AI Alarm 

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0:48See you soon at your local Tecova's store or shop with us anytime at tecova's.com. happening now ai alarm competing ceos now joining forces to warn about the pace of ai development and its potential threat we are live on capitol hill where lawmakers are under pressure to act plus record highs diesel oil gas the war with iran keeps driving up prices how much more you might

1:15Pamela Brown: pay to stay warm this winter also growing measles outbreak pennsylvania officials now say a third person has died what we're learning this morning and secret benefactor of ProPublica investigation reveals that a Russian oligarch reportedly footed a big part of the bill for Don jr's wedding in the Bahamas why was someone so close closely linked to Putin spend thousands on the president's son welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world I'm wolf blitzer with Pamela Brown and you're in the Situation Room.

1:59Pamela Brown: Happening now, lawmakers returning to Capitol Hill and facing ominous new warnings about artificial intelligence and its potential threat to humanity. One of the technology's pioneers, the CEO of Anthropic, is now calling for the industry to work together and slow down the rapid acceleration of AI. And this morning, another tech giant echoed that message. I think it can simultaneously be true that if the world and the company is building this technology did not do things any differently than they've been doing them in the past, there might be significant risk. But it would be insane not to adjust the way we all work and the way that we make decisions and the way that our governments understand and put guardrails around this technology.

2:48Elon Musk is also joining the call for new regulation, but in Washington, this issue is largely divided along party lines. And we're also hearing from top AI researchers who have resigned in protests from the industry. They are deeply worried that this independent superintelligence is racing toward a point that humans will no longer be able to restrain it. I think that if you extrapolate into the future the level of capabilities of these AIs, with the same independent volition, they could cause extreme havoc. For example, hacking critical infrastructure, building extinction-level bioweapons. There's a lot of ways that the AI could actuate itself in the world.

3:30I think that these technologies could impose a really, really dramatic level of risk on humanity, up to potentially being fatal for all of us in the next few years. and i think that it's really important that actually the public kind of the public knows about that these ads should kind of talk about talk about what they're doing to mitigate those risks and if we don't feel like it's enough then we should do something about that i'm most worried about like a second species kind of argument where where these systems are eventually going to be much much smarter than us um and then it doesn't exactly uh i don't exactly worry um i don't i don't exactly know how this will play out but it's it's kind of like saying uh oh well uh we're ants Let's invent humans.

4:10How will they do? Will they kick over our anthill? Will they burn? It doesn't really matter. It's just they won't, we won't be in control of the future anymore. I think that's the important thing. Pretty scary stuff. We're covering all the angles of this developing and deeply consequential story. Let's begin with CNN AI correspondent Hadass Gold. Hadass, you have new reporting on what safeguards this industry is considering. What more can you tell us about that? Yeah, according to sources I spoke to in the industry, Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google have actually been in discussion for several weeks, if not months, about establishing an industry-wide standards body that would help set some sort of safety standards and do some evaluation and testing before models are deployed.

4:52As it stands right now, there are no standards or regulations when it comes to most AI model development or their testing. So what we saw happened with OpenAI, where their agents went rogue, escaped their lab environment, hacked into a completely different company's systems. There are no set standards for what those tests should look like or any safety standards. So we now understand, according to my sources, that there have been conversations around this. And this was prompted in part back in July when Google DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis posted a very long essay about the need for a sort of independent regulator of some point.

5:27He modeled it under the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, calling it it would be a U.S.-led public-private partnership. The government would oversee it. It would be funded by the industry and staffed by independent technical experts. Dario Amadei, the CEO of Anthropic, over the weekend in his proposal also suggested having independent third party watchdogs embedded within the AI companies, referring also to the financial industry as a model for how this should be done. Take a listen. There is precedent for this. If you look at how banks are regulated, right, there's there's all kinds of, you know, there's all kinds of rules about, you know, how banks are allowed to do their business, right?

6:08Because, you know, we don't want to have financial crises. And one of the things that are done in some cases is, I think they're called supervisors in the financial industry, but they're folks who are independent of a company who are embedded in the company day to day to check their practices. And I think we can do the same thing in AI. Hi. And that got the Rarindy endorsement from rivals Elon Musk and Sam Altman. The big question now, Wolf and Pam, is when will this actually happen? When will we see some action on any of these standards or any of these regulators or any of these embedded evaluators within these companies that will help assuage a lot of the fears we're hearing from the industry and from the public writ large?

6:52All right.

6:52Pamela Brown: I quickly want to go to Lauren Fox, who's up on Capitol Hill. How much is this issue, this call for new AI safeguards split along party lines? Yeah, well, Wolf, right now, I think a lot of lawmakers are just trying to wrap their heads around what is even possible, given the fact that lawmakers are only in Washington for a couple of weeks. The House is in session this week. Then they depart for the October recess until after the midterm elections. You have the Senate in town for just a couple of weeks. And you do have a very stark divide that is emerging right now between Democrats who are arguing that Congress needs to face this issue head on.

7:29You had Sam Liccardo and Lori Trahan send a letter to the Speaker on Friday asking Speaker Johnson to keep Congress in session so they could continue working on this, or at the very least have some kind of working group in town to try to put together legislation that everyone could agree on so they could deal with this head on once they returned after the elections. But you also have Republicans arguing that this is essentially right now up to AI industry itself, that they should be regulating this, that they know their industry better than Congress does. Take a listen to this divide that's emerging between Jeffries and Speaker Johnson.

8:06Pamela Brown: We should take decisive action now so that we can slow down, as the CEOs have recently acknowledged, slow down the pace of development in order to protect the American people and ensure that AI is proceeding safely. The problem is they all have a different prescription on what they say the regulation is supposed to be. The problem is they're all competitors. Each one of them wants to maintain an edge over the others. And Congress is obviously less qualified than the people who We were pushing this frontier to know all the ins and outs of it. If we overstep it, I'm telling you again, Jake, it could be a national security threat for every American.

8:44Now, Leader Schumer, who's the Democratic leader in the Senate, he has actually called for a classified briefing for all members of the United States Senate to learn more about some of these potential issues with AI. But again, it's just not clear that any legislation is going to come together in the next five days. Pam Wolf.

9:01Pamela Brown: All right, stand by. Kevin Liptec is reporting from the White House for us. Kevin, the tech giants say slow down, but President Trump says essentially speed up because he views it as a race with China. How will that shape the Trump administration's approach? Yeah, that's exactly right. And you're hearing real skepticism across the entire administration at these calls by the industry leaders to put new regulations in place and questioning in some ways what their motives might be. President Trump has just posted about this on True Social in the last couple of minutes or so. He said that the only control or guardrails that AI needs is a strong and smart president.

9:41And he says the U.S. has that in spades. And he says, in fact, that there are, quote, sick conspiracies going on against AI and data centers. The only one that is happy about it is China. And so the president really downplaying in a serious way the need for the administration to put any check on some of these models in some of these companies. We heard a similar perspective from the vice president, J.D. Vance. He was just out at Joint Base, Andrews headed out in a campaign swing. Here's what he said.

10:13Pamela Brown: It's something that we're concerned by, but we want to make sure that we actually regulate smartly and we're thoughtful about the risk here. So there are obviously risks to AI, there are some benefits to AI. I have to say just personally, I feel a little bit weird about the fact that you have so many frontier AI tech companies kind of coming to the government and begging the government to regulate them. It feels a little bit to me like a bit of a Trojan horse. So I think we just have to be careful about this. Now, despite Vance and Trump's apparent lack of concern about this, you do hear from White House officials that they are planning to convene meetings this week with AI officials, with technology officials to try and plot a path forward.

