Trump’s Self-Promoting Ads Risk Backfiring as GOP Voices Concern

0:03Tonight, a new self-promoting ad from the president paid for by taxpayers. Except this one isn't so new, and even top Republicans say it crosses the line. Plus, a DA in New York reopens an investigation involving horrific rape allegations at a Cornell frat house. So why did it take a lawsuit against the university for him to try to revisit the case? Plus, OpenAI scraps its latest model over safety concerns on the eve of a big meeting between the president and tech CEOs. That's all tonight on Laura Coates Live.

0:41My opening statement tonight, what do you think of when you hear the term public service announcement? Well, I can think of a few. This is your brain on drugs. Be cool. Stay in school. Maybe even something promoting open enrollment for Obamacare. But now President Trump is arguing this belongs in the same category. This is the final battle. We will liberate America from these villains. once and for all. Did you catch what was on your screen at the end? Yeah. Paid for by the U.S. government. Just like the taxpayer-funded ad released by the administration last week. Now, the White House claims these are PSAs, not campaign ads.

1:26It says Trump isn't on the ballot and there's no call to action. Except the one you just saw is nearly identical to an ad from Trump two years ago. a Trump 2024 campaign ad. Liberate America from these villains once and for all.

1:51And several Republicans think it's a red line for American taxpayers to foot the bill for ads like that, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune. It's a great message. I like the message, but it shouldn't be paid for with taxpayer dollars. I don't think any public official, including President Trump or Kristi Noem or John Kennedy, should spend public money on private ads for themselves. What are your thoughts on that? Is it appropriate? No. It's not even a close question. Even though Trump, in the White House, says Trump is not on the ballot, he's repeatedly told his base to pretend that he is on the ballot, just putting GOP candidates in a real bind.

2:36Because many of Trump's own policies are deeply unpopular. I mean, take Iowa, a state that he won by more than 13 points just two years ago. Trump's decision to curb tariffs on imported beef has gotten a lot of pushback from the cattle ranchers there. And GOP Senate candidate Ashley Hinson now finds herself in a competitive race against Democratic challenger Josh Turek. Now, Trump dismissed the polls as fake while Hinson was in the Oval Office today. He went on to praise her. But Hinson has been creating some distance between the president and herself because the message she's running on, well, it's not exactly Trumpian.

3:13Used to be that reaching across the aisle wasn't just OK. It was expected. Some people in Washington forgot that. I never have. And it doesn't end there. She's one of a growing number of Republicans calling for an end to the Iran war. I've called for an immediate and successful end to the war in Iran. We have to bring prices down. The war with Iran needs to end and end quickly. I just believe that we should be exiting Iran, that it's time to move on. We've got to bring the war to a close. We've got to get gas prices down. It is time to put an end to that war. I really believe that. With me now, Democratic Congressman from New York, Dan Goldman, who's a member of the House Judiciary Committee.

4:00Congressman, I have to know, is there anything Democrats can do right now to stop these ads from running? Well, look, I mean, there are lawsuits that could be filed that would have to be from outside groups. But one of the consequences of being in the minority is that we don't have subpoena power. We cannot compel the administration to do anything. So what we are going to do and what we need to do is turn this into a political advantage for us because the American people fully understand that their taxpayer dollars should not be going to support a particular candidate. That's not what they pay taxes for.

4:47That's not what that money is used for. and especially when costs are going through the roof, inflation is high, tariffs are taxing everyone, that the government would use, the government, the Trump administration and Donald Trump himself would use those taxpayer dollars, which could go for groceries and rent and health care, instead to promote himself. It is going to be self-defeating for him while also illegal. Well, Congressman Jamie Raskin suggests this is not just a Hatch Act violation, which is significant in and of itself, but he also thinks it might be felony criminal theft. Do you agree with that assessment?

5:29Look, I think it's possible. The problem is, as we know, Donald Trump fully controls the Department of Justice. Todd Blanche is his puppet, is his lackey, who will do whatever Donald Trump says. So the idea that there would be any investigation, criminal investigation, is so unlikely. And that's why this is all happening. The Hatch Act, this is an obvious violation of the Hatch Act. The Hatch Act does not have criminal penalties. And that's because the Constitution assumed that the president of the United States would abide by his oath to faithfully execute the laws. We've never had a president like Donald Trump who has flouted and broken so many laws, so many provisions of the Constitution.

