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Laura Coates Live
Midterm Convention Turns into Trump Show; Former Anthropic Researches Speaks Out on A.I.; Clancy Attorney Speaks Out. Aired 11p- 12a ET
Aired September 09, 2026 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[23:00:00]
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR AND SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Again, you can't take money from Americans and crash them and expect them to pat you on the back.
JOE BORELLI, FORMER REPUBLICAN LEADER AT NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL, MANAGING DIRECTOR AT CHARTWELL SECURITY GROUP: What part of what I said wasn't true. Democratic attorneys general sued the Trump administration and forced them to give money back to corporations who didn't already absorb it.
NEERA TANDEN, POLITICAL CONSULTANT, DEMOCRATIC THINK TANK, PRESIDENT AND CEO OF THE CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS, FORMER DOMESTIC POLICY ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: Were you happy that the money was going basically to foreigners or something?
PHILLIP: Let me just read this last one. Trump has always thought money talks, which is why he's throwing out those numbers right before an election.
All right, everyone. Thank you very much for watching "NewsNight." "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
LAURA COATES, CNN HOST AND SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Tonight, the GOP midterm convention turns into the Trump show, but will frustrated voters buy his pitch? Plus, the A.I. warning heard around the world. A former Anthropic researcher says A.I. could kill us all in the next decade. Is this the moment Congress takes action? And Lindsay Clancy's lawyer reveals his red line for a potential plea deal. Tonight on "Laura Coates Live."
My opening statement tonight, when your approval rating is stuck at historic lows, Americans are souring even on the issues that were supposed to be your strengths, and the other side's voters appear more amped up than yours, what's a president to do? Well, why not throw a two-day midterm pep rally?
We're looking at live pictures right here where President Trump just finished speaking, and there's YMCA playing. And for a GOP convention built around Trump, day one stuck to the formula boosting the president, trashing Democrats. No doubt, Trump knows, he knows the economy and the cost of living is top of mind for voters. He knows.
So, he spent part of his nearly two-hour-long speech talking up his record and talking down the problem Americans say they're feeling.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: This has been the most successful two years financially and every other way in the history of the presidency. They use the word "affordability," right? It's fake. They are so fake because it was them that caused the affordability, to use their word "crisis." And I'm bringing the prices way down, way, way down. They caused the price.
(APPLAUSE)
But we're fixing it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: Well, you know there's nothing fake about Americans being frustrated with high prices, but fixing it may take longer than Trump bargained for because the affordability, yes, it's a real world and real word problem, is directly tied to another problem, the war with Iran.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: By the way, oil will be going down as soon as we win the war with Iran, which is taking place right now.
(APPLAUSE)
We'll win it. We're winning it. We control the Hormuz strait. I think we should call the Hormuz strait -- we should call it the "Trump Strait." I should get something out of it.
(APPLAUSE)
The "Trump Strait."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: Trump now says that he expects the Iran war to end after the midterms and that gas prices won't fall until then, which put that original four to six-week timeline so far back in the rearview mirror that you can't even see it, because we're now in month seven. So, who knows what the president means by soon? I don't. But we did hear something tonight that Trump has been a lot more consistent about, his campaign script against Democrats.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Nobody knows that dumb has a "B" at the end of it. Most people think it's D-U-M, and that's fine. So, we take out the "E," we replace it with a "U," and they're Democrats because their policy is so bad. They have more bullshit than any human beings on the planet.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: Do people not know that dumb has a "B" at the end? Like, dumb-dumb is a lollipop. OK, I'm -- you know what? I went down the rabbit hole. But there was one Democrat who Republicans did not attack, and it was the one who introduced his Republican colleague in the Senate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN FETTERMAN (D), PENNSYLVANIA: Yes, I'm a Democrat. Why am I here talking to you today? Because, well, I'm a commonsense Democrat. I'm always going to stand with America. I'm always going to reject the extremes and socialism and that anti-American way of life. Dave McCormick is the kind of senator that gets the job done, and he's going to fight for Pennsylvania.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: You know, I've got an all-star panel to unpack all of these. I've got Democratic strategist Sawyer Hackett, political reporter Molly Ball, former RNC general counsel Alex Vogel, and advisory board member of the Renew Democracy Initiative, Rina Shah.
[23:05:05]
Glad to have all of you guys here. I'm not going to give anyone a spelling test because I'm going to make assumptions --
(LAUGHTER)
-- about all of you here at this table. Good ones, though. Let me start with you, Alex. Republicans came right out the gate, and they were talking about giving dark warnings about communism. You heard this. You probably knew it was coming as well. But is this the right tone to strike at this juncture at this point? What do you think?
