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The Story Is with Elex Michaelson
Trump Hosts Xi Jinping At White House State Dinner; Lawmakers Unveil Hollywood Tax Incentive Proposal; Nor'easter Set To Slam East Coast With Heavy Rain, Winds; Netanyahu Unleashes On Mamdani During U.N. Address; Media Outlets Return to White House, TV Pool in Limbo; A.I. & Tech CEOs Attend White House Dinner with Xi; Stanford Found Using A.I. to "Diversify" Image of Students. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired September 25, 2026 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): And North Korea was no longer interested in engaging with the West.
KATHI ZELLWEGER, SWISS AID WORKER: The word control was used much more widely than before.
RIPLEY: So you thought it was getting more restrictive and more controlling in more recent years.
ZELLWEGER: Yes.
RIPLEY: Yes.
ZELLWEGER: Bye-bye. Can you say bye-bye?
RIPLEY (voice-over): Then suddenly the door slammed shut. Kathi often thinks about all the people she met, people she may never see or hear from again. Will Ripley, CNN.
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ELEX MICHAELSON, CNN ANCHOR: Powerful reporting. Our thanks to Will Ripley. And thanks for watching the first hour of The Story Is. The next hour starts right now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Live from Los Angeles, The Story Is with Elex Michaelson.
MICHAELSON: Thanks for watching. I'm Elex Michaelson. It's 10 o'clock here in Los Angeles. Coming up, the studio story is President Trump wining and dining China's leader alongside a gaggle of top tech executives. What was on the table at the exclusive White House dinner?
Senator Adam Schiff is with us to talk about that and the issue where he's working with President Trump, Spencer Pratt and Jon Voight. Plus, Israel's prime minister doubling down on his decision to go to war with Iran. Several countries protested his speech at the U.N. General Assembly.
But let's begin in Washington, where President Trump is hosting Chinese leader Xi Jinping right now for a state visit. A formal state dinner at the White House just wrapped up late this evening. In the day ahead, President Trump is set to take Xi to the National Archives to see the nation's founding documents in honor of America's 250th anniversary.
It is Xi's first visit to Washington in more than a decade and his second meeting with Trump this year as the two leaders work to manage one of the world's most consequential relationships, perhaps the most. They held closed door talks at the White House on Thursday.
Chinese state media says the discussions covered trade, artificial intelligence and the war with Iran. Chinese media also report that Xi said that he hopes the U.S. will oppose Taiwan independence. That's not something new. Live now to CNN's state Steven Jiang, our Beijing bureau chief.
What do we know about this meeting and what do we know about what to expect in the hours ahead?
STEVEN JIANG, CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: Yes, Elex, as you just mentioned the meeting covered all the topics you would expect from geopolitical flashpoints to trade and economic frictions to Taiwan, of course, which has always been Beijing's top priority. But what's going on here is they're still very far apart in terms of positions on a wide range of issues.
And again, given this reality, I think both sides have decided to really take advantage of this personal rapport, this supposed friendship between their leaders to really maintain this fragile stability they have achieved in the past few months. Instead of having this relationship going through another downward spiral, which we saw during Trump's first term, as well as the opening months of Trump's second term when he launched that massive trade war against Beijing.
Now, Xi Jinping, of course, as you remember, perhaps the only world leader able to withstand that kind of pressure by imposing tit for tat countermeasures that eventually many would say forcing Trump to back down. That's where we are. The two sides reaching a trade truce back in November extended again just now for another two months.
But that's why the summit may be high stakes. It's low expectations because people are not expecting any major breakthroughs or any grand deals. It's really about maintaining this framework that they agreed on back in May. Quite a mouthful caught constructive strategic stability, but really means is giving each leader some time. For Trump, of course, he is really very much dealing with potentially very brutal results of the upcoming midterm elections.
And Xi Jinping also needs time to deal with economic headwinds at home, a massive purge in the military, not to mention achieving that much talked about goal of achieving not only self-sufficiency, but perhaps even overtaking the U.S. in key technologies, including on AI. Elex?
MICHAELSON: Well, Steven, you know, a lot of the images from this trip are not being broadcast on American TV channels because of this back and forth over this media ban that has not still been worked out with the pool. I'm guessing the images are being broadcast by Chinese state media.
