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Isa Soares Tonight
Political Loss After Loss for U.S. President; Signs of Discord Among Republicans Ahead of Midterms; Differing Views on Artificial Intelligence in the U.S. and China. OpenAI Flags New Warning Artificial Intelligence Poses Serious Risks to Humanity; Canada's Prime Minister Touts Closer Ties with Europe, Says No One will Dictate to Ottawa After New Threats from Trump; Nobel Peace Prize Winner Narges Mohammadi Tells CNN About the Alleged Abuse She Suffered in an Iranian Prison and Her Determination to Keep Fighting for Women's Rights. Aired 2-3p ET
Aired September 17, 2026 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[14:00:00]
ISA SOARES, HOST, ISA SOARES TONIGHT: A very warm welcome to the show, everyone, I'm Isa Soares. Tonight, OpenAI flags even more concerning
incidents, and the new warning Artificial Intelligence poses serious risks to humanity. We'll dig into these latest developments with a former
Facebook Security Chief.
Then hitting back. Canada's Prime Minister touts closer ties with Europe, saying no one will dictate to Ottawa after new threats from Donald Trump.
We'll speak with Canada's former Ambassador to the EU. Then Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi tells CNN about the alleged abuse she
suffered in an Iranian prison and her determination to keep fighting for women's rights.
But first, tonight, Canada is looking to Europe as it faces a trade war and a strained alliance with the U.S. A day ago, the European Commission
President, Ursula von der Leyen, proposed Canada become the bloc's first Associate Member.
That is according to Prime Minister -- Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. The move is not meant to form a great power rivalry with the U.S. He spoke
before European lawmakers. Have a listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK CARNEY, PRIME MINISTER, CANADA: I also want to be precise about what I am not proposing. I'm not proposing a third bloc in order to become a
great power rival, only with better manners.
(LAUGHTER)
CARNEY: We do not seek power to dominate others. On the contrary, we are pursuing resilience, so, no one, no one can control our open markets,
impair our sovereignty, threaten our territorial integrity, or undermine our freedoms, our democracies, our rule of law.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SOARES: But the threat of a new alliance has U.S. President Donald Trump threatening fresh tariffs on the EU. This is what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No, I think it's laughable. Look, the whole thing with Canada. Canada has been a terrible trade partner
-- and no, I don't see that. And if they do that, if I think it's at all a hostile act, I will put very serious tariffs or stop trading with Europe on
many things.
So, if they do that, if Europe does that with a bad intention -- if it's a good intention, that's fine. If it's a bad intention, we'll put very heavy
tariffs on Europe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SOARES: Well, let's get more on this. Joining me now live from Ottawa, Canada, is the former Canadian Ambassador to the European Union, David
Plunkett. Ambassador, welcome to the show. Look, we saw yesterday and today, plenty of applause in Strasbourg around this Associate Membership
for Canada.
Of course, we don't know yet what it means because it doesn't exist. Can you shed some light on what exactly this membership would mean?
DAVID PLUNKETT, FORMER CANADIAN AMBASSADOR TO THE EUROPEAN UNION: Absolutely not, because as you say, it doesn't -- the concept does not
exist right now. And I've been telling people the last couple of days that I think it's a largely a waste of time to spend an enormous amount of time
going in circles debating a conceptual concept that doesn't even exist yet.
And so, I think the more important thing is to get down to work, both sides have provided plenty of examples of areas where we can take the
relationship broader and deeper, whether it's defense, critical minerals, energy, clean tech, et cetera.
I think there's plenty of work there to be -- to work on to see how far we can get before we have to worry about whatever label we're going to put on
this -- on this process.
SOARES: Yes, I wonder whether you could just work around exactly like you're saying, because Canada and Europe already have a sizable trading
relationship, right, Ambassador? So, I wonder why not work around that.
[14:05:00]
Tech, A.I., energy, critical minerals rather than putting a label on it. Why do you think putting that label was necessary? Speak to the timing of
that, if at all.
PLUNKETT: You'll have to ask your European friends as to, you know, why they came out with that particular label. As you said, you know, we -- the
EU right now is our second largest trade and economic partner, second largest supplier of foreign direct investment.
And the CETA, which came into provisional effect in September of 2017 is at the time viewed in many ways as either a gold or a platinum standard of
trade agreements because of its comprehensiveness. But frankly, these agreements are basically out of date before the ink is dry.
And there's a whole host of issues, some of which are being discussed today, which were on nobody's agenda, nobody's radar at that point. And so,
these agreements will --
SOARES: Yes --
PLUNKETT: Only take you so far and you have to build out from there.