10:59The other very important date on this will be next week when the president of China, Xi Jinping, will be here at the White House for a state visit. AI almost certainly will be on the agenda there. And you've heard from the president, you've heard from Vance concerns that if the administration tries to restrict American companies, that that could just allow China to get the upper hand here. The last time President Xi and President Trump met back in May, they were not able to come up with any agreements on AI. And certainly it does seem as if this time around, the president is casting some skepticism that regulation is needed.

11:34But obviously, that will be a very important moment in this ongoing debate.

11:38Pamela Brown: It certainly will be. Kevin Liptaq, thanks very, very much. And thanks to Hadass Gold and Lauren Fox as well. And this note, Later tonight, you can watch Anderson Cooper's full interview with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. That's on AC 360, 8 p.m. Eastern, right here on CNN North Stream, with your all-access subscription. And still ahead, we'll vanish without a trace. D.C. police are urgently searching for a mom who's been missing for 10 days. And later, you've heard of El Nino. But what about Super El Nino? We'll explain what it is and how it could affect your weather.

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13:25Pamela Brown: Happening now, the search for a missing single mother in the nation's capital is gaining more urgency right now. Police say 53-year-old Antoinette Forbes was last seen 10 days ago near American University here in Washington. Her loved ones say her disappearance is alarming because she left her car, her phones, her wallet, laptop and her dog at home and her front door was unlocked. CNN national correspondent Diane Gallagher is joining us right now. So, Diane, what leads are police chasing? You know, Wolf, I think that what's most important is how alarming that the loved ones of Antoinette Forbes have said that those circumstances you just described are in terms of her disappearance.

14:11The fact that her front door was unlocked and so many of those belongings, her laptop, both phones, her beloved dog, Max, and her car outside all left in the home. They say it is extremely out of character for this single mother of a 10 year old son who they describe she is so dedicated to, to just vanish on her own accord and do not believe that is the case. Now, police say they do have an open investigation, but they have not given any additional details into that. Now, no one has seen or heard from Antoinette Forbes in more than a week. They held a vigil on Friday, excuse me, on Saturday night, where friends continue to try and get the word out about her disappearance.

14:56Her sister last night, Aileen Forbes, sent me another statement saying that they are asking anybody to look through their doorbell cameras, their dash cameras, any kind of footage you may have security-wise. If you live in that area around the 3200 block of Nebraska Avenue Northwest in Washington, D.C., to see if you have footage from over Labor Day weekend that may offer some clues as to where she may be or what may have happened to her wolf.

15:26Pamela Brown: It's a really nice part of Washington, D.C., near American University. As many of us know, Diane Gallagher, thank you very, very much. Coming up, a key oil pipeline attacked and shut down. How that could affect what you pay at the pump. That's ahead right here in the Situation Room.

15:48Heavy rain leaving its mark on roads and neighborhoods in Connecticut. Some areas saw up to five inches in a matter of hours this weekend. And this was all part of a storm system that also sparked flash flood warnings in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. So let's bring in meteorologist Derek Van Dam and the CNN Weather Center. Derek, another part of the country could also get severe weather this week, right? Yeah, that's right. We didn't think that Des Moines was going to be part of this weather that is going to cause so much trouble this week. But now we're looking towards the Central Plains as our trouble hotspot for severe storms.

16:19Also, the potential of flooding. It's kind of the broader perspective. We've got a large storm system bringing a lot of heavy rainfall to central Iowa and even southern Minnesota as well. But Des Moines in particular, these areas have already had a very wet September. They've already seen double their amount of average rainfall for the entire month of September. And we're not even rounding off the second half of the month just yet, right? So another seven inches potentially with this rainfall moving through and what's still to come this week. this could tie or at least break the potential for the rainiest September on record for Des Moines.

16:54So that's what I'm talking about. This is the area that we're concerned about in terms of severe weather, damaging winds, large hail, a few tornadoes. But timing things out, it's not just this first batch moving through. It's a secondary batch of rain as we see this kind of line up one after another after another, Pam. And so you have the so-called Super El Nino that has officially developed. It's going to only get stronger. What exactly does that mean and how will it impact our weather? Yeah, today's a really big milestone for that because what we've just seen from NOAA is that this area where we measure the surface temperatures of the ocean across the equatorial Pacific has reached a threshold we call very strong El Nino.

17:33Two degrees Celsius above average. And when you look at these other red lines, there's a lot of lines here, but these are the three other previous strongest events, 82 and 1997. And we're now reaching a point where we believe this trajectory, this breakneck speed that the water temperatures are warming. We're at a 75 percent likelihood, according to Noah, that this could be the strongest El Nino. And that will impact our weather patterns, especially in the south heading into the winter. And Pam, this is different because look at the previous El Nino events. Remember, we're talking 30 years ago.

18:07We didn't have climate change baked into the equation there. Yeah, that's an important point. We're all just Derek Van Damme. Thank you. Wolf.

18:15Pamela Brown: And coming up, Incredible Rescue, how this 70-year-old hiker was found and lifted to safety after being missing for a week. We have details. That's next.

18:31Pamela Brown: Happening now, a second federal judge has blocked President Trump's attempt to limit mail-in voting. This is all tied to the president's executive order earlier this year that would put additional restrictions on mail ballots. The issue is likely headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Kennedy Center is warning of bankruptcy. Officials say the center is facing, quote, certain fiscal collapse unless President Trump's name is added back to the building. The Washington Post says the center could close as soon as tomorrow. And his name was removed in June, but the center voted in August to add it back.

19:10Pamela Brown: The center has previously said in court filings it would have to return millions of dollars if Trump's name isn't on the building. And an incredible rescue in Michigan. The U.S. Coast Guard saved this 70-year-old hiker who had been missing for a week. The man had taken a solo hike on a remote island in Lake Superior. He was injured and suffering from hypothermia when he was pulled to safety and taken to a hospital. Well, Wolf, happening now, what would have been a critical meeting between officials from Oman and Iran is now back in limbo. They were supposed to discuss fully reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

19:49The U.S. was not going to be part of these talks. But to learn more about what happened here, I want to bring in CNN National Security Correspondent Kylie Atwood back in the Situation Room. Welcome back, Kylie. So what happened here? Yeah, so essentially not all of the countries were actually going to show up. And so the Omanis who were organizing this made the decision that if you weren't going to have all the Gulf countries coming to the table, it wasn't going to be effective to have the meeting. But to take a step back here, the meeting was to discuss a new mechanism that the Omanis have put together to try and organize traffic through the strait, to get the traffic through the strait up and running in a regular way.

20:25Because there is a widespread recognition that the post-war status of the Strait of Hormuz is not going to look like what the pre-war status looked like. There's not going to be a world in which there isn't a mechanism that has to do with the routes going through, the safety protocols, potentially fees that need to be paid by tankers now, which didn't exist before. Now, the Trump administration has publicly said that they're OK with the status quo right now. There are those military escorts that are getting oil through. But sources in the administration do acknowledge that that's effectively a short-term fix.

20:56And Vice President Vance actually spoke about this meeting that was supposed to happen today not happening, making clear that the U.S. still has its eyes on these conversations about what the long-term solution is going to look like. Listen to what he said. Concerns, certainly. It's something that we're keeping pretty close tabs on. We've been in constant contact with the Emiratis, the Saudis, and others who are affected in the region. So it's something the United States administration is very much on top of. We've also been engaged in direct conversations with the Houthis themselves. So we actually feel like we are on top of the situation.

