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While U.S. Debates AI Rules, China Loses The Development Gap; Ed Sheeran Backlash; Macklemore Dropped, Openers Quit; Patel Defends Dropping Bestiality As FBI Disqualifier. Aired 6:30-7a ET
Aired September 16, 2026 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[06:30:00]
AUDIE CORNISH, CNN HOST: -- and say, if it's my body you want, it is my body you will get.
LISA RESPERS FRANCE, CNN SENIOR ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: She's feeding the beast. She's giving the people what they want. And in this economy, people are doing what makes them money.
CORNISH: Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
FRANCE: I mean, this is the reality of the situation.
CORNISH: Yes, I know. But I don't want to see pictures of people's feet.
OK, Lisa Respers France, thank you so much for being here.
FRANCE: Thank you.
CORNISH: Straight ahead on CNN This Morning, if AI really could kill us all, why concede that power to China? And later on CNN, millions of dollars of jewels stolen from Kim Kardashian over a decade ago in Paris. Why she is only getting $1, in our next hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think that senators even understand AI? That most lawmakers --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, a lot of them can't spell it. They just don't have the experience.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[06:35:14]
CORNISH: All right. The federal government remains deadlocked over growing calls to regulate rapidly evolving AI systems over fears of ceding control of the race to China. But what if the race is already too close to call? According to Stanford's AI Index report, the gap between U.S. and Chinese models has been effectively closed in the last 12 months.
Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, compares the situation to the U.S. working with the Soviet Union on limiting nuclear missiles at the height of the Cold War.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DARIO AMODEI, ANTHROPIC CEO: I've had, in some ways I still have, a hawkish position towards China for a very long time. I am worried about how they will use this technology if they get ahead. I'm worried about surveillance. I'm worried about drones. I'm worried about authoritarianism.
Even when we feel that we don't trust these countries, we have to find a way to work together with them as much as we can.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Joining me now to discuss is Jamil Jaffer, founder and executive director of the National Security Institute. So, first, let's just talk about the premise of somehow slowing things down and citing the threat of China. Can you talk about what Dario just said?
JAMIL JAFFER, FOUNDER & EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SECURITY INSTITUTE: Well, look, I think Dario raises an important point that historically during the Cold War when we were talking about nuclear weapons -- and by the way, Audie, to be clear, AI is not a nuclear weapon far from it, but we had nuclear weapons. We worked with our adversaries, the Soviet Union in that case, to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons.
That being said, we have to remember it took almost 25, 30 years since the advent of nuclear weapons before we got the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty. So it's not like it happened overnight. We didn't cut those weapons back with the Soviet Union. We worked closely with them for many, many years along the way.
So that being said, I think the idea that today we're going to find some sort of middle ground with China, given the way that they're acting in the world, given the way they're acting towards us, given the theft they're undertaking of our AI capabilities and technology, it happened for decades, right, the idea that we're going to find a middle ground in China today I think is unlikely to happen.
And so then the question becomes, what do we do in that context? Do we slow down our development or do we try to stay ahead of China and ensure the United States remains in the position it is today, which is leading the world when it comes to AI and advanced technologies?
CORNISH: One thing that's interesting is China actually has an agency that oversees AI, which the U.S. doesn't have, right? We have multiple regulators who might have a piece of it. And they've also -- it's called the Cyberspace Administration of China. They regulate deepfakes and image video manipulation. They target algorithmic pricing. They mandate watermarking, labeling. They mandate government security assessments. We don't have any of this. So why shouldn't we? If China has it, why shouldn't the U.S.? Why shouldn't lawmakers figure this out?
JAFFER: Well, you know, obviously the Chinese government is very different than ours. The Chinese Communist Party controls everything in China. It's one party rule. They decide how things go. And I don't think Americans want to live in a world that's like China.
They don't want to live in a world where the government has oppressive surveillance over them at all times, has the ability to modify how they operate, modify how companies operate. That's just not the world that Americans are used to. And frankly, not the world that's developed the world -- that's society and the economic system and the political system that develop the world's leading technologies and have the world's leading democracy and the world's leading capabilities when it comes to freedom of human thought and human activity.
