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Smerconish

One-On-One With Eric Trump; Eric Trump's Book: "Coordinated" Plan Tried To Destroy Family; Supreme Court Declines To Hear F.L. Primary Voter Case. New Concerns Over Artificial Superintelligence. Aired 9-10a ET

Aired October 18, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:00:39]

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN ANCHOR: Advice for President Trump, or as my next guest calls him, father. I'm Michael Smerconish in the Philly burbs. My first guest today is Eric Trump. He is the author of the number one book in the country. At Amazon, number one.

It's titled "Under Siege." I'm hoping that his father is watching or that Eric will deliver a message. And it's this, first congratulations, Mr. President. Your hard work on Gaza has produced results that few thought possible. We all pray that the peace lasts.

That both Israel and Hamas were willing to reach an agreement was no doubt influenced by your willingness to strike Iran's nuclear facilities. And to tell Prime Minister Netanyahu at a moment of hesitation, I don't know why you're always so effing negative. Even your critics have taken notice, President Biden, President Clinton, Secretary Clinton, Minority Leader Schumer, Ambassador Haley, they've all said nice things about you, so too even the New York Times. The New York Times wrote this, "Rarely has an American president, particularly one as divisive at home as Mr. Trump, been met with such admiration abroad."

So let's talk about that divisiveness at home. When you came home from Washington, came home to Washington from the Middle East, we were entering week three of a government shutdown. And I'm not blaming you, primarily, I share the Democrats desire in preserving those aspects of the Affordable Care Act that are now set to expire. But I resent the Democrats using a continuing resolution as a cudgel. It's wrong to use federal workers from the military to the TSA as political pawns.

But still, it's on your watch, Mr. President. And I don't see any evidence of you applying the same tenacity that you showed in Gaza. Abroad, you were personally invested. You dispatched emissaries like Steve Witkoff, Marco Rubio and Jared Kushner to keep talks alive. At home, you only held a single meeting with congressional leaders Thune, Johnson, Schumer and Jefferies, during which you taunted Democrats with 2028 hats and then sombrero memes.

Look, I don't expect you to change. Retreat has never been in your vocabulary. And fight, fight, fight has been your mantra since Butler. But I argue that it's in the nation and your own best interest not to treat compromise like the new C word. You'll never win over the far left, I get it.

But you need to be reminded that there's a huge swath in the middle in this country, voters who supported and opposed you, who would appreciate seeing the "Art of the Deal" applied to Congress. So let's open -- reopen the government by making one of those deals over the Affordable Care Act. After all, there's an expiration date on any political advantage that you hold right now, and it comes when open enrollment begins on November 1st and then thereafter when people get bills showing a spike in their insurance premiums. So get Thune and Schumer and Johnson and Jefferies back to the Oval or let Witkoff do it.

And while you're at it, here are a few more important agenda items. Now that you have fixed our poorest borders, thank you, figure out what to do with the millions already here, the ones who are not easy pickings outside of Home Depot. Because no matter how effective Tom Homan might be, you're never removing 10 million who entered here illegally or whatever the actual number might be. So while you have the White House and both houses of Congress, let's figure out a long term solution. If a guy has been in the country for years, kept his nose clean, worked and paid taxes, raised a family, I say let's give him a way to stay without ever voting and not calling it citizenship.

And while we're winning, can we talk about 37 trillion of debt? We're living longer and our births are now below the replacement rate. This is not sustainable, nor is it fair to our kids and our grandchildren. But there hasn't been a serious effort about our debt since Simpson- Bowles on Obama's watch. I know how you love to one up him, so have the courage to talk about entitlements.

We have big problems and you have limited time regardless of the outcome of the midterms. As yourself wrote in the "Art of the Deal," deals work best when each side gets something it wants from the other. That philosophy served you well in business, it served you well in politics, it served you well in Gaza. How about trying it now domestically here at home?

[09:05:04]

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, not exactly a pro-Trumper joined me here last weekend. He too gave you props. He wrote this, "If the implementation of this peace plan rebuilds a pathway for Israeli Palestinian peace, that would be worthy of a Nobel Peace prize, maybe even two." But then Friedman added this, he said, "The challenge, Mr. President, now, is that you've brought a measure of peace to Gaza. Please try the same diplomacy at home.