ALEX VOGEL, FORMER GENERAL COUNSEL FOR RNC, FORMER CHIEF COUNSEL TO SENATE MAJORITY LEADER BILL FRIST: There are two things that the president and his team were trying to accomplish tonight. One, obviously, motivate base voters. I mean, that's what the president's speech tonight is all about. And the other is the contrast piece. And I think whether that was McCormick or others talking about, especially some of the more progressives and Democratic socialist nominees, and making the argument that those folks are out of touch. So, if those were the two goals, I think you can say they did a good job at pushing those. We'll see whether those were the goals that you need to win this election.
COATES: I always hear from strategists a big goal is getting the independent vote, you know, not just taking it and talking to the base. You don't want to preach the choir at all times. You know, is this -- if those were the objectives, Molly, do you think that the tone that was struck accomplishes getting those voters to see it his way?
MOLLY BALL, POLITICAL REPORTER AND AUTHOR, FORMER SENIOR REPORTER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: No, but independents are not going to watch a partisan convention, particularly in a midterm year. I just -- I just don't think that is the audience that they're trying to reach with this because the people who are going to tune in to an RNC- produced event in September of a midterm election year are going to be people who are probably already political junkies and probably already know which side they're on.
The question is just, as Alex was saying, are they motivated enough to go to the polls at a time when a lot of Republicans are not feeling very motivated and might very well prefer to stay on the couch come November than make the effort to go out and cast a vote, you know, for a president who is not himself on the ballot?
COATES: I mean, Fetterman, he made the effort, he got off the couch. Were you surprised to see him there? What's your reaction?
SAWYER HACKETT, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST, CONTENT CREATOR: Surprised, yes, but, you know, it is kind of giving pick-me energy, I think.
COATES: Oh, really? Pick-me for what?
HACKETT: I mean, pick a party at this point. He has seen a 120-point swing in his approval rating among Democrats in Pennsylvania, and I think it's for good reason. I mean, just this week, we saw a Wall Street Journal article say that John Fetterman, you know, refused to show up for a meeting with the Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania and refused to attend a funeral of three Pennsylvania police officers, and he has time to record a promo video for the Republican Party ahead of the midterms.
I don't really think that that's necessarily resonating. I watched that speech live, and I did not hear any sort of reaction from the crowd. I think, you know, it's kind of an unintelligible message that fell on deaf ears in that audience.
COATES: Is it a gift for Trump to have someone like Fetterman say that? I was also talking about he was distancing himself from the party's left wing, which has been part of the message that Republicans are speaking about.
RINA SHAH, ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER OF RENEW DEMOCRACY INITIATIVE, POLITICAL STRATEGIST AND COMMENTATOR, GEOPOLITICAL RISK ADVISER, FORMER SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL GOP ADVISER: Maybe in the very short term. But, again, this is not about what gifts are there for Trump. It is what gifts are there for the candidates who have an "R" next to their name. And I think that's what's being lost here because inventing this midterm convention, when I first heard about it, I actually thought it was a joke.
(LAUGHTER)
I thought, who would admit to being so weak this few weeks out from midterms? I think --
COATES: Oh, you see it as a weakness, by having the convention at all? SHAH: It is a weakness to hold this silly pep rally with a bunch of people that can afford to be there. The people who are there are backed up by corporate money. You know, for all the talking that Republicans do of being anti-elite, my gosh, that arena, it's not packed, by the way, but it is packed with the people who have the money to be there.
And it's not suburban women who are there, who are looking at the price of insurance and groceries. Mothers like me, who back to school this year, it was really, really jarring, to be honest. I also have friends in my own circle right outside D.C. that decided to forego summer vacations or summer camps for their kids because we're looking around and everybody is having sticker shock. Is that being addressed from this stage? Not at all. So, I don't think this is quite the gift they think it is.
COATES: Well, yes, but the notion of even summer camp does smack for many people in America as a luxury that was never on the table. But, to your larger point, if it's hurting people who otherwise would not view it as a luxury, the trickle-down effect means that the everyday person is struggling all the more.
VOGEL: I think we're overthinking this a little bit from a policy perspective.
COATES: That's what we do.
VOGEL: Typical midterm --
(LAUGHTER)
-- typical midterm turnout, you're talking 40-ish percent versus presidential 65. If the president can take two hours, I think it was two full hours and speak directly to his base voters, and if he can move that needle with those base voters a few points in the macro, yes, you're still going to allow the candidates who didn't want to be there or running in races where that's not going to help to go out and drive their message to persuadables around some of these issues. That's still a functional thing for them to do.