And so, we don't want to operate the way China operates. And, frankly, when we look at places in the world where heavy regulation comes in early on in technology. Look at Europe. You see a lot more limited innovation --
CORNISH: But Jamil, can I stop you there for a second. Hold on one second, Jamil. What I'm asking is, it seems as though the public is being presented with two options. No regulation whatsoever or what you're saying. And it feels like there's got to be a middle ground. Like, we are capable of doing that as Americans.
JAFFER: Absolutely, Audie, you're 100 percent right. There's no reason that we can't have smart, targeted regulations. So look at a good example, right? We've heard a lot of issues about child safety when it comes to AI. That's an area where it makes a lot of sense for the states to regulate.
We've seen a lot of states come in and address the child safety issue. And that's obviously a very big issue when it comes to modern technology --
CORNISH: But why states and not the government? Why a patchwork of rules when people are talking about this at the threat level that they are? Why should states be? Because, frankly, they are already, right? The backlash at the grassroots level against things like data centers is forcing the hand of states. The question is, why are lawmakers the lagging indicator? Why are they leading from the back?
JAFFER: Well, that's a great point. So a couple of things. One, I think you're exactly right. The federal government does have to act in this domain. It can't just be the states.
[06:40:03]
The states can act in certain areas. Child safety is an area where they're traditionally active. It makes sense for states to do that. At the macro level, though, on when it comes to competition policy and the like, you're right. The federal government has a role to play there.
But that role in my mind, the smartest role for the government there to play is to say, look, our policy is rapid competition, technological advancement, and then where there needs to be specific targeted regulation to address real threats as we see them develop, the federal government should come in and do that.
The problem is today, Audie, we don't have a lot of that knowledge about what the biggest challenges are and how to fix them. Can you imagine the federal government today trying to set the rules around AI as fast as it's moving today? The federal government could never do that capably. And so the question is, how do you bring industry to see this --
CORNISH: But we're in a strange situation where the companies are basically saying, for the love of God, help. And you're right. I'm not sure I want the companies and the billion-dollar stake they have in this in a room together deciding who should be in, who should be out, what is secure, what is not secure.
Even something like third party security tests. I do think that is a thing that the government could be involved in. I just don't understand why we're so confident based on our experience with social media that the industry is ready to self-regulate.
JAFFER: Yes, I think one way to think about maybe the way to do this, right, when you have the technology that's moving so quickly, right, you might think about a model like the Underwriter Labs, right? Those are the people who, if you look at, you know, an iron or any sort of device in your home, that little mark on it that says, look, this has been tested to ensure it's safe in your environment.
That's not something the government developed. That's something that industry came together realizing they were likely to be sued for irons that burn people and other things, right? Where they came together and said, look, let's make rules around this, not so that we can exclude other competitors, but so we can mark these things and say these products have been determined to be safe by an outside third party organization.
We don't need government to come in and set those rules because if government comes in and sets them, inevitably, they're going to set them at the level that needs to be today. It's hard for the government to modify those things, whether it's in the legislative system, Congress or in a regulatory system. Regulations are hard to change, and the technology is moving so fast.
If you build a regulation today, we'll build to last year's problem, not tomorrow's problem. And so, I do think there's a role for industry and government to play together. It's a collaboration that makes a lot more sense than I think probably rules set in stone by a regulator.
We have a lot of other models, by the way, Audie, where this works in the energy industry. We have industry and government come together to regulate those systems. But technology is moving so fast here, it's hard to imagine the government keeping up in any sort of way that doesn't actually put us further behind and harm us in the competition with China.
CORNISH: That's Jamil Jaffer. Thanks so much.
JAFFER: Thanks, Audie.
CORNISH: Next on CNN This Morning, paid by Russia. The new investigation into Don Jr.'s wedding and the wealthy backer with ties to Putin.
Plus, Ed Sheeran's tour in shambles over Macklemore's free Palestine commentary. Can anyone truly stay apolitical these days?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:47:08]
CORNISH: Pop star Ed Sheeran saying he wants to keep politics off his stage, but politics have upended his tour. From the band to the opening acts, every act scheduled to perform alongside him has now dropped out in solidarity with Macklemore. He was removed from the tour this week after this happened.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MACKLEMORE, RAPPER: I wanted to stand up here, on stages and stadiums across America and say two words that are very near and dear to my heart -- free Palestine.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: He's also displayed images of what's happening in Gaza amid the war with Israel. Now, Robert Kraft was the first to bar Macklemore from performing at his Gillette Stadium, saying, what he shared on stage was, quote, "offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community." Then other stadium leaders followed suit.