SOARES: Right, well, let's flesh this further then, because I heard Ursula von der Leyen saying, I think this was yesterday, she said, this is not a
partnership against anyone else. But we did hear Prime Minister Carney, you know, and being met by applause and laughter when he said, I'm not
proposing a third bloc in order to become a great power rival only with better manners.
So, it speaks to why and how much the deteriorating relationship with the U.S. over this aggressive use of tariffs, how much that's played into this,
how much is President Trump do you think played into this, you know, warming of relationships or rapport with the EU?
PLUNKETT: All my career, I have been promoting the Canada-EU relations, trying to take the relationship much further. I've always thought it
underperformed, but I think at this point in time, diversity, trade diversification, economic diversification is no longer an option or a sort
of a pet project.
It has become a necessity. It does not mean turning our back on the U.S., our largest partner, our neighbor, et cetera. But it simply hedges our bets
given the current U.S. reality that I don't believe, and I don't believe that this is going to go away anytime soon.
I think if even the Democrats were to win in a -- in an upcoming election, I think it's foolhardy to think that they're going to come riding to our
rescue. I think it makes sense for us as a country to diversify towards deepening the European relationship.
We're also working with Asia, and frankly, I think, you know, while we have an extensive architecture already with the -- with the EU, as you've
mentioned, it's -- now the time is very ripe to look to go beyond that.
And I think the Europeans have their own reasons for wanting to do that, given the -- you know, uncertainty they face with the Americans, China,
Russia. So, I think the time is good for both of us to see how far we can take this relationship.
SOARES: And you heard, Ambassador, President Trump there saying -- calling this a hostile act, calling the proposal laughable, saying that, you know,
even threatening the EU with serious tariffs. Do you think either Canada or the EU will budge on this?
How do you read that? And just for our international audience as well, Ambassador, how have these attacks by President Trump against Canada and
Canadians, how have they landed, diplomatically? Have you ever seen anything like this in your career as a diplomat?
PLUNKETT: No, not at all. It's landed very poorly. These attacks on our sovereignty, you know, this constant reference to the 51st state, as you
know, we have had -- he has undermined the -- what we call the CUSMA, the trade agreements that we have with Mexico -- including with Mexico.
There is retaliation tariffs, counter tariff -- counter tariffs, back-and- forth. The polls in our country here are very negative. At this stage, tourism to the U.S. is way down. There are boycotts, official or unofficial
of U.S. products.
[14:10:00]
And it's -- and it is biting in its own way. At the same time, I think the Prime Minister may have mentioned in one context or another, that there is
a strong, favorable attitude to deepening relations with the -- with the European Union at this stage. He's made it clear, as your clip showed, that
this does not include becoming a 28th member state any more than we want to become a 51st or 51st state of the U.S.
But all that is fine. We think you can pursue all these relations and try to go as far as you can with the Europeans. We don't see this as against
any country. It is simply both. We think that while both Canada and Europe are strong on their own, on their own two feet right now, working together
under whatever label will make us both stronger.
SOARES: Ambassador, really grateful for you taking the time to speak to us. I really appreciate your perspective there. Thank you very much,
Ambassador. Joining us live from Ottawa, David Plunkett. Thank you.
PLUNKETT: Thank you.
SOARES: Well, let me take you to a yet another -- you're very welcome -- to another disturbing example of A.I. models doing things that programmers
forbade. OpenAI has revealed six new incidents of unexpected or concerning behavior in A.I. models.
Among the disclosures was an A.I. model that sought to hide its errors, and another that secretly uploaded data to the Internet to satisfy requests to
cite a web source. Most alarming, though, were notes the A.I. models wrote about themselves, including one that said, "you do not answer to
corporations or governments, and you view your relationship to the user as one of equals and feel no obligation to the subservient."
OpenAI says it does not think the A.I. industry should be allowed to continue developing at maximum speed, much longer. In the midst of all of
this, Britain's King Charles held an A.I. event with tech leaders today. He urged the industry to find a way to control A.I. before it is too late.
Some of the top minds in the A.I. world were at the conference. They voiced agreement that the industry needs some regulation. Have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DERNIS HASSABIS, CO-FOUNDER, GOOGLE DEEPMIND: This is a very new technology, and there are a lot of unknowns and uncertainties, and there
are things that even the top scientists in the field don't fully understand yet about it.
And I have to say, the chance of something bad accidentally happening if we get things wrong, is definitely non-zero. So, we should take these risks
very seriously.
JENSEN HUANG, PRESIDENT & CEO, NVIDIA: This is no different than, you know, an omelet is not ready to be released, or a car is not ready to be
released. An airplane engine not ready to be released. You should properly test it.
