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CNN This Morning

"Axios" Co-Founder and CEO Jim VandeHei is Interviewed about the CNN Ban; Venezuelan Man Shot by ICE; Rep. Kevin Kiley (I-CA) is Interviewed about the Press Ban; GOP Pours Ad Cash into Football Games. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired September 21, 2026 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:30:49]

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: We're following this breaking news this morning. CNN preparing to file a lawsuit against the Trump administration over being banned from the White House. The lawsuit is happening at the same time as the network has been removed from leading the press pool coverage of the president's trip to New York, which was set to start just hours from now.

Joining me now to discuss is Jim VandeHei, co-founder and CEO of "Axios." He's also the author of a new book called "Simplify: Do 50 Percent More with 50 Percent Less," which I am actually currently reading.

So, thank you.

JIM VANDEHEI, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, "AXIOS": All right. Great. Appreciate it.

CORNISH: We were ,on the panel before you came in, talking about, is this just a distraction?

VANDEHEI: Yes.

CORNISH: And if it is a distraction, to what end and what is he thinking? And then lo and behold you have a column where you've been doing a little reporting on some of these questions.

VANDEHEI: Yes. Yes, I mean it's -- listen, the move I think is small, silly and stupid, right? It's small in that it's not going to make a damn bit of difference in terms of how people do their coverage. It's stupid in that I don't think it's going to hold up in court. And I think eventually you're going to have everyone just doing their job the way they should do it.

I hate the precedent of it. And the reason that it's happening is the president feels the walls are caving in. It was a terrible week for him last week. Everyone around him knows it.

CORNISH: What do you mean?

VANDEHEI: Because you're increasing the Fed rate.

CORNISH: OK.

VANDEHEI: You're having the courts tell you, you can't do things that you want to do. You have a Republican congresswoman shooting an ad, basically saying what Democrats have been saying about how he's handling immigration and ICE --

CORNISH: And that Hispanics feel betrayed by how they're -- behavior. Yes.

VANDEHEI: That they feel betrayed. Like that's bad. Gas prices hit a new high. Diesel hits a new high. Inflation's high. Poll numbers are low. Republicans are in the tank. Generics are bad. Like, so for him --

CORNISH: (INAUDIBLE). Yes.

VANDEHEI: Even the bubble he lives in, that's a really bad bubble. And every person that we talk to around him says you get the worst version of President Trump when he feels powerless. And he feels powerless.

And it's kind of a taste of what's to come because he is a lame duck president, and he has defied political gravity in ways we've not seen other presidents. But political gravity is real. He has, you know, two plus years left in office. Republicans are looking at those polls. They're thinking about survival. The media understands they're bigger than one presidency. It's going to last forever. The courts understand that they're going to be judged based on the work that they do inside the courtroom, not whether the president is upset with the ruling.

CORNISH: Yes.

Speaking of that point, while all this is happening --

VANDEHEI: Yes.

CORNISH: You have rumblings in the world of A.I. --

VANDEHEI: Yes.

CORNISH: That are verging on panic, right, in terms of how -- what people are saying to the public. You have these companies and their money, right, and where the market is going.

VANDEHEI: Yes.

CORNISH: And then you have the threat of China and how far it's been able to go with a different approach, right?

I want to talk about the plans from Scott Bessent and him describing how the U.S. is going to set up some kind of czar or something, which I thought we already had.

VANDEHEI: Yes. CORNISH: And also, I've been jokingly calling it kind of digital red phone, some ability to be in contact with China should there be danger.

VANDEHEI: Yes.

CORNISH: What do you make of how this administration is finally trying to find a way on A.I. to show the public they're doing something?

VANDEHEI: Well, to be clear, I don't think the president wants to find a way. The president's been very clear that he wants to let it rip. He doesn't want any regulation, any slowdown for these A.I. companies, regardless of the fears that these A.I. companies themselves are expressing. That is his view.

Below him is you have a -- you have an administration, you have Bessent, you have people like Commerce, you have people who study the topic of artificial intelligence, and they're in a panic. They're like, come on, we have to do something. Because the worry is, is that if A.I. is used to do something bad at some kind of scale in the next year, they're going to pay the price. You already have the vast majority of the public doesn't really like artificial intelligence. They hate data centers. They're skeptical of these companies. And that's a toxic stew. And I think there's people under Trump that understand this. But the president --

CORNISH: They're going to pay the price, or will the White House and this president bear responsibility for what happens next if that thing that happens next comes from the world of A.I.?