6:20And I'm not sure that Congress before was ever prepared for it. And that's why there are no criminal penalties for the Hatch Act. It's really in the domain of the executive branch. The Office of Special Counsel can investigate it, but the punishment is not there to deter him from doing this. So this is yet another thing that Democrats will have to do. And we're in the majority is to put more teeth with criminal penalties or significant fines for any violations of these good government laws. You know, I always say there's this gap between what the law is and what it ought to be. And in between is what the American people thinks that it really is able to protect.

7:04And so there is this gap to close. We'll see. But the attorney general, Todd Blanche, he made an argument on Sunday about a different issue. And he argued that the president has total authority over who is allowed on Air Force One and also at the White House. Listen to this. The president has every right to decide who gets to fly on his plane. And it is national security, especially on Air Force One and especially at the White House. And so it's not just it's not just the fact that they refuse to report anything accurately. By the way, that is what is a national security problem. When you have completely misinformation, complete misinformation coming out of the White House, that that that affects our relationship with our foreign partners.

7:45That affects our relationship with our foreign enemies. Congressman, is there a world in which bad press equals a national security threat? And by the way, that assumes there is bad press. But go ahead. Right. I mean, but I mean, the proof is in the pudding. When Donald Trump announced this, he made no mention of national security. He made it very clear that he doesn't like those particular outlets because they're they say the facts and he doesn't agree with those facts. He wants to create alternative facts, but that they report the actual news. And he doesn't like that. So he wants to get rid of them from the White House and from Air Force One.

8:29I don't know how Todd Blanche looks himself in the mirror at this point. It is so beneath him to claim somehow that this is a national security risk and that the president can choose which media outlets that gets to cover him and and which don't. And that that decision is made based on whether he likes their coverage or not. It would be one thing if he said no more coverage for anybody in the White House or on Air Force One. You all have to figure out a different way of getting it. OK, he's treating everybody equally. But obviously it's a violation of the First Amendment for him to particularize and select a few that he doesn't like.

9:16and he's open and notorious about that and say they cannot have the same access as other outlets that he does like. It is a blatant and egregious violation of the First Amendment. Todd Blanche knows that, and I'm embarrassed for him. And yet, here we are. Congressman Dan Goldman, thank you. Thank you. I want to turn now to the host of The Ben Ferguson Show, Ben Ferguson, former senior spokesperson for the Harris-Waltz campaign, Adrian Elrod, and White House columnist for The Hill, Niall Stanage. Good to have all of you guys here on set with me. Good to see you guys. You too. Niall, I want to begin with you, because Republican lawmakers, they have been calling out Trump for spending tax money on political ads in particular.

10:03And there is a rule against this, I should remind people. The administration is blowing right past it and is continuing to do so. Is there any concern that this might backfire for the White House? Oh, I think there's concern. for sure. For a start, just the mere fact that taxpayer money is being utilized for advertising from the president that pays homage to the president. There's an obvious problem there. And you mentioned Republican lawmakers, Laura. But of course, it's also the White House's defense here is that these aren't political ads. They are to remind Americans to be proud of their country.

10:37We're talking about 30-second ads. I got my stopwatch out earlier. One of them, 27 seconds is images of Donald Trump. That isn't a reminder to love your country. That is an encouragement to love Donald Trump. To reconcile this, because I miss you with the Hatch Act, and you know taxpayer dollars aren't supposed to be used for this. Do you see a world where this is considered really a PSA to voters? I think it's a PSA as much as it was when Barack Obama was doing the same thing with Obamacare, and no one was complaining. The ads are still up on the internet. This is totally, this is completely different.

11:08This is literally a promotional ad for Donald Trump. No, this was actually an ad pushing for something called Obamacare. It was a political campaign ad for Obamacare. To tell people how to sign up to get health care. The Affordable Health Care Act was a totally different thing. That was to sign up for a policy so people could access health care. This is a vanity project for Donald Trump. You had a piece of legislation that was named after Barack Obama, and they used government funds to advocate and support for his cause. If we're going to lose our minds about what Trump's doing now, then we have to lose our minds on that.

11:42First of all, it's called the Affordable Care Act. But everybody called it Obamacare. It didn't name Obamacare. He called it Obamacare. Even Obama called it Obamacare. But these are apples of age care. He called it Obamacare. One of the things that I have found for years of covering Donald Trump now is when people on the right are asked, is he right to do this? They very rarely say yes. They almost always say, well, if you look at Obama or you look at Biden or you look at Clinton, The Obamacare thing was about informing people about tax credits that were available to reduce the price of health coverage.

