Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Attorney General Todd Blanche Holds White House Press Briefing; AG Blanche: Trump Administration Will Cooperate with Supreme Court on Voting; Blanche Dismisses Reports that Oligarch Funded Trump Jr. Weeding; Blanche: I Disagree with that Characterization of Iran Conflict as War; Blanche Downplays Warnings that AI Needs Safeguards. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired September 15, 2026 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

TODD BLANCHE, ATTORNEY GENERAL: ... go after them and put them in prison for murder. And we do it in every district in this country. And it's a big emphasis of DEA Minister Cole and our prosecutors around the country.

So when we can prove -- and sometimes if somebody is an addict, it's difficult to prove who they actually got the pill from. But in the cases where we know who the dealer was and we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person sold the death pill to the victim who then dies, that's a federal crime and that's something that we will readily prosecute as often as we can.

As far as the AI question I answered earlier, but I mean there's no, I mean I -- this should not be breaking news that this AI issue that suddenly come up two months before an election is being -- and the president calls it a hoax -- that the way this has come around today and not three months ago, I mean I was watching the news today, every Democrat senator suddenly races to a microphone to talk about AI after being eerily silent for months and months and months. So to talk about the timing of this as being nothing but an effort to influence the midterms. I shouldn't have to say that out loud. Of course that's what it is, and that shouldn't be what drives the decisions that we're making around AI. We can't lose the AI race to China, right?

President Trump says that everybody says that, but they say it because it's true.

Second row, yes.

LIZ LANDERS, PBS NEWSHOUR: Liz Landers with PBS NewsHour. The FBI conducted a raid at Fulton County, Georgia, back in January this year, and they allege that there was impropriety with the 2020 election there. Has the Department of Justice found any evidence from the FBI of that? Why is it taking so long? If you all think that there was election fraud in 2020, why has that not come forward? Where is the evidence?

BLANCHE: Well, so it wasn't the FBI conducted a raid. It's that a judge authorized a search warrant based upon probable cause to allow us to search and collect those records. There are hundreds of thousands of records and they are now many, many years old. And so I'm not sure what the question about timing is but when we have an answer, when the investigation is complete, you will know. I'm not -- you can't rush an investigation like that reviewing hundreds of thousands of ballots from many, many years ago.

That's something again, it's an ongoing criminal investigation so getting into the weeds of what we're doing and not doing isn't appropriate but it's also not appropriate to suggest that this is just the FBI or the DOJ going and seizing records. It's a judge reviewing an affidavit and finding that there is probable cause.

All right, somebody in the back. Yes, you. Sure.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was the President at work that his son was accepting a gift from Russian oligarch when he decided not to go to Bahamas to his wedding? What was his reaction when he learned about it? And to you as a public official, was it appropriate for the son of the President of the United States to accept such a gift from a foreign businessman, from a friend of Putin? And are you going to investigate if everything was appropriately reported as a gift?

BLANCHE: So the president's already talked about it. So I wasn't with the president when he learned, so I can't give you a first-hand account. But the president has talked about it.

Other people have talked about it. The president doesn't know who this person is. I think other members of the family don't know who this person is.

The president's son has said that he's a very close friend and that he accepted a gift in the weekend of his wedding. I'm not -- so I don't -- I'm not sure what when you say am I investigating, am I investigating what? And when you say this person is a friend of Putin, I don't even know if that's true or not.

So I like that it's fun to talk about this issue and the rhetoric around it, but I think all the relevant people involved, the president and his kids have already addressed it. I don't have any information. I don't know this person either.

So I don't have any information about it beyond that. OK, we'll take just a couple more. You. You. I was going to say the bald guy, but that's probably going to get in trouble for that.

Speaker 4

CARA CASTRONUOVA, CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, LINDELL TV: Cara Castronuova from Lindell TV. Thank you so much for taking my question today. And I have two questions that are deeply, I think, important to our audience.

One of them is about the Department of Justice Weaponization Working Group and what the status of that working group is. Specifically under your leadership, will the DOJ finally investigate the treatment of the January 6th political prisoners, and the four deaths that occurred that day, including the killing of two women by police and any federal agency involvement? And will you also consider investigating whether there was any improper contact as it was reported by sources between Merrick Garland's DOJ and activist DC judges?

