Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Interview with Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO): Senators Question Top Intel Officials on Worldwide Threats; Trump's New DHS Pick Sen. Mullin has Tense Confirmation Hearing; Musk's xAI Faces Lawsuit Over Allegation that Grok Created AI-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Material. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired March 18, 2026 - 15:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[15:30:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Top U.S. intel officers fielded tough questions today from Senate lawmakers about the war in Iran. CIA Director John Ratcliffe had a heated exchange with Colorado's Democratic Senator Michael Bennet. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MICHAEL BENNET (D-CO), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: I know, Director Ratcliffe, that you warned President Trump that if Israel assassinated the Supreme Leader, the RRGC would replace him with potentially a harder line puppet. In fact, I think what was clear is that the likelihood was that it would be a hard line puppet. Do you disagree with that characterization of the intelligence?

JOHN RATCLIFFE, CIA DIRECTOR: To that specific question, what we knew was, first of all, I guess I have to address up front, so much of what you related in there, the difference between political rhetoric versus --

BENNET: It's not political rhetoric. I'm quoting the President of the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Senator Bennet joins us now live. Senator, thank you so much for the time. You also asked the CIA Director whether the war with Iran could become perpetual, because if the United States leaves and the same sort of regime remains in place, they would just build back their military capabilities and, in your words, do exactly what they have always done.

So I wonder if we're at the point where the only way out of this situation is to replace the regime in Tehran.

BENNET (on camera): You know, that's a fair question, but then the question becomes, what would it take for the United States to, quote- unquote, replace the regime in Iran? And I haven't heard a single person say that you could do that without ground troops in Iran.

[15:35:00] And in addition to that, we have deep, deep issues that we're confronting around the world with respect to Russia on the front line in Ukraine and with respect to China, a meeting that President Trump has now had to cancel with Xi Jinping because he's now focused on what's going on in the Middle East.

I mean, we've got a lot going on in the world right now to have started off a war without a clear rationale from the president about why it was required for us to do it right now at this moment.

SANCHEZ: Yes, and there's also a lot of concern about the potential for threats at home as a result of this conflict overseas. National security expert Richard Clark described the country's counterterrorism capability as decimated, saying we're probably in worse shape now than we have been since 9-11. Is that a fair assessment?

BENNET: I think that we -- I'm not going to say it's as dire as he's saying, but I will say that we need to be very vigilant. We need to be vigilant here. We need to be vigilant at home.

It's critical for us to be where we can. Deepening our relationships with our allies, because we rely on them for intelligence about our own national security and what's going on here, and they rely on us. And it's important for us to have those kind of partnerships. And I think when you've got a president whose foreign policy seems to be just to go it alone, to respond to his gut, his own sense, as he says, his own sense of morality, it becomes harder and harder and harder for our allies to support us in the efforts that ultimately is going to require us to do together.

I said earlier today the president had said we shouldn't be the world's policeman. I agree with that. But he's become the world's policeman, the world's jury, judge, and executioner.

And that's not the way I don't think the American people want our foreign policy or our national security policy conducted at this moment, especially when there are such threats across the world, by the way, including from the mullahs in Iran.

SANCHEZ: To your point about remaining vigilant at home, Democrats have been pushing for changes to Trump's immigration policy, and as a result, DHS remains shut down. It's been so for more than 30 days. Are you at all concerned that a lack of funding for DHS makes Americans less safe, less prepared for potential attacks?

BENNET: Of course I'm concerned about that. Everybody should be. And I think that it's a reflection of our attempts, on the one hand, to get FEMA and DHS funded.

We put bills on the floor of the Senate to do that, and the Republicans have objected to it. At the same time, we're trying to get common-sense reforms in, you know, for ICE, because it's just not right for this country to have mass law enforcement or law enforcement knocking down doors without warrants. And we haven't been able to get any agreement from the White House on that. I was not able to hear the entire hearing that was going on in Homeland Security as I was in the other hearing today. But I did hear a little bit. It sounded like our colleague might be abandoning some of the ways in which ICE was, you know, leading assaults on the American people in Minnesota.

If that's true, that would be welcome. And I think, hopefully, we can come to an agreement that can get folks like our FEMA folks and the folks at our airports paid, because they're doing honorable work, and it's important to get them paid.

SANCHEZ: Do you believe that the confirmation process of Senator Markwayne Mullin as Secretary of DHS may create an opening where Democrats could get concessions from the administration on immigration to meet those demands that has been asked of the White House?

BENNET: I have not seen any sign that the White House will give us any concessions up to this point. And I think they need to listen. The White House needs to listen to the American people.