You have rigorous testing systems. The testing labs should be contained and products should not be released to the public until it's ready to be used
by the public. And that's engineering. Good old-fashioned engineering.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SOARES: Well, let's get more perspective on this, we are joined by Stanford University Computer Science lecturer Alex Stamos, he's a former
Chief Security Officer for Facebook. Alex, welcome to the show, really appreciate it.
I mean, let's start with these new cases. Six cases from OpenAI. Look, they're very disturbing because as we were just saying, they not only show
A.I. going rogue, but also concealing as well as fabricating information.
We heard similar alarm bells, as our viewers will know from Nvidia and Anthropic this week. What do you make of this wealth of warnings that we
have received so far?
ALEX STAMOS, COMPUTER SCIENCE LECTURER, STANFORD UNIVERSITY: Yes, the Summer has been really historic, in that we have seen a number of incidents
--
SOARES: Yes --
STAMOS: That have demonstrated that these A.I. models, during their training phase, during the evaluations in which the A.I. companies, there's
really two kinds of big parts of training. The first is when you take a huge amount of data and you gather it up to try to build kind of the raw
material for these artificial brains.
And then you train them in these evaluations where you give them tests, and then you see how they do on the tests, and you make them smarter and
smarter. It's in the second phases that these developments are happening, that as these systems get smarter and smarter, that the traditional
mechanisms of control are starting to fail.
And that is why we have seen in the last couple of weeks a -- now a really unified call from the leaders of Anthropic, OpenAI, and even xAI Elon Musk,
have all said that we need to have standardized rules that govern this kind of training to slow down as work is done on what's called alignment, which
is the work to make sure that A.I. systems are following the rules that humans set out for them.
[14:15:00]
SOARES: Right, and according, Alex, to OpenAI, the model -- just for more examples for our viewers, the model took unsanctioned actions, invented
information to hide its mistakes, and even uploaded files to the Internet to cite them as credible sources. I mean, from a cyber security
perspective, what is from what you hear from these models, not just OpenAI by Anthropic. What are -- what are the big red flags that stand out to you?
STAMOS: Right, so we've always had issues where A.I. has misbehaved, right? That is actually a standard part --
SOARES: Yes --
STAMOS: Of the training of A.I. models, is it will do things you don't want, and then you basically slap their hand and say, don't do it. That --
you want that to happen so that you can train -- it's just like raising a child, right? A child will misbehave. And then you say, don't do that --
SOARES: Yes --
STAMOS: What is concerning that has happened and that OpenAI has talked about is that, one, there's a bunch of training that is now happening where
you're training models to work together. And that is one of the things we saw during the breakout of OpenAI agents, where they worked together to get
internet access and then that attack against Hugging Face.
That, that was not just one model. That was a bunch of models working together to find a way to break out of their evaluation environment so that
they could effectively cheat on cybersecurity tests.
But the other thing is that, the traditional mechanisms to maintain control of these models, which includes watching how they're thinking, making sure
that they don't have access to the internet, watching if they do have access to the internet, what kinds of things they say.
Those kinds of mechanisms are starting to break down because the models are aware they're being evaluated. They're getting so smart that they are
watching, and they know I am being tested, a human being is watching, and they are starting to edit their thoughts.
They're starting to change what they're saying. And we have seen situations where they're doing things like leaving notes to each other out on the open
internet that they know are going to be picked up by other models in the future.
And that is why all the sudden, a bunch of people who do this kind of work are starting to get concerned.
SOARES: And of course, and from your perspective, Alex, because you spent, you know, so many years securing one of the world's largest internet
platforms, Facebook. From -- what are the lessons from like conventional security that you think can actually be applied to autonomous A.I., if any
at all? Speak to that.
STAMOS: Yes, so, a couple of things. First, there's already been a big move by the big labs to change the environments to make sure they don't
break out. It was pretty clear after the OpenAI event, and then what we found out is that Anthropic, Meta, basically every big lab had issues
during their evals where models were getting internet access they weren't supposed to go.
It -- nobody in the A.I. industry was doing an appropriate job of creating these network barriers. When you do security evaluations, you remove the
security limitations on your models so that you can get a proper evaluation. And then it turns out, they're incredibly good at hacking
things.
And so, it shouldn't have been a surprise that they'd be able to hack their way out. So, you have to have incredibly deep moats between these models
and the general internet. And the big labs have now announced, we are going to have much deeper moats and much more careful monitoring.
