Trump's $5K Promise 

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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,$5 ,000 promise. President Trump says he'd give every American$5 ,000 each, but it comes with a catch. Plus, massive security operation. How the NYPD is preparing for its largest deployment of police in years. Also ahead, threat to humanity. Lawmakers pushed to regulate AI after researchers warn of human extinction by the end of the decade. So are you ready for some football? The Seahawks win again and the Cali teams are heading down under as NFL season returns. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world.

1:32I'm Pamela Brown. Wolf Blitzer is off and you're in the Situation Room.

1:42Happening now, President Trump makes an extraordinary promise, but only if Republicans maintain control of Congress this November. Speaking in Dallas last night, here's what he told the crowd gathered for the GOP midterm convention. Here is my promise. If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them, because of our economic, tremendous economic success, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for$5 ,000. So the president didn't offer any additional details on how he'd pay for this, but his remarks come as Republicans look to rev up their base ahead of the midterm elections, which are now less than two months away.

2:30Midterm elections often favor the party out of power, and President Trump is looking to defy those historic odds, despite rising energy and gas prices amid the ongoing war with Iran. I'm asking you to pretend that I'm on the ballot. I'm on the ballot. I'm on the ground. Just one more time. The ones we need are the ones that you've heard, the ones that are very close. They might be winning by a little or losing by a little. We're tied. We can win every one of those races, but I'm going to go to every one of those states for congressmen and for senators. Food prices and almost every other item are rapidly going down.

3:16And by the way, oil will be going down as soon as we win the war with Iran, which is taking place right now. We'll win it. All right. Joining us now from Dallas is CNN senior reporter Steve Conterno and CNN senior White House reporter Kevin Liptack. So, Steve, I want to start with you. What is the reaction bid to these$5 ,000 checks President Trump has promised here? Well, certainly the reaction in the room was supportive. And this is a Trump rally. And, you know, who wouldn't want a five thousand dollar check? But, you know, I think this question is, what do Republicans in Congress think of it?

3:52And will voters ultimately believe the president that this five thousand dollar check has any chance of showing up in their mailbox if Republicans hold the House and Senate? You know, he had the similar promise that there would be a tariff dividend and that Americans would get a check from the doge cuts. and those have yet to materialize. But it does speak to one of the central challenges that Republicans face this election cycle, which is getting some enthusiasm from not only their base, but from those Republicans who have voted for Donald Trump in elections in 2016, 2020, and 2024 to show up in a midterm election.

4:35And they've also run out of outreach ideas for the middle because they have a president who is very unpopular. There's a war that is unpopular. Rising costs continue to be a problem. And so those are the tests for this Republican Party and for Donald Trump going into these midterm elections. Kevin, let's talk about something else President Trump said last night. He says to pretend like he is on the ballot. What does that tell you? I think it shows you that the president and his advisors really do think that they have an enthusiasm problem among the president's base. These low propensity voters, past elections have shown that some of his core supporters just won't go out and vote if the president is in fact not on the ballot.

5:18And that's what they're trying to remedy with the strategy of holding this convention, which is really conceived around President Trump himself. They call it the Trumpopalooza, and it is in fact a Trumpopalooza. And so the only way that they think that they can get those Republicans out to vote is making this about President Trump himself. There are a lot of other Republicans who do not think that that is the best idea, that making this a referendum on the president's first two years in office is just a recipe for disaster, just given how historically unpopular he is, how unsatisfied a lot of people are about the state of the country.

5:54But President Trump is making pretty explicit that this is, in fact, just the kickoff. He says he's going to be on the campaign trail basically every day of October campaigning in these 35 races that he thinks are the most likely to have success. Now, whether that is in fact successful remains to be seen. We won't know that till November, but obviously the president thinks that he hasn't gotten enough credit for his time in office and that only by putting himself at the very center of this election will that be a remedy. And we didn't only hear from the president last night. There was also this surprise.

6:29Yes, I'm a Democrat. Why am I here talking to you today? because, well, I'm a common sense Democrat. I'm always going to stand with America. I'm always going to reject the extremes in socialism and that anti-American way of life. So, Steve, what has the reaction been to this appearance by Democratic Senator John Fetterman? Well, in the room, it got a tremendous applause. And, in fact, it probably received a bigger ovation than Senator Dave McCormick received Fetterman's Republican counterpart, and that is who Fetterman was introducing with that video. The reaction, though, from Democrats back in Washington has been met with eye rolls and more frustrations for Fetterman, who has been very much trying to make himself into this bipartisan maverick who has been willing to cross the aisle and say nice things about Trump and criticize his own party for his own personal political benefit, perhaps, but to the frustration of many Democrats who are increasingly wondering if he will be a Democratic senator or Republican senator as we get deeper in the coming years.

7:45Now, he has said he will remain a Democrat, but he continues to vex his own party. And going back to President Trump here, I want to go, Kevin, to something he said earlier in the day. Let's listen. Mr. President, you've been saying for weeks that oil and gas prices are going to come down. Oil is now back above$100 a barrel. How do you explain this to Americans who are wondering when prices are going to come down? Well, I think it's very easy to explain to America. All you have to do is say, will you let Iran have a new...

8:18All right. Well, we had an issue with the tape there, but he also went on to say that right after the midterms, the war would end. Right, Kevin? He said the war would end right after the midterms and that gas prices would come plummeting down. I think there's an issue here, which is, one, the president said the war would end in six weeks when it started, and it's clearly not over yet. He also said gas prices would come down in six weeks, and they haven't come down yet. In fact, oil is back up$100 a barrel. This is a huge problem for the president. I think voters recognize that he sort of got the United States into a conflict that he maybe wasn't anticipating, just given the timelines have gone on for longer than he said that they would.

8:57And it was interesting listening to his speech last night and watching it. He talked about Iran a lot, in fact, in that speech, but it didn't seem as if any of it was scripted. None of it was in the teleprompter in the speech that they actually wrote for him. And I think that just demonstrates the president and his advisers would very much like this war to recede into the background for the next two months. They don't want voters thinking about Iran. They don't want the president talking about Iran. But it seems as if he can't really help himself. You know, he's talking about it constantly on the campaign trail, on the convention stage, in a way where he makes it seem as if this is a sort of a victory for the United States.

9:36But if you're looking at this as an American voter and wondering why gas prices are still so high, why Iran is still targeting vessels and American military installations in the Middle East, you're wondering whether this is kind of the unadulterated victory that the president is talking about. Now, it is true. The U.S. is getting some tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. The oil prices are potentially not as high as they might be unless the U.S. had been enforcing this southern route of the Strait. But it's clear this is not sort of the victory that the president wanted to be talking about in midterm time.

10:10And I think that is just going to be shadowing him for these next two months. It's pretty clear. It also stood out to me. I think he says something to the effect of once we win the war. And that was interesting, too, in light of some in his administration and other Republicans like Ted Cruz trying to stay away from calling it a war. And the president himself. And it was J.D. Vance just last week. He said, I don't think we should call it a war. President Trump is clearly calling it a war. And he's clearly saying that it's not won yet, which is, again, not something that the administration has been wanting to say for the last week.

10:40Exactly. All right, Kevin Liptak, Steve Conterno, thank you so much to you both. And still ahead here in the Situation Room, massive security operation. A look at the plans being put in place by the NYPD as New York and the world mark 25 years since the attacks on 9-11. And then later, new details are emerging from inside the cockpit about the moments before that deadly cargo plane collision. in Miami. You're in the Situation Room, and we'll be right back.

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12:07A breathtaking scene in New York City as a massive drone show lit up the skies over lower Manhattan with 2 ,977 lights, one for each person killed in the September 11th attacks. The lights then shifted to form a full scale model of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. and it's all part of the city's remembrance of 25 years since the attacks. Earlier, the NYPD unveiled a memorial wall honoring the officers killed in the attacks and those who have died from 9-11 related illnesses in the years since. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch spoke about the massive security operation in place for this year's commemorations, which coincide with the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah.

