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Table For Five
CNN Saturday Morning Table for Five. President Trump Promises $5,000 Dividend to Every Adult American Citizen If Republicans Retain Control of House of Representatives and Senate after Upcoming Midterm Elections; Republicans Struggle to Defend President Trump's Proposed $5,000 Dividend Tied to Midterm Elections; Republican Senator Ted Cruz Claims Republican Party Currently Party of Blue Collar Workers; Criticism of Muslim American Politicians and Candidates by Republicans Stirs Controversy; Former Anthropic Employee Claims Artificial Intelligence Researchers Believe Superintelligent Technology May Threaten Existence of Humanity within Next Decade. Aired 10-11a ET
Aired September 12, 2026 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[10:00:35]
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Today, the president turns pitchman.
DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENT: If the Republicans win, I will issue a dividend for $5,000.
PHILLIP: But Donald Trump's midterm stunt leads critics to say the con is on.
Plus, the gulf between the rich and the rest has never been wider. But one Republican makes this claim about the Trump era.
SEN. TED CRUZ, (R-TX): Today, the Republican Party is a blue-collar party.
PHILLIP: Also, as the right vilifies Muslim Democrats.
CRUZ: They hate the Constitution and they hate America.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to defend America. He wants to represent Palestine.
PHILLIP: One comedian says their leadership is winning.
DL HUGHLEY, ACTOR AND COMEDIAN: These Muslims are putting these Christians to shame.
PHILLIP: And another A.I. employee quits over safety concerns, warning it could kill us all within the decade.
JACOB COXON, FORMER ANTHROPIC EMPLOYEE: It's only going to get more crazy. PHILLIP: So what is D.C. doing about it?
Here in studio, Bill Stepien, Yemisi Egbewole, Brad Polumbo, and Nayeema Raza.
It's the weekend. Join the conversation at the "TABLE FOR FIVE".
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Hi, everyone. I'm Abby Phillip.
In the face of a war, a wobbling economy, and a record low approval rating, Donald Trump kicks off the midterm sprint by turning to what he knows best -- gimmicks. The president promising a $5,000 payout to all adults if the GOP keeps the House and the Senate. It caught many of his own advisers by surprise and ticked off a lot of Republicans in the process. But it's hardly the first time he's made empty promises of straight cash.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENT: There's even under consideration a new concept where we give 20 percent of the DOGE savings to American citizens and 20 percent goes to paying down debt.
I love it, a 20 percent dividend, so to speak.
There could be a distribution or a dividend to the people of our country.
We're thinking maybe $1,000 to $2,000.
Are we giving back $2,000 or so to middle income people, low income people, everybody but the rich? It'll be next year sometime.
Probably in the middle of next year, a little bit later than that.
We will be able to make a very substantial dividend to the people of our country. I believe we can do that without Congress.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can promise some Americans will get those checks.
TRUMP: Oh yes, sure, I can. I can do that. I haven't made the commitment yet, but I may make the commitment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So how exactly is he going to pay for that $5,000? Well, the president says tariffs. But the tariff revenue is not even close to what he would need for that. And the Supreme Court has already ruled that most of his previous tariffs are illegal. They've got to refund it. Even Republicans are having a hard time explaining this away.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This shows just how creative and rule breaking and out-of-the-box President Trump is. I'm surprised no one has thought of this before.
REP. PAT FALLON, (R-TX): President Trump isn't saying that if we win, we'll do this. He's saying well be in a position to do this because we'll have the votes to do it. It's our money.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Um, yes, I guess, if the money is real, but it's not really clear that there's any money that actually is the source of this $5,000 check.
Here's a good flashback for you, Bill. Trump said back in 2012, "Don't let Obama buy the election by handing out unlimited free money to states." And of course, we remember the good old Obama phones. That was a huge controversy.
BILL STEPIEN, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE POLITICAL DIRECTOR: So we're in an election year and politicians are making promises and promising stuff for people. It's kind of what happens every election year. This is what happens.
To me, the biggest deal is he's actually talking about affordability and prices. He talked about it 22 times in his speech on Wednesday night. He has not done that to this point. I think as a Republican, the biggest deal is he's talking about a problem.