12:13There is no reasonable person who would see that as analogous with the kind of Trump-centric ads. If you look at it from the lens of politics, if I have a policy called Obamacare, and I need people to think it's popular, and I need it to be popular for the midterm elections coming up, because then I need to make sure that Democrats are winning. And I use those ads. If we're going to call them ads, let's just call it an ad then. That was an ad to help reelect Democrats to office to make Obamacare popular with the voters. So if we're going to say that's terrible, now I'll be clear about something else.

12:47If Donald Trump was running this ad right now and he was on the ballot, I'd be completely against it because I do believe that would then be a political ad for himself. He's not on the ballot. But he keeps saying that they should vote as if he is on the ballot. He said that at the Dallas midterm conventions, among other places, vote as if I'm on the ballot. Yeah, policy. So you can't just pick up the shoes and say, oh, well, he says he wants to be here. Hold on. Let me ask you this. Let's just say, and I don't agree, but let's all concede the point that you have a similarity. You're saying if you think that's wrong, then be outraged about this as well.

13:20Are you not outraged about this if you believe that was a problem? I didn't have a problem, by the way, and if you go back and look at the videos, on this network, I never criticize Obama for those ads. I'm using your hypothetical. I'm giving you a real. I had no problem with it. All right, that's fine. Okay, I'm asking not your personal view then because you made it more universalized. If people had a problem with Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act and the advertisements surrounding those tax credits, you think that they should then be not hypocritical and not support these ads as well? So is the same through line true?

13:53I think the president of the United States of America is the president of the United States of America. If he has a message that's a PSA that he believes is important to the voters, then he should be able to do that. That's why I didn't criticize Barack Obama when he did it. What's your point, Adrian? I was going to say, look, it's two things. Number one, when President Obama was running the Obamacare ads, that was in 2010 when Obamacare was really unpopular because people felt like it was a mandate that was passed. So it was not necessarily something that was helping him. This is something he was trying to say is he was trying to say that as a vanity project for him.

14:21But it was a political ad for him. Secondly, secondly, I think the bigger point here is that we can all sit here and say, oh, you can say this is perfectly fine, etc. What you're seeing from Trump voters, people who are hardcore mag voters voted for him in 2024, have been longtime supporters. Even they are saying, I don't want my taxpayer dollars going for a vanity project for Donald Trump when I can't afford gas. I can't afford groceries. I can't afford to feed my families. They are seeing this as, again, another tone-deaf moment for Trump where he's putting their taxpayer dollars to use for something that is not helping their bottom line.

14:53Well, I want to play with you guys what Congressman Ro Khanna has to say because he actually sees a silver lining in the use of these ads. Listen. The more they want to put President Trump on television, the happier I am. Obviously, it's an ethics violation, but here's my advice. Go spend as much money as you want putting Donald Trump on TV. Please put him on TV all over America. Please have him talk about how he's still committed to the Iran war and how gas prices are going up and diesel is going up. So does the political end justify the means to you? Well, I mean, I think that putting Trump in the center of the campaign is obviously dangerous for Republicans because his approval ratings are so low.

15:34Now, their bet is that if you put him in the center, you can turn out Republican voters who might otherwise not do so. The question is, Donald Trump for his whole political career has been a big driver of turnout on both sides, right? So do you end up with more people coming out to administer a defeat by proxy to him than you get Republicans coming up to support him? I got to say, I think Donald Trump is the best face for the Republican Party right now, full stop. This is a guy who won a reelection after everything that had happened to him and did it. And the American people support him yet again.

16:10And what he's saying now is if you voted for four years of America first policies, then you need to show up one more time and vote for two more years of it. Because it's also got the lowest approval rating of any president going into a midterm cycle since Bush 92. I go back to the core. I still think Donald Trump turns out voters. The fact that he was able to do what he did with the midterm convention convention, I was there like it was felt like an actual convention. No other politician I've seen in my lifetime could do that on either side of the party. pull that off. He still has more momentum than any other Republican out there right now.

16:43That's why he said it's either me. And look, if it turns out that he loses, you get to grin and say, see, people don't like Donald Trump. If he's my best player right now, I put him on the field with a quarterback. He's the guy. I'm sure he does turn out voters. The questions for a strategist is whether he'll turn out Democratic voters or Republicans. We'll see. Everyone, thank you so much. Up next, prosecutors pull a 180 and decide to reopen an investigation into an alleged rape at Cornell. So why did the DA change his mind now? And was his original choice a mistake or was he simply following the law?

17:16Plus... Hi, my name is Michael Peggy Desmondville, also known as the law injure. Breaking tonight, the holdout juror in the Lindsey Clancy trial releasing a statement on camera for the first time. I'll play you his message next.

