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We are in an unprecedented moment.
President Trump has kicked CNN, MS NOW, and Politico out of the White House. The outlets are suing. And today, the major television networks banded together and refused to replace CNN in the rotating camera pool that provides live video of the President’s events, leaving Trump without the regular network TV coverage he prizes.
I spoke with Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), who calls the ban a clear violation of the First Amendment, but he sees something potentially promising in the response. The press held the line. Maybe, he says, this could be “the beginning of our institutions holding.”
But I connected with Warner to talk about AI. Warner has been warning about its risks for years. Now, as the technology accelerates and even the people building it warn about the existential risks, Warner argues Washington still has time to rein it in. He lays out proposals covering data centers, AI safety testing, and protections for kids and more. It’s less “AI could kill us this year,” and more “here are things Congress can do this week.”
We also talk midterms, where Warner, as vice chair of Senate Intelligence, is preparing for threats he believes could come from inside the country, not just foreign adversaries. And I asked him about the Creator Constitution I’ve proposed, and whether standards for this new information world should come from Washington or from creators ourselves.
Press freedom. AI. Elections. Who gets to tell us what to trust. Just a light conversation. You can watch it here.
Below is a transcript of our discussion, lightly edited for clarity.
**Jessica Yellin **00:07
Hi everyone. Well, there is just a ton of news today, and I’m very glad to say Senator Mark Warner is here with us to help us make sense of some of it. We’re going to talk about President Trump’s escalating fight with the press, the threats from AI, concerns about the midterms, the economy, and more.
For anybody who doesn’t happen to know this, Senator Warner is a Virginia Democrat, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and a former tech entrepreneur. He’s really become one of the most visible members of Congress on social media, explaining what’s happening, what the policy means, and he really breaks it down and explains what’s at stake in remarkably plain English. So I feel like, in addition to calling you senator, we could call you a news creator these days.
**Sen. Mark Warner **00:47
[Laughs] Well, whatever. I’ve been talking about AI for two years, and finally, I think the public has woken up.
**Jessica Yellin **00:54
Right. The world’s caught up to you. Before we get to AI, I want to start with the big news today, which is that President Trump has banned CNN, MS Now, and Politico from the White House. Those news organizations sued this morning, and when the White House blocked CNN from providing today’s shared television feed, the other major networks refused to replace it. So there is now no regular TV pool covering the president today.
My question is, what should Congress do now? Do they have a role? And if it wanted to fulfill its role in providing checks and balances, how could it act to prevent a president from deciding which news organizations can cover the White House?
“There are literally 75 voting rights groups, bipartisan, that are working every day to make sure the lawyers are ready if there’s efforts” to subvert the midterm elections.
