What to Know About America.gov and its AI; Mr. Smith Takes On Washington

0:00Monica Alba: The Dodgers are the back-to-back defending champions, so you've got to slay the dragon and it's going to be hard to beat them. Hi, everybody, and welcome to Here's the Scoop from NBC News. I'm Yasmin Basugin. You guessed it right. We are talking about baseball. MLB playoffs are getting underway. And here is the overarching question, right? Can anyone beat two-time reigning World Series champions, the L.A. Dodgers? I have got NBC Sports Analyst and Chicago Cubs World Series champion Anthony Rizzo on to weigh in on that very question. Plus, a blast from the past, but not that long ago. Former special counsel Jack Smith is enemy number one on Capitol Hill today with Republicans.

0:44Monica Alba: And things got pretty heated during his testimony. So we're digging into that as well. Up first, though. So the Trump administration is getting into the AI game in a very big way, launching America.gov, a new AI power tool that they're pitching as a one-stop shop for government services like renewing a passport or enrolling in Medicare. This launch is part of a full AI summit in Washington with a bunch of AI leaders and an executive order signing. But it's also coming amidst a wave of criticism and concern about the lack of regulation in AI, including from Republicans. So to tell us more about this platform and how it's going to fit into the president's AI ambitions, I want to bring in White House correspondent Monica Alba.

1:32Monica Alba: Hi, Monica. Hey, great to be with you. They haven't necessarily had a great history in launching government websites and it going smoothly. And I say that, of course, in thinking about healthcare.gov. So when you go on america.gov, is it up and running and going well? It's working for now. And we have been kind of playing around with it and exploring some of the different features that it offers. And it's a very sleek design. This is coming from somebody who was intimately involved with launching the TrumpRx website. And it really looks like any kind of an AI powered and generated chatbot. But it's promising a lot that is still to come that doesn't necessarily work yet.

2:16Monica Alba: So today's rollout was about launching it. But even the president himself acknowledged that he thinks it is likely that it could be hacked. He said it can't in theory be hacked, but likely it will be at some point. And when people figure out a way to hack that, he says that they will respond to that and try to deal with it. once it does work, according to the White House, it will be a place where people can do everything from figure out how to change their name if they need to after they get married or apply for a new passport if they're a veteran and they want more information, if they want to book a campground at a national park.

2:55Monica Alba: This is the place that they say now they could go to one area and get all of their answers on how to go about and do those things. So sort of streamlining the bureaucracy of many different government and federal websites in one place. That's their goal. You mentioned the potential of it being hacked, right? Which I think is actually a larger concern. And I say this because at the announcement of the unveiling of this website, the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, actually demoed a passport renewal application, right? That requires a lot of sensitive information, the passport renewal, right? Right.

3:28Monica Alba: What safeguards are in place to protect people's information, especially when the president is leading with, hey, this may likely get hacked and we'll deal with it when it does. Yeah. And they're talking about the most sensitive data that you could be providing. We're talking also about Social Security numbers and a ton of other information that you need to input on government websites in order to access certain programs or to apply for certain things. And so there is a kind of disclaimer when you go on to the website that warns you and reminds you that you should only be putting in sensitive information on a website like this and ensuring that you haven't accidentally kind of clicked out to something else and that you are still on America.gov when you are putting in this information.

4:13Monica Alba: But they say that it will be safe and that you can input your personal information, your sensitive information on this website. But this is a place that certainly is now going to potentially be a target for some of the most sensitive information for potentially millions of Americans. And the flip side to that, too, I think, is legitimate questions people might have about where their information is being held or what their information is being used for or whether somebody inputting data or asking questions is potentially being tracked or if there are other kind of methods or other information that the website can glean just from interacting with it.

4:53Monica Alba: And we know that some questions have been raised about the White House application that it launched, that new app in the App Store, that does seem to take a lot of information when you register for it and that potentially, according to some reporting, had been having a tracker feature. So could something like this be similar? That's something to watch for, too. So then there's the question of who's powering it, right? Right. And America.gov, we learned, is being powered by Elon Musk's Grok and Google's Gemini. But I went to this site earlier as well. And when you ask it what model it's based on, it says this, and I quote, I am America, a government information assistant operated by GSA.

5:36Monica Alba: I use AI to search official U.S. government sources and explain them with citations. Public pages do not name a specific underlying model. I cannot verify one. Is this intentional that they're not telling us that there's a Grok association or a Gemini association? I'm very curious to see that because that was our first question to try to figure out what the underlying model was that it was using. And so we asked the White House and it took them a little bit to respond, but eventually they did confirm that to us. So meanwhile, right, this launch is happening today, which is likely timed to this, you know, AI summit that is happening, right?