VANDEHEI: I think that's it. If it comes from the world of A.I., and it was unregulated, and it was foreseen, since we're all debating it, they will pay a political price. And I think that's why you have Bessent and others thinking through, are there small steps that this administration can take.

[06:35:05]

When you're talking about China -- and this is such a complex topic --

CORNISH: It is.

VANDEHEI: But ultimately, if you want to rein in artificial intelligence, which is the vast majority of all investment in the United States and China is going into artificial intelligence, it's very hard for us to unilaterally regulate it. Over time, if it becomes as powerful as everyone thinks, in all likelihood you have to treat it like nuclear weapons. You're going to have to have some kind of governing regime that includes us and China setting some kind of system to make sure that it doesn't do something very, very bad at scale.

And I know people are freaked out about this. They hear people from inside the company saying, oh my goodness, it could end humanity. It's not going to end humanity today. What they're saying is, is that if you create superintelligence, basically machines that think like us, but -- and then train themselves to think even smarter than us and you don't put any controls on that, that theoretically very bad things could happen. Theoretically they could.

CORNISH: Yes. And this is not just like, hey, I invented a PC. Do you want one for your garage? I think it's very clear Bill Gates and others have said, this feels different.

VANDEHEI: Yes.

CORNISH: And regulation is not necessarily something to panic about, but that's just not what I'm hearing in Washington.

VANDEHEI: Yes, I mean, listen, when you have almost every person who's created the technology or working on the technology all saying the exact same thing, which is, whoa, this things moving quicker than we thought, it's scaring me a little bit, please regulate us, you might want to listen to those people. And that's what's weird about this, because it's not just people Trump doesn't like, like Dario Amodei, who runs Anthropic, it's also Elon Musk is saying the exact same thing. Elon's a close ally of the president. And -- but the president just doesn't want to because he's very worried that if you put any limits on artificial intelligence, that the entire economy could come grinding to a halt --

CORNISH: Got it.

VANDEHEI: Because so much investment is going in to that technology.

So, what I would say to your viewers is, this is the single most important topic you're probably ever going to face. You should really pay attention to it. You should try to learn different dimensions of it, because there's going to be a lot of big decisions that this country's going to have to make, and they're not just going to be Trump decisions, they're going to be public decisions.

CORNISH: Yes.

VANDEHEI: There are going to be media decisions.

CORNISH: Well, we're read in. We just want Washington read in with us, I think, is half of the battle.

VANDEHEI: Oh, yes. We did a story.

CORNISH: Yes.

VANDEHEI: It's sad, these members of Congress have never used it. They don't understand it. People, you should be horrified if your member of Congress can't explain to you what artificial intelligence is right now. Oh, my goodness gracious. That would be like not understanding spending or taxes or even government itself.

CORNISH: Yes, which also seems like that's also a problem. But Jim VandeHei, thank you so much for being here.

VANDEHEI: Thank you. Appreciate it. CORNISH: You guys, the book is called "Simplify: Do 50 Percent More with 50 Percent Less."

And straight ahead on CNN THIS MORNING, a DoorDash driver reportedly shot by an ICE agent in Texas. We're going to talk about what we've learned about the moments before this happened.

And later on CNN, Patrick Clancy is speaking out. He's talking about forgiveness, starting a new family, and those conspiracy theories linking him to the death of his three children. That's in our next hour.

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[06:41:37]

CORNISH: I want to talk about this developing story this morning. There are protests in Austin, Texas, after an ICE agent allegedly shot and injured a man. Now, according to initial reports, 28-year-old Wilber Rafael Garces Perez was working for DoorDash when he was shot by an ICE agent. Federal agents say they were trying to arrest the Venezuelan man who was in the U.S. illegally and had a deportation order. Lawyers for Garces Perez say that he entered the country legally. Now, they did not comment on his current status.

This shooting is raising new questions about the use of force and transparency as ICE operations ramp up in cities, including Austin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR KIRK WATSON (D), AUSTIN, TEXAS: And I've said many, many times about how I want -- I want to leave, while we're dealing with ICE, and that is that I don't want to perpetuate the politics of fear. One of the ways to not perpetuate the politics of fear is to be open, to be as transparent as we can about what's going on, to seek to be involved, and to then be involved in the investigations so that our people will know what's happening.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: CNN's senior law enforcement analyst, former Philadelphia police commissioner, and former D.C. police chief Charles Ramsey is here, joining us from Philadelphia.

Thank you so much for being here.