21:32It's a very fluid and dynamic thing. But we're going to keep on monitoring it, making sure that Americans' best interests are represented. So as you can see there, the vice president making it clear that the administration wants the region to really focus on what the solution would look like long term. We'll have to watch and see what these backdoor conversations look like because these amendments have now been shared with the Omanis putting this mechanism together. And we'll have to watch and see when this meeting actually does happen after it was supposed to happen today. Yeah, if it happens.

22:02All right. Thank you so much, Kylie Atwood. And continuing this conversation, the price of oil is surging again after a weekend attack on a Saudi oil pipeline. It's been key in bypassing the Strait of Hormuz where traffic is still at a trickle. The pipeline shutdown is also contributing to near-record diesel prices. Meanwhile, President Trump this weekend appeared to blame Ukraine for diesel costs. Mr.

22:27Pamela Brown: Zelensky has to do one thing. He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia. Let him go after targets, but not diesel fuel, because he's causing a shortage of diesel fuel. This isn't done by the Middle East. This is done by what's happening with Russia and Ukraine. CNN's Matt Egan joins us now. So Matt, diesel is breaking price records. How bad is it and where is it headed? Well, Pamela, this diesel spike has been historic and it's something that really all of us are going to feel because diesel is the MVP of the fuels, right? It's the fuel that's powering the trucks and the trains, hauling the goods we buy online.

23:06It's the fuel that's powering the tractors that farmers use to harvest the food that we eat. And it's also powering the boats and the construction vehicles in the heart of the modern economy. And diesel has never been more expensive than it is right now. Last week, it crossed over$6 a gallon for the first time ever. Look at this. Now it's well above that. $6.23 a gallon, a new record high. Dramatically more expensive than it was before the war started. Now, the president is right that the Russia-Ukraine war and those attacks on Russian oil refineries is contributing to this spike. But that's not the whole story, right?

23:40This is also being driven by the war with Iran and the fact that China is restricting its own exports to prevent fuel shortages at home. But the risk is that diesel is going to get even more expensive because look what's going on in the oil market. We're seeing a four and a half percent increase for Brent today above one hundred and nine dollars a barrel, flirting with the highs of late last week. Now, this oil jump today reflects the latest violence in the Middle East, in particular this East-West pipeline shutdown. Now, this is not a household name, but this is a big deal because Saudi Arabia has been using this pipeline to bypass the Strait of Hormuz.

24:20Normally, its oil goes through the Strait and out to the rest of the world, but because the Strait of Hormuz has been stuck due to the war, they've been using this pipeline to get out to the Red Sea, through the Suez Canal, and to the rest of the world. But now the pipeline is shut down. This is a big deal because the pipeline, its capacity is 7 million barrels per day. That's about 7 percent of world supply. Now, we don't know yet when it's going to reopen. Reuters is reporting could take five to six weeks. Some analysts are hopeful that the pipeline could start flowing again, even as repairs are being done.

24:53veteran analyst Bob McNally, he told me that if this is a prolonged shutdown, it would be, quote, truly calamitous. And it has a direct impact on what everyone pays at the gas pump. Look at this, the new national average,$4.32 a gallon. That's not just a three-month high for the price of gasoline. That's the highest price ever during the month of September, dramatically higher than before the war when gas was below$3 a gallon. And oil analyst Andy Lippow, he told me that he thinks the national average could go to$4.50 a gallon if the east-west pipeline remains down for a significant amount of time.

25:29One other point for you, Pamela, is home heating could be getting a lot more expensive. Experts are forecasting a 9 % increase in home heating costs overall this fall and this winter, but it really depends on what kind of fuel you use. If it's natural gas, you're looking at about a 6 % increase, 9 % for electricity, but home heating oil, 31 % more expensive than last winter. Now, thankfully, this is pretty rare. Only about 4 % of homes in the U.S. use home heating oil, but this is really common in New England and in the Mid-Atlantic. So bottom line, whether it's gasoline, diesel, or home heating, you are looking at significantly higher prices, and a large reason here is the war with Iran.

26:12Back to you. Maddie, again, thanks so much. Wolf, thanks.

26:15Pamela Brown: If you drive around the D.C. area, as you and I well know, a lot of gas stations are selling gas now at more than$5 a gallon for regular gas. Yeah. Pretty depressing. Not good. No. Also with us now, CNN military analyst, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Cedric Layton. Colonel, talks never happened, the important talks that are supposedly supposed to be going on. What's going on behind the scenes that has led to all of this? Yeah, well, one of the things is that, you know, between Iran and Oman, there's some dispute as to whether or not the new regime for the Strait of Formos can actually be made to work.

26:50And as Kylie pointed out in her reporting, one of the key things that the Omanis are concerned about is that they really have the buy-in of all the other Gulf states. So that would mean states like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates. those countries are critically important if they're going to agree to some kind of a new regime for the Strait of Hormuz. You know, right now, this is a, you know, basically unknown territory because international law is being changed when this particular body of water, which is a natural body of water, is now subject to controls by specific countries.

27:26Pamela Brown: How much are the recent attacks on Saudi Arabia specifically? SAUDIA ARABIA, CLOSE ALLIES OF THE UNITED STATES, COMPLICATING ANY ATTEMPT AT THESE TALKS. I THINK THAT MAY HAVE A BIG IMPACT, WOLF, BECAUSE THE WAY THE SAUDIS HOPED TO KEEP THEIR OIL PIPELINES, THE EAST-WEST PIPELINE THAT MATT WAS TALKING ABOUT, OUT OF HARM'S WAY, THAT BASICALLY HAS FAILED. SO YOU HAVE HUTHI ATTACKS AGAINST MANY OF THE INSTALLATIONS IN SAUDIA ARABIA, AND YOU have the other attacks purportedly coming from Iranian proxies in Iraq against the east-west pipeline, that really makes it much more difficult. And what it does is it basically brings Saudi Arabia in even further into this war between the U.S.

28:09and Iran. And the Saudis do want protection. They want protection from the United States. That protection was rejected when the Crown Prince, MBS, Mohammed bin Salman, spoke with President Trump. Trump has basically told them that we're not going to step in except for providing intelligence support. So that's going to have a major impact on the Saudis' ability to defend themselves

28:32Pamela Brown: and also could potentially force the Saudis into some kind of accommodation with the Iranians. Are the Saudis potentially going to go on the offensive and go after those Iranian-backed Houthis that are undermining a lot of what's going on? That's a possibility. However, the Saudis have had some difficulty going after the Houthis. Right now, their desire is to absolutely go after them and try to stop attacks on their oil infrastructure and on their bases in the southwestern part of the country. But the problem is that the Saudis have not been very effective going after the Houthis. They tried for several years to actually destroy the Houthi military capability, but that was not a successful endeavor.

29:12And they're basically gun-shy trying to go after the Houthis by themselves.

29:17Pamela Brown: While you're with us, Colonel, a quick question about the operation to rescue those two U.S. airmen whose jet was shot down over Iran. I want you to listen, I want our viewers to listen to what the U.S. military central commander, CENTCOM commander, said. Listen to this. That second operation had about 92 people on the ground. This would be the first U.S. boots on the ground in 46 years. In Iran? In Iran. We had about several hundred in the air, and there were probably 3 ,000 to 5 ,000 supporting overall. It was an operation inside an operation. We saw that report on 60 Minutes last night. What kind of training do these service members actually get in how to deal with a situation as sensitive and as explosive potentially as this one?