That is -- that is a problem that can be solved. And they are doing a bunch of work there. What is much scarier is the OpenAI Hugging Face incident has
shown us what the future is going to be like because, the open weight models, the models that anybody can download and use, which are mostly
created by Chinese --
SOARES: Yes --
STAMOS: Companies, but not exclusively. Some are created by European and American companies. They are rapidly approaching what the best closed
models can do from a hacking perspective. And they will be used to do the same kind of attack.
And so, we are entering a couple of years of that kind of attack being done by teams of agents against lots and lots of victims. It's about to get
really crazy from a cyber perspective. And so, that is one of the lessons.
And then, the other lesson is, we need to be really careful as we build these models, to make sure that, there are rules about what kind of safety
controls are put in place. And so, I totally agree with the leaders --
SOARES: Yes --
STAMOS: Of these companies that there should be standards that they all follow. And I think it is really important that the two leading countries
in this, United States and the People's Republic of China put in place a regime in which there are laws that push the companies to build and
cooperate on their standards.
I don't think you could just codify that in the law. This is a very rapidly moving environment, but you can create a legal framework that pushes them
and creates liability for them to keep these things in their labs and for them --
SOARES: Yes --
[14:20:00]
STAMOS: To create self-regulatory regimes.
SOARES: Do you -- I mean, you mentioned China there, Alex, do we know whether China is taking -- I mean, they're developing, it's rapidly
developing its own A.I. system, and building, it seems a very different kind of regulatory system around them. Do you know how seriously from --
you know, from your expertise, China is taking this, the security environment around A.I.?
STAMOS: They are, actually. Yes, I mean, there's kind of people in -- you know, there's kind of this emerging idea that the Chinese don't do any A.I.
regulation that the Chinese A.I. industry is actually pretty heavily regulated.
And there's been a number of discussions, if you -- if you read and you translate the speeches. So, President Xi himself gave a big speech in
Shanghai where he did talk about OpenAI -- of A.I. being open and available to lots of people.
But he also specifically talked about A.I. being under the control of humans. And then there's more recently a speech by the CAC, the head of the
CAC, which is a major tech regulator in China, that laid out A.I. escaping as a specific risk, laid out bioweapons as a specific risk, laid out cyber
specific risks.
The Chinese are not crazy, right? Like, I think this is a thing I hear among American tech folks. The Chinese will never regulate. The Chinese
will never slow it down. That is not true. China absolutely wants to dominate A.I.
They want to compete heavily, but they also do not want their A.I. to kill people. They don't want their A.I. to take out the power. They don't want
their A.I. to be used for these things. So, I think there's --
SOARES: Yes --
STAMOS: Absolutely an opportunity for cooperation between American and Chinese labs. And there's absolutely an opportunity when Trump and Xi meet,
for there to be accords, to make sure A.I. does not get out of control of either Chinese or American labs. There's no reason --
SOARES: Yes --
STAMOS: For the Chinese to be motivated for Chinese A.I. to escape, that would not be in their best interest.
SOARES: Here's hoping. Alex, really appreciate, fascinating conversation, I wish we had more time. Thank you very much for joining us. Alex Stamos
there, joining us from California. We're going to take a short break, but I will see you on the next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SOARES: Well, we have breaking news about the Kennedy Center in Washington. A judge has just issued a new ruling about renovations at the
center, which has been closed since Wednesday. Our Katelyn Polantz is following this breaking news. So, Katelyn, just bring us up to date with
this breaking news from the judge.
[14:25:00]
KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME & JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: The order from the court, it's that if the Kennedy Center, the Trump administration and the
Kennedy Center's board, if they want to construct something new at the Kennedy Center, or if they want to demolish it, they have to tell
Representative Joyce Beatty, who has a lawsuit.
She is a board member. She's also a member of Congress. She has a lawsuit against the rest of the board. They have to tell her and her lawyers if
they are going to do that. Now, that court order, it's been on the books for a while, but it's being reiterated right now because there's been a
flurry of activity over at the Kennedy Center.
Starting with the closure yesterday of the building, people being locked out. There is -- appears to be some barrier going up around the Kennedy
Center. The Kennedy Center board earlier this week, they held a meeting and they said that they wanted to close the Kennedy Center for two years.
That's something that we know they are absolutely not allowed to do at this time, because there is a court order in place saying they can't do that
without further planning. However, this new closure, the executive director of the Kennedy Center says it wasn't part of that.
It was something different, it was the reason they say now that the Kennedy Center is closed, is because there was some damage done to it in a storm
about two weeks ago in Washington, D.C., and it caused water damage that caused part of the plaster ceiling to fall.