BRAD POLUMBO, INDEPENDENT JOURNALIST: But you acknowledge the checks aren't real, they're never coming? No one is getting a $5,000 check?
STEPIEN: I think history tells us Republicans are going to lose seats this fall.
POLUMBO: But even if they won, you acknowledge these -- these are a figment of his imagination.
PHILLIP: Imaginary checks.
POLUMBO: They're not real. No?
STEPIEN: The first step to fixing the problem of affordability is talking about it and addressing it.
[10:05:00] This may be not legal, this may be not prudent, but it's a step in the right direction.
PHILLIP: It's also the antithesis, by the way, of making things more affordable. It's just straight up inflationary at this point.
YEMISI EGBEWOLE, FORMER BIDEN PRESS OFFICE ADVISER: And if the conversation is about affordability, I think people want their monthlies to go down and they want to be able to pay their bills month to month to month -- $5,000 as a concept and a one-time payment, ultimately, I don't think puts a dent in any kind of affordability conversation, if this was even to be real.
NAYEEMA RAZA, PODCAST HOST, "SMART GIRL, DUMB QUESTIONS": You guys seen that meme that was like, Oprah was like, you get a car, you get a car, you get a car.
POLUMBO: Yes. Trump just did that.
RAZA: I feel like the entire last decade, like decades of American politics have felt like that, except Americans feel like they're in an empty parking lot. Like, you know, it's empty promises.
PHILLIP: Oprah actually gave the cars.
RAZA: She gave the cars.
EGBEWOLE: And they paid taxes on the car.
PHILLIP: They were not fake cars.
RAZA: I'm still waiting for my tariff rebate, but apparently, like it's going to Walmart and I got to send those guys my Paypal.
POLUMBO: So my question is this, is, is it not kind of a slap in the face if you're paying $4 for gas to have this fictional money that doesn't exist dangled in front of you by somebody -- I don't know if Trump is being delusional or dishonest, but he knows, his advisers know these checks aren't coming. If I was somebody who was really struggling with the cost of living that was supposed to get better by now and really hasn't, I would find that an insult to my intelligence to be dangled this money before me.
PHILLIP: I think you're so right about that. I mean, to me, there's so much risk in a strategy like this because it is kind of a slap in the face to Americans. It's a, an acknowledgment that they are struggling and in part because of your own policies. And b, it's a lie. And they know it's a lie. So why lie in a way that people are very aware of what you're doing right before an election? It just seems like provoking voters.
STEPIEN: I think the biggest problem, what's making the affordability problem worse is the gap between what people care about and what people think Trump cares about. He doesn't talk about affordability. He doesn't talk about price issues. This is the start of a conversation. I hope this allows Republicans to start talking about no taxes on tips, lower taxes that were passed last year, because they haven't really done that, because I think --
RAZA: They've talked about junk fees on credit cards, they've talked about things. I don't think this is talking about affordability. This is making a potentially, very likely empty promise about what would happen should the Republicans retain control of Congress, which, by the way, they have right now. So if you want to deliver this --
POLUMBO: They could do it now theoretically.
RAZA: And I think Bret Baier on FOX asked a good question when he asked the vice president, you know, do you think critics could see this as a bribe?
POLUMBO: Well, right. But I am getting whiplash, right? We never -- suddenly Democrats and liberal media outlets and everyone is like, well, do you really have the money to pay for that promise?
RAZA: Bret Baier is not a liberal media --
POLUMBO: Oh, no. Not him. Across, across the media. And where's that for the Green New Deal?
PHILLIP: Maybe, maybe that is a fair critique of Democrats, but it's also a fair critique of Republicans, too. Boris Sanchez spoke to one Republican congressman about how this differs from all their critiques of Biden for handing out money to people. And here's what he said.
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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Well, congressman, back in 2022, you argued that giving Americans $1,400 checks under President Biden's American Rescue Plan fueled, quote, "waste and inflation". You actually wrote a bill, the Paid Act, to take the leftover money from those pandemic funds and put it toward the debt. Now Trump wants to give more than three times that amount. How is that consistent? How is this different from the money Biden was trying to give folks?
REP. BUDDY CARTER, (R-GA): The money Biden was trying to give folks was the result of a pandemic that the Democrats and Fauci and pulled the -- pulled the wool over our eyes. And there's no question about that. And that's -- these are, this is apples and oranges here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Wait, wait, what? Like, it doesn't make any sense.