BLANCHE: So again, the same question about ongoing investigations is not appropriate for me to talk about them and it never will be. When it comes to the Weaponization Working Group, we've been putting out a work product almost every month the past several months, including in August, addressing another one of the issues that we were charged with looking into. So that work continues.

All the work that we're doing around the anti-weaponization, fixing what we believe and what we know went wrong during the last administration, doesn't just happen overnight. It involves, like any investigation, reviewing records and interviews and having lawyers and agents in some cases do work, and so that work continues. But it's not fair to the process, to the prosecutors, or to anybody involved for me to give nuggets along the way of what we're doing or not doing, so I'm not going to do that.

Yes, you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Mr. Attorney General. So OpenAI has said that they're working with Google and Anthropic on security measures for their AI models. Do they need antitrust waivers?

Do you see that in the future? Plus, are you concerned about who controls the information that is coming out of AI models?

BLANCHE: Well, whether entities need an antitrust waiver is not something I can answer from the podium of the White House. There's dozens of factors that go into that, and there's an application process and there's a kind of a process that DOJ and others use to determine what's -- I can't address that. I can say that to the extent that those companies are looking to regulate themselves or fix problems that they have, that they should do that, but working with us if necessary.

So that's all I can say about that. All right, one more. Go ahead.

Sorry, I'll come to you next.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Two questions. Earlier today, President Trump said that there was new evidence in the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. He said it was a Democratic plot.

Moments later, Kash Patel testified that the shooter wasn't speaking to anyone other than his parents. Can you please explain both how this was a Democratic plot and what this new evidence is? And a second question, which is, in the same post, he said that Christopher Wray should be punished for his lack of oversight during this investigation.

Is the Justice Department considering bringing charges against Chris Wray?

BLANCHE: So the Department of Justice doesn't punish, by the way. So look, I was with President Trump during the time period before and after the attempted assassination attempt on his life. And he was shot.

He was a victim. There was an innocent man killed. There were other people who were very seriously injured when that happened.

What President Trump said today about the new information, and this new information is information that we found, that the FBI found, that produced to the Senate in response to inquiries that they had. It is new information about the shooter and about his background, about his history. And that's stuff that we didn't know before.

So that's the new information. As far as the president's frustration with the FBI, I was there with him. I lived it.

I mean, you have a situation where it's not really clear what the leadership of the FBI were doing in the weeks and months ahead of the attempted assassination to protect President Trump. That's the same organization that was simultaneously trying to put him in prison until he dies. So his frustration and concern about what the former director was doing is something that is not new.

He said that for a very long time. I was with him during the investigation and trying, you know, before he was elected president, trying to understand what happened and why. And Director Patel has undertaken a Herculean effort to go through all the documents and understand what was missed, if anything, and to provide anything that hadn't come forward to the American people to the American people.

And that's what he's done. OK, last question for you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you very much, Attorney General. Mr. Kurdish here -- two questions. What is your plan for ISIS prisoners in Iraq and Syria, including those captured by the Peshmerga forces in fight against ISIS and terrorism?

This is very important issue. And second one, what are you doing to stop Iran-backed militias in Iraq from using the U.S. financial system to fund their activities?

BLANCHE: Well, the first one, working with Treasury Secretary Bessent and DHS, we spend a tremendous amount of resources and effort to keep our financial system clear of any terrorist financing. If we find money that is linked to terrorism, to freeze that money and to seize it if we ultimately can. That's something that we always do and will continue to do.

[14:40:00]

As far as what we're going to do with prisoners in those countries, it depends. I mean, if the prisoners are charged here with crimes, we'll obviously -- we want people we charge with crimes to come here and face justice, but it depends on the circumstances around that. OK, can I just say -- and can I -- no, I'm done with questions. I stayed 10 minutes longer than I was supposed to. I will tell you, the fact that Karoline Leavitt did this for as long as she did is incredible.

So thank you guys very much for letting me join you all today. I'm very sorry that you're sweating. I'm not really sorry.