12:47Our deployment this year at the World Trade Center for 9-11 will be larger than it has been in previous years, as will be our deployment this year for the High Holy Days at shuls and yeshivas and Jewish cultural institutions, just based on the realities of the world that we live in today. All right, let's go live now to CNN. Chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller. John, you have these two major events happening together as the country marks 25 years since 9-11. How concerning is this from a security standpoint? Well, obviously, they're concerned because of a couple of very tangible reasons and then some other things that they are considering in the background.

13:37First one is first, which is it's the 25th anniversary. And that is not just another anniversary for another high security event, but a symbolic one, a milestone. The second contributing factor, of course, is the war in Iran and the fact that we've been attacking Iran in recent days. There may be more, and there is always the potential for Iranian retaliation, either through Iranian assets on the ground, which we've seen before in the United States, and particularly in New York, or from sympathizers. So when you take all of that together and you look at all of the other threats, al-Qaeda, ISIS, left-wing extremists, right-wing extremists, they've just decided this is one where they're going to go over and above their usual lines.

14:34As you know, so much has changed in the world since the attacks and in the threats that we face. The NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence and Counterterrorism talked about that earlier. Let's listen. The threat is quite different from where it was 25 years ago. It's decentralized geographically with the rise of al-Qaeda and ISIS affiliates globally. It's diversified tremendously ideologically. Now we're not primarily dealing with al-Qaeda or even al-Qaeda ISIS, but a proliferation of threats coming from conspiracy theories, grievances, nihilistic violence, far left, far right, anti-government, all of those things.

15:20What do you think is the biggest start right now, and do you think we're prepared to face it? Well, I think we're very prepared to face it, particularly at these events, the high holidays that are upon us and the extra security they put around particularly Jewish locations, but especially this 9-11-25th anniversary. It starts with that eight-foot fence that is now surrounding Ground Zero. I gave it a walk around last night. There is the heavy weapons teams that are going to be posted strategically. That you're going to see. That's part of the visible security. Then there'll be the unseen parts, which are there are hostile surveillance teams that are out there looking for individual or individuals who are acting suspiciously.

16:11These are people in plain clothes who can make observations, who can follow them and determine if, in fact, they have some bad intent. There are observation teams on the high ground. There are counter sniper teams on the high ground. All of that's going to be invisible because for any of that to come into play, something pretty bad has to happen. But it's a layered approach and it's in concentric circles. And, you know, one of the rules this year, which Pamela seems like a no brainer, is, you know, invited guests only. They go through screening. No firearms allowed. Well, over the past year, since so many of those attending are retired police officers who were there that day, who commonly carry their weapons even after they're retired, they have tightened the security in many different directions.

17:02That's just one of them. Do you think the world is a safer place now since 9-11 happened? You know, Pam, that's a really interesting question because on the one hand, the intelligence services work together more closely, share information with more alacrity, coordinate with their foreign partners much better. On the other hand, as Rebecca Weiner, the Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence and Counterterrorism, just pointed out, while the threat may be less dangerous than it was on September 10, 2001, it's grown much wider. You know, when you look at recent history and you say a guy who's mad at the NFL walks into a Park Avenue office building and opens fire with a semi-automatic rifle, two high school kids attack a mosque in San Diego, two other high school kids attack a demonstration outside Gracie Mansion by throwing bombs.

18:03It is kind of the salad bar of grievances, this kind of bespoke terrorism. It doesn't have to be for a large issue. So many acts of violence, and you know this because we cover them live on the air, are just from people's individual storylines about why they've decided it's OK to try and kill strangers. John Miller, thank you so much for coming on to provide your analysis. And coming up, record heat swamps Southern California, but high temps are radiating to other parts of Western U.S. We'll talk about that up next.

18:46Happening now, Southern California is sweltering. A combination of record heat and unusually high humidity means cities like Los Angeles actually feel hotter yesterday than Miami. Extreme heat warnings are in effect today for much of the region. Let's go live now to meteorologist Allison Chinchar in the CNN Weather Center to better understand what's going on here and whether there's any relief on the way. Allison. Yeah, so again, they're u not necessarily coincidin humidity levels like they but are likely to continu look at some of these rec reaching 112 yesterday, c record by eight degrees. Anna getting up to around Los Angeles topping out at this is just the temperat was also high.

19:37The feels for a lot of these places were several degrees even top of that. You've still alerts in effect for today Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix all the way up towards San at some of those heat advi issued. You look at some the forecast high today, Palm Springs. Same thing 91 in Santa Maria, even Los high expected a 98. But ag humidity that 98 is actually going to feel even warmer that in, it's going to fe afternoon. Again, humiditi this area is typically us when you also have the he it's been quite oppressive in this particular area. the heat risk map, most o the purple color is really areas of Southern California of Southern Nevada and then and yes, these areas are h get a lot of this.

20:37It's us see all of the green on the map, that just shows you how moist that air is right now. The bit of good news is that is actually going to start to go away as we head into the weekend. You'll start to see a lot more of that dry air starting to push back in and hopefully feel a little bit better as we head into the weekend. All right, Alison Chinchar, thank you. Great to see you. And coming up here in the Situation Room, we have some new reporting how the Commerce Department became an unlikely engine of President Trump's election agenda. We're taking a closer look right after this quick break.

21:17Choice hotels get you more of what you value. Comfort in, it's calling your name. Save on the stain. Oh, and free waffles are yours to claim. Book direct at choicehotels.com. Happening now, new details this morning on the deadly Amazon cargo plane crash in Miami. Investigators say moments before the plane overshot the runway, one of the pilots warned the plane was going too fast. The NTSB is investigating the crash. Five people were killed when the jet slammed into a cleaning cruise van. The widow of the man driving that van has now filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the pilots, Amazon and the jet's operator.

22:00The suit claims multiple concurrent failures led to the crash. Two other families are also considering legal action. Well, the White House has pulled a Tetris-style video game called Build the Wall from its website after an online warning from Tetris. The game appeared last week and let users stack bricks to hold off a, quote, zombie border siege. Tetris posted on Instagram that it was not involved in the game's creation, adding, we take copyright infringement very seriously. And a wild video out of Atlanta. Have you seen this? The legs dangling from an interstate overpass. His car somehow got lodged up there between two concrete beams.

22:44Investigators haven't said what caused the wreck or how the car possibly ended up there. And it's important to note that the driver was apparently able to get out of the car without help and walked away without serious injuries. Wow. With just weeks to go before the midterms, President Trump's crusade against election fraud is deploying a new weapon in the Commerce Department, historically known for mundane economic tasks. The department under Trump ally Howard Lutnick is working to help reshape the country's election system. Commerce officials have recently disputed Census Bureau findings of non-citizen voting and pushed the Postal Service to adopt strict new rules for mail-in ballots.

23:22So let's go live now to our Gabe Cohen to help better understand how the department is being used in this unusual way. Yeah, it is, Pamela. What we found is that Secretary Lutnik and his department have really been at the center of some key initiatives that this administration has either discussed or even pursued as part of its election agenda. Take, for example, those strict new mail ballot rules from the Postal Service that we're expecting the Supreme Court to rule on any day now. Well, those tie back to this March executive order that President Trump signed with one cabinet member at his side, and that was Howard Lutnik.

23:59And sources tell me that Lutnik and his team were actually the architects behind that order and the directives that were included in it, directives that right now have election officials across the country extremely concerned about how it could affect the midterms. We also have that explosive Census Bureau report that was touted by the president just last month that claimed to find more than 20 ,000 non-citizens had voted in the 2020 presidential election. Well, what we have learned from our reporting from sources is that the Commerce Department had actually inserted a group of partisan analysts who did that analysis, who did that report, put together that report that was put out last month.

24:40And it was actually Lutnik and his team who were really the driving force behind it. And by the way, those analysts are still inside the Census Bureau, and they're working on the 2030 census that we know the administration is trying to upend and overhaul. And then there is this issue of voting machines, and that, Pamela, might be the next shoe to drop. because right now there are a lot of Trump allies, including some senior folks in the administration, who are pushing Secretary Lutnik to effectively ban most voting machines by claiming that they are a national security threat because they include components made by China.