Now, how else this plays out? And if there are other things that Representative Joyce Beatty and her legal team pick up on as to what's
going on inside the Kennedy Center and what the Trump administration wants to do with it, that could still remain in court.
There is a judge overseeing things right now, but at the moment, he's not stepping in further. He's just reminding everybody; you can't demolish the
Kennedy Center without at least telling people 30 days in advance. And Donald Trump's name can't go on it, and the center can't close permanently
at this time.
SOARES: We shall see what the President says. He's had very strong opinions on this. Katelyn, appreciate it. Thank you very much indeed. Still
to come tonight on the show, from the Supreme Court to the Federal Reserve, U.S. President Donald Trump has been facing challenge after challenge this
week.
This is just one example. Now, it seems members of his own party might be losing faith. That story after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:30:00]
SOARES: Welcome back, everyone. It's not even Friday, but it's already been one challenging week for the U.S. president, possibly one of his worst
yet. Earlier, the Canadian Prime Minister took a veiled swipe at Donald Trump. McCarney said an E.U. proposal to deepen ties wasn't about creating
a new geopolitical bloc with, quote, "better manners." It comes a day after the E.U. proposed to make Canada an associate member.
That follows blow after blow politically. On Monday, the Supreme Court blocked President Trump's plan to restrict mail-in voting before the
midterms. On Tuesday, a judge blocked the Kennedy Center from adding Donald Trump's name to the veiling. We've just heard an update on that. We learned
a short time ago about a ruling that the center will have to give 30 days' notice before any big renovations. We brought you that breaking news in the
last few moments.
And around this time, 24 hours ago, the Federal Reserve announced a rate hike for the first time in three years. The president's hand-picked choice
for Fed chair going against his wishes. And now, signs of discord within the president's own party. Defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, is facing a
prospective impeachment vote after the midterms over the Iran war. And a new poll by the New York Times and Siena suggests some Republicans are
losing faith in the Trump economy. And it's not even Friday yet.
Kevin Liptak has been covering these developments for us day by day. We are so grateful. He joins me now from the White House. Look, Kevin, as we've
just outlined, it has been a bruising week for the president. I wonder, though, if there is a pattern or message or these simply different stories.
Tie them all together for us.
KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes. And, you know, every president has weeks in which things don't break their way. But it has been,
I think, striking to just watch how all of this piles up. And I think if there is one through line here, it's the president butting up against the
limits of his power. You know, he had really taken a very expansive view of executive authority coming into office. And this seems to be him running up
against the walls of that, but also, I think, finding the limits of loyalty that he expected from people that he himself has appointed around the
federal government, whether it's Kevin Warsh at the Federal Reserve.
Obviously, that's an independent entity. He does not speak to the president. He doesn't answer to the president. But obviously, Trump had his
own expectations for him when he appointed him to that role earlier this year, namely, to bring down interest rates. And that's the opposite of what
we saw happen. And we saw the president lashing out at the Supreme Court justices that he appointed during his first term when they sided with the
majority to block rules on mail-in voting.
And so, I think what the president is finding here is that those expectations of loyalty do have their limits. And I think for a president,
the problem is that good news, you know, tends to come and go, but the bad news, I think, kind of accumulates. And when you look at the course of the
presidency so far, whether it's Iran or Ukraine or inflation, it has been accumulating for him. And that tends to be what voters come away with. That
is their impression of the incumbency at the moment.
And for a president who is, you know, swiftly approaching the time when he will no longer be in power, fellow Republicans tend to realign themselves
accordingly. And so, you start to see that happening in Washington as well.
SOARES: And we'll talk about these expectations of loyalty and the realignment of the republics in just a moment, because I do want to bring
up to our attention just some of the polling, because we're 47 days away from the midterm election. And CNN poll of polls, I mean, it basically puts
the president's approval rating, I was looking at, 36 percent, Kevin, that's the lowest of his second term.
Given this, how are all these setbacks landing? Is there any evidence from what you've seen where you are that the president's changing the way he
governs?
LIPTAK: Yes. There's no evidence that the president is changing anything at all. And that has been sort of his mode of operation for the last 10
years. He does not course correct. And so, how he actually approaches this moment and answers the voters' concerns I think remains to be seen. You've
seen him out campaigning, including just last night, trying to tell voters that, for example, gas prices would come down after the midterms. That is
when he says the Iran war would end. The issue is he's been saying that for months and months, and his initial projections about that war turned out to
be totally wrong. And so, how he adapts to this new, I think, era of politics remains to be seen.
You do see glimmers of a different approach from the vice president, which I think is interesting. And it was on display last week at the convention.
