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Inside Politics
Trump Makes Claims That California Elections Are "Rigged"; Trump, Altman, Sanders Think You Deserve A Cut Of The A.I. Boom; Anthropic Warns That AI Will Soon Be Able To Improve Itself Without Human Intervention; Trump Returns To Madison Square Garden For NBA Finals. Aired 12:30-1p ET
Aired June 08, 2026 - 12:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[12:30:00]
ABBY LIVINGSTON, CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT, PUCK: -- corrupt and that the metrics change when -- as each dump comes in. And so, I think it's just part of an ongoing drumbeat that the political system is going to have to withstand as they question the validity of these elections.
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, and I think we're past bracing. We're in it. We're getting the attacks, and it's not just from sort of trolls online or conservative media, it's coming from the Commander-in-Chief, the President of the United States. He literally just a few minutes ago, just the latest example, he posted that it's not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the L.A. runoffs after the big lead he had. He called it a third world nation, rigged elections.
There's no evidence of that. And I cannot say that enough. It's part of what Kristen Welker tried to explain to Donald Trump, to her viewers, when he said this kind of thing in their interview. And it is the kind of thing that is dangerous for the President to say. It is not new. Maybe it was predictable. But until and unless we see evidence of what he's saying --
SHANE GOLDMACHER, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: I mean, we and other news outlets have written explainers before these elections in California and in other states, just as you mentioned. Democrats have tended to vote more by mail than Republicans. The last votes to be counted are those that were cast by mail that continue to be coming in.
And so as the votes shift is -- as the votes are counted, the votes tend to shift toward the Democrats in this state because of that behavior. And this isn't even a new phenomenon in the L.A. mayor's race. This happened four years ago --
BASH: That's right.
GOLDMACHER: -- in her campaign against Rick Caruso. And it wasn't -- it's not just in the general elections when they both qualify for the runoff. There's a shift in California races. BASH: It took over a week.
GOLDMACHER: And it hasn't always been this way, by the way. When voter behavior has shifted, which party votes more by mail, there have been Republicans in California who have come from behind years ago when people voted slightly differently and end up winning an election because of that late tabulating the vote. So there is no evidence there's anything untoward about what's happening.
BASH: Yes. And this is also a President who is very much down on the whole notion of voting by mail. He's trying to make it illegal. OK, so this is just California. But it leads to another critical question about the President going forward and people in his party going forward and looking at this coming election in November. And I want to now play the exchange that the President had with Kristen Welker about his unfounded allegations about rigged elections.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You know that these elections are rigged. Your network knows that they're rigged. You know that I won an election in a landslide and I got 94 percent bad press.
KRISTEN WELKER, NBC NEWS HOST: But Mr. President --
TRUMP: You know why I got that?
WELKER: -- you've never presented --
TRUMP: Because you have no credibility.
WELKER: But you've never presented evidence that it was rigged. Let's keep talking about -- I want to talk about Todd Blanche.
TRUMP: You have more evidence. There's more evidence than ever presented.
WELKER: Let's talk about --
TRUMP: Your elections in this country -- we're like a third world country. Your elections are crooked and you're crooked and Meet the Press is crooked.
WELKER: But Mr. President --
TRUMP: And so is ABC and CBS and CNN.
WELKER: But Mr. President --
TRUMP: Your one sided crooked network. So let's call it quits because I've had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good day.
GOLDMACHER: Mr. President, let's please. I traveled all the way to Wisconsin.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BASH: And just for the record, Kristen Welker is a world class journalist who is not crooked. She is straight down the middle, as fair as can be, asking appropriate, pertinent questions.
GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And did a remarkable job. You know, pushing back on what the President was saying, highlighting the fact that there is, in fact, no evidence for what he was asserting in that moment, that this election, this election in California is rigged, that his election was rigged.
And I think, you know, one very telling moment in that segment is that she continues to try and explain to him this is actually going exactly as it's supposed to be. It takes a long time to count the ballots. This is how it works.
BASH: Plot or not.
PAZMINO: Correct.
BASH: But it's just the law.
PAZMINO: Yes, exactly. And to Abby's point earlier, it is frustrating. I think it is frustrating for Democrats. And we see how Republicans are going to weaponize the fact that it takes --
BASH: Yes.
PAZMINO: -- a long time to do the count. But, you know, this is the way that it works in California. And it's actually playing out exactly how we thought it might. A Republican would pull ahead in the early days and then --
BASH: Yes.
PAZMINO: -- the rest would catch up.
BASH: And as we go to break, just to kind of make it abundantly clear that the post I showed you, the conversation he had with Kristen Welker, it's not alone. Just an example of something that the President also put on Truth Social this morning. He reposted somebody named Abe Hamadeh about the idea that federal -- to federalize the election.
And then the President say no way this could happen. Rigged election. It's the federalize this election. Congressman Abe Hamadeh, federalized the election is something that everybody -- a lot of people are looking at and holding their breath. And that's why there are lots of questions being asked as we move forward to the November midterm elections.
