Nvidia Scandal Sparks Washington Finger-Pointing

0:01Happening now divided over evidence questions remain over whether a Chinese business one woman at the center of the Nvidia scandal is a spy or not. The new reporting and finger pointing just ahead. Plus outlook is back. Well sort of email is slowly returning to millions around the world after a massive outage.

0:21Pamela Brown: What Microsoft is saying this morning and in New York soon local leaders of the New York attorney general and those impacted by that deadly building collapse are speaking out and demanding answers. And a Situation Room special report. We go one-on-one with billionaire businessman Mark Cuban. Find out what he thinks about what was behind the midterm blue wave. 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.

1:00Pamela Brown: Happening now, one of the most powerful AI experts in the world is out of a job and facing a new deadline. The former NVIDIA CEO Jensen Wang now has until 8 o 'clock tonight, Washington time, to agree to face three House committees for a closed door interview. If he doesn't respond, a subpoena will be issued. Lawmakers want answers on his reported extramarital affair with a woman suspected of being a Chinese spy. Multiple sources are now telling CNN that U.S. intelligence collected on Alice Wong does not prove that she was acting as a spy for Beijing. Some say, regardless, the case is exposing Washington's failure to crack down on the diversion of essential AI technology to China.

1:47Pamela Brown: So congressional pressure could expand to the White House and the Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. His department oversees chip exports. The chairman of the Senate Banking Committee has already requested that Lutnick testify before Congress. Republican Tim Scott says he now has serious concerns about national security and protecting U.S. technology. CNN senior justice correspondent Evan Perez is here with us in the Situation Room. Evan, tell us about the scramble underway right now for more clues about Alice Wan. You know, Wolf, I think the scramble is really about how intelligence is gathered nowadays.

2:25And a lot of people imagine when you say a suspected spy or an alleged spy, people assume that it's somebody who is trained by the Chinese Ministry of State Security, the MSS, and is out there getting information, collecting information. A lot of times what we're seeing is executives for companies, important companies, who have access to information from U.S. companies are called in, essentially, when they visit China. They're required to provide information when they're asked by the Ministry of State Security. And so that's part of the reason why I think there's been this back and forth in the intelligence community.

3:03The CIA officials have told our reporters that they're not convinced that she knowingly was providing intelligence to the MSS. You also see the ODNI, the Director of National Intelligence, also pushing back on some of the characterization. Here's how Attorney General Todd Blanche put it to me when we asked about it yesterday.

3:27So you assume that DOJ learns that she is, in fact, a spy.

3:33Pamela Brown: I'm not, nobody said that. I certainly haven't said that. There's no conclusions reached by the Department of Justice or by me or by Director Patel around who she is or is not. And Wolf, this is obviously still a very important investigation by the FBI, by the Justice Department. A couple of things are happening. They're looking into how it is that Megaspeed, which is the company that Alice Huang was an executive for, how they have been diverting, allegedly diverting these important, very high security, very restricted chips from NVIDIA to the Chinese market, where they're not supposed to be, at least through that way.

4:12There's also this investigation into whether this is part of a broader process by the Chinese, which is to set up a lot of these companies around the world to get these chips to places where they then are diverted to China. The other big question here is the Department of Commerce and Howard Lutnick and the refusal over the last year, despite the efforts of Scott Besant and others, Marco Rubio, raising questions about this relationship and whether mega speed should have been put on a restricted list earlier or they still have not been done. And so that's I think what we're going to hear from Congress in the coming weeks and months.

4:50Pamela Brown: We'll be hearing a lot more about all of this, I'm sure. The story is only beginning to develop right now. Evan, thank you very, very much. All right, happening now, tensions are palpable among Trump administration officials. Questions are swirling about who knew what and when. And just this morning, Treasury Secretary Scott Besson accused the Commerce Department of holding out on labeling NVIDIA customer Megaspeed as a possible national security threat. There was coordination. Treasury, War, USTR and state were in favor of putting Megaspeed on the entity list for months. But commerce has the pin.

5:30Commerce BIS has the pin. And you will have to ask them about their internal proceeds. The suspected spy at the center of this was a Megaspeed employee. As for what President Trump knew, the New York Times reports Trump was first warned about Wong's relationship with the suspected Chinese spy a year ago. He was briefed again in May while en route to China, according to a source familiar with the matter. Still, President Trump on Monday denied knowing about the affair at the time. When were you first told of these potential issues with Mr. Wang? You didn't answer that question. Well, I've been hearing about it and I've been reading a little bit about it over a period of time.

6:09But not too long ago. When you went to China earlier this year in May, did you know about these alleged ties with the Chinese spy then? No, I didn't hear about it then. But a lot of people have heard about it and Jensen totally denies that. I asked him that question. Did you have any idea that she was a spy? I said, I had no idea that she was a spy. And I really believe him. And when asked about whether the Wong should have stepped down, here's what President Trump had to say. The big thing is, was the woman a spy? And I don't know if that's been determined yet, but if the woman was a spy, yes.

6:46If the woman was not a spy, perhaps it would be different. All right, so let's go live now to CNN White House correspondent Elena Treen. What more are you learning, Elena, about the Trump administration's knowledge of this affair? Yeah, I mean, and I just want to note off the top, you mentioned and played some of that Scott Bess in an interview. That was pretty remarkable just to I think he laid out kind of some of the processes over the decision making over whether or not to put Megaspeed on an entity list because of some of the investigations into Alice Wong, who we know is having an affair with Jensen Huang.

7:22Evan laying out this idea that the intelligence does not yet prove that she was a Chinese spy. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Get to your question, Pamela, about what they knew when. That is still something we are, of course, piecing together. But this is what we do know. We know that the president was briefed. What he said to reporters on Monday was not exactly right. He had been briefed previously on the intelligence that they had gathered about the relationship Jensen Huang was having with Alice Huang. Again, someone who was tied to Megaspeed and also suspected of potentially being a Chinese spy or having these certain ties to China that could potentially threaten the United States national security.

8:00I want to remind you of a key moment was that when the president last visited China, you should know he's actually going back to China next week, but his last visit to China was in May. And when he was on his brief stop in Alaska before continuing the final leg of the trip, Trump had summoned Jensen Huang to Alaska to join him and then to fly with him to Beijing. That is when our sources tell us that the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, had given Trump a briefing on what they had known, the intelligence that they had gathered at the time. So that's something to keep in mind as well. We also know, of course, that the FBI has been investigating the relationship between Jensen Huang and Alice Huang for some time now as well.

8:41And that is something that really has raised a lot of these questions as they relate to the Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick. Howard Lutnick, I should say, just like President Trump, also very close to Jensen Huang. Some people have said he's perhaps even closer and that he really empathized with a lot of the arguments Jensen Huang was making about wanting to sell more of NVIDIA's advanced chips to China. But a key question, and this is what Besson was getting at in that interview this morning with CNBC, was if they had known that there were intelligence concerns at all and that there was an investigation into Megaspeed and Alice Wong's ties to the Communist Party of China, why did they not put Megaspeed, the company tied to Alice Wong, on this entity list that would essentially consider it, you know, put into consideration these national security threats?