EGBEWOLE: Well, this is why Buddy Carter didn't win his primary. And also why, speaking as a Georgian. And also, I just think it's when Trump signs his name to a check, all of a sudden it isn't about limited government. It isn't about fiscal responsibility. It's a scramble to try to explain it.
I think the politics behind it is really interesting, because he did this at the midterm convention, and the whole point was that this is supposed to be a rally that does what? it raises enthusiasm for Republicans so that there is turnout and that they do beat the Democrats. But what I found interesting is that the next day, the second, final day, J.D. Vance didn't even mention the $5,000.
PHILLIP: Of course not because it's not real.
EGBEWOLE: It got totally real. Yes, it got totally swallowed.
PHILLIP: And also, I mean, Trump has spent -- they've spent the last 48 hours or 72 hours defending this issue, not touting it, but literally defending it. And then the president on Friday, he doubles down. He says the $5,000 Trump dividend is going to be due to the fact that our country is "taking in trillions of dollars of economic development, investment, and pure success." These are like unicorn words. Like, what is he talking about?
And then he also says the $5,000 dividend will happen because the people of our country deserve it.
[10:10:01]
He also adds, "When I say something, I mean it."
RAZA: None of this is true.
POLUMBO: If this happens, I'll come back and we can shave my head, dye it pink, and pierce my tongue on camera.
PHILLIP: We have to dye it first and then --
POLUMBO: Sure. What I'm saying is, I have never -- and I've been covering politics for a decade. I've never been more confident that something will not happen than this.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, Trump is insistent on this $19 trillion economic development number, which is fictional. That is not real. But even if it were real, first of all, shouldn't we pay down our debt first? But secondly, you can't just take that money and use it to hand out checks to people. That's not how this works.
STEPIEN: Do you see the margins in Congress? I think this is much ado about nothing. I think we see history. We see how close the margins are. I'm not betting on -- I'm not toeing the party line here. I'm not betting on Republicans this fall.
PHILLIP: Oh, well, there you go.
RAZA: No one is getting a car.
PHILLIP: Next for us, the president is making billions of dollars, and the rich are, in fact, getting richer. So can the GOP really be considered the blue-collar party right now?
Plus, the right continues to liken Muslim Democrats to terrorists and communists. But one comedian says Muslim leaders are putting Christian ones to shame right now. We'll discuss.
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[10:15:58]
PHILLIP: Welcome back. It is no secret that the rich have gotten richer over the last decade, aided by tax cuts, deregulation, and the high-tech boom. The gap between the CEOs and workers has never been wider. And despite all of that, and of course, the president himself making billions of dollars while in office, Senator Ted Cruz believes this about Republicans in the Trump era.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TED CRUZ, (R-TX): We're a blue-collar party now. That's something that 20 years ago very few people would have believed. But that's the heart of our party now, is truck drivers and steelworkers and cops and firefighters. That's -- and I think we're seeing that in the jobs numbers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So there is some truth to what he's saying there in terms of the shift that happened under Trump since 2016. But what's interesting is that lately Trump has been suffering a little bit in terms of non, or non-college-educated white voters who are the types of people he's talking about. His approval rating is down from 63 percent last year to now 46 percent this year.
And some of that, I think, is because of just the overall economy. But there is this perception that there are real winners and losers in this Trump economy. And usually if you can get through to the White House because you're rich and you're a tech CEO, you're going to win.
POLUMBO: Yes. Or you buy enough crypto coin, of course. If you buy enough Trump Coin, you might get a meeting.
I think the problem for Republicans is that part of what allowed them to capture the blue color, blue-collar vote, the working class vote was the Democrats cultural ascendancy, right, in the woke moment where they really got over their skis on a whole host of issues about, you know, free speech, about cancel culture, about trans issues. But that, now that Republicans are in power, it seems more distant to people. And those greatest hits that Republicans rolled out that did successfully make blue-collar workers think the Democrats were out of touch with them, don't quite hit the same when Republicans are dominant in culture and in government, and gas is unaffordable.