[12:35:16]
All right. Up next, a sitting President, a tech titan and a Democratic socialist walk into an A.I. debate and all land in the same place. We're going to explain why you may have a stake in the outcome.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:40:07]
BASH: A new idea is gaining traction from the White House to Silicon Valley to the progressive left. What idea in the world could unite all of those factions? Well, Sam Altman, Bernie Sanders and the President all say that the American people deserve a cut in the A.I. boom.
The President is planning to meet with top artificial intelligence companies as soon as this week. Here's what he said on Friday
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We're talking about it where the American people can benefit from the success of A.I. And by doing that, they're going to like it better because we're leading China. We're leading everybody in the world with A.I. and we want to keep it that way. It's just like you make them a partnership in this revolution would be a beautiful thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: CNN Tech Reporter Clare Duffy joins the conversation. Explain broadly what they're all talking about. How would it work?
CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS TECH REPORTER: Yes, Dana, I think there are a lot of questions about practically how this would work. But the idea would be to create a public wealth fund that owns shares in all of these big A.I. companies, three of which, of course, are set to make major IPOs this year.
And returns from that fund would be directly paid out to Americans, potentially also used to fund social services like unemployment and health care. And the idea, as you hear President Trump talking about, there would be to allow all Americans, even if they're not invested in the market, to benefit from this A.I. growth.
This idea has been backed, as you said, by OpenAI, Anthropic, Elon Musk and Senator Bernie Sanders described the possibility that this could allow the government to put shareholder pressure on these big companies to take actions and create policies that would benefit the American people. But I think there is also a question about whether this would incentivize the government instead not to regulate these big companies, because as a shareholder, it would want them to grow.
And I think a question of whether these payments to Americans would be enough to account for the layoffs and other potential harms from this technology that the government could otherwise rein in through policymaking and regulating.
BASH: Yes, that's such a good point. And you mentioned Bernie Sanders in his New York Times op-ed last week on the U.S. stake in A.I. He said, "When a public resource generates wealth, the public should share it in that wealth. A.I. is being built on a public resource far more valuable than oil, the accumulated knowledge, creativity and labor of mankind." GOLDMACHER: I mean, this is totally an idea that you would expect Bernie Sanders to embrace. It is not an idea that you would expect the Republican Party to embrace. But because it's President Trump who has taken public stakes in private companies and pushed them since in the second term, I think it's an idea that's going to get a real airing in both parties.
They're making different arguments. Bernie Sanders is saying these companies stole the intellectual property of American citizens by vacuuming up all of this data. That's not the argument that President Trump is making, but they may end up in the same place in terms of a public outcome.
LIVINGSTON: I think the thing about this is even though that we're seeing strange bedfellows come to the same page on this issue, this is still a massive, amorphous issue that I expect to cause divisions within both parties. And so looking ahead to 2028, I just think it's going to be a lot of chaos and there's going to be so much money and the effect of this technology on daily Americans that we're going to see a lot of tension in the primaries.
BASH: Yes, no, for sure. And Clare, I do want our viewers to listen to what Jack Clark, who's one of the co-founders of Anthropic, told Anderson Cooper about the potential to just take a pause on A.I.
JACK CLARK, ANTHROPIC CO-FOUNDER: We've done this before in the height of the Cold War, under highly tense situations between rivalrous countries, they found ways to stabilize aspects of the nuclear arms race, aspects to build confidence building measures, ways to build verification treaties. All of this has been done before in other domains, and it may need to be something we do in the domain of A.I.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: Clare, with this kind of technology, with these kind of characters and personalities who are spearheading this technology, do you really think that's doable?
DUFFY: Yes, it's a really good question. I mean, you talk about the characters that are here. There's also the huge amount of money and the lobbying power of these massive companies. But I think this is part of the reason why you've seen a shift from President Trump to being quite hands off when it comes to A.I. regulation, and now he's trying in some ways to get his hands around this technology because you've got warnings from companies like Anthropic that this technology is advancing faster than institutions are ready for it.
Part of what they're calling for there is potentially the world to agree on a pause or an option to pause the development of this technology. I also think the government is feeling the pressure from American citizens to do something about this technology. People are very concerned about layoffs.
We've seen companies like Meta, Coinbase, Block, Snap laying off thousands of workers just this year and pointing to A.I. as part of the reason for that. I think heading into the midterms, Americans would like to feel like the government is doing something to protect themselves, to protect them from the downsides of this technology.
[12:45:10]
PAZMINO: Yes, and I think it's fascinating to hear him suggest that there could be a world pause to something that feels is moving so quickly --
BASH: So fast.
PAZMINO: -- is everywhere, it's popping up everywhere all around our world, and whether or not we could, as you said, get people on the same page about what to do about it, whether that's federal government regulation. But I think going back to the op-ed from Sanders, you know, the idea that this is A.I. is, to use the word you use, vacuuming up all this human-created information, right?
All of our work, and I don't mean us in the media, I mean us, humanity around the world, what we've created, using it, being able to profit from it. So who really gets to own that information and who gets to benefit from it? I think that's a fascinating question.
BASH: Thank you so much for being here.
DUFFY: Thank you.