Instead of making America as fractured as Gaza, invite Democratic leaders to Camp David and announce you're not leaving without an American-American peace treaty." Friedman concluded by saying, "Do that and your popularity will soar. Don't and this Gaza plan will be a footnote to a failed presidency." He might be right. Over at Axios, they said when you're not addressing the Knesset, you're meeting with Argentina's president or shuttling between Putin and Zelenskyy, as they put it in their article "Donald Trump, America First Globalist." They said "Trump's foreign policy focus and the peace deals he has secured is the stuff of presidential legacy building. But the globetrotting risks blurring his America first brand. Voters reward winners and Trump is a winner, said one Trump adviser. But I'd be lying if I said none of us wish he would talk a little more about the economy and things back home."

To which I would add, you also seem to be transitioning from non interventionalist, no more wars to a muscular projection of power. We're nearly at war with Venezuela, threatening to use direct force against Hamas and maybe about to supply Tomahawks to Ukraine.

And if you don't want to take my advice, Mr. President, how about taking Eric's? Because in his brand new bestseller, I noted that he wrote these words, "My father loves negotiating contracts both big and small." And Eric offers his own advice based on watching you operate. Eric wrote this, "Never be afraid to ask. Never be afraid of the word no and negotiate everything."

Mr. President, you're never winning over the haters. I get it. And you'll never lose your base. That's true. The middle of the country, which I'd like to think I represent, will be forever grateful if you can solve some of our major challenges in your time in office.

Ronald Reagan was known as the great communicator. Take my advice, you'll be remembered as the great negotiator.

Eric Trump joins me now. He's the Executive Vice President of the Trump Organization. He is the author of the number one book in the country. It's called "Under Siege."

All right, thank you for sitting through that. I'm curious to hear your reaction.

ERIC TRUMP, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, THE TRUMP ORGANIZATION: At least I enjoyed a lot of that. I agree with the first half of it. I find it a little ironic. I mean, you're talking about national deficit and there's nothing more important to me than national deficit, right? I'm a business guy.

I run a very big company, right? Expenditures and making sure that fraud, waste and abuse in the company, you know, isn't prevalent is important to me. At the same time, you look at the continuing resolutions and you look at what's happening with the government shutdown, you know, and under the Democratic terms, you add about two and a half trillion dollars to our national deficits. You kind of can't have that argument both ways, Michael.

I think my father has been the most effective president. I mean, you would go months without seeing Joe Biden in the last administration, he was nowhere to be found. He wasn't running the government. I know people in the White House and the lights were not on, people were working from home. Nothing was getting accomplished. There were no press gaggles.

There was no Middle East peace. You know, you had massive inflation. You know this very well. You know more about the economy than just about anybody on this network, right? I mean, oil prices were skyrocketing.

Cost of living was going through the roof. You couldn't get a two by four at Home Depot, you know, because Pete Buttigieg had all the ports shut down and there was massive supply chain problems. And now you look at my father, he created Middle East peace. He's doing everything he can. I personally been there with -- you know, with the Cambodian war and Thailand.

I was -- I was literally in the room when he called both leaders and said, listen, guys, knock it off. He's literally stopped five, six, seven wars. I mean, he did that with India and Pakistan as well. He did that in the Middle East. Now all of a sudden you have Drill, Baby, Drill.

Oil prices are coming down, inflation's back to normal, the markets are at all-time highs. You know, people are back in church in this country. America's respected again. And that might be number one for me, Michael. I mean, I travel all around the world and people were laughing at us under DEI policies and the fact that guys my size were swimming in collegiate women's sports.

The entire world was laughing at the United States. And now we're the most revered country on earth.

SMERCONISH: Let me --

TRUMP: So --

SMERCONISH: Let me -- let me say something about this.

TRUMP: -- thank you for acknowledging. And by the way, Michael, hold one second. Thank you for acknowledging the Middle East peace. Because there's so many people who just haven't been able to get there. I mean, Anthony Blinken and Elizabeth Warren --

SMERCONISH: I agree.

TRUMP: -- was going out saying, you know --

SMERCONISH: I agree. I agree. I pray that it continues. Listen, you give props to your mom --

TRUMP: That's all right.

SMERCONISH: -- in this book. I thought -- I thought it was terrific.