RAZA: Don't you think -- I mean, I actually think it started earlier than that. I think it started with Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump in 2016. I mean, since Bernie was no longer in the, you know, on the election, all of a sudden, I think the Republicans did become the blue-collar party. So Ted Cruz is, you know, per usual, a little late to the party. But, he's figured that out. It's not the case anymore.
I don't think there is a blue-collar party in America right now because workers are consistently made these promises that we've talked about. I think workers understand that no one in Washington is really at the national level working for them. So who is the party, who is the blue-collar party? The party that's not in power.
EGBEWOLE: I think we give we give Republicans credit 100 percent on 66 percent white, non-college-educated voters they were able to grab. But the larger conversation comes from, what have you done to retain that? And I haven't really seen that. I mean, we talk about -- if we talk about blue-collar, we have to talk about unions. Collective bargaining has been a huge issue. A lot of unions have spoken out against the Trump administration.
I mean, I look at President Joe Biden who I think really tried to work very hard with the unions. The unions were not convinced on his messaging. They went to Trump, and now they're kind of left wanting more. And 35,000 manufacturing jobs have been down. Inflation is up since Bidens last month. It's all collectively coming together.
And I agree with you here. Nobody really gets to own the blue-collar worker. And I think even with rural, like with farmers, that's starting to be a part of the conversation.
But look, do I think do I think voters who voted three times for Donald Trump all of a sudden turn around and start voting for the Democratic Party? I don't think so. But I do think that they stay home.
RAZA: Doesn't it depend on who they run? Because while I think there is no party that's a blue-collar party, I do think there are candidates that are blue-collar candidates at the individual level. Mayor Mamdani, AOC, Bernie Sanders. J.D. Vance. was that for a long time.
PHILLIP: Can I just argue or put on the table the prospect that this entire idea of working class voters moving to Trump because of economic issues is actually not quite what happened, that maybe they moved for a lot of other reasons, including the cultural reasons, including backlash from the Obama era.
[10:20:15]
Because some of these, some of these same voters did at one point vote for Obama, but turned on the Democrats after that era.
STEPIEN: In the election before Trump, Romney lost those earning under 50k by 25. Trump just won them by two, largely on the back --
RAZA: Isn't it less than 30 percent? Isn't it like 29 percent is his approval rating amongst --
STEPIEN: Well, what I was going to say, and by the way, a lot of that was on the backs of Hispanics, right? There was a 30 -- 41 percent change from 12 to 24. I'm old enough to remember George Bush in 04 winning 44 percent of Hispanics. He we tried to build a permanent coalition that included Hispanics, and they slipped away, to the point about maintaining. You need to keep your finger on, on the pulse of these voters.
PHILLIP: Yes. And I think right now there's some real, real questions about -- I think a lot of the polling has suggested that Trump has almost completely eroded his gains with Hispanic voters, in part due to the immigration, which is going to change the narrative when we -- if or when we do see the next uh, you know, candidate, maybe it's a J.D. Vance who is trying to run a Trumpian campaign, can he hold on to Hispanic voters? I'm not so sure. Yes.
EGBEWOLE: But back to the -- but to the cultural issues, I do think that's where Democrats can gain. And I've been -- it's been really great to see candidates that are running in Iowa, in Alaska, in Texas, when they are asked specifically about cultural issues that have tripped up candidates before, they are very honest in speaking to the states and districts that they live in. And they're not -- POLUMBO: But they are threading the needle so minutely. And whoever
the Democratic nominee in 2028 is, is going to have a mountain of baggage on these things. Years, whether it's AOC or it's Zohran, years of absurd statements about defund the police, years of extreme positions.
EGBEWOLE: Those aren't the 2028 candidates I'm think -- I'm thinking about like a Josh Shapiro, an Andy Beshear, candidates like that.
POLUMBO: But those candidates are very unlikely to have to appeal to the primary base, which is who they would need to appeal to to get the nomination.
EGBEWOLE: We're starting with South Carolina. That's a different base.
PHILLIP: I mean, OK, you're talking about the Josh Shapiros and the Andy Beshears, but I mean, it might actually be that the sort of economically progressive candidates like the AOCs are more likely to be able to successfully make this case.
RAZA: Yes, because they speak about affordability, which is what the main issue is.
