COUNTER TERRORISM
POLICE: To be very clear, this does not mean that the investigation is over. They are subject to stringent conditions on their movement and contact with others. They absolutely remain under investigation as we explore multiple lines of inquiry.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): Police, after searching their vans, appear to lack evidence, for now, to support their suspicions.
TAYLOR: Those vehicles have been subject to extensive examination with the support of military assets and forensic experts.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): It was finding those vehicles that triggered this farmer, who took pictures of them to raise the alarm.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: First thing I noticed was a vehicle on our farm drive, and then I realized there was three of them, and they're parked in a really strange formation, say.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): Right after, she spotted the now-released men.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's such a flash moment of seeing them, but there were definitely more than five. We think maybe between 8 and 10 of them were there at that point, and a lot of them were cover -- had their faces covered.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): She called the police hotline, 999, and then her friends.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I put a message on our village WhatsApp group, just saying -- because I didn't want people to be scared. I just said, just to let you all know, something very odd has happened today in our -- or tonight in the village, and told them what I'd seen. And literally, within five minutes of that, everything sort of kicked off, and armed police arrived.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): After them, the bomb squad showed up. Next, several hundred local residents, including the farmer, evacuated.
But the circumstances leading to the short-lived arrest are raising concerns.
ROBERTSON: Local residents, including the farmer who called the police, have questions. They say over the past week, the base appeared to put in place what looked like additional security measures: big vehicles, concrete blocks blocking the gates giving access to the airfield.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just can't process how that base was on such high alert and that the men were even there. Never mind how many and how many they caught.
And they reacted very quickly to the 999 call. But before that, where were they?
ROBERTSON (voice-over): The area's local lawmaker has questions, too. ROZ SAVAGE, MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT, SOUTH COTSWOLDS: But I have so many
questions that I really want to ask the secretary of state for defense, even the prime minister, about who knew what and when.
If there was advanced intelligence, then it seems that a lot of people who should have known that didn't know that.
ROBERTSON (voice-over); For now, more unknown than known. The U.K. counterterrorism chiefs leaving the possibility open the men acted wittingly or unwittingly, working for a foreign state.
Nic Robertson, CNN, Fairford, England.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAELSON: Thanks to Nic.
The secret meeting between the Israeli prime minister and the United Arab Emirates president has now been confirmed by both countries.
An Israeli source says that Iran was the key topic of discussion during Sunday's meeting in the UAE. The trip comes at a critical time for Benjamin Netanyahu, as Israel is just weeks away from holding key elections.
Coming up, Pope Leo is urging world leaders, tech companies, and the rest of us to take A.I.'s threats to humanity seriously. More on that message, plus our top stories, when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[00:55:34]
MICHAELSON: Pope Leo XIV has wrapped up his four-day visit to France.
On the trip, he spoke about the dangers of artificial intelligence, warning that it poses a threat to humanity. Not a new topic for the pontiff. He addressed the ethical and moral concerns about A.I. in his first major theological document this year.
CNN's Christopher Lamb has more about that and the rest of the pope's trip to France.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTOPHER LAMB, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think this is a very significant visit by Pope Leo --
LAMB (voice-over): -- because France, despite it being a highly secularized culture, there were really very big numbers turning out for the pope, a mass with 800,000 people in the center of Paris, 150,000 people turning out in Lourdes, a major pilgrimage site, for the pope.
And I think it was really striking to see the numbers of young people who also were there for Pope Leo. The Catholic Church in France, despite having years of declining numbers going to church, has seen an increase in conversions among young people.
Pope Leo mentioning that on the way back from Metz to Rome, saying that he was there to encourage young people who he said he felt were searching for something. So that was a really important part of his visit.
LAMB: On board the plane, he also addressed A.I., which is something he talked about in France, and he was asked about the threats of A.I. to humanity, and this is what he had to say.
POPE LEO XIV, LEADER, CATHOLIC CHURCH: If someone were to ask me, am I in panic mode? No, I'm not. I sleep at night.
I do think that the concerns raised by many of the experts, specialists in A.I., should be taken seriously. I don't think that that is a fake news, as some have said, to try and cause whether financial or some other kind of benefit.
LAMB (voice-over): Well, Leo also cited the head of the A.I. company Nvidia, who he suggested was not taking it seriously enough in terms of the risks of A.I.
That's very unusual for the pope to do that.
LAMB: He also said the Vatican has set up a special commission to look at the risks and benefits of a of A.I. This is something that Leo has devoted a lot of attention to during his pontificate.
But I think, broadly speaking, the trip to France was a success for Leo. He was able to connect with people, to draw really big crowds, and to deliver a number of important political messages.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAELSON: Christopher Lamb, thank you. Pope Leo will visit several South American countries in November, and Peru is already anticipating his arrival. Sculptors in Lima are carving a 14-meter-tall likeness of the pontiff in clay.
The trip will be something of a homecoming. Before he became pope, Robert Prevost spent nearly two decades serving in Peru as a missionary and then a bishop.
We're getting our first look at China's pandas, Ping Ping and Fu Shuang, who are now at their new home at Zoo Atlanta.
We have new video showing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services inspecting the pandas after their arrival on Sunday. Both are part of Beijing's long tradition of panda diplomacy.
According to China's state media, the pandas are on loan to the Atlanta Zoo for ten years, during which time the pair is meant to breed to boost panda populations.
But visitors will have to wait to officially meet them as their routine quarantine period ends in about a month. Thanks for watching the first hour of THE STORY IS. The next hour
starts right now.