30:03Pamela Brown: Yeah, what Admiral Cooper was alluding to when it came to this kind of operation is that the training has become much more extensive than what U.S. military forces had back in 1980 when we had the abortive rescue mission that ended at Desert One, the so-called Operation Eagle Claw, where service members were killed in a tragic accident on their way to try to rescue the American hostages in Tehran. So we have seen a vast improvement in our ability to conduct combat search and rescue operations. And Admiral Cooper's efforts there and CENTCOM's efforts as well as the Air Force's efforts were absolutely critical in getting those two airmen out, those two aircrew members out.

30:46They have para-rescue troops. They're so-called PJs from the Air Force. They have special tactics squadrons as part of Air Force Special Operations Command. And those elements are trained exquisitely to go in and rescue people from denied territory. And Iran certainly was denied territory. Training is extremely extensive, and they're among the most elite combat forces that the Air Force has.

31:08Pamela Brown: Those two U.S. pilots who were rescued, codenamed Alpha and Bravo. Yes. I thought that was significant. All right, Colonel Layton, thanks as usual very much. Pamela. All right, Wolf, coming up, new hope in the fight against breast cancer. We'll speak to the CEO of a company that just got FDA approval for its new blood test. And we'll also get perspective from a breast cancer surgeon. We'll be right back. Stay with us.

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32:13The agency gave the green light to a series of blood testing meant to work as a companion diagnostic tool to detect tumor mutations. Biotech company Garden Health says these tests serve as a liquid biopsy that avoid invasive tissue biopsies. And its clinical trials showed this treatment lowered the risk of disease progression or death by 56 % for certain breast, colon, and lung cancers. Joining us now is Garden Health CEO Helmi El-Touki. Helmi, thank you so much for coming on. So help us better understand how a simple blood draw can reveal changes happening inside a tumor. Yeah, no, thank you for having me on, Pamela.

32:54It's really groundbreaking the way this study works. When you think about essentially most treatments in cancer care, you're sort of waiting for the cancer to get visibly worse on a scan. You're waiting for that three-alarm fire to essentially happen. And then physicians decide, okay, let's switch therapy now. Let's find something else. This trial was very different where essentially we monitored those patients with a blood draw. Our blood draw can see the genetic underpinnings of the disease, of the cancer. And as soon as you see that cancer, as soon as you see that tumor trying to change its molecular makeup, essentially we're looking for this ESR1 mutation.

33:34As soon as you see that, then the therapy was switched. And that's what led to this groundbreaking approval for AstraZeneca's drug at Kama. And this is essentially what we believe will be the future of medicine, where you instead have a test like ours that is a sort of molecular smoke detector before the fire breaks out and is uncontrollable. So how many blood draws would you need to get then to know if that tumor is changing? Dr. Yeah, so in this trial, it took an average of two to three blood draws. The blood draws were taken every two to three months. If you think about it, right now, the way that treatment paradigm works in oncology is patients get these invasive biopsies, and then they get these very sort of complicated scans where they have to go in and so on every two to three months.

34:28And so the future of medicine, the future of oncology is really going to be essentially looking at the underpinnings of the disease through a blood test, monitoring those patients with a blood test, and then changing therapy based on some of the molecular data that those blood tests are able to provide. So bottom line, what does this mean for patients who are currently undergoing treatment, say for breast cancer? Should they expect a shift in their protocol? Yeah, for a certain subset of ER positive patients, there are about 37 ,000 women that are living with this type of disease where this drug could be effective for them.

35:05And so we think this is a sort of canary in the coal mine in terms of cancer care, where, you know, if you think about medicine, it's been a field where we hardly measure and we cut three times. And that's why it's so expensive. We think this is the shift of moving to measuring twice and cutting once like we do in every other industry. And so this is not just the future of breast cancer. It's the future of cancer care and probably the future of precision medicine. Quickly, before we let you go, what about the cost? Because that's always a concern, right? Is it covered by insurance and Medicare?

35:39What more can you tell us about that? Yeah, that's a great question. You know, the Garden 360, the test that this is based on, is covered for over 300 million lives in the U.S. And what we found, we did studies in the U.S. and the U.K. And the NHS, which you know is very cost conscious, just adopted Garden 360 for lung cancer patients there. Because they found that by measuring up front, you save a lot of money downstream, actually millions of pounds per year for the system and have better outcomes. And so we think this will be overall very cost effective for the entire healthcare span. All right, Helmi El-Touki, thank you so much for coming on.

36:19And now I want to turn to a breast surgical oncologist, Dr. Lucy De La Cruz. Doctor, I'm just curious what your reaction is to this development and this blood test that is now FDA approved. And what are you telling your patients about who come in with breast cancer? So I get this question often. Obviously, I'm a surgical oncologist, so most of the time when I see patients is post-operative or before getting surgery. We do have testing of this type of CTDNA, which is happening right now under clinical trials. We have several trials open at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital that are looking at this in the pre-treatment setting, and then they monitor the patients even months and years after.

36:58And right now, it's really, truly under clinical trial. There are some medical oncologists who are doing it in the community for monitoring it. Now, the Serena trial that Dr. Helmi was talking about is really about patients who have metastatic disease that are hormone receptor positive that are being monitored for the treatment of aromatase inhibitor with a CDK4 inhibitor. And they were acting on essentially a change on the CT DNA before seeing anything on imaging study, which is what he was talking about. That seems to be, I mean, significant to be able to catch it before imaging can catch, right?

37:32Yes, and I think that that's probably going to be the future. I think clinical trials right now are trying to answer if that change of treatment is going to impact survival, which we don't have data for, but there is early data that shows that it is promising and that obviously this kind of targeted, kind of personalized treatment for patients is probably going to impact not just the recurrence or disease-free survival or progression of disease, but actually eventually, hopefully, also overall survival. Right, because if you have breast cancer, you realize you have a tumor, you leave the doctor's office, you're sort of wondering day to day, is the tumor changing?

38:06Is it growing? Is it, what's happening, right? I know you hear that from patients. I do, and obviously it also gives them an umbrella. So for patients who don't have metastatic disease, patient who had surgery, who are on endocrine therapy or who are on HER2 blockers therapy, they wanna have something that gives them security that, okay, my scans are clean, but is also the rest of my body, is there something that's brewing, which is really what this CT DNA. And breast density can have an impact, right? Breast density can have an impact, But what really a lot of patients are concerned are also for distant disease, meaning bone, lung, liver.

38:38These are things that, you know, sometimes patients don't get CT scans routinely because they have early stage breast cancer. And maybe this test is what they feel it could be an umbrella for them. Again, these are trials that are being looked at for CT DNA or the liquid biopsy to see how useful are they, how sensitive are they, and are they helpful to change treatment but also guide what the next step is for treatment patients. I quickly want to ask you before we let you go about how you're using robotics now and doing mastectomies, because this is a big deal. So it's also about de-escalation of treatment.

39:11We're trying to de-escalate or better shift or better target patients base by base. So it's not like generalized umbrella that a box, we put everybody in a box for medical treatment, but also surgical treatment. And robotics is there to do that, right? So when I started treatment of breast cancer 14, 15 years ago, we used to do mastectomies. We used to do lumpectomies the same way, and now we're shifting away from open, bigger incisions to minimally invasive, more thoughtful for recovery, for pain, for also sensation, and for preserving not just the skin, but also the nipple-areolar complex, which has to do with improved quality of life, as well as sexuality and well-being for women after breast cancer.