Sheeran says promoters and venues made the decision, not him. And he went on to say he is, quote, "not complicit" and has his own views on the conflict. He just chooses not to share them.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ED SHEERAN, POP STAR: Saying like I don't do politics or I don't take sides doesn't make you neutral, it makes you a coward. If at this point you're still choosing to remain naive and silent, then so be it. But stop calling it neutrality.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: OK, group chat is back. I wanted to talk about this for a couple of reasons. One is if you have a concert this big, if you're the kind of act that draws this, sometimes these big stadiums are literally the only game in town. Meaning, if all those owners decide --
LATOSHA BROWN, CO-FOUNDER, BLACK VOTERS MATTER: Decide, yes.
CORNISH: -- they don't want you there -- I'm not saying it's collusion, but I'm saying they can lean on you. So what do you think of, a, the backlash or Kraft's involvement? I don't know who wants to go first.
BROWN: You know, I think that there is an issue around freedom of speech. Some way we've got to get away from this idea that to support one thing means that I'm against something else. He has freedom of speech and he shared what his beliefs were.
You know, and ultimately, what we're saying that he can't perform here if he says something I don't agree with. And essentially what he said, he didn't say anything negative about Jewish people. He said, free Palestine. And so there's some way that we are collapsing that people don't have the right of freedom of speech. That's what the fundamental issue is --
CORNISH: You know who agrees with you weirdly? I'm sorry to say weirdly --
BROWN: Yes.
CORNISH: -- but it's Jesse Watters on Fox --
BROWN: Yes.
CORNISH: -- who said this the other day when the debate came up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS HOST: So what did he say that was bad? He said, free Palestine? Is that all?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He went on on the genocide.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No --
WATTERS: OK --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) genocide.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
WATTERS: OK. OK. Well, all I heard was free Palestine. I don't think that's hate speech.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Is it settled yet even on the right what is hate speech and what is free speech?
[06:50:05] JENNY BETH MARTIN, CHAIRMAN, TEA PARTY PATRIOTS ACTION: That's not all that Macklemore did. In 2014 he put a -- something on his nose and had a bowl cut --
CORNISH: Like an anti-Semitic costume. Yes.
MARTIN: He had an anti-Semitic costume. And Kraft, as he heard about what was said on the stage, he also researched his history and said --
CORNISH: Yes.
MARTIN: -- this is a problem. So it's more than --
CORNISH: Right. And Macklemore had apologized. This was a few years ago.
MARTIN: -- just what happen on the speech. It would be --
CORNISH: Yes.
MARTIN: That would be the equivalent of someone wearing blackface. It's just not acceptable. And he's saying, no, I don't want --
BROWN: What year was that?
MARTIN: That happened in 2014.
BROWN: OK, 10 years ago.
MARTIN: 12.
BROWN: 12.
CORNISH: But Kraft is saying, this is my stadium. I was offended. You have a history here. I'm stepping up. I think the real question is, in the arts world where it's very routine going back, I don't know, since rock and roll started to speak up against war, the artists all dropped out as well. And that shocked me.
MAYA PRABHU, EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, PEACHPOL: And also the question that I have is I feel like Kanye West is basically known to be anti- Semitic. He has songs touting Hitler. Has he performed in Robert Kraft Stadium? Because he was on a tour recently.
CORNISH: That's a good question.
PRABHU: People didn't have a problem with that.
CORNISH: Internet, get Googling. I hadn't even thought of that.
Here are what the fans are saying. Here's an example from a TikToker who is saying, look, Ed Sheeran, like -- first of all, there's this question about do artists always have to take a stand on a thing? Can they not just provide you your entertainment and your music? But here's what we're hearing online.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ed Sheeran wouldn't have had to take some super radical stance on Palestine. He could have really made it a free speech issue and said like, Macklemore, his free speech is being suppressed and like, I'm not going to stand for that. He didn't even need to come out as super anti-Israel or anything.