You know, the American people want to have a secure border. They also want to have an immigration system that leads to economic growth. They also do not want to have a law enforcement system where our federal officers are wearing masks or knocking on doors or pounding down doors without warrants.

And I think that's true of Democrats, unaffiliated voters, and Republicans. So I hope that the White House comes to its senses and approaches this in a more patriotic and, I would say, consistent with the rule of law.

[15:40:00]

We haven't seen any evidence of that so far.

SANCHEZ: In what appears to be a disagreement with recent policy from the administration, Senator Mullin said that if he were secretary, immigration officers would nearly always need a judicial warrant to enter homes and businesses, not just the administrative warrants that require less burden of proof that are currently being used or at least have been used in the last year or so.

I wonder if you believe him. And as it sounds, you might be open to voting for him. Would you?

BENNET: I would not vote for him. No. I would not vote for him. I think that he's got absolutely the wrong approach on this.

But I do think it would be very welcome if the president of the United States accepted what the American people want, is for law enforcement to have a judicial warrant, for law enforcement to not be masked, and for the administration not to be separating children from their parents in the name of the president's immigration policies.

SANCHEZ: Senator Michael Bennet, we have to leave the conversation there. We very much appreciate your time and sharing your perspective. BENNET: Thank you so much for -- Thank you for having me.

SANCHEZ: Of course.

After the break, we're joined by the lawyers leading a lawsuit claiming that Elon Musk's AI company created sexual images of minors. You're watching CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

[15:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Elon Musk's xAI is facing a new lawsuit alleging they knowingly designed, marketed, and profited from an AI tool that could make sexually explicit images of real people, including children. In this case, three plaintiffs, including two minors, were targeted by a perpetrator who has since been arrested. Their real photographs were used to generate sexually explicit AI images that were then distributed online, including on Discord and Telegram. In a post on X back in January, Elon Musk said he was not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok.

Going on to say that if requested, Grok would refuse to produce anything illegal. I want to note our team has reached out to xAI, and as we go to air, they have yet to respond. We are joined now by lead counsel in this class action suit, Annika Martin, and co-counsel and former assistant U.S. attorney Vanessa Baehr-Jones. Annika, thank you so much for being with us. What are your clients alleging, in short, in this suit?

VANESSA BAEHR-JONES, CO-COUNSEL IN CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT AGAINST XAI: So our clients are alleging that Grok, which is owned by xAI, Elon Musk's AI company, knowingly produced and distributed their child sexual abuse material depicting them. These are some of the most intimate and disturbing images that could be disseminated online. And the perpetrator used pictures from their yearbook, homecoming pictures, to do this.

So, you know, you can't imagine how disturbing that would be.

KEILAR: Yes, Vanessa, you go on. I think we're trying to sort out something with Annika, but you go on.

BAEHR-JONES: So, yes, so this lawsuit alleges that Grok, which is xAI's company, it's an AI platform that Elon Musk runs, knowingly produced and distributed child sexual abuse material of our clients, who were all minor girls at the time. The perpetrator used images from their yearbook, homecoming photographs to do this, to take them and render them completely nude, and then to disseminate those images online through Discord, so that child sex predators on the Internet now have access to those images and videos of our clients.

KEILAR: And so what are the effects, Vanessa, that your clients say this has had on them?

BAEHR-JONES: Well, as you can imagine, this is just an incredibly disturbing violation of their privacy. It has caused them acute anxiety. They'll never know now if they meet somebody new, if that person has seen these images, the most intimate images of their bodies when they were still girls on the Internet.

Those images can never be taken back, you know, and that's something they're going to have to live with for the rest of their lives. For images like this, there's actually a notification process. So if there's other criminal investigations down the road where these images are found, these young women are going to get notifications for the rest of their lives, potentially, that those, you know, highly sexualized images of them on the Internet have been found in other people's possession.

So as you can imagine, that creates a huge amount of fear and anxiety.

KEILAR: That's horrific, Annika. I mean, that is just horrific to think about that. So, Annika, when you hear what we showed that Elon Musk said in January that the chatbot only follows user requests, that's what he said then, that it will refuse to produce anything illegal, adding that adversarial hacking could lead the tool to act unexpectedly, what do you think of that?

ANNIKA K. MARTIN, LEAD COUNSEL IN CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT AGAINST XAI: Well, that was patently untrue. I mean, there were Internet watchdog groups that surveyed the output of Grok and found over an 11-day period that millions of sexualized images were created by the Grok tool and 23,000 of those depicted children.