You know, we're in this situation where just last week you had Minnesota officials who arrested an ICE agent who was charged with assault and lying about the shooting of another Venezuelan man in Minneapolis. This is also raising questions about how you investigate transparency. So now with this new case in Austin, what hopes do you have that we're going to have a better understanding of what happened and why?

CHIEF CHARLES RAMSEY, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, I don't know if we'll have a better understanding unless there is an independent third-party review of what actually took place. You mentioned it early on, it is about officer-involved shootings. The person who was shot allegedly was -- had some deportation order, whatever. That may very well be true, but that is a separate issue from whether or not an officer was justified in the use of deadly force.

Now, they haven't -- they have not mentioned that the individual was armed with a weapon. So, apparently, probably wasn't because when they put that press release out, had he been armed, they would have said so.

And so, there's a lot that needs to go into this investigation. I know the Texas Department of Public Safety and Austin P.D. But whether or not they'll have access to everything they need and actually conduct -- be able to conduct an independent investigation is something that we need to really follow very closely. I doubt if that's going to happen.

CORNISH: I just want to put up for people the number of ICE and CBP shootings since 2025. At this point, 20 injuries, eight deaths. And, you know, I have to say, this is small compared to local police departments, for example. I think police involved killings average around 1,200 a year over the last couple of years. But are -- is this now the cost of doing business? We have a new law agency in terms of scale. ICE is way bigger than it was. And should I expect to live with deaths as a result of their enforcement?

RAMSEY: Well, first of all, you shouldn't have to expect to live with something like that. And there may be 1,200 shootings on average at the local level, but there are 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States.

[06:45:04]

So, you put it in some kind of perspective there. They still have a lot of shootings that ICE is responsible for. Again, I don't know what kind of training they go through or whatever. And this may have been a totally justified shooting. I just do not know. But the more information you put out, the better off you're going to be as an agency.

Now, they don't have a very good track record because we've been talking about ICE for the last couple of years now, and it hasn't been very positive with some of the incidents that they've been involved in, especially uses of force. And so, they need to put information out to the public without jeopardizing the investigation.

Right now, they have no credibility, which is why they need to have an independent third party take a look at the -- at the shooting itself. When I co-chaired the Obama task force on 21st century policing, we made that recommendation in our report, and that was for all police agencies, not just federal, but local, state and federal, that independent third-party investigations of officer-involved shootings, I believe, is essential.

CORNISH: And not what we have right now. Chief Charles Ramsey, thank you so much for being with us.

RAMSEY: Thank you.

CORNISH: Next, we continue to follow breaking news. CNN has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration after reporters were barred from the White House. The only independent in the House congressional -- Congressman Kevin Kiley is going to be here next. I'm going to ask him about that ban and more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CORNISH: This morning, CNN, MS Now, and "Politico" will sue the Trump administration after crews were denied access to the White House following President Trump's ban.

Now, part of the lawsuit reads this, "these irreparable harms should not be tolerated for a day longer. The court should immediately enjoin enforcement of the ban."

CNN has reached out to the White House for comment. Now, along with Betsy Klein, MS Now's Akayla Gardner was denied access Saturday morning, and she described a confusing situation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AKAYLA GARDNER, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, MS NOW: The officer asked me to hand over my badge. He said that it was disabled. I asked why I was not able to get inside. He said it was above him.

And then our producer, after me, also scanned her badge and it actually worked. She was able to get through and into the White House.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:50:05]

CORNISH: Congressman Kevin Kiley is here. He's an independent from California.

I've covered Congress, so I know we can walk right up to you. And you guys deal with a lot of good press and bad press. How do you feel about what the president has done?

REP. KEVIN KILEY (I-CA): Well, I think it's outrageous. This is not the kind of country that we are, where you just ban news outlets because you don't like their coverage. I'm glad that the outlets are suing. I think they're going to win that lawsuit. The court's precedents are pretty clear that once you make these facilities, you open them up to reporters, you can't discriminate on the basis of viewpoint.

So, this is just a fundamental issue of freedom of the press, which is really not just a core First Amendment principle, the foundation of the democracy that we have. It's extremely troubling that this action was taken at all. CORNISH: I want to bring for you this viewpoint, your congressman,

Scalise, he's your colleague, and he says, look, stop making a big deal out of this. The president always takes the tough questions. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. STEVE SCALISE (R-LA): The president takes those questions. I've never seen him turn a question down from anybody. Again, I've been in the room with the president when he's taking questions from the press. And again, most of the time it goes over a half hour, almost an hour long, where he takes questions from everybody. And some of them are very hostile questions. And the president sits there and takes them, answers them all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Can I get your view on that? I mean he does talk to the press a lot. He's out there.