17:35Hey, I'm Anderson Cooper. On my podcast, All There Is, we explore grief and loss in all its complexities. My guest is Lil Jon. He's a rapper, DJ, and producer known for hits like Get Low and Turn Down for What. In February 2026, his 27-year-old son Nathan went missing near Nathan's home in Georgia. Three days later, his body was found in a pond nearby. eye. Lil Jon has a memoir that just came out called I Only Shout So You Can Hear Me. It takes time to heal. And I kept myself busy that I didn't let myself mourn. I needed to laugh again. I needed to be silly and interact with people and feel other people's energy and make people happy too.

18:19We have to share so other people can see that they can get through it too. Talking grief, building community. That's what the podcast is all about. This is all there is. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast. You may have noticed gambling doesn't require a casino anymore. You can just open up your phone. It's designed to keep us coming back or maybe never even leaving in the first place. We're going to talk to Dr. Timothy Fong, co-director of UCLA's Gambling Studies program. you're going to learn what your brain is really chasing when you place a bet, and also importantly, how to keep the game from playing you.

19:01Gambling addiction, gambling disorder is the hidden addiction. You can't smell it, you can't taste it, you can't see it, you can't have a urine drug test. Who are we talking about here, Professor? Who's the most likely demographic to be affected by this? Literally any single human on Earth. Listen to Chasing Life, streaming now, wherever you get your podcasts. All right. A warning to the audience at home. We're about to talk about the allegations of rape at Cornell, which are extremely disturbing to hear. And, you know, when I first read about the allegations against the seven fraternity brothers, I felt three emotions, disgust, horror and concern.

19:40And really, it triggered two parts of me. One, the mother. I'm always looking for teachable moments for my son, for my daughter, and I immediately wondered whether this could be one, should be one, and if so, what exactly was I going to tell them? But the story triggered another part of me, everyone, the prosecutor. And that's what we're going to focus on tonight, because ultimately this case will be decided by the law and prosecutorial discretion. So let's orient ourselves first, okay? This alleged gang rape happened in 2024 at the Chi Phi Fraternity House. At the time, the former Cornell student reported the alleged assault to university police, but there were no charges filed.

20:24Why? Because district attorney says the student's story didn't meet the standard under New York law. There were two instances she describes where someone touched her in a way that she didn't want them to touch her, and she told them no. and they did not continue. But consent or lack of consent is very specific under New York state law. You either have to be physically compelled or forcible compulsion, physical force, or you have to be physically helpless, which is unconscious, or you have to be mentally incapacitated, which is having been given drugs without your knowledge that rendered you incapable of consenting.

21:16None of those things were articulated in her initial statement. So according to the DA, the woman's original statement suggests that she willingly drank, willingly took ketamine, and willingly engaged or agreed to engage in an initial threesome. Now you fast forward two years later, and that woman has now filed a civil lawsuit alleging the school did not do enough to protect her. That has now triggered the DA to reopen that investigation. And he said this because her story may now suggest that she never consented or that her memory may provide additional details that ought to be considered. Now in this lawsuit, Jane Doe claimed she was 10 drinks deep and, quote, visibly intoxicated when she got to the frat house.

22:02She alleges two frat brothers, quote, pressured her into snorting a substance described as ketamine, which she says she had never done before. She alleges that one fraternity brother posted a message to his frat's Snapchat that read, well, free expletive upstairs. And here's the key claim made in her lawsuit. Quote, in her drunken state, plaintiff was incapable of consenting to a threesome. So that is what the DA says is now different about her story compared to 2024. But the woman's attorney says he doesn't buy the DA's argument for not pursuing the case originally. I don't know how anybody who was grossly intoxicated and drugged can consent to anything.

22:49I mean, the fact is she went to the Cornell University Police to file a complaint because she believed she was a victim of a crime. Now, I've tried rape cases, including ones involving intoxicated victims and delayed reporting. And here is the unsettling reality facing every prosecutor deciding whether they can prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. Sadly, I do mean sadly, victim blaming is still very pervasive. If you can get past victim blaming, you've got to contend with any inconsistencies in the victim's story and resolve why they are inconsistent. And, you know, in my experience, there are reasons stories change that have nothing to do with dishonesty.

23:34Fear, ridicule, and shame can be powerful motivators and silencers. If you can get past any inconsistency, you have to contend with the passage of time, where memories fade and physical evidence disappears. Corroboration, hard to come by, of course, for a crime intentionally done behind closed doors. And if there's a civil lawsuit, you got to fight the public perception of a money grab. And by the way, this assumes you've got a cooperating victim who is willing to testify in open court because, of course, it is the right of the accused to face their accuser. And I don't know what's going to happen in this investigation.