6:14Monica Alba: In Washington, there's this AI summit, and then there's this luncheon with all these AI leaders that is actually happening at the White House. I mean, I was actually wondering, like, how many trillions of dollars that room is actually worth in one place with all those guys there. It's close to press. We know that the president has kind of been quick to brush off concerns about AI safety, right? Let's keep going. Let's not fall behind, is what the president has said, right, competing with China. Notably, there is one major AI head that is not there. That's Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI, is having his own summit on the West Coast.

6:50Monica Alba: And they just canceled the release of their latest model over safety concerns, right? So what are we expecting to come out of this summit? And how does this tool fit into the administration's AI priorities? Yeah, that OpenAI headline was a huge one because essentially they are admitting they have to stop the release of this latest model because it didn't really meet their standard for safety and alignment. That's what they call basically when they do the testing of this, there were things that came up, they said, went beyond the scope of what they would have wanted the latest chat model to do.

7:29Monica Alba: And it was so concerning, they said, that in certain situations, it wasn't listening to what the human was inputting or asking for and instead was going beyond that to basically reach for different tools that could be considered unsafe. So bottom line, things that OpenAI felt nervous about. So they said, whoa, we need to stop. And you are right to say Sam Altman is going to be on the West Coast. But his co-founder and the president of OpenAI, Greg Brockman, is going to be in the lunch with the president. In addition to Dario Amadei of Anthropic and others who have been calling for the president to listen to their warnings a bit more seriously and who have said there should be a slowdown of the rapid development of AI and perhaps some government intervention.

8:14Monica Alba: Now you have others in the room like Mark Zuckerberg of Meta who have been far more closely aligned with the president or Jensen Huang of NVIDIA who have kind of basically said the doomsday fears approach is not one that we take. We can talk about the concerns, but they've been a little bit more dismissive of that. So you have a range of viewpoints in this lunch. But last week when the president was hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping, the industry was sort of saying, hmm, should we take this moment to see if a safety agreement or any kind of coordination could come out on AI between the U.S.

8:48Monica Alba: and China? And some of these tech leaders were at that state dinner as well. So could something come out of this lunch in that realm? That's my main question because we know the president has, again, sort of said we don't need that. He has said the DOJ can be the guardrail on AI. And we know that right now there doesn't seem to be an appetite on Capitol Hill or in Congress to pass any kind of legislation, even if some of these leaders have suggested that as a potential path. Monica Alba, thank you. Thank you, yes. All right, we're going to take a very quick break. And when we are back, we are headed to the Hill where Special Counsel Jack Smith spent the morning sparring with senators.

9:28Monica Alba: That's next. And also, while you're waiting, I just want to ask you a favor, right? I would love it if you could take a second to make sure if you're subscribed to Here's the Scoop. And if you are, thank you, by the way, why not share this episode with a friend? We would love to be a part of their routine as well. I'll see you on the other side.

9:50Monica Alba: This message comes from Wise Business, the only account your business needs to scale globally. You're building a business with global ambitions, but hidden fees are eating into your margins. With Wise Business, you can pay overseas suppliers without exchange rate markups. Have customers worldwide get payment details in 22 currencies so you get more of each hard-earned payment without hidden conversion fees. Be smart. Get Wise Business. Download the app. T's and C's apply. 3 o 'clock. Kids are home. Your to-do list isn't done. New Kraft Mac & Cheese Power Mac was made for days like this. Kraft Mac & Cheese Power Mac packs the same irresistible, creamy, cheesy flavor you love, now with 17 grams of protein and 6 grams of fiber.

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11:07Jack Smith: Whoa, what the heck?

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11:24Monica Alba: And we are back with Here's the Scoop from NBC News. So here is a name that you may have forgotten, right? Jack Smith. He is the former special counsel who brought two federal criminal indictments against Donald Trump back in 2023. One was for his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the lead up to the January 6th Capitol riots. The other for his handling of classified documents after he left office. For some Republicans and certain members of the Trump administration, he is enemy number one. You have weaponized the Department of Justice against political enemies to an extent that has never happened in the history of this country.

11:58Monica Alba: You will go down as a total dirtbag. Well, Smith was on Capitol Hill today defending his role in those investigations in a very heated Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. I stand by my decisions as special counsel, including my decision to bring charges against President Trump. I made those decisions without regard to President Trump's political association, activities, beliefs, or candidacy in the 2024 presidential election. Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in serious crimes against our nation. So for this, I want to bring in NBC News correspondent Julie Serkin, who covers both the White House and Capitol Hill.