39:48Alright, Dr. De La Cruz, I know you have a busy day of surgeries coming up, so thank you so much for coming on. We appreciate it. Wolf?

39:54Pamela Brown: Very helpful information indeed. And here's what's coming up all new right at the top of the hour. A private island, oceanfront villas, and an unusual wedding guest who reportedly bankrolled it. An investigative report finds that a Russian oligarch with very close ties to Vladimir Putin paid for a big part of Donald Trump Jr.'s wedding. But why? Plus, Pennsylvania officials are now investigating a third death tied to the measles. What we're now learning about the 40-year-old woman who died with the contagious disease. And Mayday, a plane carrying a Wisconsin congressman loses power and is forced to land in a lake.

40:33Pamela Brown: How he and the pilot managed to survive. That's all new right here in the Situation Room in the next hour.

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41:43Pamela Brown: Wayfair, every style, every home. Happening now, a private island and a fireworks show. An investigation reveals that a Russian oligarch with ties to Putin reportedly footed at least part of the bill for Don Jr.'s three-day wedding in the Bahamas. So did he get something in return? Plus, a sick conspiracy or a dire situation? Tech CEOs are now warning we could lose control of AI, so why does President Trump seem to be playing it down? Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer with Pamela Brown, and you're in the Situation Room.

42:28Pamela Brown: We begin this hour with new reporting and some truly alarming questions around potential Russian influence within President Trump's family, Specifically, his eldest son, Don Jr., the investigative news outlet ProPublica, says a close ally to Russian President Vladimir Putin helped to bankroll Trump Jr.'s wedding in May. ProPublica reports Russian oligarch Omar Kremlev footed the bill, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for the lavish bash in the Bahamas. Donald Trump Jr.'s wife, Bettina, just responded to the new reporting, saying, and I'm quoting her now, Don and I got married privately on Friday, surrounded only by our family.

43:11Pamela Brown: It was intimate, deeply personal, and one of the most beautiful days of our lives. The weekend that followed had actually been planned well in advance as a fun weekend with friends. It was never intended to be our wedding weekend. CNN has also reached out to the White House for comment. Let's bring in Brett Murphy right now, one of the ProPublica reporters who broke the story. Brett, thanks very much for reporting. Excellent work. How did this story come to light, and what alleged ties did you find between Kremlev and Don Jr.? Yeah, we've been reporting on the Trump family and members of the administration for a long time.

43:49We talked with dozens of folks, both in the world of international boxing, and this oligarch you mentioned, Mark Kremlev, is the president of the International Boxing Association. And we found out beyond that, he has very close ties with Vladimir Putin himself. Just days before this wedding in the Bahamas, Kremlin was actually traveling in China where Vladimir Putin was there as well. In addition to that, he has close ties with the security service in Russia. He owns several nationalized companies. So a lot of his personal wealth can be attributed to his connections with the Kremlin. So he's indeed very close with Moscow, which is what made this so newsworthy when we learned that he was in attendance at the wedding.

44:32Pamela Brown: So what more do you actually know about Kremlev and his real motivations? Well, it's interesting. We don't know a lot. We don't know. The big question here is why. Why did this happen? Why did he pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to help cover some of the big ticket items at this wedding weekend? It was hundreds of thousands. And we talked with national security experts about what this could mean, help us put this into context. And they said this was very concerning from a counterintelligence perspective, because it's no secret that the Kremlin has been trying to penetrate U.S. officials for a very long time in their inner circles, including the Trump families.

45:13So they said this would raise a lot of questions. If you're the president's son, why someone would be offering someone who's so close to the Kremlin, why they would be offering to pay this much money. We don't know why, though. We don't know what their relationship is beyond this. We think that they met a couple of years ago through hunting acquaintances and became friends. That's what the family said anyway. And now the fact that he was there in the Bahamas, paying for so much of it only raises, I think, more questions about the contours of their relationship.

45:43Pamela Brown: What expenses did Kremlev allegedly cover for this lavish wedding in the Bahamas? Yeah, so the weekend of the wedding included, it was over multiple islands down in the Exumas, and at least one of the islands where people were staying, he covered that, as well as some of the big ticket items like a large fireworks display that barged down. It was kind of off on the water, and that can run anywhere north of$70 ,000 just for the fireworks. So it was things like this to kind of throw this multiple-day party in the Bahamas. It was very expensive. It was a beautiful and kind of lavish weekend, as you said.

46:25And he helped cover some of those really steep expenses.

46:28Pamela Brown: And we just reported a response from Donald Trump Jr.'s wife saying the weekend that followed their wedding had been planned in advance. What more are you hearing from the Trumps about your investigation? Well, that response you just discussed was the first we've heard from them since we published. And she said, yeah, he paid for the weekend. She is speaking about the ceremony itself that happened before, which was just very small family affair in a chapel. And then there was, you know, the parties throughout the weekend where those guests plus other people came in. It was a very small venue. We're talking about, you know, maybe 50 or so people here, a small wedding weekend.

47:14And it's notable, too, that Trump, President Trump himself did not attend, which made the presence of these Russians a little kind of more puzzling to the people who were there because they were kind of standing up by themselves. They were speaking Russians. And it was it was kind of a big party over multiple days that they helped cover.

47:31Pamela Brown: What implications could Kremlev's alleged closeness to Donald Trump Jr. have in President Trump's dealings with Russia and with Putin, for that matter, especially considering the tensions around the war in Ukraine right now and the overall conflict in the Middle East? Yeah, these are a lot of the open questions, Wolf, about kind of what his motivations are, what Kremlev wants out of this. Is there more to this friendship? There's obviously huge geopolitical implications whenever you're talking about these two countries. Don Jr. himself, it should be said, is not in the administration, but he still has large sway over it.

48:11He helped pick cabinet members. He's kind of a vocal member. He's very important to the president's base. So any type of geopolitical considerations here, I think, have to be front and center, according to a lot of the experts we talked to, because it is such a black box, this guy, this oligarch, Kremlin. What he wants, what level of discussions and coordination he might have with the Kremlin, these are all very important considerations that we just don't have a lot of insight into, but we're going to continue reporting on it.

48:43Pamela Brown: What about Eric Trump? What did he know about this? It was really interesting. So Eric Trump was there. He was at the wedding, and so was Jared Kushner, who, of course, is the peace envoy for the administration, who has a very important role in the administration. So Junior told us that he's very close friends with Umar, but Eric told us kind of the opposite. He had no idea, through a spokesperson, told us he had no idea who this person was. So it was an interesting response from both of them. Brett Murphy, ProPublica, thank you very much for your excellent reporting. We appreciate it very much.

49:19Thanks, Wolf. All right, Wolf, Justin, this is CNN. New York City Mayor Zoram Amdani, along with the New York Attorney General, have just announced legal action against the Trump administration over a new public charge rule set to take effect on Friday. New York joins 22 other states and Washington, D.C., in suing to block the policy. It would give immigration officials sweeping discretion to deny green cards, visas, or admission to the U.S. based on whether the applicants are considering a public charge. CNN's Gloria Pasmino is live for us in New York. So you have a copy of this lawsuit. What does it say, Gloria?