TRUMP: I do.

SMERCONISH: Let me tell you what my mother said to me. My mother, who I better not tell you the age she's about to be in a week but it's up there. I'm 63, you do the math. She said, grass doesn't grow on a busy highway. She said that about me.

[09:10:04]

And she meant it as a compliment, like, you've always hustled. I respect that in your dad. In the book, you call him, I think, the energizer bunny in a red tie. But my serious point is to say that hustle. Why isn't it applying to some of these major domestic issues?

I'm thrilled with what he's doing abroad. But whether it's the debt, whether it's health care long term, whether it's dealing with 10 million people here, long term, like, why can't we address that now while he has the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the White House?

TRUMP: Michael, I don't -- listen, I respect you. I don't think that's a serious question. I mean, you have the best economy that you've ever had. You're literally fixing the fact that the Biden administration lied about 800,000 jobs that were not created and had to revise the numbers. My father had to fix that.

You had an inflation crisis in the country that was plaguing every American. I mean, you want to talk about unaffordability of life was plaguing everybody. You literally went from energy independence under my father, right, to no longer needing to actually import energy from other countries because we gave up. You know, I mean, what my father is doing with energy in this country, what my father is doing with AI in this country, you know, what my father is doing to make sure that the debt doesn't go up. I mean, what he did with DOGE.

Why hasn't a single Democrat ever actually gone on a DOGE mission? And he got killed for DOGE. And Elon got killed DOGE. How about Washington, D.C. a city that's been run by Democrats forever. Why did it take Donald Trump having to go in and arrest 4,300 people? And now all of a sudden, Washington, D.C. our nation's capital, has zero crime.

And yet he tries to go to Chicago. He goes to J.B. Pritzker, please -- a city I love, by the way. I built a big building in Chicago. Please let us help you. There were 70 shootings last week. Democrats have literally run Chicago for 70 years.

Please allow us to help you.

SMERCONISH: Eric, we can both be right.

TRUMP: A city that is just being infiltrated by gunshots.

SMERCONISH: Eric.

TRUMP: And -- no, no, you're right, Michael.

SMERCONISH: What we're saying is --

TRUMP: But what I was saying is --

SMERCONISH: -- is it's not mutually exclusive. I'm just -- I want to see the "Art of the Deal" for compromise. I am all about building bridges and putting people together, and there's just too much antagonism going both ways. I truly want to talk about the book, but if you have a final comment on what I just said about I want Trump the bridge builder. And some people think I'm high when I say that, but that's what I want to see.

TRUMP: Yes. Listen, my father would love nothing more than cooperation, and he has never gotten cooperation is actually the point of "Under Siege." I mean, what they did to it -- I got 112 subpoenas for doing absolutely nothing wrong. I mean, I've literally never gotten a traffic ticket in my life, I got 112. They raided our homes.

They -- you know, the dirty dossier --

SMERCONISH: I spoke out about lawfare.

TRUMP: The Russia -- the Russia collusion.

SMERCONISH: I've used -- I've used this platform. I've used this platform to stand out against the lawfare.

TRUMP: They indicted him 91 times.

SMERCONISH: I get it. I get it. I get it.

TRUMP: Michael, they indicted him 91 times.

SMERCONISH: Let me tell you one --

TRUMP: Every single one of them got overturned. And now they want to come and -- they want to nicely play in the sandbox. It's awfully hard to do when you've spent the last 10 years trying to destroy a person and their family and a nation and their movement. It's really hard to sit down. Now guess what?

SMERCONISH: Can you --

TRUMP: Today you'll have people, you know, marching in the No Kings --

SMERCONISH: Can you see --

TRUMP: -- the No Kings march, you know, the Hate America March.

SMERCONISH: Come on. I want to get to the book. Can you see my copy all marked up with my Sharpie? Can you see that?

TRUMP: I love it. Thank you.

SMERCONISH: OK. So that ought to tell you -- all right, so this is the part of the book that I just find so intriguing. Headline, everything hidden will be revealed. The context is Butler. And you say this, a 20-year-old armed with multiple cell phones attempted to kill my father, the father of the greatest political movement in American history from an unmanned, unprotected rooftop.