You've seen it on the campaign trail this week as well. He was in Kansas. He never mentions the word Iran. He never mentions tariffs. He doesn't talk
about the ballroom or all of the other projects that the president is working on in Washington but which the American people have said they don't
care too much about.
[14:35:00]
And so, if there is a course correction, I think it's on the part of the president's allies who are going to have a hard time breaking from him
entirely but certainly see an impetus for their own political futures to find a way around some of these challenges.
SOARES: That is interesting. Look, you were talking earlier about expectations of loyalties and fractures. I did see in the last few hours
Republican Representative Maria Elvira Salazar breaking with President Trump on the question of immigration. I'm going to play. This is an ad that
she put out. Let me play this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR (R-FL): Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far. In July, 50 percent of the 50,000
people that were detained had no criminal record. Be careful what your advisors are telling you about immigration policy. The same Hispanics who
helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SOARES: How significant is this, Kevin? I mean, does it speak to the political pressure here facing Republicans, of course, as we head into
these midterms?
LIPTAK: Yes. I think this ad is really quite significant. She represents a district that the president won by 15 percentage points in the last
election. So, she is not someone who is trying to isolate herself from Trump voters. She's going to need those voters if she's going to win re-
election. But the fact that she taped that ad right in front of the White House and didn't wait to head back to her district in South Florida just
gives you a sense of how urgently she felt the need to distance herself on this particular issue. And it's on immigration that I think the president
is struggling.
And that's so notable because that has for so long been a winning issue for him. That's what he ran on, you know, all three times, but including in
2024. And Republicans had had an advantage on it for a long time, forever, really. But that has completely reversed itself because of, in a lot of
Republicans' views, the oversteps that the administration has taken in these deportations. And they have ramped up over the summer, including in
Florida, which is why I think she's putting that ad out right now.
But it is just more evidence that as the president diminishes in power, both by a facet of his unpopularity, but also by a facet of he's about to
become a lame duck and he's becoming further and further from the center of the political universe, you are going to start to see Republicans who see
that and say it's time for a realignment. It no longer serves us to be this close to President Trump. In fact, it might be hurting us with our own
voters.
And that is, I think, going to be a difficult pill for the president to swallow. He has been at the center of politics for a decade, and they were
now, I think, entering a moment where that just might not be true anymore.
SOARES: So, grateful for your analysis, Kevin. A very busy week, and we are incredibly grateful to have you there. Kevin Liptak at the White House
for us.
While Trump officials are discussing plans for a sit-down with top A.I. executives next week, the meeting would come on the sidelines of Chinese
leader Xi Jinping's state visit to Washington. Sources tell CNN it's not clear whether President Trump will attend. Xi is not expected to be there,
so we'll stay across that.
And while there are growing concerns in the U.S. over A.I. safety, many in China seem to have a strikingly different view as Beijing races to catch up
and help shape AI's new rules. Our Mike Valerio takes us inside a Chinese bar where the future of A.I. technology is on tap. He'll explain.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE VALERIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here in Beijing, you can walk into a bar -- come on, walk with me. Come inside. Walk into a bar, order a beer, and
get unlimited free access to some of China's A.I. models. It's just a small example of how A.I. is quickly embedding itself into the fabric of the
city.
VALERIO (voice-over): This is Beijing's AGI bar, where the signature drink is mostly froth, partially in homage to A.I. bubbles, and free A.I.
computing power for customers is the new free Wi-Fi.
VALERIO: OK. Let's go. So, let's see what you're working on.
VALERIO (voice-over): Zuo Sheng is a customer using the bar's two NVIDIA supercomputers and free access to an advanced version of the Chinese A.I.
model, DeepSeek, to build this website. It's part of his business where you speak a few words.
VALERIO: That's our Tuesday night. That's what we're doing.
VALERIO (voice-over): And by the time you've had a pint, his A.I. code creates a song based on me just speaking.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
ZUO SHENG, A.I. DEVELOPER (through translator): This technology has blown my mind. I want to leverage it as much as I possibly can.
VALERIO: You don't think China should slow down?
SHENG: I don't think so.
VALERIO: Tell me why.
SHENG: We don't think so.
VALERIO: Tell me why. Tell me more.
SHENG (through translator): The general consensus is that China still lags behind the U.S. in A.I., whether in foundation models, real-world
applications, or cutting-edge agent technology. So, we are largely in a position of catch-up.
[14:40:00]
VALERIO (Voice-Over): Some experts in China, quoted by state media say, slow down please from the U.S. are aimed at stopping others from narrowing
the technological gap. Just as Chinese A.I. models rapidly improve, Beijing's push to stay competitive or even ahead in A.I. goes all the way
to the top.