9:28That is a question that we heard Besson say he recommended, but it was up to Howard Lutnick, who had the pen. A lot more to hear from this. We know that both Lutnick and Jensen Huang are being asked to come before Congress. All right, Elena Train, we'll see what happens on that front. Thanks so much. And join us now with CNN political commentator and former Trump White House director of strategic communications, Alyssa Farah Griffin. All right. So you heard the president there denying that he had knowledge of Jensen Huang's affair with a suspected Chinese spy. And you heard there what Elena reported, that actually he was briefed on this on that trip to China when Jensen Wang boarded Air Force One in Alaska.

10:07What do you think about that? Well, there's quite a bit of finger pointing happening and, you know, folks covering their tail in the administration right now. We obviously have the leak to The New York Times that Secretary Rubio had previously briefed the president. You now have Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, essentially saying there was a full interagency coordination to try to add Megaspeed to this export ban. But it was it was the Department of Commerce that was acting separately and did not do that. So I think there's a lot of people kind of trying to show that they were doing the right thing.

10:39Now, I see that the affair and the with Jensen Wong almost is secondary in all of this. I think Congress rightly is looking both into Jensen Wong, but into Howard Lutnick. This is the secretary of commerce, somebody who has basically the full capability of government to monitor export bans and to make decisions on what entities will be on these lists. And he has clearly failed in not coordinating with the interagency in this whole process. So there's just a lot of questions to be answered. And I am I do think we we need to know more about what the president knew and when this new reporting that he may have been briefed ahead of his prior trip to China is quite concerning.

11:18Yeah. And now you have the Treasury secretary calling out Lutnick and the Commerce Department over all of this. If you were still doing comms for the Trump White House, how would you be handling this? No one should be saying anything until the interagency has spoken among themselves and gotten their facts straight, because it seems like there's either an effort by some to throw some under the bus or there's just not they don't have their facts aligned on how this went down and when it did. But the part that really did stand out to me was Besant saying that the Department of War, the U.S. trade rep and Treasury were all aligned and it was commerce almost acting unilaterally.

11:56Because then that becomes a question of was the president bypassed or was the president briefed on Howard Lutnick's decisions? Those are all things that we need to know in the coming days. With Democrats preparing to be in control of Congress, just how big of an issue could this become for the administration? I mean, it's massive. So like stepping back for a moment, this is this is a company valued at trillions of dollars, massive implications for the U.S. stock market, the U.S. economy, but also national security implications. These next gen chips that we were what were keeping us ahead of China in the AI arms race that we're effectively in.

12:34And one of the arguments for why this administration doesn't want to do any regulation around AI is because we have to stay ahead of China. Well, because of this, you know, because of either poor decision making, lack of coordination and this alleged spy, we may not be as ahead of China in this arms race as we think that we are. So there's so many questions that need to be answered. But for a president who ran on being tough on China and staying ahead of China and kind of making that the focus of his national security strategy, I think there's a lot of questions that need to be answered. And I think in these coming weeks, as he meets with the Chinese, he needs to show a really formidable stance against this because this was an espionage effort against our nation, but the global economy.

13:14And I think that we need to convey that that is not OK. All right. Alyssa Farah Griffin, thank you so much. Wolf.

13:21Pamela Brown: And still ahead, a key economic indicator hits a four year high. What this means for the price of things like gas and groceries and later one on one with entrepreneur and billionaire Mark Cuban. His mission to make prescription drugs affordable. Lots going on. You're in the Situation Room.

13:44I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast. We get to talk to the men's winner of the New York City Marathon. Andreas Almgren, he's a self-coached 31-year-old who was, get this, making his marathon debut. He never ran a marathon before he won it. If someone wanted to start getting serious about running and they wanted to approach it like a data scientist like you do, how would you suggest they start? Be patient.

14:10Pamela Brown: My peak weeks, I run like 140, 150 miles per week or something. Wow. Either increase the distance or you should increase the intensity. You should never increase both at the same time. Listen to Chasing Life, streaming now wherever you get your podcasts.

14:30Pamela Brown: All right, there's breaking news. New inflation numbers this morning show wholesale inflation is now at its highest level in nearly four years. These figures serve as an early warning indicator about cost to consumers in the months ahead. Let's go live right now to see that senior reporter Matt Egan. He's got the latest numbers for us. Matt, help us break down these numbers and what it all could mean for interest rates. Well, Wolf, this is just more evidence of the cost of living problem. that fueled the blue tsunami in the midterms. And what's really telling here is this report, it actually beat expectations, and yet it was still way too hot.

15:09So producer prices were up by 0.3 % month over month. That was a little bit less than expected, and that was a big cool down from the month before. But look at the annual rate, 6.5%. This is another step in the wrong direction. This is the biggest 12-month increase since the fall of 2022. my former colleague Heather Long, she said that this shows that business inflation is smoking hot. And she said it's inevitable that these companies are going to pass along at least some of the costs to all of us consumers. And when you look at the trend here, you can see that producer prices are going up faster than the 10-year average.

15:48Not as bad as four years ago. Of course, that was a nightmare. But clearly going in the wrong direction. And this is roughly when the Iran war started. So you can see how much inflation has heated up since then. And when we look at what's getting more expensive, again, you can see the fingerprints of the Iran war. Gasoline, diesel, home heating, oil, all of them surging. Also, truck-based freight, fertilizer as well, computers and equipment. That is evidence of the AI boom. And look, Wolf, Wall Street is betting that this report, it really locks in another interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve at the meeting next month.

16:24The only question is whether or not they do a normal quarter point hike or if they decide to do a jumbo size hike to really try to get inflation back down. Back to you.

16:32Pamela Brown: Yeah, Trump hates those those interest rates hikes. But if the inflation rate is as high as it is, that puts enormous pressure on the Federal Reserve to go ahead and raise interest rates, as we all know. Matt Egan, thank you very, very much. All right. Wolf happening now. Returning to office. Microsoft says emails are approaching normal levels after an extensive global outage, left millions without email access and other services for hours. The tech giant says it's seen continued recovery progress as servers come back online and insists the disruptions were not from a cybersecurity breach. So let's go live now to CNN Business Tech Editor Lisa Adichico.

17:11Lisa, what more are you learning about the cause as workers get back online today? Yeah, so as you mentioned, Microsoft has said this is not a cybersecurity incident. This seems to be an issue with Microsoft servers. On Thursday, the company said that there was an issue that caused servers to fail an automated health check, and that was causing some servers to become unavailable. So as far as we know, its efforts are really focused right now on restoring those services, making sure they're stable. As you mentioned, email levels are starting to reach normalcy again. But normally when something like this happens, there is a kind of a postmortem deep dive into the technical issues that cause the problem.

17:51So we are expecting to hear more from Microsoft as they continue to investigate the issue. But I think one thing to note here is that we're also getting more of a picture of how widespread these outages have been. I reached out to the parent company behind DownDetector, and they shared some more data with me, saying that in the first 16 hours of the outage, they received reports of issues with Microsoft Services almost 6 million times. So that's a lot of people that had a hard time accessing these critical communications software that they need to do their jobs around the world. All right, Lisa DeChico, thank you so much.

18:29Wolf?