[23:10:01]
SHAH: I hear your point that this is about turnout, not conversion, but let's not forget the biggest political liability for Republicans right now is the ongoing Iran war, and I think that's the most complicating factor in all this.
A lot of people are being silent in MAGA town. And I know this on good account because I know these people. They are my friends. They do not like this war. They feel lied to. I feel lied to. I know people that were silent Trump voters for the second time saying, gosh, you know, Biden just said democracy all the time. He didn't address our daily cost of living. And now, this guy is really sinking our daily cost of living because they can't even fill up their gas tank.
COATES: I mean, he was pressed on rising oil and gas prices earlier today. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: Mr. President, you have been saying for weeks that oil and gas prices are going to come down. Oil is now back above a hundred dollars a barrel.
TRUMP: Yes.
UNKNOWN: How do you explain this to Americans who are wondering when prices are going to come down?
TRUMP: Well, I think it's very easy to explain to America. All you have to do is say, will you let Iran have a nuclear weapon? And the answer is no.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: Is it truly either or for voters?
BALL: I -- No, I don't think so. And I think that we've seen that bear out in the polls that show that the war is tremendously unpopular and people are not buying that that is, you know, enough of a reason.
And I think, look, there is a potential downside to this convention, which is, to your point, that even if the intended audience isn't those independent voters or even those soft Republican voters who've fallen away from the president, what we hear from them over and over in focus groups and polls and, you know, talking to people, regular voters, is that they don't think the president is focused on the right things.
And so, to the extent that an event like this underscores that he's obsessed with the things he's obsessed with, naming things primarily, it seems like, and that he doesn't think affordability is even something he ought to have to think about, right? And, you know, this idea that you blame the last president for whatever is bothering you is also something that presidents almost always try to do in the midterm. I've only been here less than two years, give me a break, it was his fault, I'm cleaning up the mess. Voters almost never buy it.
COATES: Except he was here before the last president, which might make a difference in the interruption of the success of the administration. I mean, how do Democrats seize this moment? Can they? I mean, are there voters who are looking at this and say, OK, they're angry with the mis, you know, prioritization by Trump, but are Democrats offering enough to get them to the polls?
HACKETT: I think Democratic candidates are, and that's what you're supposed to be doing in a midterm. It's supposed to be focused on the candidates who are running in their districts or their states. It's not supposed to be focused on the president of the United States, which --
COATES: But he wants to be on the ballot, an official form. HACKETT: And you know what? Democrats are looking at this midterm convention. It is a massive gift to every single Democrat running across the country because, right now, they are putting the focus on Donald Trump's toxic policies at a time when those toxic policies are the reason why so many of those candidates are losing in their races.
And there's a reason that they're having this convention in Texas. You know, to Molly's point earlier, I think Ken Paxton is only winning about 80 percent of Republican voters in Texas right now, and that is a very low number at this point in the race. And so, they have to be rallying that support from people like Trump so he can, you know, get up into the 90s with those Republicans.
Meanwhile, every Republican voter that they bring home to Paxton, they're losing independent voters by putting Trump front and center in Texas. It's not a good strategy.
COATES: Is that a concern?
VOGEL: Look, I think, again, if he can drive up the Republican base turnout enough, especially in a place like Texas where there are just a lot of Republicans, he can get past that.
On the war piece, I think there's a reason you have the president kind of coming back to first principles on this and really talking about the nuclear issue. A, that was the driver for the underlying conflict, number one. Number two, I think it's something that a lot of Americans, Democrats, Republicans, independents, all understand. And instead of a lot of the focus on the externalities and where we are on the strait on a given day, bringing it back to that conversation, I think, is a productive place for him to go.
COATES: Are you concerned that it would read very disingenuous and calculated to voters that the president said this would last a couple weeks and now, suddenly, after the election, everything will be better for Americans? I mean, for a voter, I would look at that and say, wait, is the timeline my vote and not what's happening to the troops or the real reason you say we're there?
SHAH: I call it the MAGA slip away. He doesn't realize how many have slipped away in this time. He said three to five weeks. We believed him. And now, here we sit in September, and you're telling me to stay patient until next year.
This is the thing. It has always been true that in the midterms, that the party that talks about cost and stability wins the electorate, and then the party that's sort of like who's clapping the loudest is going to win just the arena. Right? But this is so complicating because, first, at the top of this year, we had his disastrous trade policy, and just this past week, we were reminded with Canada.
But now, again, the war, his inability -- he just stopped talking nonsense about this trade. And to sort of reveal his lack of strategy with this war is just bringing everything back to the fact that this president lies.
[23:15:01]
He just continues to tell us to not believe what we hear and see, and that is where the MAGA slip away will become even more intense.