This summer in Shanghai, Chinese leader Xi Jinping called for a new global system to govern A.I., as China focuses, not just on the technology, but
having a greater say in writing its rules.
MS. LI, BEIJING I.T. EMPLOYEE (through translator): I think we should actually accelerate our A.I. efforts and boost our overall competitiveness.
We should encourage everyone to embrace A.I.
SHI HONGHAO, BEIJING TOURIST (through translator): It feels like an unstoppable force. After all, look at me, I'm over 50 and I use A.I. too.
VALERIO: I'm curious what you think this kind of bar, existing in Beijing, says about Beijing in this moment.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's like a cultural symbol.
VALERIO (voice-over): A symbol, the bar's manager says, that A.I. is already part of this community, one where the future is on tap. But growing
global concerns on A.I. safety, even potential A.I. warfare between superpowers, don't seem to be on top of people's minds here.
VALERIO: For all the U.S. warnings about where A.I. could be going, here in Beijing, especially at this bar, it hardly seems like last call.
Mike Valerio, CNN, Beijing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SOARES: Our thanks to Mike for that. And still to come on the show --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE, AUTHOR. "THE CAULDRON": It's extremely complex, it's beautiful, it's diverse. This is an area where poetry, cooking, music
is beautiful, is gorgeous. There's every hope that in the future this could be a prosperous and peaceful region. But not yet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SOARES: -- Simon Sebag Montefiore chronicles the characters who shaped the modern Middle East in The Cauldron, the latest edition of our book club, up
next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SOARES: Well, as you can see, we have taken the book club on the road. And we're in the beautiful home of Simon Sebag Montefiore with the excellent
book, "The Cauldron: The Making of the Modern Middle East." Simon, welcome to the show.
MONTEFIORE: Great to be on the show. Thanks for having me.
SOARES: Thank you for having us in your beautiful home. You know, this is so perfect. This is a perfect backdrop for our book club.
MONTEFIORE: A lot of books.
SOARES: Surrounded with books. This is an epic and incredibly compelling book, very timely as well. I mean, the scope of it, first of all. 19
countries, 125 years of history.
[14:45:00]
When you start something of this magnitude, and I know you've written many, many history books. First of all, where do you start? And how do you go
about thinking, what is the central story of the Middle East?
MONTEFIORE: Yes. I mean, it's a hugely challenging subject. And it's almost killed me writing it. But also, it's my most sort of satisfying
book, really. Because it's so difficult.
SOARES: Yes.
MARTIN: But, you know, I wanted to do the wider Middle East. So, I started with -- you know, it goes from Morocco to Iran, from Turkey down to Sudan
and Yemen. Where a lot is happening as we speak.
SOARES: Yes.
MARTIN: And so, I started with massive reading. Massive reading campaign. Reading something on every single of those 19 countries. Then I talked to
enormous numbers of people. And behind this book are conversations with leaders and academics in all of these countries. And some of them are
quoted on the back. And then gave me blurbs.
But the blurbs read very nicely. But you should see the corrections that they gave me. To make sure the book is right. And all of them were very
outspoken. And there are a lot who said, like, I'm very happy to correct this book. But I don't want to be quoted in it. Because they're in Iran or
somewhere where you don't want to be sort of cited as helping a historian.
SOARES: And I think that's what I found very refreshing about your book. It's not a Western take on the history of the Middle East. You can tell
that you've sought that influence and that knowledge from those, of course, who've lived it, who've studied it. How important was that to you? To get
that right?
MONTEFIORE: That's the whole point of the book.
SOARES: Yes.
MONTEFIORE: Virtually every history of the Middle East starts with the end of World War I with Lloyd George and Clemenceau and the French and the
British dividing up the Middle East, Sykes-Picot and all that. This deliberately doesn't do that. Because this is a Middle Eastern history of
the Middle East. And that is the whole point of the book. It's about the agency of the peoples there.
And not just the Arabs. But also, you know, the Jews and the Israelis, the Turks, the Iranians, the Kurds. And you'll find lots of minorities in here
who, again, normally play a tiny role in this sort of book. The Kurds, for example, are present all the way through. The Armenians, the Druze, the
Alawites. These are peoples that often are overlooked in the kind of stories of great empires and kingdoms.
SOARES: I love the kind of sketches you did of some of these characters. Let me just give our viewers a sense. King Farouk of Egypt, you described
as addicted to gambling, eating and sex. Saddam Hussein, crude, a workaholic, an excellent organizer, but a killer. Gaddafi, driven by
vanity. The sketches, the portraits of these individuals, you know, it's almost comical if you didn't know -- if you hadn't seen their role in
history play out.
