UNBIASED - Trump’s $5,000 Checks: Where Would the Money Come From & Is It Vote Buying? | Clancy Juror Update and More

Episode Date: September 14, 2026

President Trump is proposing a $5,000 cash dividend if Republicans keep control of Congress — but where would the money come from, would Congress have to approve it, and could it legally be considered vote buying? We also break down new information about the Lindsay Clancy holdout juror, the proposed 32-hour workweek bill, and the growing debate over AI safety after warnings from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and comments from Sam Altman, Microsoft and President Trump. In today's episode: Trump’s $5,000 Dividend Explained: Where Would the Money Come From & Is It Vote Buying? (0:45) Lindsay Clancy Holdout Juror: More Jurors Speak Out + NBC Investigation Finds Past Arrest and Restraining Order (~18:06) 32-Hour Workweek Bill Explained: What the Sanders-Takano Proposal Would Actually Change (~30:33) AI Safety Debate: Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, Microsoft & Trump Weigh In on Slowing AI Development (~36:55) Quick Hitters (~45:12) Critical Thinking: Is Trump’s $5,000 Dividend Different From Other Campaign Promises? (~49:41) Get the facts, without the spin. UNBIASED offers a clear, impartial recap of U.S. news, including politics, elections, legal news and more. Hosted by lawyer Jordan Berman, each episode provides a recap of current political events plus breakdowns of complex concepts — including constitutional rights, Supreme Court rulings and new legislation — in an easy-to-understand way. No personal opinions, just the facts you need to stay informed on the daily news that matters. If you miss how journalism used to be, you're in the right place. ⁠Watch⁠ this episode on YouTube. Follow Jordan on ⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠TikTok⁠. All sources for this episode can be found ⁠here.⁠  Scammers are everywhere! But they can't harm you, if they can't find you! Use code JORDAN at https://incogni.com/jordan and get 60% off an annual plan! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. Welcome back to Unbiased Politics. It's Monday, September 14th. And today we're talking about Trump's $5,000 dividend. What we've learned about the holdout juror in the Clancy case, a new bill proposing a shorter work week, an AI update, and more. So first let's talk about this Trump dividend. And actually, let me just say, if you're watching this on YouTube, I hope my camera settings are okay. I'm doing a little trial and error. I'm trying to get my camera to work. I feel like for the last few years, honestly, that I've been doing this. I haven't actually taken the time to properly, you know, set the settings.

And this is my attempt to do that. I am not good with this kind of stuff. So I'm hoping this just makes the episode look better and not worse. Whatever. I don't know what it's going to look like until I actually start editing. So, okay, I digress. Let's talk about the Trump dividend first. We talked about this one briefly on Thursday. But at the Republican Midterm Convention last week, President Trump promised $5,000 payments to all adult U.S. citizens if Republicans maintain control of both the House and Senate in November. And we kind of just touched on this as a quick hitter in Thursday's episode, but since we last talked about it, more has transpired. And I know a lot of you have questions about where the money would come from, whether Trump can do something like

this without Congress and whether promising people money in this fashion is considered buying votes. So we will answer all of those questions. But first, I do just want to clear. that there is a lot we don't know here, right? Most importantly, we don't know who exactly would qualify for this payment. And we don't know for sure where the money would come from. So initially when Trump made this announcement at the convention, he did not give many details. This is what he said.

Because we've done so well and because our country is making so much money that only I can make this promise to you. And here is my promise. If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them, because of our economic, tremendous economic success, like in history we've never had anything like what's happening. But because of our tremendous strength and success economically, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000. Very much like a successful company will do a cash distribution to its shareholders, or like last year when I gave our great members of the military, 1776, remember? And after that initial announcement, Vice President Vance talked with Fox News at the convention, but once it was done for the night and said this.

So Mr. Vice President, I heard the Trump dividend to raise some eyebrows. $5,000 for every adult citizen. If the House wins... Wait, it raised my eyebrows and both hands went up at the same time. But if Republicans win a house... This is for the American middle class. But if Republicans win the House, $5,000 for every adult citizen, so you do the quick math, that's about $1.3 trillion.

I can hear the critics' heads exploded. They're saying, out loud, I guarantee you, president is bribing voters to vote for Republicans to take over the House. and then he's bankrupting the country because the deficit and debt is huge, and inflation would come back if this comes into play. So how do you answer those criticisms? Well, I say, first of all, what the president's talking about is fundamentally a dividend for American workers. We're taking in an extraordinary round of revenue because the President of United States is actually standing up to both foreign companies, but also foreign countries who've been taking advantage of America's workers for pretty much my entire life. All of these tariffs, what is a tariff, Brett, a tariff?