I mean, I think we're having a conversation about who is the worker party or not. Theres also a conversation who is the elite party or not. The Democrats have become the elite party in the last decade. It has felt like that. Now, with Donald Trump making $2.2 billion in the White House this year, triple what Trump Enterprises made, I think, in the preceding year, you know, a billion plus of that off of crypto, you got to ask, is this not has this not been the elite party?
POLUMBO: But the question there is, do you want the corrupt capitalism or the extreme socialism? And I'm not sure they want that either.
PHILLIP: That is that is quite literally going to be the question. I don't know exactly where the voters are going to land on that one.
Next for us, political discourse got even uglier this week. This time, conservatives attacking the faith of Muslim Democrats. We'll discuss.
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PHILLIP: This week, when the nation marked 25 years since 9/11, the faith of lawmakers has become part of the country's political discourse. Rudy Giuliani and some 9/11 families didn't want Mayor Zohran Mamdani at the ceremony on Friday.
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RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: Frankly, whatever he'd like to say, he doesn't agree that September 11th was an Islamic terrorist attack on the United States of America. Having lost friends there and being very close to many of the families, it offends me that he's coming. This is not they want to be just another religion. They want to dominate us. Mamdani is a clear, a clear supporter of that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Mamdani ignored those calls and refused to engage. He even shook Giuliani's hand there at the event as well. And while Mamdani's approval remains very high, very high in New York, and the right continues to attack the Muslim faith of other Democrats, Comedian DL Hughley made this larger point.
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DL HUGHLEY, ACTOR AND COMEDIAN: I have never seen Muslim legislators be as cruel as I see Christian. It is cruel to do things to people because they are poor, and you would never see Mamdani or El-Sayed, none of them would ever propose anything as cruel as people claim to love Christ.
[10:30:00]
I think these Muslims are putting Christians to shame. The things they are doing are the very things Christ told us to do, to look out for the sick, to feed the downtrodden, to look out for the stranger
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: If you were hoping to avoid holy war territory, I think you're out of luck this election cycle, because this is what is being leaned into both, mostly on the right. But I think what Hughley is trying to do is to turn it on its head, the arguments that, and I'll play it in a little bit, that Ted Cruz is making, that there is this sort of insurgency of Muslims in our politics.
POLUMBO: I think the problem here is that there's two things happening at the same time. There's an ugly strain to this, right, when they're putting Abdul El-Sayed's full name in ads, attack ads. We know what they're doing. They're otherizing people. They're trying to stir this up.
But then there's also a flipside to this, where there are legitimate concerns. There are serious missteps that have been made. If I was running, if I was campaigning to be the first Muslim mayor of New York city, I would not pal around with the guy best known when he's not abusing his dogs for saying America deserved 9/11, Hasan Piker. That's a massive miscalculation. Same with El-Sayed. So I think people have legitimate concerns, but Republicans are getting into ugly, ugly territory with some of this stuff.
RAZA: Hasn't Mamdani disavowed those comments? And even --
POLUMBO: I don't think --
RAZA: -- not said that --
POLUMBO: No, no, no. Hassan has put a burning picture of the Twin Towers in his stream set background, so he's disavowed it years ago, and now he doubles down. RAZA: Tommy Tuberville also tweeted a retweeted a picture of a very,
what looked like a peaceful and quite yummy iftar meal that the mayor was at with a right by -- side by side with the Twin Towers burning.
POLUMBO: And I think that's disgusting.
RAZA: Saying the enemy is inside the gates.
POLUMBO: I think that's awful. That's what I'm saying. There's dueling tensions here. There's an ugly streak. But we can't sit here and say that Americans have no valid concerns about any of these --
RAZA: I mean, first of all, I'm a Muslim on this panel. I was born in America. I grew up abroad because my parents work. I came back to the U.S. just before 9/11. And I always grew up feeling really American. And also I happen to be Muslim.
And all of a sudden after 9/11, it became as if those two things were antonyms. You couldn't be Muslim. You couldn't be patriotic or American at the same time. And all of a sudden, there were synonyms. If you're Muslim, you're a terrorist. And that is just so inaccurate. And that has seeped through the culture.
And I think there hasn't been a when you have candidates like Andrew Cuomo palling around, having some casual morning Islamophobia with, you know, sit on his radio show and other things, I don't think there has been a generation that's able to speak up because it was a scary time to even just be a Muslim or be acknowledged. Like, I would be hope that I would be seen as Indian because, you know, there was like a bit of a -- just there was a casual racism about things.