49:55That's right, Pamela. And New York City Mayor Zora Mamdani and the State Attorney General Letitia James are actually at City Hall announcing the details of this lawsuit. As you said, it's expected to impact immigrant communities here in New York City, but also across several other cities around the United States. In fact, the state attorney general's lawsuit is being joined by 22 other states that are also joining in this legal action. Now, as you said in the beginning, this is all related to what is known as the public charge rule. The public charge rule has been in the books for a long time as part of immigration enforcement law.

50:31But the Trump administration is expanding it and it's giving immigration officers wide discretion to determine whether a person may become dependent on government benefits at some point. And based on that, the officer would have the ability to deny either their green card, their visa or their entry into the United States. Now, the public charge rule has been in effect for a while. But as I said, the Trump administration's new update to the rule would expand the benefits that officers can look at in order to make these determinations. And what city and state officials are saying today is that this is basically going to mean that people will be afraid to enroll or apply to benefits that they are, in fact, legally entitled to because of the potential immigration consequences.

51:28Now, just one very important point of clarity. These kinds of benefits do not apply to people who are undocumented. But advocates have pointed out that this is likely to significantly impact families of mixed status, families who may have U.S. citizen children, but parents who maybe are trying to get their green card or applying for a visa. And if those families are receiving any sort of federal or local benefits, such as Medicaid, food stamps, free school lunches, city subsidized health care, that they could be denied an immigration benefit. So New York, along with several other states, as well as New York City, suing to stop the implementation of this new rule, arguing that DHS has essentially expanded the definition of the public rule without congressional approval.

52:24Pamela? All right, Gloria Pasmino, thank you. Wolf?

52:27Pamela Brown: And still ahead, growing calls from leaders of the world's biggest tech companies to put guardrails on AI and do it fast. But the Trump administration is downplaying concerns. So is the panic real or just hype? We'll discuss. And health officials in Pennsylvania say a third person has now died from measles. What we're learning about the growing outbreak. You're in the Situation Room and we'll be right back.

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53:34A 40-year-old woman who, it says, died from complications associated from the virus. The outbreak has also sparked a dispute between state officials and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has questioned the validity of the reported measles deaths. So let's bring in CNN Health reporter Jacqueline Howard. Jacqueline, what else can you tell us about this latest case? Pam, what we know about this latest case, The woman, like you said, was 40 years old and she was not vaccinated. She also had underlying health conditions like COPD and asthma. And we know that she was using supplemental oxygen before getting measles.

54:14And this death is a reminder when people think of measles, sometimes they think of it as a childhood illness. But this death does remind us that this virus can have severe impacts on adults as well. And in a Facebook post, the Jefferson County coroner Greg Furlong wrote this, quote, this is a heartbreaking loss for the family and an unfortunate reminder that measles can be a serious and potentially life-threatening disease, end quote. So this now means there have been three deaths total associated with this outbreak. The two other deaths were in infants. And so far in total, at least 676 people have gotten sick with measles in this outbreak.

54:57and 124 people have been hospitalized. And this outbreak, the epicenter, is really in Lancaster County. And when we look at these numbers, Pam, a lot of experts are wondering, could this be an undercount? Because typically when we see one to three deaths, sometimes that can suggest there are about a thousand cases out there. So health officials are continuing to monitor these numbers as the outbreak continues, Pam. So tell us more about this tension between federal officials and state officials in Pennsylvania and what's going on there. As this outbreak goes on, you're right, we're continuing to see this tension.

55:39It really started when the first deaths were reported. At that time, there was some tension between Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., where Shapiro mentioned how Kennedy has been spreading misinformation around vaccines and that harms communities. And then Kennedy shot back, even questioning whether these deaths should be counted. And now when we fast forward to the third death that's been reported, we did reach out to the CDC for their response. And this is what they told us, Pam, CDC Director Dr. Erica Schwartz says, quote, CDC was not notified by Pennsylvania officials of this death.

56:23Despite repeated offers of assistance, Pennsylvania has not requested a CDC epi aid, which would deploy epidemiologists and provide on the ground measles outbreak support, end quote. So we see as this outbreak goes on, there is this tension between federal officials and the state. And many people wonder how might this impact the response to this outbreak as time goes on, Pam. All right, Jacqueline Howard, thank you so much. Wolf.

56:53Pamela Brown: One of the two American airmen shot down in Iran, now speaking out about the harrowing rescue on 60 Minutes. And CNN is exclusive new reporting about the push for that airman to go public despite his hesitations.

57:15Pamela Brown: New this morning, for the first time, we're learning dramatic new details about the operation to rescue two U.S. airmen shot down over Iran back in April. One of the airmen, identified only by his call sign, Bravo, spoke with CBS's 60 Minutes. Listen. So how fast do you think you were going when you hit the ground? Professionals, based on my description and the injuries that I had, the professionals think I hit the ground going somewhere between 70 and 100 miles an hour. How did you survive that? A modern-day miracle. I believe that it's a testament to God's provision in my life to bring me through that moment in a way that didn't prevent injuries, but prevented any catastrophic injuries that would have affected my ability to survive.

58:08Pamela Brown: And joining us now are senior national security reporter Zach Cohen. Zach, what else are we learning about the size and the scope of this military rescue operation? Yeah, well, top military officials that sat for interviews with 60 Minutes made it clear that the minute that they received the first communication from the airmen dubbed Bravo, that they really rushed to launch a very complex and complex and heavy lift of a military rescue operation, one that involved thousands of troops in support staff, intelligence officials, and over 90 special operators who were on the ground physically inside of Iran trying to locate this downed airman.

58:49And look, Admiral Cooper, who is the commander of U.S. Central Command, He spoke with 60 Minutes, and he described just how precarious this mission was, particularly given the sense that there were U.S. boots on the ground inside of Iran as the Iranians were trying to locate this airman. Take a listen to what Admiral Cooper had to say. That second operation had about 92 people on the ground. This would be the first U.S. boots on the ground in 46 years. In Iran? In Iran. We had about several hundred in the air, and there were probably 3 ,000 to 5 ,000 supporting overall. It was an operation inside an operation.

59:24So there was significant coordination happening between the special operations units on the ground, intelligence officials who were launching a diversion campaign to buy the down airmen more time, and of course the aircraft and the service members on ships, Navy ships, that were launching missiles in an effort to also delay the Iranian search. So this was a very complex military operation and one that was extremely sensitive and contained a lot of classified details, some of which we learned last night.

59:53Pamela Brown: Extremely successful. They saved the lives of these two U.S. airmen. And you've got some new reporting in connection with all of this, reporting on Defense Secretary Hegseth's involvement with the 60 Minutes interview. What can you tell us? Yeah, well, sources telling me that Hegseth and his office really played an outsized and unusually robust role in helping facilitate this interview and really pushed, along with political appointees in his office, pushed both of the airmen who were rescued in this operation to sit for an interview with 60 minutes. And that came after both airmen raised reservations about doing so.

1:00:27That's an uncomfortable situation for really anybody who serves in the military that's sort of outside the scope of their normal duties. And we're told that both were really concerned about the image that might present. One of the airmen was so concerned that Hegseth might even order him to participate. that just speaks to the level of pressure that they felt from the political appointees inside the Pentagon. And meanwhile, I'm told that while top military officials in uniform, like Admiral Cooper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Dan Cain, participated in this segment, military officials overall were very concerned about the level of classified information that they were going to disclose, thinking you could even inadvertently reveal tactics to the enemy since combat operations in Iran are still ongoing.