COATES: People said that before. He won twice.
VOGEL: One thing on the timing comment from the president today, I actually think what he was referring to is how long the Iranians can hold on, not some arbitrary, oh, we get to the election and this will all be resolved. I think what he was talking about is, especially now with the new economic pressure, the Iranians are definitely feeling that they're going to try and drive that up to the election, and at that point, they have no place to go.
HACKETT: But that's also --
COATES: You're right. He makes that point, but, go ahead.
HACKETT: But that's also a lie. I mean, he -- you know, I -- Donald Trump has been saying from the beginning of this war that the Iranians are on their heels, that this is only going to last a couple weeks, that they have 24 hours left. He promised $2 gasoline before he got into office, and gas has gone up a full dollar since he has taken office. He has made these promises along the way, and I think Americans -- I think Rina is right, people have seen through his lies at this point.
COATES: I'll give you the last word, Molly.
BALL: I would say it may not be technically a lie if it's just wishful thinking.
(LAUGHTER)
But I think --
HACKETT: Doing a lot of wishing.
BALL: But I think to Rina's point, what people -- what people now see as this war has ground on is just a president who doesn't know enough to make any promises because it's clearly not in his control.
COATES: Everyone gets a vote, including Iran. Thank you, everyone. Look, while the president asks voters to pretend he's on the ballot, he's actively trying to make sure he has control over who gets a ballot. The fight over his mail-in voting restrictions now firmly in the hands of the Supreme Court as states make one more push to stop it. My next guest has a lot riding on what happens now. Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold is with me in studio, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:20:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COATES: Democratic and Republican election officials are sounding the alarm on President Trump's plan to change mail-in voting. A coalition of states filed a brief today urging the Supreme Court to keep the ruling in place that stops those changes before the midterm elections. The DOJ must respond by tomorrow.
Meantime, President Trump tonight repeated his baseless claims about voter I.D. while calling out Democrats for refusing to support the Save America Act.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Now the only reason the Democrats are fighting us on voter I.D. And you know what the second is? Proof of citizenship. OK?
(APPLAUSE)
So, the only reason they're fighting us is because they want to cheat.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: I'm joined now by Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold. Colorado is one of the states that signed today's brief to the Supreme Court. Secretary, I'm going to get to the mail-in voting fight in just a moment, but respond to the president's claim that the only reason that you're opposed or Democrats are opposed to voter I.D. is because you want to cheat.
JENA GRISWOLD, COLORADO SECRETARY OF STATE: Absolutely false. And, by the way, he said Democrats opposed the Save Act. Republicans opposed the Save Act. It's not moving anywhere because Republicans in the Senate know it's disastrous. It would disenfranchise millions of American voters.
And I think another thing the president said tonight is really striking. Pretend that he's on the ballot. He's not on the ballot. But, OK, let's pretend. He clearly wants Americans to forget about how disastrous his presidency is. Trump's tariffs, gouging the middle class, higher gas, higher groceries, and non-ending war with Iran. Trump is on the ballot, and I think every American needs to understand that. He's going to do everything he can to suppress the vote and undermine the 26th election, but he is not succeeding, and he will not succeed.
COATES: If these rules -- I mean, some Democratic states, they filed this new brief. I know you signed on to him as well with the Supreme Court, and they have warned that the rules that he wants could make the midterm elections, here's the words, catastrophic, an unmitigated disaster. So, just tell me, if this goes through, what would be the impact on Coloradans? How would they vote? And we are, like, weeks away from the midterms, not years.
GRISWOLD: Fifty-five days away from Election Day. And to put it in perspective, ballots for overseas and military voters go out mid- September, and we start mailing ballots to active voters in Colorado on October 2nd, so in about three weeks. COATES: And they're printed long ago.
GRISWOLD: They're -- so, I just certified the ballot a couple days ago.
COATES: OK.
GRISWOLD: But the envelopes that the ballots go in are largely printed. We have to, the county clerks, have to urgently print now to make sure that they are ready to hit the mail stream. And I think, at the end of the day, a state like Colorado, we have in-person voting if someone chooses, but we mail a ballot to every active voter, and over 98 percent of voters chose to use their mail ballot last election. That includes Republican voters.
The election is already happening. The rules are set. And it would be extremely difficult to overhaul everything. And it would be, you know, it would be something that really would be a tremendous thing to do. With that said, we've been working on contingencies because we have an unhinged president in the White House for over a year at this point.
COATES: What contingency?