PHILLIP: There is a blurring of the lines between, I mean, obviously terrorism is more than a legitimate concern.
RAZA: Of course.
PHILLIP: Terrorism is in and of itself the problem that that is worth addressing.
POLUMBO: But also some tenets of global Islamic faith.
PHILLIP: But hold on a second. I think that this is the issue, is that you targeting -- or not you per se, but someone targeting faith specifically is where I think this gets murky. And here's Ted Cruz on that convention stage on Thursday. He's in the middle of an argument against both El-Sayed and Mamdani.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TED CRUZ, (R-TX): When Mamdani says he wants to seize the means of production, he means it. When Abdul El-Sayed says he has a, quote, obligation to comply with sharia law, he means it. And when James Talarico says he wants to dismantle capitalism --
(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: First of all, on the El-Sayed thing, I mean, this whole sharia law thing takes his comments out of -- out of context. But I also think, you know, it's interesting to me that conservatives are -- they're quick to associate maybe the worst aspects of terrorists with Muslims. But then when you have, you know, Christian nationalists, um, like that, that pastor who, you know, Pete Hegseth invited to the Pentagon who thinks that women shouldn't have the right to vote, that they should be subservient to their, to their husbands, they should stay at home and have babies, there's no outcry about that. I don't understand why.
STEPIEN: Look, there are crazies in both parties, right? I mean, they're they just are. I think it's concerning when we are -- I'm always -- there were people in my party who were very happy when Mamdani was elected mayor. I was concerned because I think he's a charismatic, good-looking, well-dressed guy with a great smile. And I think anytime someone can make dangerous ideas seem not that dangerous, it should be concerning for us.
[10:35:00]
Look, I look at attacking the guy in Michigan, El-sayed. He's winning in a swing state, four of the last five polls. Like, attack the ideas. But attacking the religion, the faith, the guy, it doesn't make sense. To me, there's enough fodder, there's enough fodder on the issues as opposed to attacking the religion.
EGBEWOLE: Yes, I agree. And Rudy Giuliani totally took away from the families and from the ceremony itself by doing all of this about Mamdani leading up to it, because then what happened? They shook hands. Because what is that moment about? It is about the families. It is about grieving. It is not about politicians.
POLUMBO: But some of the families didn't want him there.
EGBEWOLE: But not all of them, though.
POLUMBO: I know. I understand.
RAZA: It wasn't unanimous --
STEPIEN: Did we not, did we not see the smiles and the laughter from Mamdani?
POLUMBO: Well, that was just a little --
STEPIEN: It was just a little? That was just a little? The names were being said. The bell was being rung. Families were crying, and he's laughing.
PHILLIP: I did, to Yemisi's point, I mean, there was a Rudy Giuliani aide who said I was there. And this is taken out of context.
STEPIEN: I saw the picture.
PHILLIP: There were other politicians who were greeting each other in that moment. And, you know, I don't --
RAZA: It might not be inappropriate --
PHILLIP: My point is, my point is that, look, I don't -- look, I don't want to litigate that. I wasn't there, so I can't say. There were other people who were there who said that that was taken out of context. However, I don't think it's fair to say that that that moment encapsulates how AOC and Mamdani view 9/11. I mean, is that, is that actually what people are saying?
RAZA: This is like the subtlety of our current meme economy, which is that you're pointing to that picture, but what are you actually saying? Are you saying that they were laughing at the tragedy of 9/11? Like, what is the actual sentiment underlying the sharing and circulation of that photo?
STEPIEN: I'm just I'm seeing the contrast of their emotion with people crying as each name is being said, as the bell is being rung, as people are crying as emotionally today as 25 years ago. That contrast is really concerning to me. I'm not saying he doesn't take he doesn't believe in 9/11 or. But to me, there's a level of seriousness that needs to exist in solemness on this day that I didn't see in that picture.
PHILLIP: And that may that may well have been a misstep in that moment. But again, I think it's also suggesting something about their motivations, which I don't think that there's -- I think there's a lot of things that you can say about the two of them politically, but I'm not sure you can say that they are people who would celebrate 9/11. So there are some people who have really crazy views about it. I don't think AOC and Mamdani are --
RAZA: Isn't it an inane conversation about whether or not the mayor of New York City should attend the memorial for 9/11?