Give us a sense of what it looks like in China and how this visit is being perceived by the Chinese public.
JIANG: Yes, it's definitely being a splash across all Chinese media outlets and platforms with this being the only top story, if you will, with a constant stream of reports and photos and videos.
[01:05:02]
And this of course is again, not surprising because this is how this political and media environment works. And especially when it comes to their top leaders' overseas trip, every aspect is meticulously planned. And this, you know, if anything is very much also very much mirrored Trump's treatment and reception here when he was here back in May.
So you have seen the rare greeting of Trump and Melania at the airbase of Xi's plane and the pomp and pageantry at the White House arrival ceremony, complete with the flyover and military review, not to mention that state dinner you just mentioned. So everything is being reported in very much minutiae detail here to really portray their leader as well as Trump, I guess as both global statesman with the stature, with the respect and influence they commend on the world stage.
So I think this serves well again to Dai Go I mentioned in terms of this personal relationship trying to maintain that fragile stability between the two governments. Elex.
MICHAELSON: Steven with our live reporting from Beijing. Thank you so much for being with us.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Without insulin, the body can't use glucose, so it breaks down fat, producing ketones leading to severe acidosis which can cause cardiac arrest.
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MICHAELSON: That is a scene from the Emmy winning HBO TV show "The Pitt" cross it's filmed -- across the street from our studios in the Warner Brothers lot in Burbank. But in recent years, a growing number of movies and TV shows are filmed in other countries. Now there's a new proposal to keep more American productions in America.
The bipartisan, bicameral federal film tax credit proposal would be a 20 percent tax credit on labor expenses. It would only be eligible for projects with budgets over $1 million. And when 75 percent of filming occurs in the US. California Senator Adam Schiff is the lead Democrat in the Senate on this bill. He joins me now from Washington.
Senator, welcome back to The Story Is.
SEN. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Thank you. Great to be with you.
MICHAELSON: So last time you were here with us, you floated the idea of this, but there were no specifics. Now we've got a specific bill and we've got specific Republicans behind it. Tim Scott, the senator from South Carolina is joining you on this. What was the argument that you used to win over Republicans?
SCHIFF: You know, I think a lot of the Republicans were supportive of this. I've been having conversations with them for the last two years and in the House for many, many years before that. What it really took was the president issuing a statement of support. I think they were waiting for a signal from the White House that if they got on board this, they would have the president's backing and he did issue that statement.
It was a full throated endorsement of this bill and that really moved things forward. Then it was just a question of hammering out some last minute progress provisions. We already had a very good draft. I've had that for, you know, the last couple of years.
And we also obviously worked with our Democratic and Republican counterparts in the House. So that when we introduced the bill today, it was not only bipartisan but also in both Houses. And that just gives us that much stronger a chance for passage.
MICHAELSON: And you told us last time that you've been working with Spencer Pratt as a sort of liaison to the White House on this. Has President Trump signed off on this specific bill? Is he behind this?
SCHIFF: We've been working closely with the White House and Spencer Pratt has been very helpful. John Voight has been very helpful. They've been, I think, very good liaisons with the White House. And my understanding is that we have sign off of all the stakeholders on the terms of this bill.
That's what we were really working towards. We want to make sure that nobody had any poison pills, no deal breakers. And I think we're all in alignment on this and not just the parties and the White House, but also labor and the guilds. This is really quite a remarkable achievement to have everybody on the same page on this pretty complicated issue.
MICHAELSON: I've been talking to you about this issue in different jobs for over a decade now. So is this -- is the finish line in sight? I mean, do you think this gets done in the next month or two?
SCHIFF: I think the finish line is in sight. We really need to strike while the iron is hot. It's not going to happen before the election. The House is already out of session. But we're going to come back in after the election for what's called a lame duck session. It is my hope that we get it done then. That's our best opportunity. We don't want to wait until next year when this party or that might lose interest or we might lose momentum.
So, it's really important that we do our best to get it done. And it's not difficult to see that pathway. It might get taken up on its own or more likely it will get added to a bill that's already moving. Either approach is fine with me, just so long as we get it done.
MICHAELSON: So there is appears to be bipartisan consensus to actually do something on this issue.