GRISWOLD: We've been working on contingencies with disruptions to mail service, with all the president's threats and MAGA threats around ICE. Around everything that your viewers are probably worried about, we're worried about it, too. We have a plan. That doesn't mean a contingency is the same thing as running our elections that we've refined year after year after year.
But I would say we are optimistic that the Supreme Court will stop this president and the postal service. But if they don't, there are election officials all over this country dedicated to making sure that every American has their voice heard, even if Donald Trump wants to mute those voices and silence the American people.
[23:25:06]
COATES: Another timeline on people's minds is the census. Normally, it's every 10 years. And, obviously, there's a move that Politico reports the administration wants to make and is making, and it's proposing excluding people in the country illegally from the census starting in 2030. It's also proposing banning asking about race or ethnicity from the census. You rely on the data, obviously. Every state does. How would this impact Colorado? How would it impact what you do as secretary of state?
GRISWOLD: So, I think there's a couple of impacts. Number one is just the redistricting, the makeup of Congress, the federal funds that would go to states. But I think the bigger picture is Donald Trump understands that MAGA is underwater, and he is growing more and more and more extreme, whether it's trying to suppress the vote through corrupt redistricting, threatening to use the census. He understands that he really needs to do anything he can to hold on to power, and the American people are not buying it.
COATES: Are you really optimistic that the Supreme Court of the United States would have states backs on this issue?
GRISWOLD: On the census issue?
COATES: On the census issue, on the mail-in ballot fight. I mean, they have -- they split the baby more than once.
GRISWOLD: Look, there's a multitude of issues with the United States Supreme Court. But with that said, Trump has been trying left and right to undermine the election. Two unlawful executive orders. The DOJ suing states left and right over sensitive voter data. They're largely losing.
So, yes, I have confidence that we can beat them, but I also know that litigation is not the only way forward. We also need Americans to stay involved. We're in an active power grab from the White House. Trump is afraid of the American people. That's why he wants to suppress their voice through voter suppression, through the Save Act, through these crazy executive orders.
And at the end of the day, we also just have to see MAGA stopped at the ballot box. MAGA doesn't mean Republicans. There are great conservatives across this country, there are great Democrats, but someone willing to support a president like Donald Trump, willing to steal the voice, the vote from people he does not like. MAGA needs to be stopped in the midterms.
And I think that Trump knows he's likely to lose on this executive order battle. And what he is trying to do is degrade confidence, lay the groundwork to reject the results so that if MAGA does lose, he has an excuse, just like he did in 2020.
COATES: You say you have a contingency plan to try to navigate around the possibility of losing in court. I'd be curious to see what the contingency is and if you ever have to use it. Secretary of state, thank you for joining us.
GRISWOLD: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JACOB COXON, FORMER ANTHROPIC AND OPENAI RESEARCHER: This is not like hype. This isn't going away any time soon. This is only going to get more crazy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: The A.I. researcher who quits Anthropic speaking out after warning A.I. could kill us all in the next decade. Well, Congress is now paying attention and starting to talk about doing something about anything. Will it work? We'll talk about it, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COATES: So, is today the day that frustration with A.I. has hit a breaking point? Well, it all started late last night when a researcher at Anthropic named Jacob Coxon announced he was quitting the company. He claims Anthropic and OpenAI are -- quote -- "gambling with our lives," posting a thread on X that was viewed by nearly a hundred and 30 million people. He says, "The people building A.I. earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt."
You heard that correctly. Not long after, a current employee at Anthropic replied to the post -- quote -- "Jacob is correct." "We really do earnestly believe A.I. could kill all humans. I personally think it is greater than 10 percent within the next decade."
Well, tonight, that researcher who initially sounded the alarm told Anderson Cooper the risks might only get worse.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COXON: There is a very real possibility that in the immediate future, these are years that, like, next year, the year after, recursive self- improvement will happen and will enter the phase of Evan's post where he argues that there's a chance we could all die. Like, that is coming soon. People are starting to realize this is real technology. This is not, like, hype. This isn't going away any time soon. This is only going to get more crazy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: Joining me now, AI researcher, executive director at ControlAI, Connor Leahy. Connor, I'm so glad you're here because everyone is talking about this. And people are afraid when they hear a 10-year deadline, essentially, but they can't conceptualize this. It sounds science fiction-y to them, a plot of a movie. Make this real for me. Is that even possible, that A.I. could possibly wipe out humanity in 10 years?
CONNOR LEAHY, U.S. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CONTROLAI: Sadly, this is something that many experts, including the Nobel Prize-winning scientists and even the CEOs of many of these companies themselves, do take extremely seriously. The way to understand this, it's very important to understand that what these companies are building is not a better chatbot.