But thank you very much. And I want to publicly thank Karoline Leavitt for doing this for a long time for President Trump. She's a -- she's a lot better than me.

And so, thank you guys very much. I appreciate it.

SANCHEZ: We've been watching a rare appearance by the Attorney General Todd Blanch at the Rose Garden in what was a White House press briefing, a relatively short one in Trump's second term. There, the Attorney General was saying that he does not believe the war with Iran is actually a war. He talked about the Supreme Court's decision to block the Trump administration's efforts on mail-in voting and the president's angry reaction at justices that he appointed, as well as a conspiracy theory that President Trump spread earlier about Democrats being tied to his assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.

On top of that, questions about artificial intelligence and China and a Russian oligarch's reported wedding gift to Donald Trump Jr., which cost well over $150,000. We'll get into all of it.

Let's start with Elie Honig, a CNN legal analyst. We also have Colonel Cedric Leighton with us, Hadas Gold, a CNN AI reporter, and Kristen Holmes, who asked an important question of the attorney general at the Rose Garden.

Elie, before we get into the details, how unusual is it for an attorney general to hold a briefing like this and answer questions about foreign policy, for example, the war in Iran, et cetera?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Boris, I'm not exactly sure what that was that we just saw. Was that the attorney general of the United States? Was that someone trying to be the next press secretary to the White House?

At times, Todd Blanch was AG-like. He was stern and serious in talking about law enforcement issues. At times, he went way out of the lane of an attorney general and, as you said, talked about issues that have nothing to do with DOJ, whether the war in Iran was properly authorized by Congress, why there's suddenly new concern about AI and whether that's tied to the midterms.

Those are overtly political opinions. At other times, he was awkwardly cringely jokey and constantly cracking jokes about who's sweating and who has the microphone and the bald guy. I've known Todd Blanch for a long time.

I don't know what that schtick is that he just offered us. But to the most important point here, attorneys general of both parties, going back decades, have done their utmost to keep a level of separation and independence from the White House. There have been policies.

Lawyers have poured over this. They've done everything they can to avoid even the appearance of the AG having anything to do with the political side of the White House. And here we have the attorney general of the United States standing in the Rose Garden of the White House, giving not just a DOJ briefing, but an overtly political briefing as well.

SANCHEZ: Kristen, I want to get to you because AG Blanche suggested that President Trump's criticism of Supreme Court justices being shells of themselves, that he didn't recognize the people that he interviewed when he offered them up for confirmation to the court. I wonder what you made of that. And also talk to us about the question that you asked regarding new information that the attorney general says he has about the shooter in Butler, Pennsylvania.

He didn't say that there was actually any evidence tying him to the Democratic Party, as the president suggested earlier.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. So we'll start with the justices. I mean, you saw Tom Blanche throughout the course of this entire press briefing dancing around any of these questions.

And that's what you saw with the justices as well. He gave an answer that we've heard many other administration officials give when it comes to his criticisms, not just against these Supreme Court justices, but really against anyone in the administration. And that is something that they say, well, President Trump is very frustrated.

And we know he's very frustrated. But again, the question was, as this top law enforcement in the nation, somebody who has had a relationship with justices, has understands the legal system, what does he think of these criticisms? And again, he danced around that.

Now, in particular, we're talking about Butler, Pennsylvania. The question was related to something President Trump himself said today, this idea that there was new evidence in the investigation into the assassination attempt and that it was a Democratic plot.

[14:45:00]

We heard Kash Patel almost just moments later testifying that the shooter was only talking to his parents. So I asked how this could be a Democratic plot and what the evidence was. And again, a lot of dancing around this.

This idea that there is new information about the shooter, but he wouldn't say exactly what it was. And he certainly didn't link it to the idea of a Democratic plot, which is something President Trump had claimed.

And I also asked about Christopher Wray, because in the same post President Trump made, he said that Christopher Wray should be punished. And I asked if the Department of Justice was considering bringing charges. He says the Department of Justice doesn't punish people.