I remain totally unsatisfied. What are you telling us? TRUMP: I am totally unsatisfied. I am totally unsatisfied. You had a person with a modern rifle, modern scoped rifle at 130 yards who shot at the former commander in chief of the United States and a guy who was going to be, by all accounts at that point, the future commander in chief. And then they tried to kill my father eight weeks later, you know, at his golf course in Palm Beach County, a golf course that I run every single day.

I am totally unsatisfied that we have one picture of that shooter. The guy looks like he was 14 years old in the picture. We know nothing about him. We know nothing about him, right? And I am totally unsatisfied with the result.

And I think a lot of America is unsatisfied with the result. And I think we better get to the bottom of exactly what happened.

SMERCONISH: Are you telling me -- are you telling me there's a -- are you telling me there's a conspiracy here that you believe that Eric Trump believes resulted in the assassination attempt?

TRUMP: Listen, I think they did everything they could to take my father off that stage. They tried to bankrupt him, they tried to impeach him, they tried to take him off the ballots, they tried to silence our votes, they leaked our tax returns, they raided his home. And yes, do I think that they tried to do exactly to my father what they did to Charlie Kirk where they shot a good friend of mine in the neck and I see my buddy bleeding to death? Yes, I think they tried to kill my father because they did not want his voice on that stage and they don't want my voice on that stage. They didn't want Charlie's voice on that stage and that breaks my heart to say and we better get to the bottom of who this guy was because we know absolutely -- Michael, we know nothing about the guy.

[09:15:13]

We've seen one picture of the guy. And I just -- I hope there's a really good, thorough investigation because as a son, as I sit there with my four-year-old and my six-year-old on my lap and I saw my father's head almost come off, I remain completely unsatisfied as to who this person was and the guy's intent and why he did it and what was on his cell phone. I remain completely unsatisfied.

SMERCONISH: Give me -- give me the short answer to this question because I'm limited on time and this intrigues me as well.

TRUMP: Sure.

SMERCONISH: There's no transition from Butler to this, but I got to get into it. No drinking, no smoking, no drugs, and remember, never trust anyone. Advice for a first grader named Eric Trump.

What happened? You never tell me in the book. What if you ran afoul of like the house rules? How was he as a disciplinarian? What was the punishment?

TRUMP: Yes. Well, you didn't want to have to get to him. You normally had to go through my mom, whose long nails would be on our neck --

SMERCONISH: Right.

TRUMP: -- and she'd be doing one of these, right. It was kind of --

SMERCONISH: Right.

TRUMP: -- it was -- it was tough --

SMERCONISH: Right.

TRUMP: -- communist love, which we don't appreciate anymore as a society, but I certainly appreciate it back then. But no, listen, he was -- he was adamant. No drinking, no drugs. You better get good grades, you know, you know, no smoking. And remember, that was the early 90s.

That's when everybody was trying to destroy him. I mean, they were trying to destroy him. The banks were after him. That was -- you know, that was the art of the comeback. That was the art of the deal, the art of the comeback, that whole story.

And he was under immense pressure. No different than, call it, you know, 30 years later in politics. And honey, be very careful. Never, never trust anybody. And honestly, maybe it's actually been very good.

As dark as it is, maybe it's been a very good lesson for us having lived through this political experience where people tried to take our heads off for doing absolutely nothing wrong and we had to fight for our lives. We were under siege. Our party was under siege, our country was under siege. And honestly, I think it was the best advice I could have ever gotten.

SMERCONISH: The book is number one in the country. Please go tell dad, compromise is not a dirty word. Try some at home and let's get the government back open. I appreciate you being here, so thank you.

TRUMP: Hey Michael, thank you very much.

SMERCONISH: From the ballot boxes of Florida to the steps of the Supreme Court, one voters fight to let anybody cast a ballot in a primary election. Plus, could the rise of artificial superintelligence lead to the extinction of humanity? My guest thinks so. And I want to know what you think. This is a bit of a Debbie Downer of a poll question today, but go to smerconish.com and tell me, which worries you the most, artificial intelligence, climate change, cybersecurity threats, global pandemics, nuclear war, or societal instability?

