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Trump Pitches Rebranding of A.I. to "Super Intelligence"; Lawsuit Alleges Collusion Between A.I. Giants on Development; Rare Fall Nor'easter Threatens Millions on East Coast. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired September 25, 2026 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Caleb.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He said, that makes two of us.

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JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: On cross-examination they really had an aggressive cross. They focused on one month before Ashley Flynn was killed by someone, that she was in Florida and her iPhone fell into the ocean and she lost it and then she left her computer, she thinks on the airplane.

We just heard with the current FBI examiner that she actually filed a claim for that lost computer, but the defense says it's an intruder and in their closings we've got to see where and who they hone in on if it is a specific person.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Jean Casarez, thank you so much. Wolf.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Pamela, just ahead, realistic warning or coordinated effort. Why a new lawsuit accuses several A.I. companies of making an illegal deal to slow down development.

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[11:35:00]

BLITZER: New this morning, President Trump is calling his meeting with President Xi, quote, "very productive" and pushing to rebrand artificial intelligence, posting this on Truth Social, quote, "Like almost everyone else, he, President Xi, seemed to like calling the poorly and inaccurately named artificial intelligence to a far more accurate name, an important name, superintelligence," end quote.

It remains unclear if any substantive conversations were actually held between the two leaders about the technology's safety and regulation as the two countries remain in a very tight battle to win the A.I. race.

Last night, my colleague and friend Anderson Cooper sat down with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang to discuss the growing calls for government intervention to rein in A.I. companies before the technology surpasses human intelligence. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JENSEN HUANG, FOUNDER AND CEO, NVIDIA: If a regulation is necessary, if they don't have self-restraint -- first of all, they ought to have self-restraint. If they -- if they're telling everybody that their product is unsafe, they obviously know it. They're publicly admitting it. They ought to just not release it. OK. And so, -- now, they're -- if they're saying that unable to have self-restraint and they need regulation to do so, it's surprising to me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: All right. Joining us now to discuss the Cheyenne Hunt. She is a political strategist and one of the plaintiffs in a complaint against A.I. giants Anthropic OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google. Her suit alleges that the company's recent calls for industry wide coordination to slow down advancement amounts to an illegal business agreement between competitors. Cheyenne, good to see you. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Before we start, I just want to know, we reached out to all these companies for their statement. We haven't received a response yet. But if you would explain why you think these A.I. giants are colluding when they would argue that they're just agreeing on setting safety standards.

CHEYENNE HUNT, PLAINTIFF IN LAWSULT AGAINST THREE A.I. COMPANIES: Look, businesses are not allowed under the Sherman Act to make deals together and to collaborate to avoid market pressure that otherwise they would have to face and be responsive to alone. In this case, we're seeing clear demands from the market, from consumers to have safer A.I. products. There's an understanding of these harms that go far beyond what they're talking about with risks of human extinction.

In the short-term, what we've seen is grotesque. We've seen bots trained on child sexual assault material. We're seeing A.I. notification of young girls destroying their lives in school. We're seeing rampant harms to our environment. And to think that we should trust these guys to regulate against their own profit margins is just a farce.

BROWN: So, then why do you think that they have made these public pleas? HUNT: Well, I think the timing tells us a lot. They made this PR announcement about their backroom deal right as Mike Johnson was dealing with pressure from a bipartisan coalition for the first time ready to regulate A.I. in a meaningful way. And instead, this deal gave him cover to adjourn the House of Representatives and really stop that before we got meaningful safeguards in place.

BROWN: Well, there was also the impeachment articles for Pete Hegseth, which was a big reason they went out on recess. But just when you say backroom deal, can you be more specific on what you're talking about there?

HUNT: Absolutely. So, really what we're looking at here is a group of unaccountable billionaires who are saying that they've reached a certain agreement on safety standards to regulate themselves when they've now gone out in public.

And as Jensen Huang said in that last clip, they can't regulate this. They are saying that they have products going out that could risk human extinction and they're begging the government for help in the same breath. They're asking us to believe that a deal they made among themselves is sufficient to really address these safety risks. It's a deal that they have met that really makes sure their business interests are protected and that they can change when it suits their needs. And there's no transparency on whether or not it's being met and no consequences if they violate it. That doesn't sound like regulation or safety standards to me. That sounds like a grift.

BROWN: So, we know that there have been those public pleas, and this was after Jacob Coxon really sounded the alarm. He's the former Anthropic researcher who was concerned that I could lead to the extinction of humanity by the end of the decade.