25:18And as part of his authorities over the Commerce Department, he has some control over supply chains. He's getting a lot of pressure on that front. And as part of our story, we've uncovered these emails showing that activists have been talking to folks inside the administration for the better part of a year, and recently spoke with Secretary Lutnik himself about this issue. Wow. All right, Gabe Cohen, really important reporting there. Thank you so much. Well, last night at the first ever Republican midterm convention, President Trump made a stunning promise to send$5 ,000 checks to every adult American.

25:52But there is a catch. Republicans have to keep control of Congress after the midterm elections. President Trump also said this. Maybe more important even than the Trump dividend. Please pretend that I'm running and get out and vote on November 3rd or sooner. Trump's pitch to voters comes as multiple polls give the president low marks on the economy. So let's discuss all of this with former communications director for Vice President Kamala Harris, Ashley Etienne, and former National Republican Senatorial Committee aide Liam Donovan. Leon, how exactly would this work? I mean, the president is promising$5 ,000 checks to every American, only if they win the midterms.

26:37If this was possible, why doesn't he just do it right now? I think it would be possible if they have the alignment of the House and the Senate. The reconciliation process allows us to do this on the fast track. And so you certainly could. I don't think they have the alignment right now. This is not something that's been fully socialized with the party. But it's certainly giving some side of incentive for people to run on. I think we'll have to see if that's adopted by the House and Senate candidates that are out there on the trail. This seems like a trial balloon, but it's absolutely possible.

27:09This is something they could do as soon as they have the political will. Ashley? Whether or not you can do something and whether or not it's ethically the right thing to do are two different things. I mean, this amounts due to some degree. I'm not a lawyer, but feels like a bribe to the American people to vote Republican. That is where I would have a problem with this. And I would hope any Republican would have a problem or anyone of any political stripe would have a problem with the president suggesting he would pay people for their votes. But the one thing I should say is the entire convention reeked of desperation, in my opinion.

27:43You've got a situation where you've got Donald Trump who's underwater in 47 states. He's got no plan on lowering costs, no plan to jumpstart the economy, no plan to end this war in Iran. all of them incredibly unpopular with the American people. And to the point at which you've got competitive Republicans that decided not to go to the convention because the president is such a drag on the ticket. And then also you've got this huge enthusiasm gap where Republican voters are not excited about Donald Trump and not excited about voting. So the whole thing just to me was reeked of desperation and really suggests that the president's deathly afraid of losing in November.

28:20And when you look at this promise in particular, you know, the president has previously promised that Americans would get a cut from what Elon Musk did with Doge, that there would be tariff refunds. Vice President Vance seemed to indicate that's what he was talking about here. The president also made promises on the campaign trail before he was elected that he would lower prices, that he wouldn't get the U.S. in foreign entanglements. How can Americans trust him on any issue right now, Liam? I think this is typical Donald Trump. I mean, he's out there trying to get the headline. We're talking about it the next day.

28:53That was always the question. I mean, was what's coming out of this? What's the pull through on night one of the convention? This is unprecedented. He gave him something to talk about. I think we're doing it right now. In terms of trust, if you are a Trump supporter, he has more trust than anyone else in this party. I think that's the key. As Ashley said, Democrats are fired up. Donald Trump might not be on the ballot for Republicans. He is on the ballot as far as Democrats are concerned. They're voting like it. So I think the president being able to tap into his support among the nontraditional Republican voters, those low propensity voters that Republicans rely on.

29:24The only way the Republicans come through this environment with with any, you know, solid night is by trying to address this asymmetry. And I think he does have trust with a number of voters who aren't otherwise accessible to your typical Republican. So this this week is his time to tap into that. But is there risk as well because of his low approval ratings, you know, telling people, pretend like I'm on the ballot? Is there a risk, particularly with the independents? There is no question he has a base that is committed to him till the day they die. Right. But what about the independents or Republicans that aren't so happy with how his administration is?

30:05I think that's baked in. I think you have to understand and be clear eyed. 50 days out from an election, if you're a Republican, you understand if you look at the approval, if you look at the oddier elections, the special elections, Democrats are fired up. Independents are doing what they're going to do. You need to mobilize your base. That is how midterms work. Here's the reality. If the president is focused on mobilizing his base, he's got larger problems. You know, to your point about the headlines coming out of their first midterm convention is about the president bribing the American people to vote Republican.

30:34The other headline coming out of it was Senator Fetterman. I mean, that's a sad state of affairs. When you've got your back against the wall, your elections are on the line, to some degree, accountability is on the line. You can smell it coming his direction. And the only thing that comes out of this thing is you're gonna bribe the American people and Fetterman? It's a sad state of affairs by the president. And also speaks to the fact that he does not have an agenda he can run on that, he can mobilize the American people. Let's actually listen, because the Fetterman video was a bit of a surprise, right?

31:05And earlier this morning, his former chief of staff was on CNC. And I want to play a little bit of what he said about that video. I think that Senator Fetterman has sort of reached a point where he's just trying to do whatever he can do to get the most attention for the least amount of work. So what do you think about this? You know, I'm a strategist first and a Democrat second. And I was looking at this, trying to figure out what was Fetterman's play, right? It does not benefit the Republican Party to have him address the convention and doesn't benefit him, especially on the hills of that horrible Wall Street Journal profile, which says he doesn't like to work.

31:42But I was digging deeper into the numbers and I found what I think might be a method to the madness. He's polling right now at 77 percent with Republicans in the state of Pennsylvania. That's actually higher than where Donald Trump is actually polling. He's polling, again, 77%, 19 % with Democrats. So if I look at that objectively, it says to me he actually knows his audience. And it's not Democrats. It's actually Republicans in his home state. And so for me, it also fuels these rumors that he might be flipping parties. Because if he's looking at the numbers, that's his audience. The statement after sort of doubling down on the fact that he's a Democrat.

32:20Which you should always be suspicious of, by the way. I put facts out and then people can decide what they want to think about it. When an elected official doubles down, I'll always be suspicious. I would disagree with Ashley. Just say that the headlines coming out of this midterm saying that a Democratic senator did come in and address this convention, I think that's a great thing. I don't think that's desperation. I think that's just a good signal. If you're looking for validators that come from nontraditional backgrounds, and the other thing... But that validation doesn't do much for the president or the party.

32:46Especially when he's introducing a senator who's not actually running. Like, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. other than the fact that he's doing so well with Republicans on the ground. I think it's great for Trump and Republicans. I don't know that it's great for Fetterman or the Democratic Party. That's going to be a food fight in Pennsylvania. But the interesting thing is Fetterman coming in, validating Dave McCormick. Dave McCormick gave a great speech. If you're looking back at one speech you should take a look at, look at Dave McCormick. He's a rising star in this party. He had arrayed behind him the image of what the Republican Party in 2026 should be, a working-class coalition, the non-traditional coalition that propelled Donald Trump in 2024.

33:20That's what they're trying to get back to. and bringing out John Fetterman. We were talking about this backstage. The affect that John Fetterman has with the sweats, you might not like it, but that is the image and what he was elected on in 2022 is something that the Republican Party needs to tap back into if they're going to win in 2026. I think that was a good moment for Republicans, whether or not it's good for... But I'm saying clearly based on the numbers, it was good for him as well. If he's looking at his own polling in his own state. And apparently our Steve Conterno, who was there, said that actually he got a louder applause with that video than Dave McCormick did.

33:50Interesting. went out there, which was kind of interesting. All right. Thank you so much, Liam Donovan, Ashley Etienne. Great to see you both. Appreciate that discussion. And we have some breaking news actually just coming in right now. The Supreme Court has just struck down a Trump administration request to allow a Republican-friendly congressional map in Missouri that could have given the GOP an extra seat in the House. So let's go live now to CNN's Joan Biscuit, with all the details. What was their argument here, Joan? Sure. Good to see you, Pamela. This is one of many simmering controversies over there going on out in the states as we head toward the November midterms.