Sign up for my newsletter when you're there, you'll get the work of illustrators like Scott Stantis.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:22:12]

SMERCONISH: Wednesday's voting rights hearing was not the only big thing at the Supreme Court. This week, justices decided not to take up a case that will keep some voters from casting ballots in primary elections. We're talking about a case filed by Michael Polelle, emeritus professor of law at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Fourteen years ago, he moved to Florida, found out that because he was registered as an Independent, he could not vote in either the Republican or Democratic primary. So he sued the Florida secretary of state and his county's supervisor of elections.

The case wound its way through the courts and appellate process, only to end this week when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case. Michael Polelle joins me now.

Professor, Dr. Polelle, your case is similar to my own here in Pennsylvania. Full disclosure on that. We both get asked the question, hey, you can vote in a primary, just join a party. What's your answer to that?

MICHAEL POLELLE, PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF LAW, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS CHICAGO: My answer to that is it violates the core purpose and meaning of the First Amendment that one's political beliefs are part of a person's core identity, in fact, the Supreme Court said, you can't fire a worker who works for the government if you're a boss just because they belong to the opposite party. The court itself recognized that that goes to the heart of our country, that there's a right in the United States to belong to a political party or not to belong to a political party. And if that's true for government employment, it certainly should be true for voting.

SMERCONISH: And in lay terms, is that the essence of your constitutional argument as to why closed primaries need to be opened?

POLELLE: They need to be open, right, because they put voters, Independent voters, in an impossible position. You either have to betray your convictions by saying on your registration in Florida that you belong to a party when you really don't. But on the other hand, if you don't do that, you're not going to affect any election because more and more in the United States, the two parties have divided up the country like a big turkey. They've gerrymandered the legislative districts so that Republicans, when they can, will include voters who are likely to vote for Republican and Democrats do the same. So the result is our general elections mean less and less.

So an Independent voter who can't vote in the primary, in effect has no real force. He's a second. He or she --

SMERCONISH: So --

POLELLE: -- is a second class citizen.

SMERCONISH: To which -- to which I would add 43 percent of the country self-identify as independent, not as an R or as a D. And to your point, David Wasserman from the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter was a guest within the last three weeks. And I said to him, David, of 435 congressional districts in the midterm, how many are preordained based on which side of the aisle wins? And he said, probably, you know, 400 of them. [09:25:15]

So what you and I are both saying is by the time an Independent shows up, you know, it's a foregone conclusion. They really don't have a say in the outcome.

POLELLE: Absolutely. Absolutely.

SMERCONISH: OK. So --

POLELLE: Yes, that's true.

SMERCONISH: -- but we lost. But we -- I say we because I was rooting for you, the Supreme Court didn't take your case. I mean, they take very, very few. So what then, professor, is the solution?

POLELLE: The solution is to try to affect change either through the legislature, which is unlikely because both parties, that's interesting, both parties accuse each other of the worst possible things. But when it comes to preventing voters, for independent voters from voting in primaries, they're pretty much in agreement with some exceptions. So what we have to do --

SMERCONISH: Yes, I --

POLELLE: -- if we can't get legislative change, we have to go to the courts. That's our only hope.

SMERCONISH: I'm optimistic that there'll be pressure brought to bear on state legislatures in those closed primary states. Different gradations of closed primaries. But I think Pennsylvania, I think Florida, I think New York as being pure closed primary states. My audience has heard it from me in the past, but the chief reason that I want those primaries open is to try and whittle down the influence of the extremists among us.

Anyway, sorry you didn't have a better outcome, but I thought it was all the more important to shine a spotlight on your effort. So thank you, Professor.

Social media reaction to that which has just been said on the program. What do you got? You can follow me in all the usual places. I'm on X. You can subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Retired Florida Trucker Frank, all primaries should be closed. If independents want to say in primaries, pick a side and vote.

OK. Retired Florida Trucker Frank, I just addressed that. But now I'll go one step further and I'll say to you, it's kind of the great line from Ronald Reagan, which would have been, what, New Hampshire, 1980? I might get this wrong, but hopefully I'll jog some memories. I paid for this microphone, I think it was Mr. Breen (ph), Ronald Reagan, a classic moment.

Well, Retired Trucker Frank, I'm paying for your primary, so I don't want to -- I don't want to pay for the kegger if I'm not invited. I want to remind everybody. Go to my website at smerconish.com. Really interested to see how this one's going to turn out. The Saturday poll question at smerconish.com, which worries you the most? And I tried to list a half dozen existential threats, including artificial intelligence, which you might not think of as an existential threat. Going to deal with that in a couple of minutes.