[15:50:00]

And that was just over 11 days. So it's patently untrue, his statement.

And, you know, I think we want here to have an institutional change at Grok. That's part of what our lawsuit asks for, implementation of safeguards to prevent this, to make sure it never happens again. That is one of the things that is the thing that is most important to our clients is that this can never happen to anyone again, what happened to them.

But I think also, if you think larger industry-wide, this is an inflection point. This is a technology that is capable of great good, wonderful things, and also great evil. And this is a point where the technology, where the AI industry really needs to think about nipping this in the bud.

They can do it. There are the safeguards out there, and the entire industry needs to think about making sure this can never happen again.

KEILAR: So, Annika, why, in your view, is, you know, Musk's Grok at fault rather than the person who used the tool to generate these images? I imagine these are some of the issues that are going to be brought up in this case. Why do you think that's the case?

MARTIN: Because without Grok, there would be no sexualized image. These were innocent photos that these girls had taken at their homecoming dance, you know, with their families. These were innocent family photos, heirloom photos, and without Grok, there would be no way to turn them into sexualized child sex abuse material.

So Grok is the tool. Grok created this child sex abuse material. It wasn't the perpetrator.

The perpetrator just had an innocent photo. Without Grok, they couldn't have done it.

KEILAR: And I think, Vanessa, you know, when we think of kids, I mean, it's just appalling. It's the most appalling thing, right? But minors weren't the only ones really in question here.

Do you see this lawsuit as a legal tool that could be replicated? What about people this happened to or may happen to who are not minors?

BAEHR-JONES: Absolutely. This is, I think, just the start of a wave of these types of cases because non-consensual sexualized images of anyone should not be created and then disseminated online. I mean, you can imagine the harm that's already been done from just the months that this Grok tool has been available on the internet.

We've already seen that. And I think it's just a drop in the bucket. There's going to be a lot more of this to come because no one deserves to have their images manipulated in that way and to have that loss of dignity and privacy.

Everyone would feel anxiety if they thought that there were sexualized images and videos of them that others were watching online. And to not have any control over that is a huge violation. So, yes, I think this is the beginning of a wave of people who are pushing back against that business model.

KEILAR: Yes, and that's why so many people are paying attention to what this could mean. Vanessa Baehr-Jones and Annika Martin, thank you so much to both of you for being with us. We appreciate it.

BAEHR-JONES: Thank you.

KEILAR: It was the boom that shook several states. After the break, the unbelievable fireball that lit up the sky.

[15:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Now to some of the other headlines that we're watching this hour. In Pennsylvania, police are searching for a suspect who attacked a crossing guard. Video shows the person running toward the guard.

You see it there and just punching her in the face. The guard was on duty in an elementary school. She was outside Philadelphia.

She was taken to the hospital. She's been released and is recovering. Police are calling on residents for help identifying the suspect. Also, the WNBA and its players union reached an agreement in principle on a new collective bargaining agreement in the wee hours of the morning. That new deal is expected to significantly increase player salaries with million-dollar players, which will be a first for the league, and the average player salary would increase four-fold from last season. That's a lot.

Specifics will be finalized over the next few weeks and then need to be ratified by the players and approved by the league's board of governors.

SANCHEZ: And some folks in Pennsylvania and Ohio saw this fireball across the sky yesterday morning. The National Weather Service says its data suggests this was a meteor entering the atmosphere. It could be seen across western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, accompanied by a loud boom. No word yet on where it or its remnants may have landed.

We're also tracking gas prices right now. They are rising amid the war with Iran, and Vice President J.D. Vance addressed the climbing cost during an appearance today in Michigan. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The president said this, and I certainly agree with it. This is a temporary blip, OK? What happened under the Biden administration is that gas prices were high for four years.

Gas prices are higher right now and frankly, they're not even as high as they were during certain parts of the Biden administration. Because of what's going on in the Middle East, it's not going to last forever.

We've got a rough road ahead of us for the next few weeks, but it's temporary.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Gas prices have risen 86 cents per gallon on average since the start of the war and Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz. In a bid to help offset costs, the Trump administration announced this morning it is temporarily waiving the Jones Act, which will allow foreign- flagged ships to transport oil and gas between U.S. ports for the next 60 days.

[16:00:00]

The U.S. has also temporarily eased certain sanctions on Russian oil, and last week it joined 31 other nations in releasing a record amount of oil from their strategic reserves, but we'll see how and if these moves impact those rising costs.

SANCHEZ: Thank you so much for joining us this afternoon. "THE ARENA" with Kasie Hunt starts right now.

END