24:13I have no idea what the facts will bear or whether charges will be brought, but I do know that no case is easy. And here's what makes it specifically harder in New York. In New York, if the victim voluntarily took drugs or alcohol before the alleged assault, a defendant can use their voluntary intoxication as a defense and argue they were unable to know that the victim was incapacitated or unable to consent because of it. And that might describe the tension of this moment that we're all watching unfold. The allegations are disgusting. The laws? Loophole. The presumption of innocence? Unchanged.

24:58And prosecutors have a lot of discretion. I guess welcome to the pursuit of justice. I want to convene my legal panel to talk about all of this. I want to bring in criminal defense attorney Elise Hirshon and trial attorney and legal analyst Monique Presley. Monique, I want to begin with you. What's your impression of the DA's claims that there was a discrepancy in whether or not the woman did in fact consent?

25:30I think that if we credit what he's saying, and you know, I've never been a prosecutor, Laura, so that's where you and I diverge. I'm a defense attorney for life. But if we credit what the prosecutor is saying and that they went on the information that they had and that now a couple of years later, there is a more fulsome reporting of what happened, then we're left with the law, fortunately or unfortunately. We're left with a district attorney that maybe took something at face value and formed opinions that were based upon what he saw at the time. But here's the thing for me, even if he took whatever it was at face value, there are such awesome powers in the prosecutor's office that I believe investigating and figuring out what really happened was within those powers at the time.

26:39And maybe there was just a lack of desire to do so because, you know, I'm first public defender service, D.C., and then career public defender. And we never have the money that the government has and they can do with it whatever they want to do with it. And sometimes we know they prosecute people wrongfully with that money and they spend millions doing it. But then sometimes it seems they're persuaded. We don't know the facts. And they sit on their hands. And it seems like maybe that's what happened this time. Well, and I hear you on the idea of the questions, particularly on whether there was a fulsome investigation.

27:22And at least, I mean, a lot of people want to know why the DA's office did not at least interview the Jane Doe in this case. In fact, he was asked this question. Here's what he had to say. When you have a comprehensive six-page single-spaced document that was extremely detailed, extremely candid, extremely specific, we are not going to reach out to her and say, hey, what you said didn't allege a crime. Can you give us more so we can charge somebody? That's not ethical. That is not ethical for a prosecutor to do that. We do not independently investigate crimes in the district attorney's office.

28:04We rely on the police to investigate those crimes. Elise, what do you think of that? Is that a valid reason? Because I know that if there is a suspicion a crime has been committed or probable cause, you can certainly ask the officers to investigate further a particular matter to resolve whether somebody, in fact, has committed a crime that you can prove. this sounds like pure cya to me uh clearly the da's office doesn't look good here right they didn't credit somebody two years ago that now it seems there's evidence mounting at least allegations that give her more validity and what the prosecution has done here inadvertently is undermined their own case by literally not believing or following up or pursuing or doing a solid investigation on someone who was alleging a very serious crime.

28:56This is not, you know, a drunken bar fight where nobody really got hurt. Sexual assault cases are notoriously hard to prove because it's a lot of it is he said, she said. And a lot of it is there's delayed disclosure. So that alone is not enough to, you know, not believe or believe someone, although that is something that defense attorneys bring up. Now, what's interesting about this is that Cornell itself led the investigation here. So as from what was reported that this victim Doe, as is, as she is not named, interviewed with a police officer, but then there was no follow-up there. So there's no, we have specific, specifically skilled and trained interviewers in Massachusetts, when I say we, at the prosecutor's office that interview victims, child victims, adult victims of sexual assault cases.

29:51There is a very long statute of limitations here, 15 plus years, civilly, I think 35 years or more, because these delayed disclosures are common. Either part of the story doesn't make it out, none of the story makes it out, until a lot further along. So whether because of shame, and certainly you've had experience with these types of cases because of shame, embarrassment, not sure if people are going to believe her. If there was one interview by one police officer right after it happened and no follow-up. Well, no kidding that this wasn't very thorough. And the DA's office was satisfied that Cornell conducted its own investigation, had a panel of people that seemingly have a vested interest in clearing Cornell's name.