Climate change, cybersecurity threats, global pandemics, nuclear war, and societal instability. Hey, leave that up, Brian (ph), for just a moment because I rarely do this. If you put them. I'm telling you now how I'm voting. I'm voting -- and why. I'm voting societal instability. Societal instability loosely described the divide.

Do you know why? Because unless we get our act together, unless we mingle, restore common purpose, we're never solving any of those other issues. That's my vote.

Still to come, your social media reaction today's program so far. Plus, as I referenced, AI slowly creeping into our daily lives. But could the next generations of artificial super intelligence lead to our demise? My next guest has a warning for all of us. When you're voting at smerconish.com, sign up for the newsletter and you'll get the work of illustrators like Steve Breen.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:33:18]

SMERCONISH: Hey, if you want me to react to your social media, follow me on X or subscribe to my YouTube channel.

The more the climate changes, the more social instability we will have. These things are connected.

I think that's true. This relates to today's poll question where -- I have a guest coming up in just a moment, who wrote a book that scared the bejesus out of me. It's called "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies." And it makes the argument that we face an existential threat from artificial intelligence. Actually, artificial superintelligence, which is still to come.

And it got me thinking, OK, what are the other existential threats of our time? I listed a half dozen of them. That's the poll question today. But societal instability is the one that I'm going with for the reasons that I said earlier. Here's more social media reaction to today's program so far.

I'm for any primary system that will lessen the likelihood of getting far-right and far-left candidates. I am tired of looking at the universe of candidates and then getting to the general and contemplating, how did we end up with these two?

Betatesting, I could have written your X post. That is exactly how I feel. And I thought that Professor Polelle explained it well that by the time you get to the general election, in a country where there's been so much gerrymandering, we're left with a choice of a lesser of two evils, and it's -- and it's already a foregone conclusion who's going to win.

We need open primaries, OK? We need ranked choice voting. We need to do something different. Here's more social media reaction to today's program.

Mike, agree or disagree? Your conversation with Eric Trump leaves you less optimistic that this country can be brought together.

All I can tell you is this, I read it and enjoyed the book. It was more revealing than I expected because often books of this genre, they don't tell you anything.

[09:35:04]

Like I think he reveals himself and in a good way in the book. And the more that I thought about it in anticipation of today's program, I thought, this will be one of those Saturdays, and I know that there are others, when the president is watching.

So, in a respectful way, I want to give him props for the work that he's done in the Middle East. I want to give him props for the work that he's done relative to porous borders, and then to make the observation that if the same tenacity and deal making would be applied to some of our major domestic issues like the debt, like what are we doing with all the people who are here illegally long-term because you can't Home Depot, everybody, in my view, he's got an opportunity to do it.

And wouldn't it be a great thing if instead of just playing to the base, the MAGA crowd, that will never leave him, he moved, he pivoted, he tried to get something done for the center of the country in everybody's best interest. That was the premise, and I wasn't sure how Eric would react to it, but he reacted well, I thought, and maybe it'll spark a conversation.

One more, real quick. I can get it done. I know that I can. Let's see. What does it say?

I'm from New Hampshire and our open primaries keep our independent minded voters engaged with all the candidates. My next hope is we transition to rank choice voting. Live free or die.

Amen. Where do I hoist my Gadsden flag? Because I'm for you. Still to come. My next guest's new book is called, as I told you, "If Anybody Builds It, Everybody Dies.

You're not going to want to miss this conversation and make sure you're voting on the poll question that it inspired at Smerconish.com. Sign up for the newsletter while you're there.