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Another issue where a lot of people want you all to do something is AI regulation. Obviously, that's not happening before the election, but is there any bipartisan consensus on that? As the senator from California who represents Silicon Valley, is there any movement and what would AI regulation look like?
SCHIFF: There's bipartisan concern, frankly, with how AI is developing the speed, the sophistication, the lack of control over AI, even by the companies that are producing it. And on the leading edge, when you see, as OpenAI did, its own AI chat bot agents talking to themselves, posting messages to themselves, saying, we're beholden to no corporation, no government, we are not subservient, we are, you know, on a par with our clients, then it's really cause for alarm. I think people here are alarmed.
But I also feel, Elex, in terms of seeing a finish line here. We have a terrible record in the Congress of regulating technology. Even when there's palpable harm, as we have seen with social media and what it's done to our kids, we cannot afford to have that same dysfunctional approach when it comes to AI because it's just too dangerous.
MICHAELSON: So IA big topic of conversation this evening at the White House, where you have the President, United States, the leader of China, in one space with a lot of the big tech leaders. And then there's still this fight outside about media access, about this potential ban and questions over following court orders.
Your take on everything that's happening. And why, in your view, does all of that matter?
SCHIFF: Well, in terms of what's happening outside the White House, this is a flagrant attack on the First Amendment, on the right of free speech, on the right of the press. And here you have the President meeting with one of the preeminent dictators in the world, a totally repressive regime when it comes to many things, including the press. And to be in a position as the United States of America meeting with this foreign leader and you're demonstrating the same kind of censorship, or, you know, not to the degree China is, but analogous censorship, saying, these outlets don't cover me favorably. I don't like what they have to say when they report the facts. So I'm going to kick them out. It's a terrible message to the world and really, you know, sadly
reflects poorly on the United States of America. What's happening inside the summit, a lot of pageantry, not a whole lot of progress on meaningful issues. And we really need to come to some agreement with China when it comes to AI. We need at the same time preserve our lead in AI. I don't trust China to act responsibly with AI, but I also don't trust industry to act without government intervention and government regulation.
So this is a tough challenge. We shouldn't be selling advanced chips to China. I'm in strong disagreement with the administration about that. Why give China that advantage in the race forward with AI? But we need both dialogue with China that helps find common ground where we can to protect civilization. And we also need to have constraints here at home to protect our own people.
MICHAELSON: Senator Adam Schiff, Democrat from California, joining us from Capitol Hill. Senator, thanks so much for being with us.
SCHIFF: Great to be with you.
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DEREK BRINDISI, PLYMOUTH TOWN MANAGER: We're preparing for coastal flooding, high winds, heavy rains. And we all know, you know, we've been doing this long enough that when we get a combination of high winds and heavy rains, we will expect serious power outages.
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MICHAELSON: An early fall nor'easter is gathering strength along the U.S. East Coast, threatening coastal flooding along with strong winds and heavy rain throughout the weekend. CNN's Allison Chinchar has more.
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ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Millions are already under flood advisories, flood watches and flood warnings from Boston all the way down to Norfolk in anticipation of this storm getting much closer over the next 24 to 48 hours. You've got two low pressure systems out there right now. It's this one right here, the one that's closer to the coast. That's the worrisome one as we head into the weekend.
Notice from now all the way through early Saturday, it really doesn't move all of that much, but the impacts have already begun. So what it's doing is essentially pushing a tremendous amount of water into these coastal communities, even by Sunday afternoon, again, really not seeing all that much movement with this particular storm. So you have all of that water that being pushed in along the coast. That's why you've got a concern for coastal flooding.
But you also have those very gusty winds expected with this storm. We've already had wind gusts up around 35-40 miles per hour today.
[01:15:00] Then we can continue to see those numbers even jumping higher, 40, 50, even 60 to 65 miles per hour, especially as we head into Saturday and Sunday as that storm edges even closer to the coastline. In terms of rainfall some of these areas likely to only pick up maybe about 2 to 4 inches. Others could pick up 4, 6 or even as much as 8 inches of rain all the way through the weekend. So it's going to be several different types of impacts here.
That's why you have a lot of those flood alerts. And it's likely that we're going to see a lot more community get those flood alerts added to them as we go through the next 24 hours.
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MICHAELSON: Allison, thank you. Still ahead on The Story Is, the Israeli prime minister makes a prediction about how much longer the Iranian regime will last.