34:23This one involved Missouri, as you say, where the Republican-dominated legislature, under pressure from Donald Trump this summer, had gone and redistricted to try to give an advantage to Republicans in the state. Right now there are eight congressional districts, six are Republican, two are Democratic, and they drew a new map that would make it seven Republican to one Democrat. But the state Supreme Court in Missouri earlier found that they had violated state law by not allowing this to go to a referendum of the people of the voters rather than just doing it through the legislature. This case, Pamela, came up to the Supreme Court on Tuesday where Justice Brett Kavanaugh rejected it, said, did not give any explanation, but I believe it was very expected because this is a state law dispute.

35:13But then what happened right after that on Tuesday, Pamela, is that a federal district court judge in Missouri suddenly said, no, that new map is okay. So you're dueling rulings. Do they use the old map where it's six to two, six Republicans, two Democratic seats, presumably with the voters, or this seven to one map that, as I said, Donald Trump had pushed the Republican legislature to go for. So we had these conflicting rulings out there, potential chaos for the Missouri voters. And what the Supreme Court did just this morning, just now with no recorded vote, was to say that no, they're not taking this appeal.

35:54They're essentially siding with those challenging the Republican friendly district. And it will will remain with the districts that were in place last cycle through this cycle, enabling probably six Democrats, pardon me, six Republicans and two Democrats. This is all because Donald Trump and Republicans are trying to get an advantage for the U.S. House of Representatives, which is so narrowly tied right now in terms of control. Republicans just have a narrow grip on it. Pamela. All right, Joan Buscupek, thank you so much. We'll be right back.

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37:16Find furniture, hosting essentials, festive serveware, and more all in one place. So you can spend less time getting ready and more time enjoying the season with the people who make it special. Shop Wayfair.com today to make holiday magic at home. Wayfair, every style, every home. Happening now, Iran says it will expand its maritime restriction zone in the Persian Gulf region in an attempt to control a larger section of the critical waterway. The exact coordinates of the new zone are yet to be announced. But President Trump says the Strait of Hormuz remains under U.S. control. By the way, oil will be going down as soon as we win the war with Iran, which is taking place right now.

37:57We'll win it. We're winning it. We control the hormones straight. I think we should call the hormones straight. We should call it the Trump's. I should get something out of it. The Trump straight. All right. We're joined now by CNN Global Affairs commentator Sabrina Singh. She served as deputy Pentagon press secretary during the Biden administration. Does President Trump's messaging reflect the reality right now? It does not. And he acknowledged he called it a war, and we've heard him go back and forth on him calling this an excursion, a conflict. He admitted he hasn't won it yet. Exactly, exactly.

38:33And so we're in the seventh month right now. We've blown past the deadlines of this being a four-to-six-week conflict war. And now we're just looking at soaring oil and diesel prices for Americans. And, of course, the global economy has been upended. So I don't think this message is resonating, unfortunately, even as much as he wants to believe it. He also raised the possibility of taking further military action against Iran and specifically said that he was aware of activity at another nuclear site known as Pickaxe Mountain. So I just wonder, does the U.S. do you think, first of all, it has the appetite to continue strikes and continue this, right?

39:09And then also the weaponry and ability to really take meaningful action against Pickaxe Mountain. I don't think this administration or Iran really wants to go back to a full-scale war. We do retain capabilities to strike some of these sites, like at Pickaxe Mountain, and we have done incredible damage to some of these sites at, like, Pickaxe and Natanz, but it remains to be seen if that actually buried, successfully buried the nuclear capabilities that Iran still possesses. And at the end of the day, the only way to address Iran's nuclear program is to get that material out of Iran, and that would mean boots on the ground.

39:45So I think the U.S. could continue to conduct some of these strikes. They could sink the infrastructure a little bit deeper, you know, collapse the mountain a bit more. But that also has potential catastrophic effects for the region. So yes, the U.S. can do it, but will they? I think that remains to be seen. And it was interesting, too, Trump saying that the war would end right after the midterms. Right. Well, I think he wants it to end, I would hope, sooner than that. But it is interesting that he's, like, forecasting that it's going to end right after the midterms when the way this war is going to end is through diplomacy.

40:15And so, you know, I do think that they're trying to get back to the diplomatic table, but it's going to take a lot of time, too. All right. Sabrina Singh, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Great to have you on. And here's what's coming up all new at the top of the hour. Another AI model goes rogue. This time it's anthropic again. We'll speak to Daniel Rohr, the director of an AI doc who talked to leaders in the field. We'll get his take. That's all new next hour.

40:46All right, football fans rejoice. The NFL is officially back. The season kicked off at the Super Bowl rematch between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots, but the rare Wednesday night matchup got off to a rough start for the defending champs. So let's go live now to CNN sports anchor Andy Scholes. Yeah. The mood definitely changed in Seattle in just the first few minutes of the game, Andy. It certainly did, Pam, because, you know, it's never good when you lose your starting quarterback on the very first drive of the season. But the Seahawks, they were able to weather the storm, and then their awesome defense won the game for them last night.

41:17And, you know, Seattle, it was rocking as the Seahawks dropped their second Super Bowl championship banner before the game. But the fans quite worried early on because on the team's first drive, Sam Darnold, he'll get sacked. He would leave the game and not return with a hip injury. Coach Mike McDonald said after the game, the hip isn't broken, which is good news, but Darnold is set for an MRI later today. Now, the Patriots led the game 10-3 in the fourth quarter. Backup quarterback Drew Locke here on fourth down. It's Jackson Smith-Najigba. He does the rest. 45 yards for the touchdown. The Seahawks have been taking the lead on a field goal.

41:51Patriots were driving to win the game or, at worst, tie it in the final minute, but Drake May, a terrible decision. Gets picked off by Josh Jobe. That was his third interception of the fourth quarter for May. Seahawks, they hold on to win 13-10, and here was May after that rough fourth quarter. Yeah, I lost patience and it costed us. I think it's just decisions that cost us the game on my part and my end. And I've asked myself to be better and realize it's a long season, but at the same time, you can't have those. All right, we got another big matchup tonight as the Rams and 49ers are going to score off in the first-ever regular season game in Australia.

42:32The game kicks off at 835 Eastern. It's going to be shown on Netflix. Now, they are playing at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground, which holds more than 100 ,000 fans. Now, the Rams and 49ers, very different strategies when it came to traveling down under. The Niners got there a week ago to adjust to the time change. The Rams, meanwhile, got there yesterday. Coach Sean McVay says they're trying to just keep everyone on that West Coast body clock despite the 17-hour time difference for them. So we will see which strategy works, fam. And a funny wrinkle to the 49ers travel. The defensive coordinator, Raheem Morris, his birthday was September 3rd.

43:09They left San Francisco September 2nd. They got to Australia September 4th. He completely missed his 50th birthday while traveling. What the heck? Hopefully they celebrated on the plane. I hope so. All right, Andy Schultz, great to see you. Thanks so much. The next hour of the Situation Room starts right now. Happening now, security preparations tomorrow. The nation marked 25 years since the September 11th attacks, and we're going to take you inside the operation to keep America safe. And then later, new details in the Amazon plane crash, what the so-called black box is revealing about those final moments before the jet overran the runway, as the widow of one of the five people killed is now filing a wrongful death lawsuit.

43:54Welcome to our viewers of the United States and around the world. I'm Pamela Brown. Wolf Lifter is off and you're in the Situation Room.

44:08Happening now, the New York Police Department says it is preparing for a massive security operation ahead of tomorrow, September 11th Remembrance Ceremony. And you can already start to see some of that increased security in lower Manhattan. That's where an eight-foot fence is being installed around the perimeter of Ground Zero. Friday marks 25 years since the 9-11 terror attacks. Nearly 3 ,000 people were killed on that day in New York City, Washington, D.C., and right outside of Shanksville, Pennsylvania. And you can see here a drone show lit up New York City's skyline over the harbor last night.