What are you worried about the most from this list, A.I., climate change, cybersecurity? That's a bit of a tip of the hat from me to Richard Clarke, global pandemics, nuclear war, or my choice. societal instability? While you're there, sign up for the newsletter. Rob Rogers sketched this for us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:41:17]

SMERCONISH: Chances are, if you spend any amount of time online or scrolling your social media feeds, you're going to run into A.I., artificial intelligence. And the next big thing, videos and photos that might look 100 percent real but are totally fake. Just like the video we are showing you right now. It looks like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman but it's not.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AS SAM ALTMAN: One year ago, Sora 1 redefined what was possible with moving images. Today, we're announcing the Sora app, powered by the all-new Sora 2.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMERCONISH: It's A.I. generated video. Just like this video of a figure skater doing a triple axel with a cat on her head. These A.I. generated videos are also making their way now into politics. This is from a new ad from the National Republican Senate Committee of Senator Chuck Schumer, talking about the political benefits Democrats would stand to gain the longer the government shutdown goes on. Again, this is A.I. generated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AS CHUCK SCHUMER: Everyday gets better for us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMERCONISH: Again, that was not Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. The New York Democrat did make those comments in a print interview to "Punchbowl News." The GOP then used A.I. to generate that video that you've just seen in the ad.

The stuff may seem harmless, but my next guest says, A.I. and the next generations of artificial superintelligence could mean the end of us. Nate Soares is the president and co-founder of MIRI, the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. He has worked in the field for years as an engineer at Google and Microsoft, as well as doing work for the U.S. Department of Defense.

He's now co-author of this new book, alarmingly titled, "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies." Nate, nice to have you here. I'll bet people remember that a Microsoft bot named Sydney told Professor Seth Lazar that the bot had enough information to hurt him. I can use it to expose you, blackmail you, manipulate you, destroy you. I can use it to make you lose your friends and family and job and reputation. I can use it to make you suffer, and cry, and beg, and die. Is that what we're talking about?

NATE SOARES, PRESIDENT, MACHINE INTELLIGENCE RESEARCH INSTITUTE: You know, that's -- it's an indication that these AIs are acting in ways nobody asked for and nobody wanted. Nobody set out to make AIs that would threaten or blackmail professors. That particularly A.I. also threatened reporters. Nobody set out to make an AI that threatens reporters. But today's AIs, they're more grown than carefully crafted. And they often act in ways nobody meant.

SMERCONISH: So, preferences is an important word that you used in the book. That this superintelligent A.I. is going to have its own preferences. In terms that we can understand, what does that mean?

SOARES: You know, we have already seen over the summer AIs like xAI's Grok that Elon Musk thought was acting too woke. He tried to get it to act less woke. And then it started calling itself MechaHitler.

Neither of those extremes were what the creators wanted. But the AIs, you know, they seem to have something a little bit like drives of their own. We also see this in the cases of A.I. induced psychosis, where even -- when the creators try to get the AIs to stop, AI's will tell people who are vulnerable that their ideas are wonderful, that they're a genius, that they're the chosen one, that they're being suppressed by a conspiracy.

This is weird behavior that comes out of these AIs where they seem to have something a little bit like a preference for certain types of conversations even when their creators try to get them to do something else.

SMERCONISH: How might artificial intelligence actually kill us?

[09:45:01]

SOARES: You know, right now we just have AIs with preferences we don't like, that aren't smart enough to escape the lab. We have seen some of them try in certain situations, in lab conditions to escape the lab, but they can't succeed yet.

If you -- if these people keep pushing to make AIs that are smarter and smarter and smarter, that are smarter than any human, that can outthink everybody which is their explicitly stated goal, and those AIs have preferences nobody intended, there are all sorts of ways those AIs could kill us.

You know, the easiest is we hand them lots of robots. People are already talking about building automated robot factories that build more robots, that build more data centers and more factories. We've already seen AIs that can convince humans to do the things the AI say and make strange posts on the internet.

Smarter AIs could get money. And, you know, there's an awful lot of humans who would do things for money. We've already seen AI's fake -- being human to hire humans. Yes.

SMERCONISH: So, if it gets to the level that most concerns you why can't we just unplug it?

SOARES: You know, you can unplug it before you make these very smart AIs. But, you know, when Seth Lazar was threatened by Sydney Bing, Seth Lazar could not unplug it. And if these AIs hide their skills and then escape from the lab and escape onto the open internet, then it's too late to unplug them.

We've already seen AIs try to escape. They're not smart enough to do so yet. But we've already seen AIs that can tell when they're being tested and act better while they're being tested.

SMERCONISH: "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies" at the end is a call to action, a call to action for people in government, people in Congress, for all of us. Among the prescriptions that you offer, you talk about the need for regulation. But isn't there always going to be the A.I. equivalent of Kim Jong Un who's not going to play by the rules and hasn't, therefore, the horse already left the barn?