Again, we were using the president's own words there. And then he just went back into this idea that President Trump was frustrated by the handling of that investigation by the FBI and rightfully so. So I will say, you know, to Elie's point, I do think it was more of this kind of press secretary type of act that he was playing, not the attorney general, just because of what we saw with these jokes and trying to talk to reporters, but also really kind of dancing around the answers.

SANCHEZ: Yes, he did say that the administration plans to comply with the court's decision, though he did say that they will continue to make sure that there are free and fair elections. Obviously, from the view of the White House, that can mean a lot of changes to mail-in balloting, for example, right before a midterm election. Kristen, please stand by.

Elie, another question that was asked that I found very interesting, he was asked about this ProPublica reporting related to Donald Trump Jr. and a supposed wedding gift that he received from a Russian oligarch with ties to Vladimir Putin. The attorney general asked whether President Trump knew about this gift, and perhaps that's why he didn't attend his son's wedding in the Bahamas. The attorney general saying that Trump doesn't know who this person is, Blanche saying he doesn't know who this person is, and that it is unclear what he would investigate when several critics of the administration have called for an investigation.

What is your reaction to not only the story, but his response to it?

HONIG: Well, it was a notable contrast, and I think I noticed the same thing as you did, Boris, which is early on, Todd Blanche said, I'm not going to discuss any ongoing investigations. I'm not going to get into details, I'm not going to confirm or deny. Yet when asked about that story, he was quite clear that he found there's no basis to investigate.

He said at some point, I think he snapped at one of the reporters, investigate what? So interesting how he's very closed mouth when he doesn't want to address something, he says, I'm not going there. But when he wants to go there, he goes there.

And he basically says, not only I see no basis to investigate, he also actually oddly testified in a way by telling us what he knows or doesn't know, what the president knows or doesn't know about that wedding arrangement. But yes, hard to miss that the AG is up there and it makes him look like a partisan when he says, I'm not willing to talk about certain things, but I'll be selective in what I will talk about. And this one he was quite dismissive of.

SANCHEZ: Yes. Colonel Leighton, let's talk about the war with Iran. For the second time, you have a top administration official at a White House press briefing saying that this is not a war.

This despite the deaths of 18 U.S. service members, hundreds of others injured. Despite the cost, as the attorney general was speaking, we got some information from the Congressional Budget Office estimating the cost of the war up until the beginning of August, $28 billion. The majority of that related to munitions replacement.

The CBO argues that it is expected to continue to climb by $2 to $3 billion a month as well. That doesn't count bases that have been destroyed in the Middle East, which the Pentagon hasn't given an estimate of the cost of, and also whether or not they would actually repair them. So you hearing the attorney general say this, what's your reaction?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, Boris, I mean, it's hard to believe that something that costs at least $28 billion is not a war. You know, when you're dealing with conflict, when bullets are flying, missiles are flying, drones are flying, and the fact of the matter is this, from a strategic standpoint, we have basically lost our ability to move forces into and out of about 15 to 18 bases in the Middle East. This is a significant strategic defeat, OK?

And the problem with that is, you know, if you don't acknowledge that this was, in fact, some kind of a conflict and the war would be the preferred term, you are really making it difficult for the American people to understand what exactly happened here. And what happened here is that we lost the ability to use these bases, bases that had been used by the United States all the way back to the beginning of the war on terror and even before that. The fact that we now can't use these bases is a major strategic problem for us.

And now we have to figure out, are we going to let places like Saudi Arabia move off on their own? Are we going to put them at risk of Iranian proxies like the Houthis?

[14:50:00]

Are we going to be doing things that will basically change the face of the Middle East? And that's the kind of thing that really happens when there is a conflict or we're leading up to a conflict or coming back from a conflict. So, these conflicts are, by any other term, they are wars, and to, you know, use expressions that cover that up is really a disservice to the American people.

SANCHEZ: And to the service members who perished. I should note, to underscore your point, I was actually wrong about that figure. I misspoke. It was 38, roughly $38 billion, as opposed to $28 billion.

That just adds to what you were saying.

LEIGHTON: Absolutely.