18:30Pamela Brown: I wasn't getting emails for about 12 hours, and then all of a sudden this morning I got 1 ,000 old emails. We were all very excited. I'm looking at all these old emails that had been delayed because of this outage. We get a lot of emails here at CNN. We certainly do. All right, coming up, demanding accountability. Soon, those left without a home are speaking out as the community mourns those killed in that Brooklyn building collapse.

19:01Chilling new video caught on a ring camera shows the moments an apartment building came crashing down in Brooklyn on Wednesday. And new today, the FDNY says it has completed its rescue operations with no additional victims found. Meanwhile, all eight people killed in the collapse have been identified. They range in ages from just nine years old to 31. Among them, 22-year-old Gabriel Sequencia, who leaves behind a wife and a young child. His father says he was working construction at the collapse site. At any moment now, we're expecting a news conference from community leaders and families impacted by this tragedy to get underway.

19:38And as the focus shifts to what caused the deadly collapse, the Brooklyn DA's office says it's looking in to whether any criminal conduct played a role here. And a structural engineer tells CNN the city will likely be doing a full review of anyone involved with that building and of 100 other sites linked to the collapse. Let's go to CNN's Bryn Gingrath for the very latest. She joins us live from New York. So we're learning now, Bryn, that the owner of the collapse building has had a history of violations and even served jail time at one point. Tell us more about what investigators are looking at right now as they try to piece together what happened.

20:13Yeah, Pam, I mean, quite a few for that homeowner of that building that collapsed. We know that, like you said, a troubling history went to jail for about 12 days back in 2006 for failing to repair hundreds of violations over multiple buildings. In that particular building, that apartment complex that collapsed, that one had 98 open housing violations. It went from anywhere from, you know, unsafe electrical wiring to bed bug infestations to inadequate water supply. So a number of issues there. And I can tell you, look, when we were there at the site yesterday, there was a number of people after the fact coming out and being along the sidewalks and really banging the drums about, guys, this this is not OK.

20:58This property owner has a history that needs to be further looked into. And that is something that the city has vowed to do. And now we're hearing that the Attorney General Letitia James, her office is also demanding that there be some accountability here, possibly open its own investigation. As you mentioned, the city did say, the mayor said yesterday that he was going to be, or the city rather, is going to be looking at 100 different buildings all across New York City that have any connection to that construction site. Remember, five different entities were involved with that ongoing construction at that site, and they are now responsible for work at 100 or so buildings across New York City.

21:37And so investigators are certainly going to be going to those places to make sure it is safe and secure for people who are nervous, quite frankly, about could this happen to them, too? Yeah, understandably nervous. Bren Gingras, thank you. Wolf? All right.

21:51Pamela Brown: Coming up, Chris Van Hollen vying for Senate Majority Leader. The showdown against Chuck Schumer that will put Democrats to the test. We have details and we'll discuss. That's next.

22:09Pamela Brown: New reporting from CNN that Vice President J.D. Vance is now seriously considering not running for president in 2028 following Republicans' historic midterm losses. One ally of the vice president tells CNN, and I'm quoting now, I wouldn't be surprised by any decision he makes. He's only 42. He's young enough that he can have a comeback should this environment make success impossible. It just may not be his time, end quote. With us now, Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, and Julie Roginski, Democratic strategist and co-founder of Lift Our Voices. Terry, let me start with you.

22:49Pamela Brown: The vice president hasn't made a call here, but you think it would be a mistake for Vance not to run right now? And if so, why? Well, Wolf, thanks for having me. I do believe that it would be a mistake for J.D. to not run for president. He has a huge opportunity ahead of him. And he has the base of the conservative movement, really the base. He has the pulse of the forgotten man more than a lot of people. He's from Ohio, where so many working class voters have been forgotten about. But this would be a huge opportunity lost by his. He is 42, I will tell you that. And he's got, you know, obviously young children at home.

23:27So he's got a lot to weigh and he's got to equally weigh, you know, his own family and the best thing for them with these political calculations. But I do sincerely hope he runs because he has a knack for leadership that the country greatly needs right now.

23:41Pamela Brown: Julie, as you know, voters sent a very powerful message that they are very unhappy with the state of the U.S. economy right now and the war with Iran. A Vance ally tells CNN, I'm quoting once again, If the Iran war is still happening, can any Republican do it? If they don't end the war in Iran, no Republican has a shot at 2028, end quote. Will the war just be a liability for Republicans when Democrats take control of Congress next month? I think Donald Trump will be a liability for Republicans because he's done nothing to absorb the losses that he had last week and he's done nothing to change course.

24:19In fact, he's doubled down by appointing Stephen Miller, continuing to talk about the war, doing nothing to help the economy. So for that reason, it's going to be very, very challenging for anybody associated with Donald Trump to run in 2028, because I don't see his numbers getting any better in the next two years. The problem for J.D. Vance is that he's the vice president. He owns all of this. He can go ahead and leak to reporters that he really wasn't for the war. He can go ahead and talk about how he's distancing himself from the Trumps. But the reality is he is a member of the Trump administration, and he will have to own that and wear that.

24:51And he's not out there trashing the president, saying that he disagrees with him publicly. He's, as I said, leaking. Look, his own home state sent a message last Tuesday, which was that they rejected him and his administration and appointed and elected Sherrod Brown to his Senate seat. I mean, it's extraordinary that Ohio just sent a message to J.T. Vance that they reject him and they reject Donald Trump. With that kind of record, it is very, very hard politically to turn around and say, you know what, I'm a change agent. I'm not part of this administration. I'm going to make something happen in 2028.

25:23Pamela Brown: I just want to be precise. The Democrats will take the majority in Congress and the Senate and the House in January, not next month in December. In January, with a new session of Congress convenes. Terry, J.D. Vance blamed Republicans' losses directly on the war in a very lengthy social media post, a post that sources tell us irritated President Trump at the time. Now the president says he's asking Vance to take his focus off the war and turn, quote, his complete and total attention on the massive corruption and crime taking place in Democrat-run cities and states throughout the United States, end quote.

26:03Pamela Brown: Is the president doing Vance a favor here? What do you think? I don't know. That's an interesting question. What I can tell you is that the opposition to the war, on top of being against the conflict and the violence of that, the war caused the cost of living crisis to get even worse and be even more front and center of voters' minds, especially with gas prices. We all know how important energy prices are when it comes to keeping prices low. I think J.D. Vance and President Trump should be spending as much time as possible in getting prices lower and addressing the cost of living crisis that so many Americans are very upset about.

26:43I think Americans, obviously, after the midterms, are very upset about how their cost of living has gone up. And that should be the primary focus. A lot of working families have been struggling primarily due to policies by this administration on the Iran war, but also due to policies that were from the previous administration. The Inflation Reduction Act increased inflation and cost of living by 9.5 % after it was passed. So it's a big deal. And I think all the time and attention should be focused on making Americans' lives better here at home. And that starts with families and the cost of living.