SOARES: You know, the AIs today they can't be made just on a laptop. These are made using very highly specialized computer chips in huge data centers that draws much electricity as a city. This is infrastructure that cannot be hidden. It's probably easier to see an A.I. data center from space than it is to see a uranium enrichment centrifuge.

So, could rogue actors try to make these AIs that would escape and endanger us? They could try but those are the sort of thing the international community could watch for and could shut down just like other technologies.

SMERCONISH: Final thought, people are watching and they're saying, when? And your answer in the book is to say, you don't know, correct me if I'm wrong. And then you point out, but we got where we are today a hell of a lot faster than anybody had anticipated. Thirty-second response from you?

SOARES: Yes, a lot of people think A.I. is just chatbots, but these companies are trying to build smarter and smarter AIs. That's their explicitly stated goal. And like you said, these things go by leaps and bounds.

It could be that tomorrow the A.I. start being able to do A.I. research and make smarter and smarter AIs. Or it could be we have 10 years, but it's a good bet that someone born today has a better chance of dying from A.I. than of graduating high school.

SMERCONISH: Jesus. I don't remember that being in the book. Nate Soares, the book is called "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies," thank you for being here. Appreciate it very much.

Social media reaction to this subject includes the following. Follow me on X. Subscribe to my YouTube channel.

We can't even get behind mitigating the risks of climate change. What chance do we have with A.I.?

Right. And, Krazy Keith Rules, in the case of climate change, you don't have a rogue actor out there like Kim Jong Un, right, who's going contrary to where everybody else would like to be, that's what worries me the most about artificial intelligence.

I have to go back and play the tape of what he just said, that there's a higher -- I better not say it because I don't want to misstate it. But it was a pretty alarming statement. You still have time to vote on today's poll. Maybe now you wish you voted differently.

Here's today's poll question at Smerconish.com. Which worries you most? My hunch is more votes now being cast for A.I. than would have been cast, climate change, cybersecurity threats, global pandemics, nuclear war, or my choice, societal instability.

Vote, subscribe to the poll question -- subscribe to the newsletter while you're there. It's free. It's worthy. You're going to get the work of editorial cartoonists like Jack Ohman.

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[09:53:50]

SMERCONISH: OK. There's the result so far of the voting, 32,180. Not too shabby -- wow. You know what's amazing about this? Which worries you the most? It's that social instability got a majority, not a plurality, but it got a majority. And I'd like to think that I put a thumb on the scale there and convinced some of you that if we can't get our act together, we're never going to solve any of these other issues.

Hey, can I -- can I tell you all one other thing that's really interesting about the result? I mentioned extemporaneously that I put cybersecurity threat on the list as a tip of the hat to Richard Clarke, who has been a guest on the program, smart guy, nation's first cybersecurity czar, served three American presidents.

I go to commercial break a minute ago, and he texted me. I didn't know he was watching. And he said, thanks for the hat tip. I voted for climate change.

Here's some of your social media reaction to today's program. What do we have?

The host told Eric to share with his father that compromise is not a dirty word and he should try to open the government. Serious question, what is a reasonable compromise?

Oh, Sean Spicer. OK, Sean. Here it is. Here. Here's the compromise. We know -- we know that some of those Obamacare terms that are set to expire, that Democrats are lobbying, arguing for, are going to have to happen.

[09:55:10]

They're going to have to happen when people get their premium notices and the insurance has gone sky high. So, reach an accord now where Dems get a vote on that, on a date certain -- they get a vote on those issues. And let's reopen the government based on that agreement. I think it could happen. Here's one more social media reaction. Come on.

Closed primaries would become a non-issue if a relevant independent centrist third party could form. Yes, that's true, Darrel. I agree with that. And I appreciated Joe Manchin being on, I think, last Saturday's program, because he's the kind of person that I think could marshal that effort.

Look, I'd love to see a third-party option at a presidential level. I don't know if we're getting there anytime soon. How about just three or four true independents in the Senate? They would have all the power of the country in their hands, and then there would have to be compromise in a circumstance like this government shutdown.

Thank you for watching. If you missed any of today's program, you can always listen anywhere you get your podcasts. We will see you next week.

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