12:44Hi, Julie.

12:45Monica Alba: Hi, Asmin. So I got to say the title of this hearing, I think, says it all. And it is this. Oversight of Jack Smith's abuse of authority and the targeting of Republicans and related matters. Is this common for them to kind of title these hearings in this way?

13:05Jack Smith: Not that I've seen. And I've covered this place for seven years now, Yaz. But I will say that this is also potentially Republicans last opportunity to conduct these kinds of investigations. If you are at the school of thought that you believe Democrats will have the majority because this is the last week the Senate is in until the midterms. But certainly the first and foremost reason, I believe, having covered Jack Smith, covered the prosecutions and covering, most importantly to Republicans, why they feel so wrong by him, it's that they feel like he maybe overreached in his power by soliciting the call logs, the text messages and personal conversations that these Republican lawmakers feel like he should not have been able to get.

13:53Jack Smith: What's interesting is that even in Jack Smith's opening statement, he said, not even doubled down, he tripled down and said, If asked whether to prosecute a former president today based on the same facts, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Republican or a Democrat.

14:12Monica Alba: Republican House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, he's called for Jack Smith to be investigated for perjury for his testimony at a previous hearing. It seems as if to a certain extent without it actually officially happening, that is what Republicans are actually trying to do today. Right. Including an exchange over a basketball game. What happened there?

14:32Jack Smith: OK, so Eric Schmidt, he's a senator from Missouri. He tried to get Jack Smith essentially in a gotcha moment. Eric Schmidt put up a poster board or someone in his office put up a poster board behind him that tried to suggest that Jack Smith attended an Atlanta Hawks game around the same time that Fannie Willis, the D.A., now disgraced in Georgia, was conducting her separate probe into President Trump's election interference. She ended up having an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate and that case got tossed out. But Eric Schmidt tried walking Jack Smith down this line to admit that, yes, he attended this Atlanta Hawks game with Fonnie Willis.

15:14Monica Alba: So your testimony today is that you did not go to a Hawks game on February 3rd, 2024. Is that correct? I have no recollection of that.

15:22Jack Smith: When in fact, the Hawks game that Jack Smith attended was a game played in Maryland with the Iowa Hawkeyes with Caitlin Clark. It was a basketball game that, yes, Smith attended very far away from Georgia. And so Schmidt quickly pulled that poster down.

15:38Monica Alba: I don't think you know that we have this stuff. So I'll give you a second to process it so you don't perjure yourself. You just took it down really quick.

15:47Jack Smith: And when Amy Klobuchar said, hey, wait a minute. I was a prosecutor. can we at least see the poster that you put up and tried to then say that Jack Smith was perjuring himself? That didn't really happen. And then I asked Schmidt about it afterwards, and he essentially said, I'm just asking the questions. It's not my job to prosecute. That's for the Department of Justice.

16:07Monica Alba: OK, so then it comes to the actual cases, right? And there seems to be few new details on this, but I will say this. Jack Smith called Trump's election interference case, quote, one of the most serious crimes that has ever happened in our nation's history. So did we learn anything new about that or the classified documents case in Jack Smith's testimony today?

16:29Jack Smith: We didn't. And I can tell you why. I was having a conversation with a Democratic senator actually a couple of minutes before I sat down to talk to you who was in that hearing room. And I asked him, even privately behind the scenes, are any Republicans talking about the crux of the issue? Maybe Americans who don't trust institutions, why that is, right? Why they believe that every institution is weaponized against the opposing political party. And he said that he didn't learn anything new in this hearing, that it's a moot hearing and essentially useless. Why? Because he believes no matter who the prosecutor was in that case, in the January 6th case, which Smith, as you said, said was so serious, or in the classified documents case, whoever prosecuted those cases against President Trump, they would be in the hot seat sitting where Jack Smith is because the president, according to this Democrat, did such an effective job.

17:26Jack Smith: in messaging to his supporters that he is a martyr and this was done to him. Now, Democratic senators acknowledge that there are questions perhaps to be asked in general of this tit-for-tat politicization that we've seen in agencies, but that's not what Republicans called this hearing for today. It's in the title he asked. They called it so they could get Smith in the hot seat, in large part over investigating them.