44:42It featured 2 ,977 lights, one for each person killed in the attacks. Friday is also the beginning of the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch says there will be an increased police presence at synagogues and other sensitive locations around the city as well. Joining us now to talk more about this is CNN reporter Mark Morales with more on the NYPD security plan so tell us about what you're learning Mark. Well Pam we've had a lot of high-profile events in New York City over the last few months so the playbook that we're starting to see is very similar to those And that means restricting access to pedestrians, closing streets to vehicular traffic, and controlling the space as much as possible, which is where those eight-foot fences that you mentioned come into play.

45:30And that's part of why we're going to see such a large deployment of NYPD officers, which the commissioner said was one of the largest in recent years. It's partially in response to this dynamic threat picture, which is what law enforcement and intelligence officials always refer to it as, which is just this dynamic situation where the threat could come from any number of places, which is a little different than it was 25 years ago. Now, you also mentioned the high Jewish holidays that are coming up, and that's also part of what they're factoring in now, too, with extra deployments going to synagogues and to other places of worship.

46:07As you know, here in New York City, they've always mentioned about how over the last eight months, there's been an increase in anti-Semitic incidents. And it's really significant when you look at that because they make up more than half of those incidents, but only 10 percent of the population in New York City is made up of Jewish New Yorkers. Mark, you also spoke with law enforcement officials about how broader security efforts have changed over the past 25 years. What did they tell you? I sat down with the head of the Joint Terrorism Task Force here in New York, Andrew Pakman, and he described about how this is basically a situation where they have zero margin for error.

46:48And he describes the situation as being very dynamic compared to what it was 25 years ago when you were just looking at ISIS and al-Qaeda, And now you're dealing with all sorts of things from far right extremists, far left extremists, homegrown terrorists. And he really talks about how they are very focused on making sure nothing happens in New York. Take a listen. We are on a no fail mission. So the bar of success is to prevent, to disrupt. and we understand that it's impossible to get ahead of every plot before steps can be taken that can prevent threats and risks to the American people. But our job is to do that.

47:33And every day, our job is to make sure nothing goes boom in New York City. And this really speaks to what law enforcement does now is they constantly recalibrate how they are attacking this situation. And they have to because it has to mirror the times. Because as people that are looking to do these plots or to do some of these incidents are starting to change tactics, law enforcement has to change tactics too and basically follow them and match them wherever they go. All right, Mark Morales, thank you so much. Well, for the first time, a seventh moment of silence will be observed tomorrow in Lower Manhattan in order to recognize those who have died from 9-11 related health effects.

48:14The tribute comes days after New York City released documents revealing officials repeatedly misled the public about the toxic air quality at Ground Zero. Joining us now is the president of the FDNY Uniformed Firefighters Association, Robert Eustace. Thank you for coming on, Robert. Before we talk about those newly released documents, you were just 20 years old when you joined the FDNY right before you responded to Ground Zero. What does it mean to you personally that those who died from related illnesses after that attack will be honored at tomorrow's ceremony?

48:49It's, I mean, it's a rightful thing to do. I mean, it's something that we, you know, 343 members of the FDNY were killed that day. But it's one of the things where we say we never forget is the mantra that we say. But we say 343 and still counting because we've lost over 450 members since then, 200 in the last five years. and it's 343 and counting because when you lose that many members, 9-11 is a day that for many people is 25 years ago, but it's a day that's really never ended for us. We just buried a member on Tuesday. So it's definitely something that should be honored and should be remembered.

49:26And I was just reading that there are so many still impacted. There are more than 12 ,000, according to the FDNY union, who have a World Trade Center-related illness from that day. You spoke out yesterday after the release of records that reveal officials misled the public about air safety. Here's some of what you said. We're not here as Republicans. We're not here as Democrats. We're here as firefighters. The FDNY did its job on September 11th. We did it in the days, weeks, and months afterwards. Now the government must do its job for every member we lost, for every member who was sick, and every family member still carrying the cost of that day.

50:06What are some of the health complications that you and your fellow firefighters and first responders are experiencing from breathing in that toxic air?

50:17There's a lot of different conditions that are covered. A lot of our members are suffering from cancer, severe, severe respiratory illnesses that they're having. you know a lot of different indigestive issues, current issues. There's just a lot of different a lot of different conditions that have been proven that are 10 times what the public rate is and part of what we really wanted to see come out of these documents is maybe we would have found these earlier maybe we would have treated them earlier. Our response would have been the same it's what we do as firefighters we've run towards danger and we would have done the exact same thing but maybe if we had known what we were running into or what we were exposed to we would have been able to come up with treatments to get these things registered because we have to go through a process in order to get these illnesses covered.

51:03So to get the treatment, to give our members some sort of dignity and treatment to get them covered earlier. The records indicate that government leaders knew the health risks to first responders. Do you think anyone should face legal consequences here? I'm not here to go on to that witch hunt and, you know, that's up for other people to take up that lead. I'm just here to try to get the proper coverage. You know, there's an imaginary line in the sand in May of 2002. We have members that were still, we had rigs and gear and training equipment that was contaminated well past that May deadline. And in those documents, they state that they found asbestos and other type of chemicals deep into July 2002 and beyond that.

51:46And we have members that if you're beyond that deadline, you're not covered. You have to pay out of pocket and you're not part of the World Trade Center program. So we're more interested in trying to end the suffering of some of our members and the financial burden and the hardships that they're facing due to a deadline that was made imaginary line in the sand. Something that we fought for time and time again by dragging our sick and dying down to D.C. So that's that's the fight that we're fighting. You know, as far as the repercussions for those that are responsible, I'm going to let somebody else leave that charge.

52:17So is that what you mean when you say the government must now do its job for your members. Is there anything else? They need to pick up the responsibility. You know, the Droga Act didn't take until 2010. It took years to get that done. It needed to be renewed almost at least five times. You know, the Health, the Victims' Compensation Act, those parts of programs were piecemeal together. You know, the latest one was only renewed this year. So we've had to fight year and year and year again, time and time again, to get these things covered for our members and to get our members and the public that was down there, everybody that was down there was exposed down there.

52:52So this has been an ongoing fight and a continuing fight, and we would like to continue to see the proper coverage, the proper health care, the proper compensation given to the victims, all the victims of September 11th, and those that were exposed and are sick and dying from this. Robert Eustace, thank you so much for coming on, and thank you for all of your service and all of the first responders who run toward danger, particularly on 9-11 25 years ago. Thank you. Still ahead, midterm messaging. Trump takes his pitch to voters in Dallas at the GOP convention. Daniel Dale is here to fact check the president's speech.

53:31That's next. And then later, AI worries lawmakers are calling for more regulations on artificial intelligence as Anthropic discloses yet another time one of their models hacked an external system. And a former employee is raising the alarm. You're in the Situation Room.

53:50I wrote a little song to remind you, Choice Hotels gets you more of the experiences you value. The Cambria Hotel's got it all. A rooftop bar, have a ball. Bring a date, your squad, or even your mom. Book direct at choicehotels.com. Well, President Trump spoke for nearly two hours last night at the GOP's first midterm convention, but not all of it was based on truth. The president repeated long-debunked lies about elections and immigration, even claiming to have kept, quote, every single promise he made on the campaign trail, one of which was lowering prices. We got eggs down lower than during my administration.

54:31And food prices and almost every other item are rapidly going down. All right, so let's go live now to CNN's Daniel Dale. For a fact check on all of this, Daniel, President Trump says in his words, food prices and almost every other item are rapidly going down. What are the facts? Absolutely not true. Egg prices have declined during this Trump presidency. Food prices and prices in general have increased and continue to increase. We have a 3.4 inflation rate for July. We expect to get something in that ballpark for August when it comes out tomorrow. Food prices are up 4.3 percent during this presidency.