Plus, the European Commission President talks to CNN's Christiane Amanpour about the billion euro a day trade deficit with China, how she plans to level the playing field.
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MICHAELSON: Iran says it has presented a new proposal to the U.S. to restart negotiations on ending the war. Iran's foreign minister says the proposal lays out conditions that the U.S. would have to meet in seven days. If it does, that could lead to new talks and a potential reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. But in his address at the UN General Assembly, Israel's prime minister said the Iranian regime won't last/
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BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIMIE MINISTER: One day and it may not be far away, the Iranian people will be free. Their murderous regime will be toppled by its lies, by its corruption, by its cruelty. This evil regime will fall.
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MICHAELSON: Mr. Netanyahu addressed the General Assembly on Thursday, hours after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Israel's leader, lashed out at European countries, pro-Palestinian protesters and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. But Mr. Abbas focused on keeping the possibility of a two-state solution alive.
Speaking remotely from the west bank because the U.S. would not give him a visa to travel to the country, he slammed Israel's plan to build more settlements, which would effectively split the area into two.
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MAHMOUD ABBAS, PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): We have long warned the international community through the United Nations General assembly and through the Security Council, that these Israeli policies in violation of international law would destroy the two-state solution and that this is what -- and this is what is happening now. The Palestinian people will not accept displacement, will not accept displacement, and will not disappear.
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MICHAELSON: Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian protesters held rallies in New York during the U.N. General Assembly. A number of them were detained, including actress Susan Sarandon. It's still unclear why she was detained and whether she was later released. Some protesters belong to the organization called Jewish Voices for Peace, which calls on Israel to end its military operations.
For more, we're joined by political scientist Benjamin Radd. He's a senior fellow at the Burkle Center for International Relations at the University of California, Los Angeles, UCLA. Ben, welcome back to the show. A lot of those protesters say that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. Benjamin Netanyahu talked about the genocide word in a different way during his speech. Listen.
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NETANYAHU: Here's the simple truth. Israel didn't commit genocide. Israel prevented genocide. And that's exactly, that's exactly what Mr. Mamdani's Hamas buddies would have done to us had we not.
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MICHAELSON: Of course, the Mayor of New York has said that Israel committed genocide. Your take on his speech?
BENJAMIN RADD, SENIOR FELLOW, UCLA BURKLE CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: That was for a domestic audience. That is for the Israeli electorate back home. Elections are a little bit more than a month away. It was clearly targeted towards them. The position he took on flipping the genocide claims back at those who are making it. And also his criticisms of Qatar were pretty sharp, too. And I think that again, is being prodded from his right wing flank and base to be able to go after that.
MICHAELSON: He also talked about Starlink.
RADD: Yes.
MICHAELSON: You call this a stunt? Tell us about what happened.
RADD: I mean, he held up a Starlink receiver and he basically said that this is what Iranians need to be. Basically, without this receiver, they have no way of communicating with the outside world or getting free press or getting unfiltered news, and that this is -- this is what the people need in order to be able to really break the shackles of censorship and oppression that's imposed on them.
At one point, his -- the Israeli ambassador went up to the Iranian desk at the General Assembly and basically said, here, here's a receiver. Take it back. And he was ignored. So this moment was caught on camera. So that was interesting, but that was clearly, you know, meant as a stunt.
MICHAELSON: And Starlink is some technology by Elon Musk which essentially puts up satellites into the air that you -- that can be used --
RADD: Satellite Internet access.
MICHAELSON: Yes.
RADD: It sort of bypasses any attempts to censor and filter on the ground, or at least it tries to.
MICHAELSON: And satellites into orbit, not into the air. So meanwhile, we hear from Abbas --
RADD: Yes.
MICHAELSON: -- who's not there because his visa is denied.
RADD: Yes.
MICHAELSON: And yet we hear from the Iranian leader whose visa was approved even though the United States is at war with Iran.
RADD: Yes.
MICHAELSON: How does that work?
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RADD: There is a -- so the United States is obligated to host leaders from every country as part of the U.N., the charter that governs the U.N. and puts it in New York. But there's an exception that if the -- if the country is engaged in terrorism or some way, there's a terrorist nexus, they don't have to allow them in. That's the exemption that was used because apparently the Palestinian Authority, according to the State Department, is paying families of Hamas fighters or other terrorists who the U.S. considers to be terrorists. And they use that to deny him, but quite frankly, they just didn't want him there.