30:33This is obviously not good publicity for them or anyone. So it's really interesting that they let them lead the investigation at their own school. Right. And again, it doesn't mean that they don't have jurisdiction. If it happened in the state of New York, we do know that the university is one thing. Just because you're a student doesn't mean that you forsake and foreclose all of your rights to actually have justice pursued. Whatever ultimately happens in this case, Elise Hirshan, Monique Presley, thank you both so much. breaking news up next the attorneys for cnn ms now and politico have just issued a brand new filing against trump's press ban i'm going to unpack it all next

31:21breaking news everyone the news organizations that were targeted by president trump's press ban have just issued a new filing this one asked the judge to extend his order that temporarily restored CNN, MSNOW, and Politico's access to the White House. The new filing calls the ban an unlawful assault on the most fundamental First Amendment freedom. Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman joins me now. Okay, Harry, once again, the lawyers for the media, they're using the administration's own words in pushing back against their claim that this ban was not about viewpoint discrimination.

31:54It was about national security. And this brief makes clear that they want the judge to disregard that because they call, quote unquote, the shenanigans that have happened to undermine all those claims. It's right. And Trump really made it pretty easy for them when he issued this interdiction back on a week ago Friday. He said flat out, I don't like what they write and that's why I'm doing it. They've tried since to sort of attach a kind of national security rationale. But the decision under review, Laura, is the very thing that Trump did. So it's really far-fetched. And this judge already held in doing the temporary restraining order that they didn't act on the base of national security.

32:41And there's no national security rationale here. They also used the Attorney General Todd Blanche's comments on a Sunday show about negative coverage, believing that that was really, this is all pretextual. But they also went on to talk about Air Force One and what was happening there. And the lawyers took issue with his refusal to let CNN on Air Force One, saying that it shows that the White House has, quote, persisted in unpredictability and inconsistently implementing the ban. Walk us through from now the request from the TRO that's only two weeks in length to what they're asking for now and what could happen, especially in terms of the DOJ being able to appeal it.

33:22Yeah, and that's important because the plane stuff is a little bit different. What they're asking for is basically what he said in the TRO, but to make it an injunction that says they get to be put back in the position they were in before the 18th when Trump issued the ban. Now, if Kelly does that, and I think there's every reason to think he will, now they'll fight a little about the plane or other things where the administration will have an argument that, oh, that's not really a public forum. That's like the Oval Office. But I think that's why there'll be pretty big stakes in just how the temporary injunction reads.

34:08And if it says back to where you were before the 18th, then all of this should go away. The one thing that's clear and we really need to emphasize, it's all viewpoint discrimination. If he couldn't take their passes away, maybe he can keep them from the plane or from the Rose Garden, etc. It's naked viewpoint discrimination, which, as you know, the Constitution abhors. Everything you can, everything you say can, it will be used against you in a court of law. Let's see. Harry Litman, thank you so much. New tonight, OpenAI suddenly pumping the brakes in the release of its new AI model as the company cites safety concerns.

34:47So what does this mean for Trump's big meeting with the head of the AI companies that's happening tomorrow? And later, Trump's most loyal MAGA fan, some of the ones who sit front row at his rallies, reportedly fed up with him. So how big of a warning sign is it? That conversation straight ahead.

35:07AI is the devil and I its maker What? No, well, so, look Sam Altman, myself, all the major AI players We have talked about this extensively And we are all on the same page here We do not condone what we are doing SNL did not pull any punches In their portrayal of Anthropic CEO Dario Amade Just last night, Amadei attended a private dinner with President Trump at the White House. The two met despite having a history of not getting along. And a CNN source says that he will tell CNN that Amadei will be back at the White House tomorrow for a meeting between the president and other top AI executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI president and co-founder Greg Brockman, and Palantir CEO Alex Karp.

36:02Sources say the meeting will aim to get tech leaders and the government on the same page amid growing concerns over AI safety. And tonight, OpenAI is announcing it will not release its newest model because the company says it didn't quite meet the bar for safety. Joining me now is New York State Assemblyman and former Democratic candidate for Congress, Alex Boris. He made the AI issue front and center during his campaign and recently launched an advocacy group called Who Decides? focused on AI safety. Assemblymen, you know, these tech leaders, they have very different views on how to regulate AI.

36:42Amadeus wants regulation. Zuckerberg wants companies to figure it out themselves. Palantir's CEO says AI companies might need to be nationalized because of liability risks. How do you see this meeting going? And Jensen Wang seems to contradict himself each time he talks. He was originally under no regulation, but then on Ezra Klein said, well, if they can't do it safely, shut the labs down entirely. It really is a lot of competing visions, most of which seem to be motivated by just making the most amount of money. But the key thing is that this is five Silicon Valley CEOs in a room with the president deciding the future of AI, when these decisions should be made by the American people.