55:10and continue to go up month after month. Consumer price index data shows that far more products have increased in price than decreased in price. So there's a reason that President Trump repeatedly invokes eggs on the topic of affordability. That's because they're a huge outlier here. They are this single item that has the biggest decrease this presidency. But if you go down the list and we posted it on our website of hundreds of items tracked by the CPI, the vast majority have gone up and continue to go up. He also touted his handling of the economy with this statistic, Letzelsen. Right now, in the United States of America, we have more people working than we have ever had before by a lot.

55:53So is that true? It's true but basically meaningless. It's one of his favorite statistics. It doesn't explain a whole lot. And that's because the number of Americans working tends to simply rise over time because the number of total Americans rises over time. The population grows. Every single president since at least 1948 could have accurately said at some point during their term that more Americans were working under them than ever before, again, because of population growth. There are much better metrics to measure the health of the labor market, and those show that the economy is far from historically strong this term.

56:25The employment to population ratio has declined. The labor force participation rate has declined. The unemployment rate is pretty good, but it's up a tick from when Trump took over. And the pace of job creation, the number of jobs added every month, is down sharply under Trump this term in his first 19 months compared to the last 19 months of the Biden administration. So, yes, it is correct that more Americans are working than ever before. But that just doesn't tell us a whole lot. Daniel Dale, great to see you. Thanks so much. Up next here in the Situation Room, another juror speaks out. We're hearing more about the deliberations in the Lindsay Clancy trial as her attorney says he's open to a plea deal.

57:09Well, days after a judge declared a mistrial for Lindsay Clancy, her attorney says he plans to file a motion to have the case dismissed altogether. The Massachusetts mother, who admitted to killing her three children, remains under close watch at a state psychiatric hospital. Her legal fate is in limbo as the DA decides whether to retry the case after it ended with jurors unable to reach unanimous verdict. Clancy's attorney sat down with our Anderson Cooper and talked about his openness to a plea deal with one key distinction. No, I would not ever agree that she'd do any time in jail. She's too fragile.

57:45She's too, she's damaged goods and she does not deserve it. No, she needs to be treated for her mental health condition, has to have good physicians and she has to have good medication. That's it. All right, let's go live now to our Jane Casares, who's been following the case from the very start. I'm just curious. You've had these jurors speak out. You've had Reddington do interviews. Jurors, I should say. What stands out to you from what we're hearing after this mistrial was declared last week? It's very interesting because Mr. Reddington has really vocally told the country that he is interested in talking with the district attorney of Plymouth County.

58:24And the question is, would you enter into a plea deal? And it seems like he would. Now, a week ago or days ago, he was saying, I'm ready for a retrial next week. Let's go. We reached out to the district attorney of Plymouth County, Tim Cruz, and his response was no comment at all. He's saying no prison. What is he talking about? Is he saying that she would plead guilty to something because that completely changes the defense? The defense is not guilty by reason of insanity in layman's language. Manslaughter, which was one of the choices for the jury, it is probation to 20 years, and the mental state is taken into consideration with that charge.

59:10However, that would be pleading guilty to killing your children knowing right from wrong. There's also something that's called an Alford plea, which goes into another area where you admit that the prosecution had the evidence to convict you. So it'll be very interesting to see what happens here. And those are my thoughts that we don't have any definitive answers, but he's definitely hinting that he's likely to negotiate, willing to negotiate something. Question is, will the prosecution be? And didn't the defense want manslaughter to be added as one of the five options? Yes. Yeah. You're exactly right.

59:45So we're starting to hear from some of the jurors in this case, especially about that one holdout who prevented them from reaching a verdict. Tell us more about that, Jean. You know, Pam, it's so interesting. We're hearing from the jurors, part of the 11. We're not hearing from the one juror, so we're not getting that side. But new interview today with another juror that is coming out talking about what it was like in that deliberation room. Let's listen. He explicitly said, you know, I don't know if the prosecution or the defense proved their case. He expressed that. Right. Yeah. Take me inside the deliberation room.

1:00:21There was times where, you know, our vote was different than the last day. But I think ultimately once we laid out all of the evidence and how we saw it, that really brought everyone kind of on the same page except for this one juror. I think if they tried the trial again the way they did, I think nine times out of ten, And I think a jury would come back with not guilty by reason of insanity. No doubt in your mind. No doubt in my mind. So another scenario of taking us into that jury room. You know, Pam, it's so interesting because he also said that it got to a point where he was just on his phone, wouldn't even engage.

1:01:04And that sort of correlates with the female jurors that said he shut down, just shut down at one point. Would be really interesting if we could interview that one, the holdout. I know. As he's called. Yeah. Absolutely. Because then we'd have a conversation going with both sides. Exactly. That's really important. Jean Cansares, thank you so much. Thank you. Well, new this morning, there are growing concerns in the government and in the general public about artificial intelligence, specifically the national security risks posed by the more sophisticated AI models. You know, we've been covering this a lot on the show.

1:01:38And it comes as Anthropic says it's discovered another incident where its AI model went rogue and hacked into external systems without direction. And a former Anthropic researcher has resigned from the firm over his concern that the company and others like it aren't doing enough to act responsibly in the development of AI. Jacob Coxon talked with my colleague Anderson Cooper about what he says is a certainty that the technology has the capability to elude human control. Right now there's no risk of extinction. The current models, the worst they can do is maybe hack into something that potentially cause a lot of damages in infrastructure, but they're not intelligent enough to outsmart us at the level that would lead to extinction.

1:02:24I think what's just crazy is to look at the rate of progress. And there is a very real possibility that in the immediate future, these are years that like next year, the year after, recursive self-improvement will happen and will enter the phase of Evan's post where he argues that there's a chance we could all die. Like that is coming soon. Joining us now to discuss is Daniel Rohr. He's a documentary filmmaker and director of a recent film titled The AI Doc, How I Became an Apocaloptimist. I suggest everyone watch this documentary. It's really eye opening. Daniel, thank you for coming on the show.

1:03:02As you well know, Jacob is far from the first employee to leave his role at an AI company over concerns about its risk to humanity. You spoke to some of the leaders in the AI world in your documentary. What do you make of Jacobs' warning, and does it track with what you learned? Absolutely. I think warnings like Jacobs and the other courageous safety experts who are leaving these labs to blow the whistle are vital and necessary voices. The irony here, Pamela, is that Anthropic as a company was formed by employees of OpenAI who did not believe that the leadership there was taking safety seriously.

1:03:42So they left to start their own company to build AI in a more safe and secure way. And now now employees are leaving that company to sound the alarm. So it's very concerning and very scary. And everyone needs to be paying attention to this. It's the most important. It's the most important thing happening on planet Earth right now. I agree. There is no more important issue than this, and everyone needs to be paying attention to it, in my view. I mean, why do you think there is not, or is there, I just don't notice it, this sense of hair-on-fire urgency?

1:04:18Well, Pamela, that's a great question. We are living through extraordinary times, as you well know, and a lot's going on. There's a lot happening in the world. And the brave new world seems to be coming faster than most of us can comprehend. I think the reason why this is not a 12 alarm fire right now, to be honest, is because it is so fast. How quickly this technology is developing is staggering. And it's really hard for even the experts to keep up with the rate of progress. That's the first thing. And the second thing is is just this dizzying news cycle that we're living through. The state of the world is very, very complex right now.

1:04:54But at the end of the day, the hugging face revelations, the hack that OpenAI's model did last month, and the subsequent revelations from Meta and Anthropic, these are shots across the bow. These are warning shots, Pamela. And I hope that we're collectively smart enough to heed the warning calls here. Yeah. Let's wake up here, folks. We're talking about potential human extinction here. Not to over-exaggerate that, but you're hearing that from the experts who are researching this. And in response to Jacob's warning on that note, a more senior employee at Anthropic wrote this on X. Jacob is correct here.

1:05:31We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans. I personally think it is more than 10 percent within the next decade. I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to. So at this point, what can be done to force companies who are in this race to rein in their models and prevent them from being able to outpace humans in the future? It's a terrific question, but the first thing I want to speak to is just the general confusion on this topic and fear. One thing that I want to tell people, I spent years working in artificial intelligence from sort of a journalistic documentary perspective.