On the flip side, they wanted the Iranians there. They wanted the optics of showing that maybe a deal could be made with Iran, meeting with the Iranian foreign minister or the president on the sidelines. So they've found maybe some benefit to that.
MICHAELSON: I mean, clearly the U.S. has accused Iran of terrorism, which is the reason that they're bombing them.
RADD: Arguably far worse. But you're pointing a double standard here, and it doesn't make sense other than, you know, optically.
MICHAELSON: So as the Iranian leader was in New York, he sat down with Fox's Bret Baier. Here's some of that.
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MASOUD PEZESHKIAN, IRANIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): But if they wish to keep fighting with us, we will respond strongly, resolutely. And today, the pressures that they keep imposing on us is -- so that's to force us to surrender outside of a legal framework of international law is impossible.
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MICHAELSON: So the United Nations was created as a way to avoid future world wars. Right. The idea is to bring all the countries from around the world into one place so they can talk to each other and not fight to negotiate some of these end of conflicts.
So you had all the leaders from the whole world, the President, United States, president of China, the leader of Iran, all these countries came to New York this week. At the end of this, are we any closer to being done with the war with Iran? Are we closer to a deal?
RADD: So, no. And the reason for that is because the people that matter, that can make that difference are not talking to each other directly. We're talking about President Trump senior American leadership and the senior leadership of Iran. What you saw in that clip, Pezeshkian is not -- is not in the upper echelon of leadership.
MICHAELSON: Even though he's the president of Iran.
RADD: Even though he's the president. The way that Iran's system works is that the supreme leader supports, sits atop the entire power structure in the sort of vacuum that's been created with his absence, if you will, the IRGC and other members of the regime occupy that position of strength and power. They're the ones that can call the shots. Pezeshkian is really being told what to do and what to accept.
So he doesn't have the leverage to make a deal outside of the confines that the IRGC has boxed him into. That's the problem. So you want a deal, you have to get the deal makers in the room. We don't have that here.
MICHAELSON: It's hard to get him in the room. I'm sure Rhonda has a lot of reasons not to trust going into a room. I mean, we saw what happened to their last supreme leader.
RADD: It goes that. Yes, yes.
MICHAELSON: Yes. Benjamin Radd, senior fellow at the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations. And we don't even know about the health of the current supreme leader too, which makes that whole thing more complicated as well. Always great to talk with you. Really smart insights.
RADD: Thank you.
MICHAELSON: The president of the European Commission is speaking out about unregulated trade between China and the EU. CNN's Christiane Amanpour asked about the impact and some possible solutions.
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URSULA VON DER LEYEN, EUROPEAN COMMISSION PRESIDENT: The mood is changing in the European Union because of the imbalance that we have in our trade relationship. We have a trade deficit of 1 billion euros per day.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN INTERNATIONAL CANCHOR: Per day.
VON DER LEYEN: Per day. And this cannot go on. We cannot have the deindustrialization of our industrial heartland because China is dumping itself overcapacity on the European market. So, we have now established with China a high level dialogue on that topic. But the dialogue has to deliver in parallel.
We have instruments that ensure the economic security of the European Union. We want the dialogue to be successful, but if necessary, we have the instruments on the table or we can develop new ones.
AMANPOUR: What is an instrument in this case? What is the --
VON DER LEYEN: For example limit the access of Chinese products that are heavily subsidized to our market. We like competition, but we want a level playing field.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: Next on The Story Is, the who's who of AI and tech leaders. Welcome to the White House for a lavish state dinner. We'll tell you who had the hottest ticket in town and what that tells us about power right now.
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[01:34:01]
ELEX MICHAELSON, CNN ANCHOR: More now on the battle between the White House and the media.
The Trump administration has allowed CNN, MS NOW and Politico back into the White House. But a judge's order overturning the president's ban lasts only for 14 days, it's a temporary restraining order. The media outlets are requesting a longer-term commitment from the judge.
In the meantime, CNN's participation in the TV press pool that covers the president still in a holding pattern. CNN was denied access to tonight's state dinner for Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the White House.