And he would have been a hero. We would have been praising him. We would have been like, my God, way to stand on business.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: What do you think of that argument?
MARTIN: I think that that's one thing Ed Sheeran could have done, but I think that Ed Sheeran has trained very hard to just keep his concert.
CORNISH: Yes. How's that working?
MARTIN: Apolitical. Well, it was working, but you know what? If you want your concert to be apolitical, then the way to control that is not to have --
BROWN: Not with other artists.
MARTIN: -- with you -- well, not to have the other artist, and you maintain control of the show.
BROWN: Right.
MARTIN: And that is now what has happened, whether he wanted that or not.
CORNISH: Yes.
MARTIN: He does a great show. I've been to two with my daughter.
CORNISH: For which artist?
MARTIN: For Ed Sheeran.
CORNISH: OK.
BROWN: Yes.
MARTIN: Yes.
BROWN: And I agree that if you want -- but ultimately these are people, right? We're acting as if we're in this space and that just sit and entertain us.
CORNISH: Yes. But it is a shift when people used to do the shut up and sing, shut up and dribble the ball. It sounds like the fans feel differently now. BROWN: Yes. And I don't know if that's different. Like I think about Harry Belafonte. I think about all the people who are artists in the civil rights movement were very active and vocal against that. I think about the people who are in the South Africa apartheid --
CORNISH: Yes, and they paid for that though economically.
BROWN: -- that were artists and they paid for that.
CORNISH: Yes.
BROWN: I understand, but they had the courage to actually stand in a space to say something they care about and sometimes their fans are actually attracted to them --
CORNISH: Yes.
BROWN: -- because they do have courage.
CORNISH: Yes. And I think weirdly the fans in a way are just calling Sheeran kind of cowardly, right? Like they're -- because he's saying, hey, it wasn't me, it was the stadium, he is taking on additional criticism.
PRABHU: I do think that ever since this conflict began and obviously the conflict began decades ago --
CORNISH: Yes.
PRABHU: -- but the most recent conflict began, I think a lot of people, especially on the left, have gotten to the point where they want the celebrities that they follow to take a stand, and they have decided that not taking a stand is being complicit. And that's just where we are.
CORNISH: Yes.
PRABHU: That's not something that a lot of people are accepting from the people they admire these days.
MARTIN: Pink came out and said she wanted Macklemore kicked off of the --
CORNISH: She is. She said, I'm Jewish, I've always --
MARTIN: I'm Jewish --
CORNISH: -- spoken up, and she felt that he had an anti-Semitic history.
MARTIN: She and I would probably not share very many other political issues together, but I think that what happened on October 7th to the -- to Israel and to the people in Israel was absolutely wrong. And Israel had a right to defend itself.
CORNISH: Yes. MARTIN: And I have -- I feel like I have to say that while I'm sitting here right now.
CORNISH: No, no, you should. We're going to play what he had to say since people only heard the first half. And here is the back half of what Macklemore said publicly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MACKLEMORE: To all of my Jewish brothers and sisters, criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide, in no way, is a criticism of you. My message is for peace, love for all human beings to be treated with dignity, respect, and equality.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Playing this because I'm hearing this more and more in political dialogues about how to talk about the U.S. policy with Israel and is there a way to do it without being also called anti- Semitic.
[06:55:09]
PRABHU: I think anytime someone says the word genocide, then people have decided that that word itself is anti-Semitic. It's very triggering for a lot of people. And people have to look into why that is for themselves.
BROWN: But he said, free Palestine. Because I want to get back to what it is that he actually said. And he also said, just like we saw in that clip right there, that he wants peace and justice for all people. And yes, what happened on October the 7th, absolutely, we all support that --
CORNISH: But has his personal history undermined that? Has his personal behavior in the past undermined that? That's what we're wrestling with now.
BROWN: I understand that --
CORNISH: Yes.
BROWN: -- but I also think that we can't ignore the fact that any time that we are actually acknowledging people who are -- the hundreds and the thousands of children that are actually being caught up and killed and families in this war, that both sides, if we can't as human beings actually have to hold, that at the end of the day, if there are people -- we're seeing that we don't want anybody, that we're standing for humanity, what's wrong with that?