27:18Pamela Brown: JULIE, THE DEMOCRATIC LEADER CHUCK SCHUMER HAS NOW LEARNED THAT HE'S FACING A CHALLENGER FOR THE MAJORITY LEADER POSITION IN THE SENATE. HERE'S MARYLAND SENATOR CHRIS VAN HOLLAND ON WHY HE'S NOW GETTING INTO THIS RACE. LISTEN TO THIS. WE SAW A HUGE OUTBURST OF DEMOCRACY ON ELECTION DAY, RED STATES, BLUE STATES, PURPLE STATES. And the call was really to reject the status quo and to reject business as usual. And to do that, I think we need new leadership. And I've gotten feedback from members of the caucus. And my view is this is very much in flux. Am I the underdog? Yes. So what do you think, Julie?

28:02Pamela Brown: Do voters want new leadership in the Senate? What do they do? Do they want Schumer to go? Well, look, the Democratic base is not happy with Chuck Schumer. They're not happy with his communication skills. They're not happy with how he's presented himself over the last X number of years that he's been leader in the majority and the minority. But as we all know, caucus elections are very different from real elections in the sense that you have to appeal to your caucus and cut deals with your caucus that may not necessarily hinge on what voters want. And so I think Chuck Schumer has a good relationship.

28:34He has been the person who recruited some of these new members who are coming in, like Sherrod Brown, like Scott Colum, like Mary Paltola and others. And so, look, he's been an excellent quasi-chair of the DSCC in the sense that he has recruited wonderful candidates that got him to the majority. Has he been a great leader in terms of his communication skills and standing up to Trump? That remains to be determined by his caucus. I personally don't think so. But at the same time, as I said, he's got deals that he can cut and committee chairs that he could give out and other goodies that he can give them that I'm not sure Chris Van Hollen is in a position to do right now.

29:09Pamela Brown: All right, Julie Roginski, Terry Schilling, to both of you, thank you very, very much. All right, Wolf, coming up, he is a billionaire businessman, but Mark Cuban wants to make your prescriptions more affordable. We go one-on-one with him next in a Situation Room special report.

29:31As Washington digests the results of last week's resounding midterm victories for Democrats and losses for Republicans. We're continuing to follow the debate around party leadership in both caucuses and what this all means for the administration with such broad mandate for change from voters. So I want to bring in someone who might want to weigh in on this. We'll have to see. Entrepreneur, investor and co-founder of Cost Plus Drugs, Mark Cuban. Mark, good to see you. Thanks for being here. We have a lot to get to. Thanks for having me on. But listen, you're a businessman by nature. If you got these results, what would you do if you were running the country right now?

30:07Fortunately, I'm not. I'm just a business guy. For business people out there, you just keep on doing what you've been doing. Unless you're one of those folks who try to buy politicians to help their business, politics doesn't really change how you interact with your customers, et cetera. And in terms of trying to tell the president what to do, Nah, I'm going to leave that one alone. OK, you call yourself an independent. He wants to get rid of all political parties. But I'm just curious what your take is on this blue NAMI, including your home state of Texas. Was it more of an embrace of Democratic candidates, a rebuke of the Trump administration's first two years in office, a mix of both?

30:46Like, what do you think this was all about? I mean, talking to my friends and family, I think people wanted a return to normalcy. You know, more of kind of the standards that we had, you know, 10, 15, 20 or more years ago where people discuss politics, but they weren't rabid about it. Where we went about our daily lives and we weren't nervous about who we were talking about and what we were talking about and what somebody's political stance was. And I think we got a lot of that. Now, what happens in two years remains to be seen. You know, if the Democrats approach things the way the Republicans did, I think it could go back 180 degrees again.

31:23But, you know, it'll be interesting to see. I think there's an opportunity to drive towards what I'll call normalcy and see what happens. So when you talk about the Democrats, I mean, they've already they're already found investigations into Trump and his family and impeachment of the defense secretary, perhaps HHS secretary, RFK Jr. I mean, do you think that that could backfire or what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean, accountability is important. There's no question about that. And if you see something obvious and you have to pursue it, you do. But that's not really what got them elected.

31:54I mean, as I said, people want to return to normalcy. Obviously, affordability was a big issue. But how Democrats approach the topic of affordability and actually implementing something is far more important. You know, we can say or the Democrats can say that, hey, we want to reduce prices, but politicians don't reduce prices. You have to go to the businesses that, you know, buy the products, sell the products, determine what margins that company wants and have a conversation with them. So that's how you think we get out of the affordability issues. What about when it comes to drug prices? You're the founder of Cost Plus Drugs, which aims to cut out the middlemen in the prescription drug industry.

32:32Who, in your view, is the most responsible for Americans paying so much in prescription drug prices? Drug companies, insurers, benefits managers, the federal government? What do you think? There's these huge vertically integrated companies that do, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars in revenues each and every year and billions in profits. They literally impact how prices are determined. They impact how the big brand pharmaceutical companies define their prices. They introduce all kinds of costs. And their interests are not aligned with the interest of patients. In the five years I've been doing this with CostPlusDrugs.com, part of my job is to listen to the quarterly earnings conference calls and read the transcripts of those companies.

33:16Not one time have I ever heard them say that this investment or this change is going to reduce the cost for patients or reduce the cost for employers. Never. And until we get their interests aligned with those of patients and employers, nothing's going to change, which is why I've been a big proponent of the breakup big medicine bill. We can talk about Medicare for all. We could talk about universal health care. But more importantly, right now, as long as these big behemoth conglomerates that are too big to care, that are contractual terrorists, unless we do something about them first, it's going to be nearly impossible for any type of universal care to be implemented.

33:55And I know your company cuts out the middleman. You're very transparent about the costs and the markups and so forth. But your company also partnered with Trump Rx. I'm wondering if you believe Trump Rx has meaningfully reduced prescription drug prices for consumers. Do you think it's been effective? Of course, speaking, it's a portal. If you go to TrumpRx and you look up a medication that we carry, it's going to send you to costplusdrugs.com and we're going to save them money. And on top of that, they literally have sent us a decent amount of traffic. And when our volumes go up, we're able to negotiate lower costs.

34:30And when our costs go down, we pass on that cost to any patient. And so it's had a net positive effect. There's no financial relationship between us and TrumpRx or the federal government for these medications. They're purely a portal that refers people to us and others. Do you think there'll ever be universal health care for all in America? I hope so. You know, people say, you know, it's socialist and, you know, it won't work for various reasons and delays. But if we get the price of medications and care cheap enough, then it makes perfect sense. The problem is when you read the Medicare for All legislation, when you talk to people about it, they just presume that whatever they implement is going to work.

35:19Right now, all the legislation reads that the head of Medicare for All is going to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services. That's a political coinee. That could change things every four years. You can't have universal care or Medicare for all where the person in charge takes a different position every four years. That's one problem. The second problem is they haven't talked to the high-end providers that provide the most advanced care to see how things need to work for them to stay in business or to continue to offer the high-end care that people expect. So you have to align all the interests of all the stakeholders in order to determine whether or not you can do Medicare for all.

36:00Instead, there's different models that have shown we'll save a trillion here and two trillion there. But no one has put together a model that includes all the stakeholders to know if you can actually get from where we are today to where we want to be. I'm one of the 10 people who actually read Senator-elect El Saeed's book on Medicare for All. And even he asked more questions than gives determinations and determines which way we should go. He says, you know, it could be global budgets. It could be Medicare for all. It could be a combination because there aren't answers because we haven't asked the right people the right questions yet.