[11:40:00]

But in terms of an agreement between these companies, do you have evidence that they've actually been behind the scenes reaching an agreement?

HUNT: Well, they've talked about it very publicly all the way back to July. We have public statements about representatives from these companies coming together and talking about what that agreement might look like. We saw the Anthropic, you know, whistleblower coming forward and calling for this slowdown within hours. We saw Elon Musk and Sam Altman publicly saying that they agreed to these terms. It's a pretty blatant violation of the Sherman Act. They're coordinating and colluding out in the open for all of us to see.

BROWN: What do you say to critics who argue that the Anthropic CEO's public plea earlier this month was a good faith effort to rein in a that it's actually a positive thing for these companies to cooperate for humanity's survival?

HUNT: The thing about it is these companies don't have to cooperate to do the right thing. They don't have to collude to avoid market pressure when we know that consumers are looking for safer versions of these products. We saw when Anthropic took a step back from the White House because they didn't want their A.I. being used in military operations.

There was a massive shift of consumers from OpenAI over to Anthropic's Claude. This is something that they should be competing on. People care which of these products is safer, the most moral and ethical. But instead, they're now getting together to say these are the rules of the road. We're all the same. Nobody has to strive to do better than this. And they're not competing on safety standards, which they really should be. So, they don't need to make a deal in order to move forward and do the right thing.

BROWN: But what about the argument that if one slows down, like Anthropic, hypothetically, right, says, OK, we're going to slow down, but then the other companies don't? I mean, you know, then what would be the incentive for the one company to slow down and letting the other companies beat them in the marketplace? I mean, that is what they would argue, why they want a joint agreement so that they're not behind, that one of them doesn't get left behind. What do you say to that?

HUNT: Companies can compete on a number of things. And public trust is something that consumers care about when they choose a product. Like in that prior example, the shift over to Anthropic wasn't necessarily because people found it to be -- or that Claude was better or more advanced than ChatGPT. They agreed with the values and the ethics that the company espoused when they made that decision that was ultimately a harmful business decision on paper.

And so, I think that these companies really can compete with putting safety and morality in the front, in the forefront of what they're doing. And at the same time, regulation is essential. But we need real rules of the road with government oversight. If we're really talking about something that could pose a risk of human extinction, I don't want a group of billionaires colluding on what those rules look like, weighing against their profit margins. We need transparency, we need consequences, and we need real oversight.

BROWN: But what about the fact that you have the president and his family, according to the Washington Post analysis, heavily invested in A.I.? You have many members of Congress who have A.I. stock. So, the same people who would be charged with regulating A.I. also have a vested interest in seeing it continue to progress.

HUNT: Some of them do, and I think that that's definitely a credibility issue that they're going to face with their constituents. We're seeing polling numbers that show that A.I. and some of the related technologies, including data centers, are rapidly unpopular, and people are looking for real accountability and leadership here.

And, again, we -- I can't say that I trust this government, but what I can say is we can't take the pressure off the table, because the truth is we've never been closer than we were before this deal was brought forward to strong bipartisan A.I. regulation. And that's a conversation that we need to push forward, because that is the only way we're really going to stem this tide.

I don't think these companies have done anything to earn public trust to regulate themselves. But I think that we are in a position to continue to apply pressure to the government to get this over the finish line. And, frankly, their constituents, I believe, will make it painful at the ballot box if they don't.

BROWN: You and your fellow plaintiffs have signaled that you want to expand this case into a class action suit on behalf of others affected by potential action taken by the A.I. companies to slow down development. Who would be involved with that?

HUNT: Well, I think that class members could really be any consumers of these products. The truth is, if you're paying for this, then you are a class member, potentially, that could have a claim against these companies for this illegal collusion. It's a classic antitrust lawsuit.

BROWN: All right. Cheyenne Hunt, thank you so much. Appreciate you coming on the show.

HUNT: Thank you.

BROWN: All right. Let's bring back former federal prosecutor Berit Berger. So, what do you think? Do you think Cheyenne and her co- plaintiffs have a viable case against these A.I. companies? Does she have a good point about the Sherman Act?

BERIT BERGER, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Yes. I mean, this is a really fascinating case that is really groundbreaking. We haven't seen courts weighing in on these new technologies so much in the antitrust area.

[11:45:00]

And this creates really interesting tension, right? We, on the one hand, want companies to be responsible corporate citizens, especially in this area. And antitrust law specifically allows for companies to work together for safety measures. That is, safety cooperation isn't inherently unlawful.