[23:35:00]
They're not trying to make a nice quarterly return or something. Their goal is to build what they call superintelligence.
COATES: Which is?
LEAHY: A.I. systems that are fully autonomous, no human in the loop, taking actions in the real world that can out-compete humanity, humans, at all tasks.
COATES: Trained by humans? LEAHY: Well, it's a little bit more complicated than that because A.I. as it exists today is very different from normal software. Normal software is written, you know, by engineers like me, line by line, telling the computer exactly what to do.
This is not how A.I. works. A.I. is more like grown rather than written through a process that's called neural networks. You kind of have programs self-assemble, learn from data. And what comes out the other side isn't really neat lines of code. It's more like billions and billions of numbers. And we don't really actually understand what is going on inside of these numbers. This is an unsolved scientific problem.
COATES: So, then, why would a lack of understanding lead us to believe that it could wipe out humanity?
LEAHY: So, what is expected to happen is that as A.I. systems become more autonomous, become more powerful, they can out-compete us in business, economics, science, military, politics, everything. Once we have such systems that are fully autonomous and that do not have our best interests at heart, and it won't just be one system, we're talking about millions, billions of super-intelligences running around that can out-compete us on everything, that do not have our best interests at heart, that we cannot control or understand, it's very hard to imagine that going well.
COATES: Well, then, what would be the incentive if they can best us in terms of the ability to navigate or ability to understand or have some advantage? How would that translate into humans as the enemy?
LEAHY: I don't think they will see humans as an enemy. I think they will think of humans the way we do, for example, of ants. If we're building a highway and there's some ants in the way, well, we don't hate the ants, they're not our enemy, but tough luck for the ants. These AIs will be fighting each other. They will be competing for resources, for energy, for space, for power in a very similar way that, you know, anyone who wants power or anything has to compete. So, there will be a competition between millions or billions of AIs. And I think we're not really the enemy so much as we're collateral damage.
COATES: Regulation, obviously, comes to mind then if you're talking about this as a possibility. And the A.I. CEOs like Anthropic or Sam Altman of OpenAI, they have explicitly asked Congress to regulate them. Anderson Cooper even asked the researcher about this. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Do you believe that these companies actually do want regulation or is it lip service?
COXON: They completely do. This is completely honest. This is genuine. They find themselves in this scenario where they're compelled to race towards building a deadly technology, and they would love for some sort of international body to allow them to approach it at a reasonable pace. They just don't trust that the people around them are going to get there in a safe way. So, they feel like they have to race that, too.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: Do you believe that?
LEAHY: I've spoken to many of these people, including Sam Altman, Dario, etcetera, and I would say psychoanalyzing them is not a particularly good use of time. What I think is important is that we stop them. What is important is that superintelligence is not built. Whether they're a good guy, a bad guy, whether they truly mean it or not, it doesn't really matter.
They are building technology that they themselves say could kill you, me, our children, everyone else on Earth. And this is not something that we can accept. This is a national security threat. This is not a small question about a product or about a profit cycle. This is a threat to our lives, and we should take it seriously as such and prevent this from happening.
COATES: Is it too late to stop it?
COXON: No, it is not too late because we do not yet have superintelligence. As long as superintelligence does not exist, humanity is still in control. We do still have the ability that is going to sound a little bit silly, but we can just arrest them. You know, we can just say this is illegal. We can pass a law that says it is illegal to build superintelligence, and then we can prevent this.
But this is not enough because what we need to do is create international trust but verify regimes. We need to be able to ensure that not just domestic actors, but no one in the world creates superintelligence because if America builds superintelligence, well, America ceases to exist. If China builds superintelligence, well, China ceases to exist, and so does America and everyone else. So, we have to prevent the creation of superintelligence both domestically and abroad.
COATES: Connor Leahy, thank you so much. So, amid all the warnings about A.I. getting out of control, many people like Connor are asking what the solution is. He's offering one. Well, my next guest says the answer is, in fact, banning superintelligence altogether and pausing other A.I. development until a federal regulatory body is established. It's the basis of the bill that he just introduced, Senator Bernie Sanders, called the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act.
[23:39:57]
Democratic congressman from Texas, Greg Casar, joins me now. Congressman, thank you so much for joining. There has been a lot of talk about what a solution might look like, and you're actually calling this former anthropic researcher's warning an emergency. So, why is your plan the right response to the emergency?
REP. GREG CASAR (D), TEXAS: The emergency that this anthropic researcher is talking about and the whistleblowers we're seeing at each of these companies is that this could lead, unregulated A.I. and superintelligence could lead to millions or, as some of these researchers have talked about, billions of deaths. That is a serious emergency.