36:38Last question, as I was thinking back to an earlier answer you gave, we're talking about affordability and how people across the country are struggling. I wonder what you think about President Trump and the amount of money he's made in office, billions of dollars in office while, you know, many Americans are struggling. You're a businessman. I just wonder what you think about it. Like, do you have a problem with that? Or do you think it's OK for the president to be making that kind of money? Yeah, I mean, I don't think anybody in office should be able to trade crypto or stocks, period, end of story.

37:10And if somebody made money from that, you know, that's wrong. And so whether it's the president, whether it's a senator, whether it's a, you know, governor, doesn't matter to me. I just think it's all wrong across the board, you know. And let me just say, there's nothing I'm going to say about President Trump that's going to change anybody's mind. You know, to me, we have so many bigger things to do over the next two years while he's still in office. Now there's, you know, the Democrats control, you know, the Senate and the House. Now it's time for them to actually get to work and talk to the people that can make things more affordable.

37:47Talk to the people that can influence AI policy. Talk to the people that can actually create change as opposed to just looking at it as a legislative path. We check this box. We check that box. We, you know, everybody did a lot of talking during the midterms. Now we have to see if there's going to be results. All right. Our thanks to Mark Cuban for that interesting discussion. And we have more coming up. You're going to hear more of our wide-ranging conversation about his investment in the women's health space, something as you all know I'm passionate about, and his thoughts on the so-called AI bubble.

38:21Pamela Brown: Looking forward to part two. Part one was excellent. Thank you very much. Thank you, Will. Appreciate it. He's a good guy. And here's what's coming up all new in the next hour. One-on-one with Michael Douglas, the Academy Award winner, sits down with me to discuss his new memoir, his decades-long marriage, and how the midterm elections changed his hope for the future. That's all new coming up straight ahead.

38:49happening now senate showdown senator van holland is now challenging schumer to become senate

38:55Pamela Brown: majority leader is a split brewing plus demanding answers our lutnik is reportedly agreeing to testify over nvidia alleged spy scandal with was the commerce secretary too close to the now ousted ceo jensen juan 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.

39:26All right, coming up this hour, we have some heavy hitters. Two big interviews in the Situation Room. We're going to have more of my conversation with Mark Cuban, why the entrepreneur in business, what he says about AI. I'm not a doomer. I don't think it's going to end the world or ruin everything.

39:45Pamela Brown: And I'll go one-on-one with Michael Douglas, the Academy Award-winning actor, is opening up about his career, his marriage, politics, and how voters spoke at the ballot box during the midterms. Boy, do they speak. And I hope our politicians now, supposedly, with all the differences that we have, there seem to be a lot of people that were in agreement about what needs to be done. So let's hope now in this next couple of years that we get a lot of this stuff done. But first, happening now, the Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, has reportedly agreed to testify before the Senate Banking Committee.

40:25Pamela Brown: This comes amid serious questions about who inside the Trump administration knew what and when regarding former NVIDIA CEO Jensen Wang's extramarital affair with a suspected Chinese spy. A spokesperson for Lutnick tells NBC he has, quote, proactively agreed to appear voluntarily before the banking committee to address their questions. Pamela. All right. Tensions are already high among Trump administration officials over the fallout from Wong's extramarital affair. Just this morning, Treasury Secretary Scott Besant accused the Commerce Department of holding out on labeling NVIDIA customer Megaspeed as a possible national security threat.

41:10There was coordination. Treasury, War, USTR and state, they were in favor of putting Megaspeed on the entity list for months. But commerce has the pin. Commerce BIS has the pin. And you will have to ask them about their internal proceeds.

41:30Pamela Brown: And joining us here in the Situation Room, CNN congressional correspondent Lauren Fox. Lauren, what are you hearing from members of Congress right now about all of this? Yeah, I mean, there is a bipartisan call right now to make sure that Howard Lutnick comes before some of these key congressional committees and answers questions. I mean, there are some folks in the House who also want to hear from Wong about what took place here. But I think there is an emphasis, and you hear this from a lot of senators that I was talking to, that what they can do right now is make sure that the U.S. government is protected.

42:01They believe that NVIDIA has taken the steps that they need to take as a corporation, and their role as lawmakers is to now dig into what the U.S. government knew when and who knew it to make sure that no balls were dropped. And take a listen here to Senator Tom Tillis. Wong is a private citizen. I'm not going to get involved in jurisdiction whether or not he should come before me. Lundq, on the other hand, is a government employee. He is a cabinet, Senate-confirmed member of the cabinet. And if he was aware of these potential compromises and didn't bring it to the attention of the president, the Intelligence Committee, and Senate Armed Services or others, then he doesn't know how government works and he should be held accountable for that.

42:43And I will tell you that in conversations that I'm having with Democrats as well, they want to know what Trump knew when as part of this. And I think that you can expect that there's really a timeline that lawmakers are going to want to establish here to know whether or not there were things people knew that they should have spoken up about that perhaps they didn't. I want to turn to another story. Maryland Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen has announced he is challenging current Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for Majority Leader when Democrats take control of Congress in January. Here's what he said.

43:13This is not about any one individual, but it is about answering the call of the American people. There is a desire for change, not just fighting back against the Trump policies, but really change in Washington, D.C., getting beyond the status quo. And I think that requires new leadership. So what has been the response? Does he have a chance of beating Schumer? Well, I think right now a lot of Schumer allies are sort of shaking their heads, wondering if you had such a huge night for Democrats, as you did about a week and a half ago now, and you can still be challenged. What does that say about the state of the Democratic Party?

43:49And I think that what a lot of these newer Democratic members are saying is it really isn't about Chuck Schumer. It's just about this feeling that something needs to be shaken up in Washington. Take a listen at sort of where members are in the caucus, because there is a little bit of a divide right now. Whether it's fair or not, Chuck Schumer is seen as a more divisive figure by many people. And I think we need somebody who's going to bring us together and somebody's going to come with fresh ideas to what we're doing.

44:17Pamela Brown: When you were campaigning, you said, we're not going to vote for Chuck Schumer for majority leader. He's going to have a bigger majority now. You still have that vote? I still very much believe that it's time for a generational change on both sides of the aisle. Are you supporting him for Senate majority leader? I don't know my options. What are my options? I've kept saying over and over again that it's not a good thing that both the majority leader and the of the House and the Senate, they're going to be majority leaders in January, that they live in the same borough. That's not a good sign. Now, I would just point out that Chuck Schumer on X last night put out a statement saying he welcomes this debate.

44:56And then at the end of it, he said, I have the votes. So he's very confident. It's also worth reminding people this is a secret ballot. And this is also the season as people are deciding how they're going to vote in this leadership election, where leadership is making decisions about who's going to chair which committee. So you can imagine that some of those conversations are also taking place in this context. That obviously helps Schumer a little bit right now.

45:18Pamela Brown: Good point, Lauren Fox. As I always say, it's good to have a fox with a wolf in the situation. Thanks very much for joining us. One of our favorite segments in the Situation Room. All right, let's talk a little bit more about all of this. I'm joined by Leon Panetta, right now the former director of the CIA under President Obama. He was also the defense secretary. Thanks so much, Mr. Secretary, for joining us. What's your reaction, first of all, to the possibility of a Chinese spy getting so close to such a key figure in America's AI race? Well, from my own intelligence experience, the reality is that China never stops trying to get our secrets and trying to spy on us.