So, we see competitors routinely collaborating across industries to come up with new safety standards, new ways of even restricting technology when safety is the primary concern. But they are obviously alleging that's an important difference here between saying, you know, let's develop common safety tests and let's all agree not to release any more capable products. So, I think that's going to create interesting case law that we haven't seen in this space before.

The other thing I think they have that's going to be a unique issue is the sort of difficult injury and damages problem. You heard her saying they represent right now these paying customers sort of, you know, ChatGPT, Claude, others. But proving damages is not going to be simple, right? They're going to have to show sort of something very speculative here. How much better would their product have been absent this alleged agreement? So, I think they have some challenges, but it's a really interesting case that I'll be watching very closely.

BROWN: Could an argument of safety and public interest work as a defense as these A.I. giants would likely attempt to argue?

BERGER: Absolutely. And we've seen this in different contexts, you know, over the years. And the Supreme Court has recognized, you know, time and time again that industries coming together to come up with safety standards and even working together sometimes for this is actually a good thing and does not necessarily violate antitrust laws.

We just saw this happen somewhat recently with DOJ and FTC specifically saying that in the cybersecurity area, competing companies can share technical information about how they're dealing with cyber threats, things like that, because it actually, you know, this is such a new and fast-moving area. And that won't violate antitrust laws.

So, we have seen both the FTC, DOJ and the Supreme Court recognizing that these safety standards are one sort of carve out sometimes from antitrust laws.

BROWN: No doubt the A.I. companies would point that out. Berit Berger, thank you so much. More news when we come back.

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[11:50:00]

BLITZER: Happening now, people from North Carolina all the way up to New England are getting ready for a powerful and rare September Nor'easter. More than 40 million people on the East Coast are in the storm's path. Some areas could see a month's worth of rain in just a day. The effects are already being felt in North Carolina's Outer Banks. Huge waves are hitting those areas. Out on Long Island in New York State, they're building up natural barriers just ahead of what's expected to be a direct hit.

CNN Meteorologist Derek Van Dam is in Scituate, Massachusetts for us. Derek, what are you seeing where you are?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, Wolf, it's the defining feature of a Nor'easter is the persistent northeasterly winds. And the fact that this storm is going to stall out off the coastline for days means that the winds that we're getting battered with is going to continue to push up the Atlantic Ocean over several high tide cycles. And that's important because we have a full moon this weekend that will exaggerate the high tides, not to mention this persistent northeasterly wind that is going to potentially cause some power outages.

Look at this incredible backdrop. We're in Scituate, Massachusetts, an area that's vulnerable to coastal erosion, vulnerable to these powerful nor'easters. This is an early September type storm or early season storm, I should say, the first of the season. And speaking of the first of the season, this seawall that I'm standing on right now is actually brand-new. This is its first test. These homes behind us are getting battered by waves that are splashing up and over this newly built wall. Let me show you the old seawall that they had to replace. I mean, this is the infrastructure that is put in place on these coastal communities because of storms like this. And, of course, the sea level rises that we are encountering here across the entire eastern seaboard of the U.S., it just makes these areas, the businesses and the homes here more vulnerable.

This nor'easter is just really now starting to gather strength. It's really building into itself off the coast. And this means that the winds are not the only factor. It is also going to be the potential for inland localized flooding, especially near the coastline. And then on top of that, we have the potential for power outages. Remember, we haven't had the drop in the tree leaves just yet. Fall hasn't fully come to this area, so we still have full foliage on the trees. So, that means that it's acting like a sail to kind of, you know, catch the wind as it gusts over 50 to 60 miles per hour at the peak of the storm, which we anticipate to be tomorrow and into Sunday.

So, we're kind of getting out here early to get just a lay of the land, understand this area and get a better perspective of what these homes, what these residents are going to be contending with here in the days to come. As the slow moving, we'll call it a tropical storm without a name, this nor'easter early in the season bears in on the East Coast. Wolf.

[11:55:00]

BLITZER: All right. Stay safe over there, Derek. Derek Van Dam in Scituate, Massachusetts for us. Appreciate it very much.

And remember to use the CNN weather app to follow the storm and any weather that may impact you. You can find it now in the Apple App Store. And thanks very much to all of our viewers for joining us this morning. You can always keep up with us on social media, @wolfblitzer and @pamelabrowncnn.

BROWN: We'll see you back here Monday morning and every weekday morning at 10:00 Eastern for two hours. Inside Politics today with our friend and colleague Phil Mattingly starts after a quick break. Have a great weekend.

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