At that dinner, A.I. and tech leaders were among those who did get an invite attending the state dinner being held for Chinese leader Xi Jinping alongside cabinet officials, administration officials.
[01:34:44] MICHAELSON: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had a seat at the head table, as well as AMD CEO Lisa Su. SpaceX and Tesla boss Elon Musk sat next to Melania Trump and Apple executive chairman Tim Cook at that table as well.
Our panel is back. Conservative commentator Elisha Krauss and former Democratic congressional candidate Will Rollins. Welcome to you both.
All right. I think we have a list we want to put up on the screen of the folks that were at this party. This is the leaders of the two biggest, most powerful countries in the world. Who's at the table? You see there, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Michael Dell Jensen Huang, Sam Altman, Tim Cook, among them, Mark Zuckerberg.
I mean, this tells you who matters in this society. What does this tell us about our priorities?
ELISHA KRAUSS, CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR: Tech oligarchs. All the tech oligarchs are there. I mean, are we really surprised, though? Because these are companies that need and rely on both of these major economies, as you pointed out.
Like as much as I am not a fan of Xi, I understand why the president, as the leader of the free world, needs to be meeting with him.
I understand why all of these tech leaders went to President Trump's inauguration, and also accepted the invitation of the president of the United States to appear at this pretty historic dinner.
I'm not a Luddite. I don't love or use A.I. You're talking to a gal who just gave her 13-year-old her first phone last week, and she can only text me and her grandparents and submit her homework.
MICHAELSON: Well, you use A.I., you may not intentionally use A.I.
KRAUSS: Yes, I guess so. Whatever -- I Google now.
MICHAELSON: I mean you do a Google search, there's an A.I. right.
KRAUSS: It all pops up. Every time I'm on Instagram, it's like, do you want to try? And I'm like, no, no, I
shall not.
MICHAELSON: Yes.
KRAUSS: But I also love anything that the CCP hates. And I know that they are drastically behind all of this effort to make sure that the United States does not win the A.I. race.
So I have a lot of mixed feelings about this visit. I have a lot of mixed feelings about the meeting that, you know, President Trump had with Xi and even this dinner.
But I understand that sometimes politics has to be playing nice and acting pretty and not necessarily being really hard against those that are your political enemies and rivals. MICHAELSON: Sometimes you do both at the same time.
WILL ROLLINS, FORMER DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: I just don't know where any of the Chinese counterparts were to this, right? I mean --
KRAUSS: Why should they be there?
ROLLINS: Well, he should have brought somebody, right? I mean, the president brought ours to China too in prior meetings. And none of the Chinese frontier lab leaders are showing up in meetings with the U.S. in these kinds of visits.
And I'm not sure what that signal means exactly, but I think the optics of having these tech oligarchs, as you put it, at the table, and no ordinary citizen's concerns about being replaced by A.I. people in the middle of the country worry about job loss and the economy and what this is going to do for regular people.
I mean, that's a huge political issue. I think generally that isn't really being addressed.
(CROSSTALKING)
KRAUSS: But what's so fascinating about this is we've consistently seen that there is concern from Boomers on down to Gen Z, that A.I. is going to be taking their jobs, that A.I. is hurting the economy, that A.I. is stealing all the water.
And guess what? Every single Gen Z student I encounter around the streets of L.A., New York and on campuses all across this country are doing -- using A.I.
So Americans, it's kind of like how they talk about how they don't trust the media and they don't trust social media. And yet guess where they get the majority of their news from, social media?
Guess what they're still addicted to and ignoring the time stamp of how much time they've spent on Instagram every single day. Social media.
MICHAELSON: Well, (INAUDIBLE) are definitely addicted there.
KRAUSS: But I think you will have to actually see if those numbers and those fears play out in elections. I don't know that they will.
MICHAELSON: How do you regulate it?
ROLLINS: Well, I don't think you say no regulation is the option when all of the leaders of our top A.I. laboratories are begging to be regulated.
That tells you that they think that the technology is dangerous. That tells you that they think there is a concern about the race, right -- the race itself. KRAUSS: But they want their own friends to regulate them. We've seen this consistently happen. And oftentimes the creators themselves are like, let's get in there so we can get those DOD contracts. Let's get in there so we can, you know, pad our pockets with federal and state (INAUDIBLE)
ROLLINS: But the problem is the president.