46:04And this is a perfect example of what China does in terms of trying to obtain our closest secrets. And so I'm not surprised by what happened here. But I am surprised by the way the administration handled this. Early on, they knew that there was a possibility he was having relations with a Chinese spy. Rather than stopping the situation at that point, rather than taking steps to make sure that we had done everything necessary to protect our chips and protect our closest secrets, they did nothing. They did nothing. And that's inexcusable. That's inexcusable because it made us vulnerable to whatever the Chinese were able to obtain using a spy.

47:04Pamela Brown: Lawmakers, Mr. Secretary of both parties right now, want Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to testify before Congress over the NVIDIA chip sales to China. And it comes amid reports of his department's reluctance to label the company Megaspeed a possible national security threat. We now know Megaspeed is the employer of the suspected spy Alice Wong. What would you want to ask Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary?

47:35Well, I'm not sure about all the facts, Wolf, but my understanding is that the president told them to label that country because of what was happening, and Lutnick refused to do it or did not do it for whatever reason. I think that's inexcusable. And for that reason, the Congress does need to have a hearing. It does need to have the Commerce Secretary come before that committee and explain exactly what happened in this situation. This is about United States security. This is about protecting our national security. It's protecting our technology. It's protecting some of our most sensitive secrets.

48:23That is a national responsibility of everyone, and particularly those who are in the cabinet. Why did this happen? Why did they not stop it? Why did they not take the appropriate action? Those are questions that need to be asked. And we need to find out whether there really are answers or whether they're going to lie.

48:47Pamela Brown: While I have you, Mr. Secretary, I want to ask you about the U.S. war with Iran right now and a social media post by President Trump. He publicly tells his chief negotiator, we're talking about the vice president, J.D. Vance, and I'm quoting now, we don't need a deal with Iran. Those days have long since passed, end quote. Instead, the president wants Vance to focus on investigating Democrats right now. Now that Republicans are losing Congress, the House and the Senate, has the Trump administration lost its will to end this war with Iran?

49:23Wolf, we all we all know what the results of the election were. and that the American people sent a very clear message that this war had to be brought to an end. And the president cannot just suddenly decide to do nothing and expect that the American people are going to support that or the Congress is going to support that. And right now he's stuck. He's stuck. And by doing nothing and taking the step of pulling any kind of negotiator from a set of negotiations, what he's essentially doing is he's allowing Iran to continue, allowing Iran to continue to obey any steps to bring this war to an end.

50:24And the problem is, I know he thinks the blockade and economic pressure will bring them to their heels. But that's not going to happen as long as China is in the game. China is going to do whatever is necessary to bail out Iran. And so where we're at right now is a situation where the president of the United States has decided to do nothing. And frankly, that's unacceptable. We've deployed almost 50 ,000 of our troops. We've deployed our fleet. We've deployed our Air Force. They've been there for nine months. There is no objective here. There is no strategy to obtain an objective. There is no end game.

51:15That's irresponsible. And so if we're going to take an irresponsible path with regards to this war, that says a great deal about the strength of the United States in the world of the 21st century. It sends a message of weakness.

51:34Pamela Brown: You blame the defense secretary more than the president of the United States, the commander in chief?

51:42Well, frankly, I think we've had failed leadership. This is a failed war. right now. You know, the Straits of Hormuz remain blocked. Nothing is happening with regards to their nuclear capability. And nothing is happening to try to negotiate a conclusion to this war. that means that we are essentially locked in a continuing war in the Middle East that is not going to be solved, is not going to be ended. And very frankly, that's the responsibility of the president of the United States. It also happens to be the responsibility of the secretary of defense. Both of them, I think, have provided failed leadership with regards to this war, and we're paying the price for that.

52:41Pamela Brown: The former Secretary of Defense and the former CIA Director, Leon Panetta, as usual, thanks very much for joining us. Good to be with you, Wolf. Pamela. All right, still ahead, Wolf, we're going to talk to a key member of the Commerce Committee on what questions she has for Howard Lutnick about the invidious buy scandal. And later, the D.C. shooting investigation. what we are right now learning about the gunmen who opened fire inside a gym here in Washington, killing one person and injuring five others. Stay with us. You're in the Situation Room.

53:17Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is under fire as the fallout from Jensen Wang's affair with an alleged Chinese spy rattles the Trump administration. This morning, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant blamed Lutnick for failing to block an NVIDIA client posing a possible national security threat. There was coordination. Treasury, war, USTR and state, they were in favor of putting Megaspeed on the entity list for months. But Commerce has the pin. Commerce BIS has the pin. And you will have to ask them about their internal proceeds. All right. With us now is Democratic Representative Lori Trahan from Massachusetts.

53:57She serves on the House Energy Commerce Committee and is a member of the House Progressive Caucus. Thank you so much for being here with us. So Howard Lutnick, as you well know, the Commerce Secretary, is facing bipartisan pressure to testify before Congress. What questions would you like to ask him? Well, first, I'll just start by saying what's really incredible about this moment is that this is an administration that has basically stopped any AI guardrails from being implemented because they've used the reason that we have to beat China. And all the while, they're selling our NVIDIA's most advanced chips to China.

54:39And so, you know, this is the Energy and Commerce Committee. I think multiple committees right now across the House and the Senate are, you know, have questions not just for Jensen Huang and the influence that he had on our chip policy, but also for Secretary Lutnik. What he knew when, why he greenlighted these chip sales and, you know, the potential conflicts of interest. So I expect robust hearings in the very near future, perhaps even the lame duck. So President Trump has been reluctant, as you well know, to impose AI regulations because he says it would hurt us and benefit China. What do you make of that?

55:22Well, it's just a hypocrisy. I mean, I've been really working toward getting Congress to act with urgency around putting in basic guardrails around transparency and incident reporting. independent evaluations. And we've been told on the other side that that will cause us to lose our lead. It'll, you know, disadvantage us with China and that competition, which I have always pushed back on. But, you know, it flies in the face of what this administration is actually doing by selling the most advanced chips that we have to China. So there are a lot of questions. But aren't the chips we're selling to China, they're not the most advanced, right?

56:09Nope. The NVIDIA chips are our most advanced chips. Right, but he wants like H100. I mean, there are limits on what the president actually wants. And the concern is that Megaspeed, the Chinese company or the company based in Singapore, was giving some of these chips, these more advanced chips to China, right? Yes. But regardless, I think what we're seeing is while we're not holding these AI companies accountable because the administration is using the excuse of not wanting China to lead, we're selling these chips and we're allowing this to happen. And so I think what we need to happen is first, we need to get answers.

56:50I think there's a lot of questions around if this administration is conflicted, how much Jensen Huang had influence over our chip policy with China, and then also how we're going to go from here. At a minimum, today we are working on the honor system in terms of holding AI frontier labs accountable. Congress needs to act, and we need to act with urgency before it's too late. And so I do suspect when we have the majority that we're going to move very, very quickly around transparency measures, safety measures, and getting a handle on our export controls around chips. So given what we heard from Scott Besant, that he warned that Megaspeed could be a national security concern, and yet it wasn't added to the list by the Commerce Department.