1:01:08Pamela Brown: Important points indeed, R.A. Zak. Thank you very, very much. Pamela. All right, well, just ahead, the man charged with murder after a Mississippi mother was found hanging from a tree is expected to appear in court today. What the police chief told CNN about the possibility of additional arrests. We'll be back.

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1:02:31Happening now, Wisconsin Congressman and Republican candidate for Governor Tom Tiffany tearfully recounted the moment his plane made an emergency landing on a lake Saturday night.

1:02:47Well, we had some sound here from Tiffany just talking about how the plane hit the water and they had to swim to shore. They escaped safely. The congressman says he has stitches above his eye and that the pilot was also released from the hospital. The FAA is now investigating. And the man charged with murder of 29-year-old Tassia Fortune is set to appear in court today. Fortune is the black woman who was found hanging from a tree in Jackson, Mississippi last month. Jackson police announced that the charges against 51-year-old Jarkay Ratliff on Friday after the medical examiner ruled Fortune's death a homicide.

1:03:22The police chief tells CNN that more arrests are expected. Wolf?

1:03:26Pamela Brown: And this morning there are chilling new warnings about artificial intelligence. And they're coming from the top leaders in the AI industry, Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and Dario Amodai. They want the industry to work together to slow down the rapid acceleration. They fear that this independent superintelligence is racing toward a point that humans will no longer be able to restrain it. But as the AI pioneers say, slow down. President Trump wants the industry to speed up. He says if AI companies in the U.S. dial back their development, China could capture future control of the technology. And this morning, the president claimed the push for regulation is, in his words, a sick conspiracy, end quote, against AI and data centers.

1:04:16Pamela Brown: The president's opposition to slowing down the AI industry is echoed by other Republicans up on Capitol Hill. As of now, the issue is split largely along party lines. We should take decisive action now so that we can slow down, as the CEOs have recently acknowledged, slow down the pace of development in order to protect the American people and ensure that AI is proceeding safely. The problem is they all have a different prescription on what they say the regulation is supposed to be. The problem is they're all competitors. Each one of them wants to maintain an edge over the others. And Congress is obviously less qualified than the people who are pushing this frontier to know all the ins and outs of it.

1:04:59If we overstep it, I'm telling you again, Jake, it could be a national security threat for every American. And CNN has learned that top tech companies have discussed creating their own standards body for the industry. the CEO of Anthropic, tell CNN how those independent evaluators could work? There is precedent for this. If you look at how banks are regulated, right, there's all kinds of, you know, there's all kinds of rules about, you know, how banks are allowed to do their business, right? Because, you know, we don't want to have financial crises. And one of the things that are done in some cases is, I think they're called supervisors in the financial industry, but they're They're folks who are independent of a company, who are embedded in the company day to day to check their practices.

1:05:47And I think we can do the same thing in AI. So let's continue this conversation. Brad Carson is a co-founder of Americans for Responsible Innovation, a public policy organization focused on emergency technologies like AI. Could be an emergency, right? Thanks so much for being here in the Situation Room. So what are your thoughts on possibly having these third party watchdogs supervising these AI companies? I think it's a good start. These third party watchdogs need to have government oversight. They can't just do it on their own. They have to have meaningful safety standards that we all agree to, and they have to be transparent in what they reveal.

1:06:28And they have to have the ability to go to the government outside the companies and show us what they found. So it's a good start. It's nowhere near enough. We need independent standards. We need more government oversight. We need protection of whistleblowers and many other things too. What do you make of what Mike Johnson just said there about regulation, Congress stepping in more could be a national security issue? I couldn't agree with him less. I think if we don't step in and do some kind of regulation of the industry to make the American people believe in AI again, that's the greatest threat to the AI industry in this country.

1:06:59We need to have a robust AI industry. We need to make sure we are the world leader in that. But the greatest threat to it now is that people don't think that AI is going to be used safely. One massive incident that we could have could stifle the entire industry for a generation. And potentially, I mean, you're getting these dire warnings of human extinction if something isn't done because AI could become self-controlling and there's nothing you could do about it. Even Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, had this to say, let's listen. I think it can simultaneously be true that if the world and the companies building this technology did not do things any differently than they've been doing them in the past, there might be significant risk.

1:07:38But it would be insane not to adjust the way we all work and the way that we make decisions and the way that our governments understand and put guardrails around this technology. What do you think about these warnings? I think you shouldn't take them lightly. When the company leaders themselves tell you that what they're doing could lead to catastrophe, you should take them at their word. When whistleblowers come out and say what they're doing could lead to catastrophe, we should listen to them. When great thinkers, including the founders really of modern AI, like Yashio Bengio or Jeffrey Hinton, say it could lead to catastrophe, we should listen to them.

1:08:14It is a very real possibility that AI gets out of our control and leads to devastation. And we don't want that to happen, of course. And reasonable guardrails are essential to foreclose that possibility. What could that look like? And again, it's hypothetical at this point. But what could that devastation look like? How would it happen? I mean, are we talking about killer robots going around? Are we talking, you know, major cybersecurity attacks? What are the scenarios? I don't think you have to be a science fiction novelist or a filmmaker to imagine scenarios where it could wreak a lot of havoc.

1:08:44For one thing, AI is increasingly controlling the systems that keep us alive. It's going to be controlling the electricity system, the payment system, the education system. It's going to be embedded in the military. You can imagine a world where agents pursue a goal of their own, a goal that we once gave it, but we've now diverged from it in some way. And they pursue that continually in a way that works against human interest. These are ways that these systems could fail simultaneously. You know, vibe coding a super virus is something a lot of people talk about. We're not quite there yet, but within six, eight months, people think that's entirely possible.

1:09:17So there are obvious scenarios that just kind of extrapolate from current trends that can get you to a disastrous situation. Do you share any of President Trump's concerns that slowing down American AI development through regulation would give China a potentially dangerous advantage? I think if we really care about what China's doing, we need to have export controls. We're giving them the chips that allow them to develop AI. We're giving them the data that allows their AI systems to train. So anyone who is serious about the China question, and it is an important one, needs to actually support export controls and not selling them all the data that allow them to develop these great models.

1:09:51And sadly, a lot of people around the administration have not always been strong on those issues. So that's really how we control China. I just want to ask you about what Vice President J.D. Vance said and the skepticism he relayed around why AI industry leaders are coming coming out right now asking for more regulation. Here's what he said. I have to say just personally, I feel a little bit weird about the fact that you have so many frontier AI tech companies kind of coming to the government and begging the government to regulate them. It feels a little bit to me like a bit of a Trojan horse.

1:10:25So I think we just have to be careful about this. What do you make of that argument? I'm not sure what he's saying. I mean, I think the obvious way to evaluate what Sam Altman and Dario Amadei are saying is like they're sincere about it. They actually see internally how capable these systems are, the dangers they present. The whistleblowers all say it. The academics who watch the AI companies, the people who, again, founded Modern AI all believe this. So it's not just the heads of the companies who are saying this. People have been clamoring for better regulation of the AI sector for years now.

1:10:56People are just now seeing, after the Hugging Face incident, that it's a very real possibility and the kind of incredible capability improvements these models are having, are really bringing these questions to four right now. All right, Brad Carson, thank you so much. And tonight, watch Anderson Cooper's full interview with Anthropic CEO Dario Amadei. That's on AC 360 at 8 p.m. Eastern here on CNN, or stream with your all-access subscription.