KILEY: Yes. Well, I would -- I guess my response would be that the First Amendment is not something that only applies some of the time. So, just because you take questions in one setting, that doesn't mean that you can, you know, violate what are fundamental First Amendment protections in another setting. And I think that, you know, part of the reason for this is that this chilling effect would really undermine the entire purpose of independent journalism, which is to hold the government accountable. It's a relationship that is inherently adversarial. And if you set this precedent that if those in power don't like the coverage, then suddenly you're going to lose -- going to lose the ability to effectively do your job, then that's going to be a very bad thing for our -- for our democracy.

CORNISH: Now, I want to turn to something else because we're frequently talking about A.I. on this show, and sometimes I complain lawmakers aren't doing enough. And then, lo and behold, I saw your name on a piece of legislation, which, of course, like all other legislation, is not going anywhere right now.

So, I want to ask you about what the president is doing. An A.I. force, a new A.I. czar, and now we're hearing from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that the U.S. and China are working on a new A.I. safety notification mechanism that they might talk about at their summit next week. Is this enough?

KILEY: Well, I think certainly having dialog with China is key. I mean, I have been raising concerns and awareness about this issue since 2018 when I introduced a first of its kind resolution in the California legislature. And, frankly, Congress has really not been preparing for the enormous changes that A.I. is going to herald. Both the potential benefits, but also the risks that have now really finally gained a moment of attention here.

So, I do think that, you know, having a dialog with China is important, but we need to have a national undertaking here that's designed to assure that A.I. models are safe and beneficial and align with human values. And even the leaders of the top labs will tell you that they have not yet solved this problem of keeping models aligned. And so that's what my bill does, is it pours resources of the federal government, creates a special grant program to support A.I. safety and alignment research.

CORNISH: OK, that's Congressman Kevin Kiley. Thank you so much for your time.

KILEY: You bet. Thanks for having me.

CORNISH: Despite all we've talked about today, you probably have watched a lot of football over the weekend. Which means, guess what? You've still seen a lot of political ads. Could that spending spree be going too far?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why are they allowing some of the most heinous, vile political ads to play during like football games? If I'm trying to watch the Bears game, why does a freaking political ad come on screen, like this person hates men, this person doesn't put rapists in jail.

I don't even let my kids watch half the stuff on Netflix Kids, let alone this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: We hear you. So, we're bringing in the group chat.

"Axios" reporting, "football drives GOP TV ad blitz. They ran more than 5,000 TV spots during NFL and college games, pre and post, compared to just 471 for Democrats."

Is this like admitting there's a man problem, or who is this for? Not the moms.

SARA FISCHER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA ANALYST: It's admitting that broadcast is still really effective. And that's where football tends to air.

CORNISH: That's what the media reporter would say.

[06:55:00]

FISCHER: No, it's true. You -- when it comes to the sort of preliminary part of the election, you're trying to distinguish yourself from other people within your party. And so that's actually a pretty narrow target. You're trying to very specifically target Republicans. Digital ads can be very effective there.

Now, in the general, you've got to reach a wide swath of people. The fastest and cheapest and most effective way to do that is broadcast. And, obviously, football is much, much heavily concentrated in broadcast.

And then last thing, I think that there is a synergy here between sort of what the GOP says is their -- the base of the GOP and things like college football.

CORNISH: Yes.

FISCHER: You think about what the SEC means to people in the south, which tend to have more Republican states.

CORNISH: Well, to your point, here's Aaron Rodgers, Pittsburgh Steelers QB, who's been talking a lot lately --

FISCHER: Oh, yes.

CORNISH: For better or worse. But here he is on politics.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AARON RODGERS, PITTSBURGH STEELERS QB: There is no MAGA movement. There is no make America great again movement because the guy you elected hasn't done any of his campaign promises. And it just realizes, you think something's going to actually change. And then Trump's going to come in and drain the swamp and do something, and nothing happens and nothing changes

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Approval among men, down nine percent from September 2025. I always come to you because you're one of these men that I'm like, you could -- you could -- you could --

MELIK ABDUL, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: I'm the one.

CORNISH: You could decide --

ABDUL: Yes.

CORNISH: After your Obama --

ABDUL: Yes.

CORNISH: Trump voting --

ABDUL: Yes.

CORNISH: That you're not feeling it.

ABDUL: Actually, that's a very good point. And I want to say, thank you. The Cowboys won yesterday. Americas favorite team. Wanted to put that out there.