57:42I mean, if all of this is true, what do you think in terms of Secretary Lutnik? Do you think he should resign? Well, I don't think we're at the resignation step yet. I think we do have to go through a process, and I think that is well underway. You know, Chairman Scott has already called to, you know, have Secretary Lutnik come in voluntarily. He has agreed to that hearing, and I think there's going to be many more. This is bipartisan, which gives me a lot of optimism that we can get this done most immediately rather than waiting until January. But I think once those questions are answered and we understand who knew what, when, why this happened, we'll be able to proceed with the process from there.

58:26In July, you and other lawmakers introduced bipartisan legislation to strengthen oversight of AI. As we discussed, President Trump wants these companies to essentially police themselves. Do you think that AI regulation is something that will be accomplished in the new Congress? Absolutely. There's no question. I think voters sent a clear message just last week around Congress getting off the sidelines and making sure that we're keeping pace with the most transformative technology in human history. I do think that table stakes, the first thing we need to do is to make sure that we are not relying on the honor system here and that we've got guardrails in place that are in statute.

59:10That includes incident reporting, so when something like hugging face happens, the government is notified of government process to step in if there is a model that is capable of catastrophic risk. Certainly basic transparency and safety measures. And so I think we're going to start there, but we've also introduced legislation around a liability regime, holding these developers accountable when a model, you know, causes harm, and so much more. AI touches every aspect of our economy, every aspect of civil society, and we're going to move with the urgency that the American people want us to. All right, Representative Lori Trahan, thank you so much.

59:52Great having you here in person. Thanks so much.

59:54Pamela Brown: Very important interview. Thank you very much. Thank you. For me as well. Up next, cutting ties. Why Donald Trump Jr. is no longer a paid advisor to Kalshi. Details just ahead right here in The Situation.

1:00:11Pamela Brown: Happening now, officials are learning more and more about the gunman who opened fire right here in Washington, D.C. yesterday, killing one person and injuring five others. The shooter was an emergency room doctor who had a lengthy dispute with the management of his condo building over a mold problem. Police said he shot and killed 46-year-old James Stewart, the building manager of that complex. The gunman killed himself after barricading himself in his apartment. And U.S. Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner meet with Ukrainian President Zelensky after holding talks with Russian President Putin.

1:00:48Pamela Brown: President Trump's son-in-law says European delegates will join the next round of peace talks. And Calci cuts ties with Donald Trump Jr. A spokesman for the prediction market says the president's eldest son is no longer a paid advisor because he is now a major investor in competitor polymarket. But many industry watchers have speculated that the move could be tied to Republicans' losses in the midterm elections as so many Democrats have called for more and more congressional regulation over these prediction markets. It's important to note that CNN has a partnership with CalShea and uses its data to cover major events.

1:01:29Pamela Brown: CNN employees aren't permitted to trade on prediction sites. And we'll be right back.

1:01:40Well, Mark Cuban is known for many things. Shark Tank, the Dallas Mavericks, and the occasional political headline. But as he recently shared with me, his real passion the last few years has been trying to lower the costs of prescription drugs, and that includes products made for women, many of which have been hard to come by recently. Here's my conversation with entrepreneur and founder of Cost Plus Drugs, Mark Cuban, continued. So as you know, I'm personally very invested in women's health issues. I've been hearing from women across the country about the difficulty in finding estrogen in patches.

1:02:12The FDA still says officially there is no shortage, but women are experiencing that. You've said cost plus drugs is trying to buy every patch manufacturers make. Bottom line, what do you think the issue is here? What is your message to women across the country right now? So when the FDA changed the black box ruling that really allowed more doctors to prescribe it and recommend it, volumes just exploded. And I don't think any of the manufacturers anticipated the growth that we're experiencing. And at costplusdrugs.com, and I checked yesterday, we have pretty much everything in stock or it will be in stock today or tomorrow, but it's really difficult to keep up with the demand.

1:02:54I mean, it's a great thing, as you know better than anybody, Pam, that women have these opportunities and solutions for their personal health. But, you know, keeping up with the volume has been a challenge, but we've been up to it so far. And your view, is there a shortage? Yeah, just again, you know, when demand exceeds supply, then you have shortages. And that's what's happening right now. And when we talk to our manufacturers, they're doing all they can to keep up with it. And as you mentioned, you know, we're buying everything that they'll make. And we're asking for more because even if we have too much inventory, we know at some point that demand is going to increase.

1:03:31And now there's even talk of men using the same products for their own personal health. So it's only going to continue to grow as women become more aware of the solutions they offer. All right. I got to ask you about AI before we let you go and the existential questions around it. You've said stopping AI development isn't realistic, but you've also warned that it'll be the great equalizer. What would meaningful government regulation look like for you? and what is the solution for jobs that have been or will be replaced by AI? So a couple of different questions there. One, I'm not a doomer. I don't think it's going to end the world or, you know, ruin everything.

1:04:10Two, in terms of jobs, I think AI doesn't replace jobs as much as people who are really good at using AI and improving their own productivity at work might take your job. And that's a possibility, and I've seen that happen. In terms of regulation and maintenance, it's hard to get in front of it because, you know, the models that you can run at home have become so powerful. There aren't a lot of things that you can't do, particularly for most business applications. And, you know, even when a bad guy gets a hold of it, there are going to be things that they can do that we didn't expect. And so the regulation really can't be let's just stop it at the beginning because that's really not feasible the way the technology works.

1:04:56But you can look at different applications and usages and say, OK, we want to be able to approve certain types of applications to make sure that they follow different standards that we want to implement. You know, that's not to say that it's like guns in some respects, right? A bad guy with a gun, you can't stop. But at the same time, you can look at AI and once you find the source, there's different ways to deal with it. And then finally, what I'll say is we haven't talked a lot about the power of AI being used for defensive measures. We talk about a lot of the offensive things, you know, that the bad guys might do, but also realize that the frontier models, the Anthropics, the Chats, GPTs, the Gemini's, the Grox, etc., They also are smart enough to realize that they're not going to give the bad guys everything they could possibly want, but they are going to give the defenders that are defending against the bad guys everything that they possibly can.

1:05:58And I think that's something that people aren't considering. There's going to be fits and starts, right? There's going to be problems. There's going to be things that sneak by like anything else. But at the same time, I think AI is going to be a net positive. And let me just say, I'm old enough. I've been through every technological revolution that there is. The first PCs, the first spreadsheets, the first internet, the first streaming, the first calculators. There's never been a time when someone didn't say, this is a problem and there's going to be something horrific happening. AI is far more powerful than all those things, but I still think it'll all work out in the end.

1:06:33So what do you think about what it means for the economy? I mean, right now the economy is propped up, right, by AI companies, billions of dollars. Do you think we're in for an AI bubble? And if so, what does that look like? Who gets hurt the most? So it's an interesting question because there's a lot of money being lent out by NVIDIA. There's a lot of money being lent out based off of the value of chips, particularly the most powerful chips, but even older chips from NVIDIA, their prices are going up as well. If there's something that's not expected, you know, people stop loaning NVIDIA money or NVIDIA stops loaning money or the amount of debt that the country has crowds out money available for AI, that could create a bubble bursting.