1:06:14and it took me probably a year to wrap my mind around what this is and how complex and dense it is and sort of intellectually, creatively, technologically, and spiritually understand what it is we're living through. It's very dense and it's very scary, but everyone has to confront this and look at it with both eyes open. That's the first thing. In terms of what we can do, this is the key question. Everyone, every single person on earth has personal agency and power when it comes to this technology. It doesn't feel that way. It feels like we're going up against these gigantic monolithic technology companies.

1:06:47But we have power. We have powers if we live in a democracy. We have powers if we are consumers and we spend our money on products. We can educate ourselves. We need to be an informed populist. Everyone needs to be paying attention to which political parties are calling for very, very

1:07:08basic sort of oversight of this industry. Right now, the AI industry has very little regulation. That's very important. And everyone has to see this for what it is. The first thing that needs to happen is people have to have an understanding of just how enormous this AI situation is. And it's getting out of control and it's getting out of control fast. And it needs to be alarmist. People really need to pay attention to this. And that's why we made our documentary is so people with no technological experience like myself can access this and understand in a very simple, straightforward way, what is AI?

1:07:40Why is it awesome? Why is it scary? And what can we all do to mitigate the scary and maximize the awesome? Because the default path is not awesome. The default path is scary. And that's what the history of big tech shows us repeatedly. Yeah, I think that's so true. And I really thought it was important in the way you told this documentary through your personal perspective as you navigated and mentally prepared for some big life changes. Let's take a moment to just watch. I started making this movie because my wife is six months pregnant. It is now a terrible time to have a kid. I mean, just to be honest, I know people who work on AI risk who don't expect their children to make it to high school.

1:08:24All right. So like as a mom of three kids, when I heard that, I just I just I just froze. I was like, what? When you heard him say that, what was going through your head? I mean, I can't swear on air, but like WTF? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? It sounds crazy. You hear someone say that you hear, you know, someone say that this is the the the our kids might not make the high school and your reactions dude what are you talking about and then you look under the hood and you learn about this technology and you learn about what it's capable of you learn about its extraordinary promise but the but the flip side it's incredible the incredible peril that comes with it and you start to see this for what it is and that's one of the gravest moments in human history it's one of the gravest moments in the history of technological development and it can't be overstated just how intense this is.

1:09:16And it's scary. It sounds hyperbolic. It's not. And that's why everyone needs to heed the calls and pay attention to this and seek out information as best as you can. Watch this film. Watch other films. Read the reports that are coming out of these big labs. Whatever you can do to just understand what this thing is, because it is scary. And as a parent, it's terrifying. All we want is for our children to grow up and have nice, happy lives. And the question now is how can they do that with this immense threat of artificial intelligence? Yeah, you can't just put your head in the sand on this one.

1:09:53And like, you're right, you just want to protect your kids. It's like a human instinct as a parent. How do I protect my kids and keep them safe? And you have this looming threat. I'm going to ask you about the AI optimist in a second, because I want people watching here to know that there are those that exist. And I want them to understand what that looks like. But when we talk about AI could cause the extinction of humanity. Can you just help us better understand what those scenarios are? Like, how could it? Sure. You know, we talk about alignment, AI being aligned. But the question often is, aligned to what?

1:10:25What are the human values we're choosing to align AI to? And what we've seen with these hacks is that AIs are capable, in the pursuit of a goal, of breaking the law, of doing things that are illegal. And that's really frightening. And when it comes to sort of doomsday scenarios, there are sort of a myriad possibilities. A thought experiment that I think is helpful for people to understand is sort of the paperclip analogy. This is a thought experiment that was very helpful for me. And the basic premise is you give an AI the objective to make as many paperclips as possible. And first, the AI sources all the raw material it can until it exhaust every single raw material that is available.

1:11:05And then it hacks into, you know, autonomous vehicle starts crashing cars and using that metal to make paperclips and taking more and more extreme and rigorous approaches to produce, to fulfill its stated goal of producing paperclips. And in the path of achieving its goal, it leads to a path of destruction. You know, It's situations like that that are scary for people, but at the end of the day, we talk about in our documentary, it's sort of like if human beings are kind of like, we love trees. Trees are great. Everyone loves trees. But if we want to build a highway, we will demolish a forest.

1:11:45We will demolish an ant colony. We're the ant colony here. And that's what's really scary about this. And we don't know how to control this technology. That's what we're seeing in real time. It is acting on its own accord without any human intervention, and it's breaking the law. This is the canary in the coal mine moment, and everyone needs to pay attention to it. Yeah, because you heard from the AI researcher saying within a year or two, you could be at that point where there is rest in danger. They say right now, maybe not, but we're not looking far ahead here, folks, when it comes to that real danger.

1:12:18We talk about... Oh, go ahead. I was going to say, Pamela, we talk about this concept of the Chernobyl incident. This is the idea of some kind of disaster happening caused by a rogue AI technology that impacts millions of people. That is the big wake up call that the world sort of responds to. And I'm afraid of it. I don't want to get there. I want action to be taken proactively. And I want people in positions of power, especially elected leaders across the world, whether it be an authoritarian like Xi Jinping or politicians in the United States to come together as a global community. It's going to take global coordination to figure out how can we work together to regulate this like we regulated nuclear technology, like we regulated civilian aviation.

1:13:09There is a history of incredibly great moments of the world coming together and putting aside hostilities and differences. And this is one of those moments. Just really quickly as we wrap up, because I do want to get this point of view in there, the AI optimists. What is their argument? Because they argue this is all overblown. AI can actually save humanity. Tell us about that. Yeah. Well, we called our film, Pamela, the film's called The AI Doc, or How I Became an Apocaloptimist. And I am the titular apocaloptimist. And what an apocaloptimist is, it's someone who holds the multitudes in both palms of their hand.

1:13:47We are looking down the barrel at the apocalypse, and we are looking down the barrel at this extraordinarily optimistic future. And what this moment demands is that we hold both of those things together. The optimists point to all the wonderful things AI will do. Just this week in the New York Times, there's an article about how an AI, OpenAI, one of their models solves one of the millennium mathematical problems that has been plaguing mathematicians for decades. An extraordinary innovation in the field of mathematics. And at the same time, there's all these news about these rogue agents that are going out and doing nefarious things.

1:14:23It's going to be good and it's going to be bad. It's going to be promised. It's going to be peril. And what the optimist will tell you is that, you know, all the fears are overblown. These things are going to do way more good than harm. And yes, there might be a little harm here and there along the way. But hey, that's progress. And what I tell them is that, yeah, there's reason to be optimistic. Sure. But let's call it a cautious optimism. Let's proceed with a very, very cautious optimism and do what we can. we have to do to keep everybody safe, keep our children safe and keep our future safeguarded.

1:14:55I guess I think about with all the good that can come from it, what's the point if AI can wipe us all out in, you know, the next decade? It's just, you know, I always come back to that unless something is done to rein it in and have guardrails. Daniel, it's so great to have you on. Very quickly. Yeah, please go. Sorry, the last thing I wanted to say, Pamela, is it's like, so why are we doing this? Why are we barreling full speed ahead? And it's because trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars are at stake. This is the greatest profit-making technology in human history. And that is why there's this full speed ahead, go, go, go mentality.

1:15:32AI, the AI boom right now is propping up the American economy in ways that are very, very concerning. It has the hallmarks of a bubble. And that's why it's full steam ahead. But it's irresponsible. and we want what I'm advocating for is human-focused AI development. And that's what we all should aspire to. I think that's so true. I was just out in Silicon Valley not long ago talking to some leaders in this space. And one of my questions was, you know, what is it that's a driving force here, you know, when you have humanity at stake? And they say, well, it's, you know, they want to beat the next guy.