37:29You know, Assemblyman OpenAI, they are announcing that they will not release their latest model due to safety issues. And this is coming after Zuckerberg announced Meta delayed shipping its own model called Muse for months to focus on safety. Is this a signal to you that these companies are going to do more to police themselves, or are they getting ahead of something? I think it's a signal that the capabilities have reached such a level and safety has not kept up that they're starting to finally be worried that liability might bite. Listen, they're always going to have competitive pressures to release things, to get them out, to get them to the market.

38:06And it's only if we make clear that they'll be liable for harms. And maybe if we go further and put requirements that they not release unsafe models, that we can actually change their behavior. Otherwise, we're just pushing against the tide. I mean, just the notion that I have to require you not to release something unsafe seems very counterintuitive. And yet, that might be where we are. I mean, the video CEO, Jensen Huang, was asked about the recent cases of AI models going rogue and disobeying human commands. Listen. The problems that we've seen to this point, where OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and others have had agents that have escaped and have gotten out and done mischievous things, maybe illegal things.

38:47the problems we've seen to this point you think is simply an engineering problem and a fault of those companies, maybe not putting in the right restrictions? Well, I think the answer is we hope it's an engineering problem. I believe it's an engineering problem. I know it's an engineering problem. And we all need to hope that it's an engineering problem. If it's not an engineering problem, it's not solvable. That's the antithesis of hopeful. I mean, if it's not an engineering problem, it's not solvable, meaning what? It's too late? That seems to be what he's implying. You know, it's tough to figure out exactly what he meant in that clip.

39:23He has a firm belief that the Hugging Face incident could have been fixed with better cybersecurity. And there were definitely things that OpenAI messed up in designing it. But there were also what are called zero-day vulnerabilities, novel ways of breaking out of the sandbox that the agent discovered that even the best security people would not have been able to prevent. It's pretty easy to be backwards looking and always fix the last problem. And actually, NVIDIA should be complimented for today putting out a platform where they try to build some of the safety into the chip to solve the last hack that occurred.

39:58But the question is, these models are going to continue to get more capable. They're going to continue to find new ways of breaking out. In fact, OpenAI just last week announced that their models broke out of the new hardened security procedure that they put in because of hugging face. So each individual hack might be an engineering problem, but there's a bigger problem of how we solve this going forward when they continue to have more and more capabilities. You know, Trump's former AIsar, David Sachs, recently said the consequences of regulating AI could, in fact, be devastating. Listen to him.

40:30The Democrats want to do to AI what they did to crypto. They're going to drive the whole industry offshore. They're going to basically drive all the innovators out of the country. Chinese civilization will rocket past us. They will be the ones that make all the discoveries and discover this new world and accrue all the wealth. Does he have a point? It's tough to count how many things he got wrong there. Regulation around AI is a bipartisan issue. It's not sitting in one party. Large majorities of both voters of both parties want there to be more regulation on AI and want AI development to slow down.

41:04They just want to get a handle on what's going on. China is making advances, but is largely piggybacking on advances that we are making in America by distilling American models. And if we lose control of AI, literally no one benefits from that. So this extremist position where he's trying to make this a partisan issue is pretty silly and I think easy to reject. We just need to remember that the American people as a whole want a say in the development of this technology, want it regulated, want to get arms around the speed of it. Assemblyman Alex Boris, thank you so much. Thanks for having me. You know, the mood in Magoville is turning sour with less than 40 days to go before the midterm elections.

41:47A new report highlights the growing discontent among President Trump's own supporters. Politico spoke to the members of the Front Row Joes, the Trump supporters who follow him to every rally and sit as close as possible. And even some of them were starting to turn their backs on Trump. One called him a, quote, fraud and liar. Another said Trump, quote, can't be trusted. Now, many of these supporters are in battleground states like Ohio, like Texas. And while these are just a handful of Trump supporters, losing their support could make or break the GOP chances come November. So let's check on the Trump rally vibes with a comedy duo that's been on the ground to experience them firsthand, Davram Stiefler and Jason Selvig, hosts of The Good Liars Tell the Truth podcast.

42:35Good to see you gentlemen again. I'll begin with you, Davram, because you guys have been going to these rallies for months now. Are you seeing any defections or discontent among Trump supporters? Yeah, I think it's fair to say that that has been happening. Sometimes, you know, we'll ask someone, what do you think Donald Trump's greatest accomplishment is or, you know, what brought you to the rally today? And a lot of people start with, well, you know, gas prices are very high right now. And I don't know that I love that we're in a foreign war, which is something he promised we wouldn't be doing.