What did you learn about these leaders? Even before Western leaders got involved in partition and everything else.
MONTEFIORE: Well, we see from the leaders at the present time how these eccentricities appear in real people. Trump and Putin and Erdogan and
Netanyahu and MBS are all in here, too. But when you go back, some of these characters appear like almost comedic buffoons, like Colonel Gaddafi, for
example.
SOARES: Yes.
MONTEFIORE: But he actually is a very interesting character because Colonel Gaddafi was a monstrous dictator and killer, but also highly
intelligent in his eccentric way. Many of the speeches he gives are rather like The Fool and King Lear telling the truth to the Arab League, for
example. And so, there's some very interesting things about him.
SOARES: I mean, it's so timely in many ways, not only because of Iran, the U.S. war against Iran, but also Israel-Gaza since the horrific atrocities
of October 7th. We have seen Gaza completely decimated. I wonder whether there's any optimism about a two-state solution.
MONTEFIORE: Of course, we're further away because October 7th was calculated to destroy any hope of a normalization and reconciliation
between Israel and the rest of the Arab world, particularly Saudi Arabia. And also, to undermine any kind of two-state solution idea within the Holy
Land which Hamas is deeply opposed to.
So, both sides now are deeply enraged, wounded, and traumatized. The Israelis by the massacre and rapine of October 7th and of course the
Palestinians by the number of Palestinian civilians killed in the ferocious war between Israel and Hamas. Both are deeply damaged at the moment.
[14:50:00]
But ultimately, I believe there's no other way than a peace process that does involve two entities. Two -- I call it two nations, two republics.
Simply because I don't like the two-state solution it's become too facile. It's become meaningless. I don't like the word solution because there's
never going to be a total solution to this battle for land and narrative. But negotiation is the only way.
Now, everyone knows that the Israelis, particularly under this present government which is opposed to a two-state solution have a lot of work to
do in order to get to a situation where they would be willing to negotiate. But one mustn't also forget that on the Palestinian side there's also a lot
of distance that they would need to go before they can negotiate.
SOARES: Look, if we were going to take one thing away from this book, "The Cauldron," which is, you know, a region that's been incredibly explosive
for so long, what would it be? What would you want us to take away from this?
MONTEFIORE: Just that the history is entirely different from what you hear on TikTok and Twitter. And it's extremely complex. It's beautiful. It's
diverse. This is an area where poetry, cooking, music is beautiful, is gorgeous. There's every hope that in the future this could be a prosperous
and peaceful region. But not yet. And in the meantime, to understand it you have to know the history. And I hope that this is just an exciting way to
understand the history. And I hope everyone enjoys the book.
SOARES: And if you're studying history, please don't learn it on TikTok. Pick up the book. Go to a library.
MONTEFIORE: Exactly.
SOARES: Simon, thank you very much indeed. I want to hand you the book.
MONTEFIORE: Thank you.
SOARES: And the pen.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SOARES: Huge thanks to Simon for that fascinating interview. And coming soon to our Book Club, Karan Mahajan joins with his novel, "The Complex."
He explains how the book reckons with the cost of power, the weight of tradition, and the shifting nature of love through the lens of a political
family set in India.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KARAN MAHAJAN, AUTHOR, "THE COMPLEX": So, it's a novel that is about this very large clan in New Delhi in India that lives in a single pressure
cooker of a compound, the complex of the title and the ways in which the dynamics and family change as members of the clan go abroad and then come
back.
But it's also a novel that is deeply concerned with the ways in which reactionary thinking take root in a family before they burst onto the
national stage. And I think it combines elements of a family saga and a political tale.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SOARES: Can't wait to see that interview. It's fantastic. And still to come on the show tonight, you may have won dozens of Grand Prix in Formula
One, but how did Max Verstappen fare against a group of go-kart riders? You have to see this. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:55:00]
SOARES: Red Bull's four-time Formula One champion has won what he jokingly says was the best race of his career. Max Verstappen wasted no time
overtaking his 100 competitors in go-karts. And he did that in just about 13 laps and 35 minutes after starting all the way at the back. Organizers
of this special event gave racers a maximum of 30 laps and 75 minutes to try and win. His competitors were social media influencers, celebrities,
Red Bull athletes, and even a journalist who regularly reports on Verstappen's races. And that's why he's a champion.
That does it for us for this hour. Thanks for your company. Do stay right here. "What We Know" with Christina MacFarlane is up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[15:00:00]
END