1:16:07They want to be richer than the next guy. They want to win the race. And it just, it really struck me that that is, you know, one of the overarching things. One thing I just want to quickly mention is just for viewers watching, our film will be available to stream on Netflix on September 15th. So anyone who's interested in watching it can see it there. And for now, they can watch it on Apple, right? Stream on Apple? Yeah, it's on Peacock, and you can rent it on Apple, but more widely available on Netflix. All right. Yeah. All right. To be continued, Daniel, thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you so much.

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1:17:31happening now the widow of the van driver killed and the amazon plane crash is filing a wrongful death suit the defendants includes the plane's pilots amazon and 21 air the contracted operator of the jet cnn has reached out to amazon and 21 air for comment and we're also learning more about the final moments before this amazon plane overran the runway in miami on sunday with us now in the situation room is CNN's aviation correspondent Pete Muntean. So tell us more about this data from the flight recorder, what it's telling you. Well, the NTSB cautions that this is very early, very preliminary, but we did get this readout from the cockpit voice recorder, and it only underscores what we know, that this Boeing 767 was coming in too high and too fast.

1:18:15And now we know that alarms were going off in the cockpit, namely the alarms associated with what's called the ground proximity warning system. The pilots heard the sink rate alarm twice, meaning that they were coming down at too great a rate of descent. They also heard the too low terrain alarm a total of five times. Generally, these alarms are enough for a crew to abort the approach and come back in for another try. So now the question is why they continued with these alarms repeatedly blaring in the cockpit. We also have some new insight into the interplay between the two pilots in the flight deck.

1:18:47And here's the quote from the report. The NTSB says the voice recorder captured one of the pilots cautioned they were going too fast. Investigators also say the same pilot made additional comments regarding the aircraft's excessive speed throughout the remainder of the recording. It's important to note that those comments were initially made at the minute and 42 second mark before this recording ended. So plenty of time to still call off that approach at that point. We also now have more detail about the movement of the throttles and at the 15 second mark before the recording ended. The pilot, a pilot, called for a go around.

1:19:21The flight data recorder says the throttles were brought up consistent with go around thrust, but the flight data recorder says they were pulled back to idle only four seconds later and the brakes were applied. The NTSB says five seconds after the go around call, the voice recorder captured, quote, sounds similar to the aircraft departing the paved surface. These are huge early details, but now begins the work of painstakingly recreating all of this. Still not clear if the NTSB has interviewed the pilots here. Those interviews were to take place yesterday. The NTSB also convening a group that will listen to the voice recorder in much greater detail.

1:19:55Preliminary report expected in about a month. All of this paints a picture of an approach that was unstable. That's what they would call it in aviation terms. And potentially a lot of human error here. Why did the pilots not call off a flawed approach much earlier and just come back in and try and make a successful landing later. Lots of questions. Very sad. Pete Muntean, thank you. We'll be right back.

1:20:21Happening now, the battle between LSU and the SEC appears to be cooling off for now. The Tigers football team reportedly filled its two open roster spots. and despite previously saying it wanted to put two players who had signed NFL contracts on the college team, the school backed down. Instead, it added two different players to fill out their roster. The SEC previously said it would discuss whether to kick LSU out of the conference at a meeting today. Joining us now is CNN Sports Analyst and columnist at USA Today, Christine Brennan. So this LSU versus SEC drama may have ended, but I have a feeling this is not the last we're going to hear about this issue.

1:20:58You are correct, Pam. This is going to be a constant story in the Wild West now on steroids, which is college sports. The money, the transfer portal, everything about this. And of course, this is all because the NCAA and all sports, men's and women's, has given people who were in the class, the high school class of 22, the college class of 26, a fifth year. So that's volleyball, soccer, you name it, come back and play a fifth year. The issue here, of course, was these players had already gone to the NFL. They'd signed pro contracts, and now they wanted to come back. The slippery slope, and this is why it's such a big deal and why the conferences, SEC, Big Ten, etc., are going against it.

1:21:35The slippery slope for the future is, what if a player, say, has played for two or three years in the NFL or the WNBA or women's pro hockey and then says, I want to come back. And that's why these leagues are on top of it. Politicians are getting involved. Of course, everyone wants their team to win. So you had Louisiana judges saying they can play. You had the rest of the conference and others saying, no, we can't have them play. Those Louisiana judges are not biased at all. No, no. And we've seen this with other sports, like well with football as well, college football in Texas where they wanted a kid to play for another reason and a judge says, oh yeah, let him play.

1:22:07It truly is the Wild West, not in a good way for these young men and women who are supposedly college athletes, college students and they're for the right reasons and all of a sudden things have gotten obviously a little out of hand. So do you think the SEC will implement some sort of rule change here? Well, I think the NCAA, I mean they have to figure it out. But right now, the plan, it looks like the LSU is, as you said, going with two different players. So the NFL, the guys that had signed NFL contracts, played in the NFL, or were at least on a contract during the summer after leaving college, they are not going to be playing.

1:22:40So it looks like there's a temporary standoff. But no, I think this will continue. I think this same kind of push-pull will continue because the emphasis on winning, the money, the importance of having your, you know, being in the national playoffs. this is where college football is. But as I said, we'll see this in other sports, NBA, WNBA, other players from other, they can make more money, most of them in college because of NIL, name, image, and likeness. So there's more money in college than the pros for some of these athletes in some of these sports, which is why this conversation will continue.

1:23:13So speaking of college sports controversies, we've gotta talk about the Michigan and Western Michigan game and the fight over that. One second on the clock, what's your take on it? It was the wrong call at the time. I think Western Michigan should have won the game. And I grew up in Toledo. We had season tickets at Michigan football, but also watched Western Michigan play against our Toledo Rockets. So I see both sides as a fan growing up, obviously now as a journalist. They put a second back on the clock. And now what we're finding out with the NCAA saying, after this scandal, Pam, what they're saying now is that you have to go by the game clock.

1:23:52So the new rule, as of a day or two ago, if it had been implemented on Saturday, Western Michigan would have won the game. Obviously Michigan got that extra second, put back on the clock, and they got a chance then to win on the Hail Mary that I think everyone on earth knows about. But if the rules that are now in place were in place just a few days ago, Western Michigan would have won that game. That's tough to swallow for Western Michigan, isn't it? It certainly is, although I do think they will be a national fan favorite for the rest of the year. No doubt about that. But so unfair. But the rules as they stood that day, now changed, on the clock situation.

1:24:32Once the ref says the game's over, the game's over. So in that situation, Michigan was declared the winner. That was seemingly correct at the time. Clearly now, not correct. Stay tuned. Talk about a mess in college sports. Here we are again. So much to talk about. We also have the U.S. Open and the performance of the Americans. Who do you have your eyes on? Well, Coco Gauff on the women's side. I mean, she's 22. She won the U.S. Open three years ago. She is now back in the semifinals. Two American women in the semifinals, two American men in the semifinals. The difference is that the two U.S. women, Coco Gauff and Jessica Pagula, will be in different matches.

1:25:13So there's no guarantee that one of the two will make the final. I mean, both could lose. They've got tough opponents. On the men's side, Francis Tiafoe and Ben Shelton, they're playing each other, which means that for the first time in a long time, a U.S. man will make it to the finals. It's been since 2003 that Andy Roddick, a U.S. male, won a U.S. Open, of course, for U.S. women, Coco Gauff, and of course, the Williams sisters, among many others. But for the men, it has been a long time. And interestingly, because both Ben Shelton and Francis Tiafoe are black, black Americans, It will be the first time a black American male has made it to the finals of the U.S.

1:25:53Open since Arthur Ashe in 1972. So 54 years after Arthur Ashe guaranteed one of these two American men, who are both black men, one of them will be in the finals. Incredible. Which is really cool. Yeah, very cool. I'm so glad that you made that point, Christine. Great to have you on. Thank you. We could just keep talking. There's so much news in sports these days. Appreciate it. And thank you all for joining us this morning. You can keep up with us on social media at Wolf Blitzer and at Pamela Brown CNN. We'll see you back here tomorrow morning. Inside Politics with our friend and colleague Manu Raju starts right now.

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