BASH: This is -- it's obviously just starting and it is buckle up, I think, when we see this policy, never mind technology.
Coming up, speaking of buckling up, President Trump scored the hottest ticket in America tonight. How do Knicks fans and Knicks nation feel? Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:50:42]
BASH: Tonight, everyone wants to be a part of it, including President Trump. The NBA Finals returns to Manhattan for the first time in nearly 30 years. President Trump, a native New Yorker and Knicks fan, will be there. The scene outside Madison Square Garden after the Knicks' first two wins, electric.
Win or lose for the Knicks and applause or booze for the President, it will be a thrilling night here in New York and a familiar setting for the President.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is your good friend Donald Trump?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, Donald. Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I guess he's find us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What does it say, walk on?
TRUMP: I love this game, and if you don't, you're a fired.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: OK. I have to say that, you know, obviously New York always has a sense of electricity. Nothing like it feels right now. And can we also just this -- you claim that this was an accident, my friends, but if we can see the bookend colors on this set.
PAZMINO: I will say I'm wearing it proudly.
BASH: OK. You are a Texan, so we're --
LIVINGSTON: Portrait malfunction.
BASH: We have -- we --
LIVINGSTON: I have to clarify that thin --
BASH: We're going to have words, or you're going to have words. Gloria, you spoke to a bunch of fans outside Madison Square Garden last night. Let's listen to some.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I think people should still come out. I don't really think Trump should even be here, to be honest with you. He doesn't really claim himself as a New Yorker.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've been waiting for this for like how long? And, you know, a lot of people can't afford to get into the game. I'm one of those people. So I was actually looking forward to going to one of these watch parties, and now I can't.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He doesn't live here, and he's kind of pooped on us for a while. And, you know, so like, I think this is our time, and he's distracting from our time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: That was so un-New York to clean that board up and say poop.
PAZMINO: It was very nice of him to say.
BASH: It was very nice.
PAZMINO: So that we could put it on television. But, you know, there is no area in New York like being outside of Madison Square Garden after a Knicks game, never mind a finals game. As you said, the atmosphere in the city for the past few days has been just electric.
You know, people are so excited. I would even say that everyone is being a little bit nicer. We're all a little bit happier. We're being kinder to each other. But there was a lot of folks that I spoke to yesterday who were not so thrilled that the President's going to be in town for this one because it's going to mean, you know, there's going to be this massive security presence.
The watch party's been canceled for tonight. So people who cannot get into the garden can't go to the watch party. There'll be other watch parties around the city. But I do think that, you know, it's going to be a very different kind of vibe inside the garden.
You know, the energy, I think, will be on the game, on the Knicks. I think that's what true Knicks fans will be focused on. A lot of New Yorkers will be focused on.
And we'll see what reception the President gets in that arena tonight. He is a New Yorker, but he is not a very popular or beloved New Yorker.
BASH: Well, and you can feel it. I mean, we're not that far from Madison Square Garden right now. You can already feel not just the excitement, but the security intensifying. Understandably, he's the President of the United States.
He's not the only high profile political figure who's going. The mayor of New York City is going. Listen to what Zohran Mamdani said this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), NEW YORK: I bought my tickets for nearly $1 from Madison Square Garden. I'll be going to tonight's game three and I'll be standing for the duration of the game.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: Standing room only $1.
LIVINGSTON: It's incredible. And, you know, I was on Instagram earlier and there were there were reels that came upon my feed that were encouraging people how to boo inside of this. This is his hometown. So I think Madison Square is going to be absolutely lit tonight as both a sporting event and a political event.
BASH: Go ahead.
GOLDMACHER: I'm so excited to be on TV talking about sports. This is about time. No, I mean, I have two kids and my older son was sorting through his M&M's this weekend and pulling out the blue and the oranges like these are Knicks colors and we're making Sundays. So even if he's not a Knicks fan growing up, he's becoming one all of a sudden.
BASH: And just going back to Donald Trump, we mentioned that he is a Knicks fan and has been. And we went into the vault and found some photos of the President here back -- wait, is that Elliott Gould -- with Marla Maples? There you see he's with with Melania, Howard Stern, Bill O'Reilly.
[12:55:02]
I also want to go even further. If we go back to 1999. Yes, that's President Trump or then just Donald Trump with JFK Jr.
PAZMINO: I mean, look, this is going to be an iconic night. That was an iconic night. The last time that the Knicks were in the finals, 1999, the Knicks draw some of the biggest celebrities in New York. You know, Spike Lee has been going to these games for longer than I've been alive, waiting for the big one. He might finally get it.
This is as New York as it gets. And I think, you know, to your point about sports and politics, I think, you know, in this time that we're living in, we see that often sports can become extremely political. And I think we might see some of that in -- on display tonight because it is the garden because it is New York. And people's emotions are running high about the President's visit, about the game and about where we are right now.
BASH: All right. Well, it's very exciting regardless. Thank you so much. And you're definitely going to have phone calls from Texas.
PAZMINO: I am.
BASH: Thank you so much for joining Inside Politics. CNN News Central starts after a break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