CORNISH: OK. Let me turn to what else is in my group chat, because honestly, this has been a show of things that have all been in my group chats --
MARTIN: OK, here we go. CORNISH: -- because they're all bizarre. This one in particular was a Senate hearing where Kash Patel was forced to defend an FBI policy, an HR policy, I think, about bestiality. And here was his exchange.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KASH PATEL, FBI DIRECTOR: Thank you for bringing this up so we can get to the truth of the matter. What we did was, we did not want to punish victims of bestiality, victims who were trafficked. We did want -- not want to make it an automatic disqualification for the FBI to consider you.
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R), LOUISIANA: Tell me what it said before.
PATEL: It automatically disqualified any individual who participated on either side of it. Obviously, we are never going to hire the criminals --
KENNEDY: This side of what? The bestiality?
PATEL: Yes.
KENNEDY: So you disqualified the animal?
PATEL: Well, I don't think -- we have great K-9s, but we're not going to disqualify them.
KENNEDY: I understand. I'm trying to understand why you did this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: This is what the olds would call the full Columbo. And I want to know why this senator was doing this. Again, it was just in my group chat, maybe you guys don't have thoughts, but he's a Rhodes Scholar. He went to Vanderbilt. Like, he knows what he's doing, raising this question as a Republican to Trump's head of FBI.
PRABHU: Yes, I think it comes down to whether or not people -- what people have done in their past, if they should be given guns and security clearances and the power to investigate people. So I think there is a question of the type of people who --
CORNISH: This is the weirdest possible way to raise it. It just is, I'm sorry. OK, what's in your group chats? Was this in your group chat?
MARTIN: This is definitely not what I was expecting to talk about but --
CORNISH: Same, same. Indeed.
MARTIN: But here's the thing. What I think that Kash Patel now has done is shown us all that human trafficking has some very horrible, gross, awful things that happen to victims that we've never even imagined.
CORNISH: You know who's showing us that? Epstein victims.
BROWN: Yes.
MARTIN: And --
CORNISH: I feel like he didn't need help on that front.
MARTIN: I don't think we're talking about this topic with Epstein victims, so now we see an even worse layer of it.
CORNISH: Sure.
MARTIN: All of it is wrong at either -- at any -- in any way.
CORNISH: Yes.
MARTIN: It's just wrong and we need to make sure we're not making light of the victims.
BROWN: Let me it, let's also focus on the issue being the issue. At the same time, he is purging the Department of Experienced agents and workers literally have worked at the FBI. At the same time he's doing that, he's actually lowering standards, has no sense of accountability, and seems like he's actually using --
CORNISH: OK, yes.
BROWN: -- this position now.
CORNISH: Fair point. I remember this was the context --
BROWN: Yes.
CORNISH: -- in which this was all brought up, which is, are you lowering the standards for either recruits or people who are working.
BROWN: While you're pushing experienced people out and at the expense of what we're seeing now, is this an independent agency or is this just another extension of loyalty to the administration? It is supposed to be an agency that is supposed to be supporting and protecting the people of this country.
CORNISH: Let me ask what's going on, PeachPol, because you guys got a Senate race down here in Atlanta. You got a lot going on. So what are people talking about in your world?
PRABHU: Yes. I just did a story about uncontested races that I find really interesting. More than a million Georgians will not have a choice between -- of who is going to be their next state senator or representative because it was all decided either when they qualified back in March or in May for the primary. And so that's something that --
CORNISH: Yes.
PRABHU: -- people are really -- CORNISH: It's the other aspect of redistricting people don't know,
right?
PRABHU: Right.
CORNISH: Because you just could end up with no choice at all --
PRABHU: At all.
CORNISH: -- because it's such a lot.
All right. Well, thank you guys so much for having me here. I really appreciate it. Thanks to you for being part of the group chat.
We're following up on a couple of stories today. We're talking about AI and China. Please stick with us for the headlines as well about the Kennedy Center, which could be facing possible closure if it doesn't follow through with the President's plan to have his name on the building. We're going to talk about the renovations and the consequences of this debate.
The headlines are next, so stay with us.