43:12And they start qualifying it in certain ways before you even get into the conversation. So I think it's fair to say that, you know, things are changing and we are seeing that. Jason, are they mentioning things like the Iran war, the Epstein files, political reports that some supporters are upset about this? What are you hearing from Trump supporters about these very issues? Well, those are two big things that we've heard on the road is Epstein files and the war when the gas prices are kind of same in the same boat with the war. On July 4th, we went down to the 4th of July fireworks display, the celebration, and Trump gave the speech there in Washington, D.C., and we ran into a guy named Uncle Jam.

43:56And he goes to all of the Trump rallies, and he would sing songs. He would write songs and make songs up about how great Donald Trump was and how the 2020 election was stolen. We talked to him at the parade there that day, and he said that he now had some major problems with Donald Trump. And it was those two things that you mentioned. It was the Epstein files. He hated how Donald Trump handled that. He thought it was going back on a campaign promise. And then also getting into another war. So if somebody who is writing songs about how great Donald Trump is is starting to question their support, I would say there are definitely some cracks there.

44:34I mean, certainly. I mean, Davram, you asked a Trump voter to list one of Trump's actions or policies that he supported. I want to just watch how that went. The list, maybe one thing that he's done that you really support. What year? This year.

45:01I'm not saying. There's too many. There's too many to list? Just can't put a finger on one thing. I hear you. But would you mind just saying just one or? No, I'm not going to point out one thing. Got it, got it. How did you interpret that moment? And what are Trump voters telling you about why they're still supporting him? Well, I interpreted that moment as it's kind of hard to find one thing. I remember talking to one woman who said, we're living in the golden age. But then she couldn't really say why. And I think if people are trying to come up with things that Donald Trump has delivered on, campaign promises that he's delivered on, they can't really come up with them.

45:46And then Donald Trump just falls back on renaming bodies of water, I guess, which people feel a little bit mixed on. And that really has been it lately. So I think that that clip kind of shows you that it's a little difficult to find that thing that he's delivered on. Well, Jason, what about these$5 ,000 checks that Trump pledges to send Americans if Republicans win the midterms? Did that somehow make supporters in support of him? I mean, listen to what they said. They scrimmed a little bit. How did you feel about him saying everyone gets$5 ,000 checks only if the Republicans win the midterms?

46:24Well, you know, sounds like he might be buying some votes. Sounds like he's buying votes? Yeah, yeah. Is that something a president should be doing? Probably not, but we'll see how it all falls into place. Is it socialism to give Americans$5 ,000 from the government? No, no, because it's a dividend. It's a payout from the profits that our country is making. We're living in the golden age, right? There's that phrase, golden age. How do they justify that? You hear those two different supporters articulating their views on that. That's quite a moment and quite a split screen. Yeah. Look, we were at the RNC, the midterm RNC in Dallas, Texas.

47:08So the day after he made this promise, we talked to people about it. And you could kind of hear them in real time trying to figure out what the talking point is with this. Some people said they wanted to—the best-case scenario would be Trump wins the midterms, and then they don't have to pay the$5 ,000 to everyone, because that would be over a trillion dollars. But some people are saying that, yeah, it is a pay—it's buying votes. Donald Trump is trying to buy votes, and they're OK with it if Donald Trump is doing it. But I have a feeling if there was a Democrat in office who was making the same promises, they would not be OK with it.

47:46We'll see. Not that many days to go to see how they really feel. He says, pretend he's on the ballot. We'll see what goes on. Davram Stiefler, Jason Selvig, thank you both. Thank you. You know, we just got some late breaking news in the Nancy Guthrie investigation. The Pima County Sheriff's Department says they are aware of a new possible ransom note tied to the case. The department told CNN they were recently made aware of this potential note. that they are working to determine its credibility. It has been 239 days since Nancy Guthrie was taken from her Tucson, Arizona home on February 1st. We've previously reported that one of the original ransom notes said that Guthrie was, quote, buried in nature.

48:33The 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. eye. Remember, you can still stream my show live 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 slash watch to learn more. And thank you all for watching. The story is with Alex Michelson is next.

49:07to have i got news for your ears the podcast i am your host michael ian black we are talking about the final polls going into the midterms the hot races getting the most attention trump's final argument have i got news for your ears check us out on apple amazon music wherever you get your podcast even better you can watch the podcast on spotify