SANCHEZ: Let's go to Hadas Gold now, our AI reporter. Hadas, so, President Xi of China is set to visit the White House in the next few days, and Attorney General Blanche was asked about whether President Trump would confront the Chinese leader regarding Chinese efforts to steal U.S.-based AI models. He seemed to suggest that there were actors within China acting independently, and that perhaps the Chinese government may not have anything to do that. And I wonder what your thoughts are.

HADAS GOLD, CNN AI CORRESPONDENT: I mean, I think he's trying to, you know, set the ground up right now for an agreement or something with China ahead of this really high-stakes meeting. And what really stood out to me about Tom Blanche's comments when he was asked by various reporters about AI was how much he was leaning into President Trump's, you know, statements that all these concerns about AI are a hoax and that that's not something that people need to be worrying about. And he even questioned the timing of all of these concerns around AI, suggesting that it's only about influencing the midterm elections when we have, you know, the real data of what we've seen over the past few months of these AI agents escaping their test environments and hacking into other companies.

I mean, the AI industry right now is up in the arms and absolutely rattled by this, regardless of what is happening in the midterms. And Blanche's comments and the comments from the administration are interesting because they stand in stark contrast to what a lot of their base feel like. And actually, in the minutes before the attorney general took the podium, Steve Bannon, the former chief White House strategist, you know, one of the stalwarts of the MAGA movement, was speaking at a different event in Washington, D.C., where he was talking about how he is joining forces with people like Senator Sanders because of the concerns over AI. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE BANNON, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STRATEGIST: Senator Sanders did a very good job of summarizing the risk. Obviously, he and I have a quite different opinion of the President of the United States, but we're trying to raise above partisanship, and we have to, because this is a unique --

(APPLAUSE)

BANNON: What I love about Max, when I met him a couple of years ago, I don't think you could find any two harder partisans than Bernie Sanders on the left and Steve Bannon on the right. And I think that speaks to not just Max, but to the threat is we have to rise above it. This is a hinge in history. We have to handle this right, correctly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GOLD: And so, Boris, what Bannon was suggesting when it comes to China was just to completely cut them off from everything, from chips, from the technology, even from having Chinese students study in the United States. Obviously, that's a different tone than what the administration is taking ahead of this meeting next week, where I think the administration might be hoping that they can come to some sort of AI agreement with China and sort of calm the waters just a little bit of all of this concern.

SANCHEZ: Colonel, I guess the best historical analogy to what we're seeing with AI right now was the nuclear arms race of the Cold War. And ultimately, there are very different things at stake. You're talking not only about potential technology that is used to create war, but also to upend economies and disrupt the livelihoods of billions of people.

What would happen if China were to get ahead of the United States in the AI race?

LEIGHTON: Yes, there are several different scenarios, Boris, that could evolve from something like this. But if China were to get ahead, if, let's say, worst case scenario, and let's say there are no guardrails on the Chinese implementation of AI in a military sense, what could happen is that they could get into not only all our networks, but they could upend all our social services. They could upend our transportation, our logistic systems.

Basically, it would be what they do to us in cyber on steroids. So that is a possibility. That's a worst case scenario.

Now, the Chinese also have concerns about AI run amok, and they are worried about how that's going to impact their society, their government, their control, their Communist Party's control of China. So there are certain things. But from a military standpoint, what it could do is it could also allow the Chinese to more efficiently target U.S. assets, especially in the Asia-Pacific realm, but really anywhere in the world. And that is kind of what we're seeing a little bit of in Iran right now, in the Iran war.

[14:55:00]

The Chinese and the Russians are helping the Iranians, in some cases with AI, to do that. So think of that as being basically a precursor to what could happen to U.S. installations, at least in the Asia- Pacific realm, if AI were to be controlled without barriers by the Chinese.

SANCHEZ: Colonel Cedric Leighton, Elie Honig, Hadas Gold, Kristen Holmes, appreciate all of you. Thanks so much for bringing us the latest on the attorney general's press briefing.

Still to come, we have breaking news on the Kennedy Center. As the board votes to shut down the Performing Arts Center for two years, we've learned the president called into the meeting as well. The details after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Breaking news as the Kennedy Center Board votes to shut down the Performing Arts Center ...

END