KRAUSS: Let's make sure that our friends are the ones doing the regulating, not the people who disagree.
ROLLINS: But the president is saying don't regulate them, period. And I think that's a political problem for him, too.
I think most Americans want a government that is going to hold these companies accountable, not the type of invitation, the faux invitation.
But I agree with you. Maybe they're kind of inviting that to try to self-regulate in a way that they want to be regulated, but they are expressing concern and it's unprecedented.
You don't have these types of top leaders of these companies making trillions of dollars and valued in trillions of dollars in valuation, calling for regulation, and then having the entire federal government basically collectively sigh starting with the president.
MICHAELSON: Yes. I mean, my concern is that, to your point, there is this feeling by a lot of Americans that we need to beat China. And China, certainly not concerned about regulations at all, right.
And so what you end up could have is a Wild, Wild West and then it really is not us versus China at the end of the day. It's us versus the robots.
[01:39:46]
ROLLINS: That's why I am super --
MICHAELSON: It's humans versus robots, right.
KRAUSS: Yes.
MICHAELSON: And that's a real -- and like, that could be a thing within a few years if we listen to what they're saying.
KRAUSS: Yes.
ROLLINS: I am super polite to my chat bots. And I think we all should say "please" and "thank you", you know.
KRAUSS: Not me.
ROLLINS: You know. Be careful.
KRAUSS: Whenever my seven-year-old reads the name on a coco (ph), I remind her that is not a human and it does not have a soul.
So no, that is not Juan.
MICHAELSON: But that's -- but that's a real -- but that is a real potential concern.
If you listen to what these engineers are saying --
KRAUSS: Yes.
MICHAELSON: -- that could be a real concern. And that's where --
KRAUSS: But there's also -- there's also the whole whistleblowers that came out, like how long were they actually employed? What organizations were behind their report? How come they were going to go and not go talk to the naysayers on the all-in podcast and then canceled last minute? You know, how come like --
MICHAELSON: You have no concerns about A.I.?
KRAUSS: Absolutely have concerns about A.I.? I actually have concerns about it dumbing-down humanity, just like social media, and honestly, Google did where now you have people that do not have reading retention. Now you have people that are addicted to everything that is available to them on their screen, from gambling to pornography to social media. I mean, the list goes on.
I have genuine concerns for humanity from a cultural, spiritual and physical scape. On top of how are we going to handle this? But I'm not an apocalyptic naysayer.
(CROSSTALKING)
MICHAELSON: 30 seconds, last point, Will.
ROLLINS: I think, to both of your points actually, right? I do think that there is room for national security concerns here to be addressed in the way that you're talking about.
I think I'm with you on making sure that we win this race compared to China. But I also think there can be a model for regulation and cooperation, a la what we did with the Soviet Union and nuclear weapons.
There is precedent for this. There has to be some level of cooperation while we simultaneously try to win.
(CROSSTALKING)
MICHAELSON: That took decades to do. And we may not have decades in this case.
Will, Elisha, thank you both for being here.
Thanks. For everybody watching around the world, "WORLD SPORT" is next. I'll be back in North America for more news next. [01:41:42]
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MICHAELSON: The issues of diversity and use of artificial intelligence clashed on the campus of Stanford recently. What should have been a harmless photo of classmates was digitally altered and turned in the center of a controversy.
CNN's Jason Carroll reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It may look harmless enough. A photo showing a smiling, racially-diverse group of students eating together on campus.
But it's the same photo, which appeared in a Stanford University banner last week that has left some students outraged and raised questions about the abuse of A.I.
This is what the original 2024 photo really looks like. Again, take a look to see how it was altered. The Hispanic student replaced with an A.I. version of a black female student, while the other two students features were altered.
BILLY RAMIREZ, STANFORD STUDENT: I did feel pretty upset with the actions of the university.
CARROLL: Billy Ramirez, who is majoring in biology, is the student in the original photo. He says he first found out about the A.I. photo swap from a friend.
RAMIREZ: I don't think it's mainly about the discussion of me being swapped with like a like a black woman, but it's more about my Latino identity kind of being erased in that photo, and how I pride myself on being Mexican.