And the future is actually in our hands, Laura. We don't have to have totally unregulated frontier A.I. development. We can pass a simple bill that says superintelligence is banned. We can have productive, useful products coming out of A.I. We can have A.I. research that helps us cure cancer, but we shouldn't be developing A.I. that escapes human control, that can hack into companies, break laws, try to trick humans, and yes, potentially lead us into catastrophic situations. We should agree that that should be banned.
COATES: You know, some people might look at this and say, OK, well, people might not play along with you in the sense of trying to change the definition of what it is to be superintelligence and what that really looks like, and that members of Congress or a federal regulatory board might not be able to keep pace with the technology or those who hope to keep it going. So, what would be the test to decide whether a model is superintelligent, and can Congress keep up with that definition?
CASAR: Our bill, my bill as Senator Bernie Sanders, is pretty simple. We set up a cabinet-level agency that would set up these rules to make sure that we do not go down the road of superintelligence that would be more capable than all of humans, that could escape human control, and that could lead to these mass national security events.
Laura, I'll take us back to the nuclear revolution. People said, are we ever going to be able to contain nuclear weapons? And we did. We set up the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. We established nuclear nonproliferation agreements, even with adversary nations like the Soviet Union.
So, in this moment, in the A.I. revolution, where we are now having whistleblowers talking about how this could cost many American lives, it's up to us to say we are up to the task, and we can basically have nonproliferation of this kind of dangerous technology.
COATES: And yet, I understand the concern, and yet it would rely on a kind of handshake and agreement on both sides of these agreements, right, to decide that they will, in fact, abide by the terms and neither would try to use it to their own advantage to get some level of leverage. And I know that you want to create a new federal A.I. regulator. I want you to hear what the former Trump A.I. czar, David Sacks, has said about something like that.
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DAVID SACKS, FORMER WHITE HOUSE A.I. AND CRYPTO CZAR: It's a terrible idea. And it's just a repackaging of what Dario has always wanted, which is an FDA for A.I. Now, he's saying it's an FAA for A.I. You know how long the FAA and the FDA take to approve new products?
UNKNOWN: Yes. We mentioned it last week.
SACKS: Year -- UNKNOWN: Yes. Well, this is China's advantage. Yes. Exactly.
SACKS: China is going to win if we do this, and it will become pure regulatory capture.
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COATES: So, should there be a concern about China winning the A.I. race if Congress slows down development? Is that, in and of itself, hyperbolic or the wrong direction?
CASAR: Look, first of all, we should make sure that we do not have Chinese A.I. that could kill millions of people or American-made A.I. that kills millions of people. And I think David Sacks saying regulatory capture is completely laughable. You're talking about an A.I. billionaire, an A.I. investor billionaire who Donald Trump put in charge of A.I. policy at the White House. And so, now, you have employees quitting their jobs at these A.I. labs, warning us about the dangers of out-of-control A.I. And, of course, David Sacks is continuing to lobby for no regulation.
Right now, it is easier to release an A.I. model than to set up a food truck on any corner in an American city. We're talking about baseline rules. Just like Boeing can't release a plane that pilots trying to control it wouldn't have the ability to control, we can also say to these A.I. companies that your models have to be safe.
COATES: How do you convince China to go along with that?
CASAR: We need an engagement with China. We need to be able to engage with them and say, this would be bad for you, just like it would be bad for us.
[23:45:02]
The United States was in an actual cold war with the USSR and was able to get to nuclear nonproliferation, not because the U.S. and the USSR trusted each other, but because it would have been bad for the U.S. and our people and for people in the Soviet Union for us to continue the race towards mutual destruction. So, similarly, the United States should lead on this.
COATES: But what if China doesn't listen and may just say -- I don't want to cut you off, congressman, but, you know, what if China says, thank you for your interpretation of what's a problem, we'll do what we want?
CASAR: Look, one key way for us to start slowing down Chinese development of superintelligence would be, one, for us to put in stronger export controls against our own A.I. making it to any other nation. We've seen Donald Trump get rid of some of those. And second, if we slow some of the most dangerous types of A.I. development in the United States, that will slow it also in China because we know that some of this technology is getting out of the United States because it's being stolen or shipped out. So, we can lead by example and we have to try because, otherwise, if we throw up our hands and say, you know what, as Ted Cruz said earlier on a news show, that if they've got killer robots that could kill them, we should have killer robots that can kill us. I think that that is just dystopic. We are better than that as a country. We can lead the world by saying we should have A.I. that saves lives, not A.I. that risks lives, and I think that that would be American leadership right there.
COATES: Congressman Greg Casar, thank you so much.