1:07:21If for some reason or if another company supersedes a NVIDIA with their chips and makes them better, faster, cheaper, that could distort NVIDIA's economics and make it really difficult for them to live up to all the obligations they've created for their debt and for their cash flow. But do you think there's going to be a stock market dive at some point in the near future? Well, there always is. I just don't know when. You know, we've seen it in 2008. We've seen it multiple times. And, you know, honestly, I think there is risk that's caused by AI, but there's so many other risk factors. GOP-1s influencing how people eat and live their lives, et cetera, et cetera.

1:08:05I think longer term, GOP-1s will have a bigger impact in negatively impacting company stock price than AI would. Just because people aren't going to be like obese or have the same health issues that they would have before? They'll change their eating. It'll change their health issues. It'll change their health issues. It's also, you know, addictive behavior. You know, if you are in the gambling industry, if you are in, you know, the predictions markets, five years from now, 10 years from now, you know, a little pill and you might not have nearly as much interest in participating in those. You know, your sweet tooth isn't nearly as much as it used to be.

1:08:43Like I was sitting with a friend who was on GeoFood once. We were at a steakhouse. Nothing he didn't love more than a big steak and a big dessert. Barely ate anything. And he had lost weight. And then talking to food companies, they're already seeing it. It's changing behaviors. And we've only started to see the impact of behavioral change. And like, as you alluded to, just people potentially being healthier. and that changes the need for healthcare. And we're not talking about two years, three years, but five to 10 years from now, I think it could have a dramatic impact and impact a lot of the most highly visible public companies.

1:09:21Mark Cuban, there you have it from you. Thank you so much. Clearly you're passionate about this and it's really great that we got to hear your perspective. Thank you, Mark. Thanks for having me, Pam. Thank you. Got a lot of opinions on a lot of different topics. Really interesting to hear them.

1:09:36Pamela Brown: Very important indeed. Coming up, one-on-one with Michael Douglas, how he stays grounded after decades in the limelight.

1:09:49Pamela Brown: Happening now, Academy Award-winning actor Michael Douglas' new memoir, One Hell of a Ride, has been on the New York Times bestseller list for more than a month. It's an amazing, truly wonderful book, and we got a chance to chat about it when we ran into each other shortly after the book was released. We met each other in New York. Michael Douglas is joining us now to talk a little bit more about this excellent new book and other issues. Good morning, Michael. Thanks very much for joining us. The book takes readers on a really amazing journey, looking back at your life and your career in Hollywood.

1:10:23Pamela Brown: Just give us a sense. What was your favorite chapter? Well, as I say, what's your favorite movie, Wolf? I sort of break it up. I call the book sort of as BC. BC is before Catherine, which was a different life, a different time. Catherine and I have been together 26 years. But I try to give everybody an overview of how my two parents were so indirectly. One a Russian Jew, the other a Church of England came together as young actors. And our life, you're growing up with the two young actors in the family. and then my career to a large extent as an actor and then how I became a producer with Cuckoo's Nest and how my life changed and through my cancer bouts and meeting Catherine.

1:11:17So it's one hell of a ride. And the response, I can't even begin to tell you, other than, I mean, I didn't think anything was going to top it except the midterm elections, but that seemed to do a better job.

1:11:32Pamela Brown: You know, you really learn a lot about yourself, your family, your history, Hollywood, reading this wonderful book. I know next week, as you correctly point out, you'll be celebrating your 26th wedding anniversary with Catherine Zeta-Jones. How has your relationship evolved over the past 26 years?

1:11:54The last few years have been quite smooth. We've always we always have gotten along very well. We have the same kind of humor, the same careers. And as long as you think you maintain that respect and don't take anybody for granted, you know, we sometimes talk about ourselves a little too much and forget our partners. But as long as you have to kind of remember the person that you're closest to and try to maintain the balance. And as my career, as I got older, my career was less important to me and my family became more important to me, things got better.

1:12:34Pamela Brown: Michael, you write in the book that it was not always easy being the son of Spartacus. Talk to us a little bit about the influence your father, the great Kirk Douglas, had on your life and your career. Well, he was just such a dynamic man, Wolf. You know, led the army, you know, walked the oars and the Vikings, was one of the fastest drawers of guns in the Westerns. It was really a question of how I could even be the man that my father was. And my parents got divorced at an early age. And because of his own family background, he felt very guilty and sometimes tried too hard when we were together on visits.

1:13:23But it was a lot to live up to. And I'm happy to say, progressively, as my life went along, my career went along, dad started working less, that we had a very, very close relationship. And he was invaluable. And I realized he was as great a man as I thought he was when I was a little kid.

1:13:47Pamela Brown: Yeah, that is so encouraging. So great to hear that. And you write about it in this wonderful book, One Hell of a Ride. You had a very special relationship also with Rob Reiner. And you write about that in the book as well, that the two of you spent a lot of time talking about the challenges of growing up as second generation Hollywood figures. What did that relationship mean to you? it meant a lot Rob and I first met each other as actors together in one of my first movies we played roommates and got to know each other and quickly realized that our fathers were both famous but quite successful people in the industry and I think that was our quickest our first link to share the uniqueness that has of being second generation and going into a business where your parents are as successful.

1:14:41And he's an extraordinary guy. I mean, just the efforts that he and Michelle made in the humanitarian work, the charity work for the kids, was quite amazing. And we also dealt with the issue that each of us had a son that was struggling with drug issues and compared notes a lot. And it was just a tragic, tragic loss. And I think it really affected everybody deeply, anybody who knew Michelle and Rob. It was a really hard one to swallow.

1:15:17Pamela Brown: It certainly was. We had, of course, as you well know, a major midterm election last week. You recently said that this is the worst state of our country and our world that you've ever imagined. Did the outcome, though, of the recent elections, the Democratic wins in the House and the Senate, change your outlook or give you new hope? The outlook of the midterms was beyond anything that I could have imagined. And like many of us, we were hoping for the best and maybe we're going to get the Senate. But I thought it was such a unanimous vote and such a great, great plug for democracy. And when the people speak, and boy, do they speak.

1:16:04And I hope our politicians now, supposedly, with all the differences that we have, there seem to be a lot of people that are in agreement about what needs to be done. So let's hope now in this next couple of years that we get a lot of this stuff done. But I was elated and I was so, so happy to see that democracy rules.

1:16:28Pamela Brown: All right, Michael Douglas, thanks so much for joining us. And I loved One Hell of a Ride. It's really a great book. I recommend it very, very highly to all of our viewers. Thanks very much for joining us. Thank you. Thanks. 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. Tomorrow morning, by the way, I'll be anchoring special live coverage of the memorial service, honoring and remembering the CNN founder, Ted Turner. Our coverage starts at 11 a.m. Eastern tomorrow morning. Looking for that.

1:17:04And we'll see you back here Monday 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. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

1:17:24Have I got news for your ears? The podcast. I am your host, Michael Ian Black. We are talking about Jensen Huang's NVIDIA spy scandal. Trump goes on 60 Minutes. Stephen Miller is finally in charge. And is this curtains for Pete Hegset? Have I got news for your ears? Check us out on Apple, Amazon Music, wherever you get your podcasts. Even better, you can watch the podcast on Spotify.