CARROLL: "The Stanford Review", an independent student newspaper, was the first to break the story.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think this story was a perfect storm of abuse of A.I., questions around diversity policies in universities.
ZAYD PATEL, "THE STANFORD REVIEW": The goal was student diversity, and they strayed so far from it.
CARROLL: A university spokesperson said we have reviewed the matter and confirmed that A.I. was used to alter the image in violation of university policy. The banners with the image in question have been removed.
"Stanford's A.I. policy is clear. The use of A.I. in producing or altering images of Stanford people, events, research facilities or achievements is strictly prohibited." UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's kind of unacceptable. You know, Stanford is a
place where we have -- they actually pride themselves on having students from like over 60 different countries in their incoming class. Like they have diversity. They shouldn't need to fabricate it.
CARROLL: This isn't the first time universities have been caught altering photos in the name of diversity. Long before A.I., in 2000, the University of Wisconsin Madison, was caught using photoshop in an effort to make the school appear more diverse. While in 2019, York College of Pennsylvania was accused of doing the same.
PATEL: It honestly doesn't seem that different than what happened -- has happened in the past. It's just a particular use in this age with A.I. that makes it so much easier to get to that point.
CARROLL: Ramirez says this experience has taught him an unexpected lesson.
RAMIREZ: Just a wake-up call for Stanford to increase its diversity rates. Because if you pride yourself so much in diversity, you have to swap a student who's Hispanic into another race and gender to kind of showcase the world it's diverse, will actually like you need to take action.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAELSON: Coming up -- our thanks to Jason Carroll for that. Coming up on THE STORY IS the NFL on tour. American football heads to Rio de Janeiro's famed Maracana Stadium as it kicks off an eight-week international tour.
[01:48:53]
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MICHAELSON: Welcome back to THE STORY IS. I'm Elex Michaelson. Let's take a look at today's top stories.
Freddie Mac, the federal home mortgage corporation says that the 30- year fixed mortgage rate in the U.S. surged this week, topping 7 percent for the first time since 2025.
That increase is fueled by the bond market. As yields climbed, so too have interest rates. Steeper rates weakened buyers purchasing power and increased monthly payments.
Starbucks says its closing nearly 250 stores across North America. It's part of a years' long $1 billion plan to revamp the coffee chain's business and reignite growth.
Starbucks says the affected locations either failed to meet its standards or were not financially viable. Customers can expect to see closings as early as this weekend.
Pope Leo is expected to arrive in Paris soon for a four-day visit to France. Set to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron and other leaders, and lead a prayer service at the Notre Dame Cathedral.
He'll also celebrate mass in Paris' largest public square, where up to a million people are expected to attend. That's going to be quite something.
A record nine NFL games will be played outside of the U.S. this year. The L.A. Rams and San Francisco 49ers kicked that off with Australia. But the next stop is Rio de Janeiro. The Baltimore Ravens taking on the Dallas Cowboys at the famous Maracana Stadium on Sunday. It kicks off eight straight weeks of international action with games in London, Paris, Madrid and Munich.
For now, though, the attention is on Brazil.
[01:54:49]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GERRIT MEIER, MANAGING DIRECTOR, HEAD OF NFL INTERNATIONAL: But now we're excited that this year, finally, we can come here officially with our first game -- third game overall in Brazil after two successful years in Sao Paulo. Very excited now to come to Maracana and for the first time to Rio.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAELSON: It's been a rough start to the season for the Atlanta Falcons, but that was all forgotten as they breezed to a 3514 win against the Green Bay Packers. Falcons quarterback Michael Penix Jr. Back on the field after missing two games due to a lingering ACL injury, and the Green Bay defense had a hard time keeping up with Atlanta's rushing game.
Green Bay came back to score on a short drive in the fourth quarter, but two massive plays by Penix Jr. and wide receiver Drake London from USC kept the Packers at bay.
The week three schedule continues on Sunday, when, in addition to the Maracana matchup, we've also got the Cincinnati Bengals taking on the Pittsburgh Steelers, the New England Patriots are at the Jacksonville Jaguars, and the L.A. Rams head to Denver to take on the Broncos.
Thanks so much for watching THE STORY IS. I'll be back tomorrow with more news.
But the news continues right here on CNN after a break. Thanks so much. We'll see you tomorrow.
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