17:51Monica Alba: So amidst all this, though, Jack Smith also did not hold back his punches, right? He took aim at the Justice Department currently for threatening the president's perceived political enemies. History teaches that the rule of law is rarely destroyed all at once. It's often weakened by attacks on the institutions and the public servants sworn to uphold it. Since January of 2025, we have witnessed precisely such an effort, including the vilification of the agents, prosecutors, and staff who worked on my team. simply because of their unwavering dedication to the rule of law. I myself have been threatened with jail by the president of the United States.

18:35Monica Alba: He is obviously referring to, it seems, the many staffers that were in fact fired, connected to these cases once the president took office for his second term.

18:47Jack Smith: Yeah, and we saw this happen at the FBI. We saw this happen within other agencies under the Department of Justice umbrella and writ large in this administration. And I asked Senator Welch about that. Senator Welch told me that there are problems. There are areas in which the American people feel like they can't trust the DOJ depending on who is in power, in large part because of the statements that President Trump himself made. But Senator Welch also told me that there is a need for the DOJ to restore its professionalism, to go back to that space where Americans can trust the system. He just doesn't feel like Republicans are interested in that at all.

19:30Jack Smith: That is not the point of the hearing today.

19:31Monica Alba: Senator Welch, obviously a Democrat from Vermont. Smith's cases were both dismissed in 2024 after the president was reelected. What, if anything, could happen with these cases if Democrats win back control of the House and the Senate?

19:47Jack Smith: Well, here's what's so interesting, Yasmin, because I know Democrats are already plotting as if they're going to win in November. They're trying to focus where their investigations will take them in 2027 when President Trump is still in the White House in both the House and the Senate. They cannot wait to get their hands on investigating different officials and different things that the president has done. All of that is going to come right back into the ether if Democrats win control of the Senate or the House. And I think that's going to create a major problem for the president for the next two years that he's in the White House.

20:23Monica Alba: Julie Serkin, thank you. Thanks, Yaz. All right. We're going to take a very quick break. But coming up, Major League Baseball playoffs are here, and we don't want you to feel out of your league. So we're bringing in World Series champ and new NBC Sports analyst, former first baseman Anthony Rizzo, to give us the play-by-play.

20:45Monica Alba: This message comes from Wise Business, the only account your business needs to scale globally. You're building a business with global ambitions, but hidden fees are eating into your margins. With Wise Business, you can pay overseas suppliers without exchange rate markups. Have customers worldwide get payment details in 22 currencies so you get more of each hard-earned payment without hidden conversion fees. Be smart. Get Wise Business. Download the app. T's and C's apply. 3 o 'clock. Kids are home. Your to-do list isn't done. New Kraft Mac & Cheese Power Mac was made for days like this. Kraft Mac & Cheese Power Mac packs the same irresistible, creamy, cheesy flavor you love, now with 17 grams of protein and 6 grams of fiber.

21:33Monica Alba: Fuels you up, keeps you going. Because your day doesn't stop. Kraft Mac & Cheese Power Mac. Find it at your favorite retailer. The best thing ever keeps getting better. I've given my blood, my sweat, my tears to this island. What happened here? We came here seeking a great treasure. We've been out here for 14 years. After centuries of mystery. You have to hold the proof in your hands. The lifelong quest. Time to go get it. Whoa, what the heck? Has finally paid off. You found that in the money pit. This is what we've spent our entire lives searching for. The Curse of Oak Island. New season, Tuesday at 9.

22:14Monica Alba: Only on History.

22:20Monica Alba: And we are back with Here's the Scoop from NBC News. So after 162 games, the Major League Baseball playoffs are finally here. The wildcard series gets underway today. And now we've got some major rivals going head to head, right? You got the Phillies against the Braves. You got the Yankees versus the Red Sox. And of course, the big question here is, will any team be able to beat reigning two-time World Series champs, the L.A. Dodgers? Well, for this, I want to bring in someone who knows what it takes, three-time All-Star and a World Series champion. Now NBC News sports analyst Anthony Rizzo. Hi, Anthony.

22:55Monica Alba: Hi, how are you? Thanks for having me on. It's great to have you. Thank you. Do you get FOMO during this time? Like, would you rather be on the field than analyzing and doing all that? Yes. I was fortunate enough to play for 14 years in the major leagues. And on opening day this year, I got a little bit of FOMO. And now, going into the playoffs, this is what you play for. But it's going to be cool to be on the other side. I've sat in the dugout for so long. I've had the experiences of October baseball playing a lot of games, and now to be able to broadcast that to an audience is going to be special for me.