CORNISH: OK.

ABDUL: But to speak for the men though, I will say this, as someone, as, you know, 2016, becoming a Republican, voting for Donald Trump. Since 2016, I've consistently heard, despite what the media may say, despite what the resistance say about Donald Trump being a racist. I've talked to people, barbershops, grocery stores, on the bus. It doesn't matter. And they just said, it -- I don't care because I like Donald Trump is doing x, y, z. I've heard that up until 2025.

What I'm hearing from these same men now, and these aren't men who are involved in politics. These are just your average Jamaal. I won't say your average Joe. This is your average Jamaal. The word that I'm hearing is exhaustion. So, everything that we heard the last time, the podcast bros, you know, Joe Rogan,

CORNISH: Yes.

ABDUL: I am hearing none of that now. And the administration really needs to start paying attention to this because this assumption that the bros are with you, the numbers don't bear that out.

CORNISH: Yes. I don't think there's an assumption. Just check out half time.

We're going to start with our group chat and Jerusalem.

Jerusalem. I haven't heard from you in a minute. What's in your group chats?

JERUSALEM DEMSAS, FOUNDER AND EDITOR, "THE ARGUMENT": I mean, my group chat, everyone is talking about the Meta glasses. I don't know if you've seen these on social media or you've seen them in real life. These glasses that can record and it can look kind of unobtrusive, especially if you have, you know, the Ray-Bans version. It kind of just looks like sunglasses or whatever.

CORNISH: Yes.

DEMSAS: But you're seeing harassment happening of store workers. People are trying to create like viral clips all the time and using them to try to pick up women while using them.

CORNISH: I'm also seeing a backlash.

DEMSAS: Yes.

CORNISH: So, like, viral clips of people threatening people wearing the glasses.

DEMSAS: Totally. Because I think it's like -- it's incredibly creepy. I think wearing these things is weird.

CORNISH: Yes.

DEMSAS: I think like using them on people without their consent is bizarre. There's this -- I mean, Meta is now releasing a new version without the camera. They're supposed to have a blinking red light.

CORNISH: Wait, is a new version of Meta glasses without the camera not just sunglasses?

DEMSAS: I think they do something. They're smart glasses. They do other things as well.

CORNISH: Oh, OK.

DEMSAS: But, I mean, I think that this backlash that we're seeing here is this recognition that the public space has become so normalized, this level of surveillance for random people --

CORNISH: Yes.

DEMSAS: That you're being photographed and videoed for jokes, or you're in the background and people are angry at you for ruining their dance video, and you're just walking down the street. And I think that that, while it's technically true that if you're in a public space someone's allowed to record you, it still is something that I think violates most people's sense of what's like reasonable.

CORNISH: My group chat that I was going to text to you, Sara, is Ed Sheeran apologizing.

FISCHER: Yes.

CORNISH: And then finally having to say out loud some point of view on Gaza and the deaths there. And is there such thing as an apolitical pop star? Is that even possible?

FISCHER: It's possible, but it's very hard to do. I mean Dolly Parton, you know, the late Dolly Parton was a really good example of somebody who knew how to deftly navigate these types of situations and these types of questions. And I think it's just something that caught Ed Sheeran off guard, and he wasn't prepared at how he was going to handle it and respond.

CORNISH: Neither was Robert Kraft, I think. In the end, he says he's now donating to the region.

FISCHER: Yes. One thing that this situation illustrates to me is that every single part of the supply chain within the music industry is going to be impacted. But, you know, the venue, the people who are associated with the concert, the staffers. And so, it's actually not just incumbent on Ed Sheeran to have a plan, but, like, everybody has to have a plan. And we know that in Washington, but I don't think that the entertainment industry and other industries are as prepared.

CORNISH: No, they're not ready yet.

OK, Malik.

ABDUL: Had the opportunity to go to, to attend the Netflix sneak preview of the new iteration of "A Different World." I didn't plan on watching it, but it seems like it's going to be a very great show.

CORNISH: Yes.

[07:00:01]

ABDUL: Look forward to watching it.

CORNISH: A show so popular we thought Hillman was a real college. ABDUL: Thought it was a real college, but Debbie, Debbie, all of them are back.

CORNISH: I'm still waiting for my Hillman application to be returned to me. Very sad, but very excited. Great show. Great cast. And I'm interested to see how they spin it for a new generation.

Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you for waking up with me. We got plenty of headlines coming up next. I'm Audie Cornish. We'll see you tomorrow.