POLUMBO: No, now when he campaigned with the America deserves 9/11 dude.
EGBEWOLE: But if he doesn't attend then doesn't that become the conversation --
(CROSS TALK)
PHILLIP: Don't forget, the president, Donald Trump, brought Laura Loomer to the 9/11 Memorial.
POLUMBO: That's shameful.
PHILLIP: The last time. She is a 9/11 conspiracy theorist.
POLUMBO: That is equally disgraceful, if not more so.
PHILLIP: Next for us, are the machines about to conquer men? The dire warnings now about A.I. and why some are warning that technology could eventually kill us all in the near future.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:42:56]
PHILLIP: Anthropic is trying to calm escalating fears amid a wave of warnings that artificial intelligence could wipe out humanity. In a new report, the company reveals it blocked bad actors across the globe from using its A.I. model Claude for malicious activity like building biological weapons. This week, an Anthropic employee quit, warning that A.I. could eventually kill humans within the next decade. But when he was asked about these apocalyptic predictions, President Trump dismissed the concerns over machines and man.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do we have the guardrails?
DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENT: It's going to be fine. We'll always have something to stop them, right? We'll have a little gear.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I really hope so.
TRUMP: I don't like that. I really don't like that robot.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: There is some nonchalance that has been -- that has characterized A.I. policy in Washington for the last couple of years. That's starting to change, but it's being led by the administration that fundamentally is, is slow, not that willing to really take this, some of this stuff seriously.
EGBEWOLE: And it's happening so rapidly. I worked in the Senate on tech policy for Mark Warner and Amy Klobuchar, and Klobuchar, Thune, and Cruz have a bill right now that would put in some safeguards. But sometimes it feels with legislative policy that Washington is always like 10 to 15 years behind. We're having conversations about semiconductors, data centers, things that have always existed, and they're just now catching up to safety and regulation. And it's happening under this administration, I think it's difficult, because a lot of these tech CEOs have very friendly relationships with the administration. So you're not even trusting if what's happening is really looking out for people.
And Anthropic, though, kind of frustrates me because Dario painted himself as the one guy you could trust. Anthropic was safe but demonized Sam Altman and OpenAI. Now I think people are starting to see that there are pitfalls with every single company.
PHILLIP: Go ahead.
POLUMBO: Well, what's the alternative? That's what I'm wondering, because I saw this story. I was very concerned by the dystopian sci-fi nature of A.I. deciding to wipe us out to complete an assignment, which is apparently like a non-zero possibility.
[10:45:01] So I text some of my buddies from college who are coders and now work in A.I. safety, expecting them to reassure me. And they're like, no, actually, yes, we all know that's real and could happen, but what's the alternative? We have to keep developing this. And that's where I'm left with, you can't -- we have to win the race to superintelligence. The idea that we would allow China to obtain a reach superintelligence in A.I. before us, that would be a bigger threat to our civilization.
PHILLIP: Or we could show some leadership as a global superpower and say, hey, let's all get together, China, Russia, U.S, India, whoever, and lets come up with something. I mean, that is a real option that is available to us, that we just simply are ignoring.
RAZA: Yes. And I would add to that, like the idea that, oh, the U.S. is going to win the race for super superintelligence. If there's anything to learn from these new reports that are coming out around like what looks like covert influence operations or other state actors using Anthropic technology to research bioweapons or whatever the case may be, or dissidents, et cetera, it's like, who cares where the technology is made in? It can be used.
POLUMBO: Well, I think it matters a lot where the technology is made.
RAZA: It matters. It matters, but to some extent. Like if we thought the social media boom was like concerning, we should be very concerned now. And I've never been -- like, the average age of Congress is what, 60? We have a president who was asked in February, do you use ChatGPT or Claude? And he's like, not really, but he has zero concern --
POLUMBO: That's the problem with the idea of regulating it. These ancient people don't know how to use an iPhone.
PHILLIP: Use a cellphone, yes.