1:11:20Pamela Brown: And just into the Situation Room, according to a federal watchdog report, 80 immigrants, 80 immigrants who were held at Florida's detention center known as Alligator Alcatraz were briefly held in small metal cages, some of them spending up to nearly two hours inside those enclosures. Let's go live right now to see this Priscilla Alvarez. Priscilla, the inspector general who reported the findings, he says it was, quote, unlike anything they've observed in ICE facilities, end quote. Tell us about this. That's right, Wolf. Disturbing findings by the Department of Homeland Security inspector general that visited Alligator Alcatraz in January of this year.

1:12:03Now it's worth noting that the facility has since closed. It closed over the summer to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said that it was only meant to be temporary. You're seeing some images there from last year. The president himself had visited this facility. But as the facility began operations, there were concerns shared by detainees, by their families, by Democratic lawmakers about what was unfolding. And we now have a greater window into what exactly that was. So in addition to cramped conditions in these housing units, which you are seeing images of there, there was also these small metal enclosures.

1:12:39That's how the inspector general describes them. And they were in an area where they said that they were used as calming areas. In other words, to de-escalate a situation. That's according to the facility staff. Or they say at some point, CT &E's asked to spend time in these enclosures. What's remarkable about this, Wolf, is that the Inspector General notes that they have not seen anything like this before. Not only were there these small metal enclosures indoors, but there were also at least two outdoors. Now they say, and I'm going to quote here, the use of such restrictive spaces is highly unconventional and does not align with standards for humane treatment.

1:13:20Now, this is a 34-page report. It also notes that after giving recommendations to the department, they scrapped those because, again, this facility is no longer in use. But the Department of Homeland Security had said at the time that it was the state of Florida that maintained authority on daily operations. And therein is the confusion. It's been the confusion since the start of Alligator Alcatraz and even up until its end. who was accountable for the operations, what was happening, the conditions within this facility. Now, the inspector general notes that when they are holding any facility is holding detainees, ICE detainees, that there needs to be a compliance with ICE detention standards.

1:14:03And that is what they were looking at here, where they found that, yes, there were some standards that were met, but many others that weren't. And perhaps the most revelatory part of this report is, again, those small metal enclosures. Because while we knew about concerns about drinking water, about bugs in the shower, about lack of personal hygiene, these enclosures clearly raised concern within the Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General and are certainly going to raise more concern about the way this facility operated, even though, again, Wolf, it has since closed.

1:14:35Pamela Brown: Were they locked in these small metal cages, if you will? So the inspector general notes that facility staff said they weren't locked, but they noted locks on the doors. So that remains an open question. Again, I do want to know what you're seeing on your screen is from last year. This was before operations began. And those are the housing units. So the bunk beds with the toilet and sanitation areas. But what we're talking about here is another area where they described these small metal enclosures. The ones outside, almost identical to a phone booth, where facility staff said they used them to de-escalate situations.

1:15:11The average amount of time for the 79 detainees the inspector general found to have been used or placed in these enclosures was just under an hour. The least amount of time, a few minutes. The most amount of time, nearly two hours.

1:15:24Pamela Brown: Priscilla Alvarez with her latest reporting. Thank you very, very much. Pamela. All right, Wolf. Coming up, a tough loss for America at the U.S. Open final. but black American athletes still made history. We're going to look at the incredible breakthroughs that are changing the face of tennis forever. Up next.

1:15:46Pamela Brown: It was a truly incredible finish at the U.S. Open. 23-year-old Ben Shelton came incredibly close to ending a 23-year Grand Slam title drought for American men. But in the end, Germany's Alexander Zverez took the crown in four tight sets, securing his first U.S. Open title and his second major of the year. Zverez was so locked in during that final match point, he didn't even realize he had actually won. Here's how he described that surreal moment to our Patrick Snell. I thought it was 5-1 instead of 6-2, so I thought I had one more game left, so I was quite focused, I was quite calm. But then I was luckily on the side of my team and they're all screaming that it's over.

1:16:32So I'm very happy that it was. All right. Join us now is Kerry Champion, CNN contributor and host of the Flagrant and Funny with Kerry Champion and Jemele Hill podcast. Kerry, thanks for coming on. So even though Shelton didn't walk away with the trophy, black tennis players made some truly historic, inspiring breakthroughs at Meadows this year. Let's start with Ben Shelton. He is the first black American man to reach the U.S. Open final since the legendary Arthur Ashe all the way back in 1972. When you look at just the sheer scale of that, what does Ben's achievement mean for black sports history?

1:17:10Well, first, for black sports history, it's amazing. I do believe, and I'll go back to what Arthur Ashe said when he actually made it to Wimbledon finals and won, not necessarily 52 years ago, but when he won, he said, I hope that I am leading the way. I hope there will be more men who, Black American men who play tennis, who see what I am doing, who want to be a part of the sport because it's so, and I'm paraphrasing here, because it's given so much. So to see Ben Shelton at the young age of 23 years old in this space playing and understanding the legacy, right, the rite of passage, if you will, for some, it was really special.

1:17:45Not only did we watch Ben, and again, sadly not win, but not only did we watch him make this final, the last time an American had made the final at the U.S. Open, men's final at the U.S. Open, was Andy Roddick back in 03. And so there was so much more history to be made. I thought it was a win not only for the history of African Americans, but even more importantly, for where we think men's tennis is going here in the United States. It's been a while. We've had a drought. And it would be beautiful to see us rise up and play in a way in which that represents our country.

1:18:16Pamela Brown: You know, it was interesting, Carrie, because black American athletes certainly seemed to dominate throughout the U.S. Tennis Open. We saw the first ever all-black men's singles semifinal between Ben Shelton and Francis Diafo. Coco Gauff fought her way to the semifinals and Taylor Townsend won the women's doubles title. What are the breakthroughs? Tell us about the direction that this sport is now headed. Now, tennis is, and as we all know, it's obviously an international sport. But in some of these sports that feel as if you don't see a lot of diversity in terms of African-Americans playing, you always look to find these moments that says this actually is opening the doors for others.

1:19:00You're showing people what can happen. And Venus and Serena did a fabulous job of opening that door. And I think what we're watching with Coco Gauff, and she's even said as much, thank you so much for everything you all did for us. That is the reason why I'm here today and that I believe. Coco won. Coco Gauff won the U.S. Open in 2023. And she continues to fight and play at such a superior level. And when I look at her and Taylor Townsend, who are very unapologetic about the fact that there may be only a few, but that doesn't mean there can be more. that lets us know that this sport in particular, especially here at home in America, is opening the doors.

1:19:38It's saying, guess what? We accept all. We want all. And it's not necessarily always been that way. Tennis is an expensive sport, so sometimes it lends itself to people who have more privilege and more dollars. But these ladies are showing that all can coexist. And when you get this opportunity to shine bright, they did it so well. Congratulations to Taylor Townsend. It was really special. She gave a phenomenal speech about what it means to be African-American and winning in this moment. And then we have Coco Gauff, who consistently shows up in her space, and she takes up all of the room and says, love me no matter what.

1:20:13And she carries herself like a true champion. Oh, she does.

1:20:17Pamela Brown: She's a great champion indeed. I watched it and I loved every minute. Carrie, champion, thank you very, very much. And to our viewers, thanks very much for joining us this morning. You can always keep up with us on social media at Wolf Blitzer and at Pamela Brown CNN. And we'll see you back here tomorrow morning and every weekday morning at 10 Eastern for two hours. Inside Politics with our friend and colleague, Dana Bash, starts after a quick break.

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