CASAR: Thank you, Laura.
COATES: Still ahead, Lindsay Clancy's attorney with a new trick up his sleeve to throw out the case and avoid a new trial altogether. And no, it's not a plea deal. So, could it actually work? That's next.
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KEVIN REDDINGTON, LINDSAY CLANCY'S DEFENSE LAWYER: I would not ever agree that she do any time in jail. She's too fragile, she's too -- she's -- she has damaged goods, and she does not deserve it. No, she needs to be treated for her mental health condition, has to have good physicians, and she has to have good medication. That's it.
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COATES: That was Lindsay Clancy's defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, in a new interview with my colleague, Anderson Cooper, where he appears to draw a red line on a potential plea deal. No jail time for Clancy, who admitted to killing her three children. Her defense team argued she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time of the killings.
The strategy of Clancy's attorney is taking an even more unconventional turn. Reddington is appealing directly to the president of the United States to intervene in this state case.
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REDDINGTON: I can say, look, help this young lady out. I know that it's not a situation where it's a federal case where he could, but he does have the Department of Justice behind him, he does have an awful lot of clout.
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COATES: With the federal government. With me now, former federal prosecutor and president of West Coast Trial Lawyers, Neama Rahmani. Neama, let's just cut to the chase. First of all, the president cannot give pardons, not supposed to be involved in state level prosecutions at all. I guess he wants him to somehow impact or influence. Is that realistic here? Is that appropriate, to even make the request?
NEAMA RAHMANI, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR, PRESIDENT OF WEST COAST TRIAL LAWYERS: Well, also, in Massachusetts, Laura, you can't get a preemptive pardon.
COATES: Right.
RAHMANI: It's not like the federal system with Fauci, for instance, being pardoned by President Biden. Now, obviously, this is a P.R. play and Reddington is going on his media tour just like he was every day outside that courthouse. He's not very effective in just the courtroom, but really the court of public opinion.
So, he's doing two things here. He's talking to future potential jurors if and when this case is retried, and he's trying to put pressure on District Attorney Tim Cruz, who's also Republican. He's running in November. He's running unopposed.
But, obviously, the president, we know, the most powerful man in the world, and he can get involved in legal cases like Tyler Robinson. He asked for the death penalty and, a short time thereafter, the Utah County attorney sought the death penalty. So, I think this is an effective play for someone who has spoken out about the case.
Now, I don't think the president is necessarily going to be pro-Clancy or pro-confinement in a mental institution or postpartum psychosis, but he can be unpredictable. And if he does come down on the side of Lindsay Clancy, I do think it's a big P.R. win for Reddington and the defense team.
COATES: I mean, this defense counsel is effective. He is trying to not only secure the mistrial, frankly, and was able to have enough doubt to have that, but also, he continues to be her attorney, and there is a future status hearing to see whether they'll have a plea or a trial in this case.
And he's also saying that he's going to try and file a motion to throw the case out on double jeopardy grounds. Now, double jeopardy is when you can't try someone twice for the same crime. But this was a mistrial as a result, not a final conviction or a final result or even an acquittal. Would this even stand a chance?
RAHMANI: No chance, Laura. You and I know, and anyone who has even gone to first year law school knows that jeopardy doesn't attach when there's a mistrial. Now, this is a Hail Mary legal argument. Reddington is arguing that the one juror who couldn't follow the instruction on reasonable doubt basically didn't follow the law.
But the problem is, once that jury is discharged, there's nothing a trial judge or an appellate court can do. We saw this in Karen Read, for instance, in the first trial where jurors really reached a verdict on some of the counts. The parties and the court didn't ask those jurors what their verdict was. They were discharged, but it was too late. Even if all 12 of them came back right now, Laura, and said that Lindsay Clancy should not be held criminally responsible, should be in some sort of psychiatric institution, it is too late.
[23:55:03]
That jury has been discharged. Now, with respect to a plea deal, the fact that Reddington told Anderson Cooper that he's not going to accept jail time, and believe me, he has all the momentum, it was 11- 1, I don't really see any deal to be had here. I can't imagine Tim Cruz offering anything less than second-degree murder, which would be life without the possibility of parole. But it sounds like the defense won't even take manslaughter, which is a 20-year max there in Massachusetts. I just don't see a deal to be had here.
COATES: Well, that might lead to a new trial. And remember, this jury had five different options, and they had a mistrial. They were deadlocked hopelessly on them all. Neama Rahmani, we'll see what the court of public opinion says to this D.A. Thank you so much.
RAHMANI: Thanks, Laura.
COATES: And hey, thank all of you for watching. "The Story Is With Elex Michaelson" is next.
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