No, I mean, OK, so on Thursday, a Google engineer, former scientist, talked about some of the things that he was seeing in this research. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALEX TURNER, FORMER GOOGLE DEEPMIND RESEARCH SCIENTIST: I'm worried about building systems that can hack so well that even the company that was supposed to be monitoring them wasn't able to catch them until after the fact. And as we integrate A.I. into more and more parts of our economy and military, as these A.I.s become more capable of uplifting sophisticated potential bioterror operations, that could lead to very large catastrophe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So Bill, do you think that this is the moment that Republicans in particular are going to start taking this seriously? Because the administration, the president, J.D. Vance -- J.D. Vance last year, you know, he went to Munich and he basically said, we are not going to allow over, you know, overly stringent constraints on A.I. That's not how were doing business. And here's a quote from, this is called the Innovation Council Action.
It's an advocacy group that supports Trumps A.I. agenda. Taylor Budowich says, "The calls to transfer regulation and liability to the government, governments of the world aren't about safety. It's about naked political activism." Can they continue with that in this environment?
STEPIEN: The only solution I'm seeing on the hill is to slow it down. I know you say we can't lose the race to China. And I do agree this is kind of like the modern cold war. It's like an arms race to win. But the only solutions I'm seeing coming out of Congress, Ted Cruz and others on the Hill is to slow this down. So I'm not sure that we -- we can't afford to lose, but because this is kind of gotten out so far ahead of us, the only solution we have is to slow it down.
EGBEWOLE: Look, the young employee that left Anthropic and did the. He gave up some of his equity. And so, OK, maybe I'll take some of the message from that. But a lot of these people that are giving us warning signs still have the same stock of the companies that were --
PHILLIP: I mean, they're exiting quite wealthy at this point.
Next for us, the panel is going to give us their unpopular opinions, what they're not afraid to say out loud.
A quick programing note for you. "Have I Got News for You" is back to make comedy out of this week's biggest headlines. Join Roy Wood Jr., Amber Ruffin, and Michael Ian Black for the season premiere tonight at 9:00 p.m. on CNN and streaming the next day with an all access subscription.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:53:41]
PHILLIP: We are back, and it's time for your unpopular opinions. Brad, you're up first.
POLUMBO: Well, Abby, we don't really live in in a sane country, but if we did with NFL, the NFL season starting, we would actually ban high school football. There is no other context in which we would allow millions of young men to inflict regular brain concussions, or just impacts, and the effects of it are so damaging. But it's so normalized because Americans love football. There are so many other sports kids could play that are so much more safe.
PHILLIP: You have to probably ban hockey at the same time, too.
POLUMBO: I think it's much worse, the data on football than hockey.
PHILLIP: That might be true.
All right, Nayeema.
RAZA: All right, I don't know if you guys have seen the new Theranos documentary trailer with Nathan Fielder and Elizabeth Holmes. But I am like, journalistic ethics aside, if Nathan Fielder and Elizabeth Holmes fell in love making this documentary, I am here for it. This documentary, also hot take two. You should not have a trailer that's that good and be allowed to wait for the release of the film.
(LAUGHTER)
RAZA: You know, it just needs to be out.
PHILLIP: Yes, I've heard that it is really good. So we'll see.
Yemisi?
EGBEWOLE: My unpopular opinion is that summer is not over. Just because the calendar tells you that we should switch to a new season of fall and pumpkin spice lattes. The weather itself, it's getting to the point where it is 80 to 90 degrees up until the end of September.
[10:55:00]
And just because you've sent your kids back to school does not mean that summer is over for me.
PHILLIP: Well into October these days. It's insane. Yes, you can hold the pumpkin spice, whatever.
STEPIEN: I'll sign on to that.
I spent a lot of time in upstate New York, and poor upstate New York gets no attention. New York City gets all the money, all the glory, all the glamor. New York state should be split into two states, upstate New York and downstate New York. It's happened before 1777. Vermont used to be part of New York. Sure, it would require an act of Congress, but let's make it happen.
(LAUGHTER)
RAZA: They'll get that done right away.
PHILLIP: Some upstaters might agree with you on that.
All right, everyone, thank you very much for being here. Thanks for watching "TABLE FOR FIVE". You can catch me every weeknight at 10:00 p.m. eastern with our Newsnight roundtable. In the meantime, CNN's coverage continues right now.