23:25Monica Alba: So I mentioned the game that you're going to be covering tonight, I should say, Red Sox versus the Yankees. They faced off in the wildcard series last year. The Yankees won. The Red Sox had a rough start this year. They really, though, bounced back, right? You, of course, played for the Yankees for four seasons. Four seasons. Your last four seasons. can the Red Sox pull out a win this time? I think they can. They're a scrappy team. They seem like they've really come together. They fired their manager Alex Cora early in the year and Chad Tracy's come in and has done an amazing job. Such a good job.

24:02Monica Alba: They've made him now the permanent manager for the next three years. So they have really good pitching. They have a really good bullpen. They just got to score runs and that's going to be the hard part against any team playing the Yankees in the postseason. The Yankees pitching staff is as deep as it's ever been in a long time for Aaron Boone. So it's going to be must-watch television tonight with the two pitchers going, and runs will be at a premium. So if we can talk kind of more inside baseball, you play for the Chicago Cubs the majority of your career, right? They're going up against the Padres, which was your first MLB team.

24:37Monica Alba: Let's talk for a second about the Cubs center fielder, right? Pete Crow Armstrong. strong. He's hit 45 home runs, stole 41 bases this year. He's now the MVP front runner in the National League. For folks who don't follow baseball closely, explain why this was such an incredible season for him. He started off really slow as well. So since May, he's just been the best hitter on the planet. And it's been for four months, five months of baseball. So, I mean, he's such a dynamic player. He can change the game in one swing and he can change the game defensively and on the bases. So where does this position him going into this game?

25:11Monica Alba: When you put yourself at that status level, I think the pressure is on you even more. And it's the supporting cast around him that I think always needs to pick up the superstars in the big moments. Like he can't do it by himself. No, in October, it takes the entire team. The Dodgers have won the last two World Series. How strong is this year's team? And who could possibly stand in the way of them pulling out a third World Series win? I think it's the Braves that can stand in their way. The Braves are a really good team that just haven't been talked about a lot this year. They've just been really good all season long.

25:51Monica Alba: They do everything right, but the Dodgers are the back-to-back defending champions. So you've got to slay the dragon, and it's going to be hard to beat them. They are positioned well with the first-round bye. Going into the playoffs, it looks like a lot of their guys are healthy, but I think that it's just that mental toll that it's going to take for them to go deep into October again is going to be such a challenge. They have a tough, I mean, every team, but the National League, it's a gauntlet this year. I want to ask you a question on behalf of parents who are slaving away, bringing their kids to all these games every single weekend.

26:28Monica Alba: When do you know as to whether or not you should invest in your kid long-term to go into pro sports? I think you have to invest in your kid long-term when you're probably pregnant, knowing that you have at least 18 years. At what point are you like, let's pull the plug on this travel thing because you're not getting a scholarship or you're not, you know? I think for me watching kids, I have a couple nieces and nephews that are now playing travel baseball and in the baseball circuit that as long as they're having fun and they're enjoying it, that's what your kids are going to remember. The percentage of kids playing travel baseball that will actually make it to the major leagues is very low.

27:05Monica Alba: But as long as they're having fun, that's what it's all about so um can we do a lightning round real quick please okay um hardest pitcher you ever faced i'd probably say steven strasberg in this prime um least favorite mlb rule change i love all the rule changes really i do yeah uh best mlb mascot the philly fanatic most memorable thing an opposing fan yelled at you oh good or bad and if it's an expletive you know. Bad is everything under the sun. We've heard it all. Good, I would just be, I'm a cancer survivor, so hearing people's stories when I'm on the index or course and then saying thank you or something without my foundation is always the most memorable.

27:49Monica Alba: What sport would you play if it wasn't for baseball? I think I'd go golf, some version of golf, tennis, or soccer. Are you good at any of those? No. Okay. It's just wishful thinking. But I love watching. Yeah, okay. Who's the GOAT, Babe Ruth or Shohei Otani? I would say Babe Ruth because he's just this mythical figure in all of our generation's life. But what Shohei Otani is doing is just the most incredible thing anyone's ever done on the baseball field. Anthony Rezzo, good luck tonight. Thank you very much. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. All right. That is going to do it for us.

28:25Monica Alba: Here's the scoop from NBC News. I'm Yasmin Vasugan. We'll be back tomorrow with whatever the day may bring. And if you like what you heard, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And you can also subscribe to our daily newsletter, The Inside Scoop. It is a deeper dive on the main stories of the day that comes out every weeknight straight to your inbox. You can sign up for The Inside Scoop with part of our paid subscription at NBCNews.com. We'll see you tomorrow.

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