is when the President of United States says, if you want to undercut the wages of American workers, if you want to ship American jobs overseas, you're going to pay a big fat penalty when you try to bring that stuff back into the United States of America. Those penalties have generated a lot of revenues. They've helped us pay down debt. What the president's just saying is, if you keep it going to the American people, if you keep us in power and allow us to continue to do these things, then you're going to share in some of the benefit of this incredible wealth that we're creating in the United States of America. I don't think it's a controversial idea. It's actually the President of the United States saying we're all working together. We're all in the same team. And if we continue to

create wealth, that wealth is going to go back to the American people. And then on Thursday, which was the following day, I believe, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik said the dividends wouldn't rely on taxpayer dollars, but that the administration could, quote, earn the money that Donald Trump wants to pay out, not from the deficit and not from taxpayers. And, quote. Now, as far as cost goes, okay, if all adult U.S. citizens were included in this plan, it would cost somewhere around $1.2 trillion. Now, that cost would obviously come down if there were income limits put in place or some other eligibility requirements like Vance suggested. As far as where the money would come from, you heard Vance in that clip suggest tariffs as a

possible source. And Trump also pointed to tariffs as a possibility. But as of now, tariff revenue doesn't come close to covering $1.2 trillion. Through August, the federal government had collected about $292 billion in customs duties, but it had also refunded about $125 billion. So that leaves about $165 billion in net customs revenue for the fiscal year so far. So even if you took all of that money and put it toward these checks, you'd still be more than a trillion dollars short, assuming, of course, the checks would go to every adult citizen. Now, the administration has floated some other possible sources of money, too, including

revenue from certain immigration programs and money connected to government investments in private companies. But as I said earlier, there's no detailed funding plan yet that shows exactly where this money would come from. Okay, so what about Congress? Well, Trump was specifically asked whether he would need Congress's approval and he said he doesn't think so. But he added that he thinks Congress would approve that these checks if approval was necessary. Constitutionally speaking, okay, Congress controls federal spending. Article 1 of the Constitution has something called the Appropriations Clause, which says that money cannot be taken out of the federal treasury unless it's been appropriated by law. Congress does the appropriations, of course.

Now, the president can tell agencies to spend money that Congress has already approved for a certain. purpose, but the president can't just create, you know, a new program and take that money out of the Treasury without congressional authorization. We saw something similar with the now dead anti-weaponization fund, right? When Trump announced the anti-weaponization fund, these same questions were kind of swirling. And when it, as it pertains to these checks, as of Sunday, House Speaker Johnson said these payments would need Congress. He said lawmakers would have to figure out the details, but that Congress would, you know, congressional approval is necessary. He also said that he would work to build support for this proposal. So let's assume for purposes of this hypothetical, Republicans do keep control of the House and Senate in

November. One possible route Congress could use is something called budget reconciliation, which we've talked about before. Reconciliation is a special process that Congress can use for certain tax and spending bills. And the reason that it's a special process is because a reconciliation bill can pass the Senate with just a simple majority instead of needing 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. So if Republicans keep control of the House and Senate, they could potentially try to pass these checks through reconciliation without Democratic votes. But even then, Republicans winning in November doesn't mean these checks will definitely

happen, right? Congress would still have to actually pass the legislation. And what we've seen over the last few days is that Republicans themselves are divided over whether they even support it. So that brings us to the arguments for and against this proposal. Trump's position, as you heard briefly in that clip we played earlier, is that Americans should get to share in what he describes as the country's economic success. He compares this to a corporation paying a dividend to its shareholders. The idea being that if the government is bringing in more money because of things like tariffs, new investment, cuts to government waste, some of that money

should go back to Americans. There's also a cost of living argument here. So the White House is portraying these checks as a way to put money directly back into Americans' pockets at a time when voters are frustrated with prices. And you do have some Republican lawmakers that are on board with this, like Senator Bernie Moreno, who says he's already preparing the legislation to make these payments happen after the election. Congressman Tim Wahlberg, who said that if the government can afford to return money to taxpayers, then Americans deserve to have more of that money. in their pockets rather than the governments. Obviously, Speaker Johnson has said that he's going to work behind the scenes to get this pushed. But there's also quite a bit of opposition coming from

Republicans, and particularly Republicans who are concerned about government spending and national debt. Congressman Thomas Massey, for example, said that he was quote unquote insulted by the idea that his vote could be bought for $5,000. Republican Congressman David Schweiger went even further and said he would do everything to stop this proposal because he feels that borrowing that much money would just push interest rates even higher and ultimately hurt working Americans. And then you have Republican governor of Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who has argued that you don't build a strong economy by giving money away because, according to her, somebody ultimately has to pick up the check. And then you have other

opponents comparing this to the COVID stimulus check. So their argument is, you know, if you thought it was a mistake to send out stimulus payments, then why would you support sending out even more money now, especially when the economy isn't shut down like it was during the pandemic. And most of that economic criticism comes down to two things, the deficit and inflation. So the federal government is already running a deficit of about $1.97 trillion so far this fiscal year. That just means that the government is, you know, already spending more money than it's bringing in. So unless Congress finds enough new revenue or cuts spending somewhere else to pay for these checks, at least some of the cost would have to be financed through more borrowing. And then there's inflation. Some economists have

warned that if you put more than one trillion dollars into consumers' hands, people are, of course, going to spend at least some of that money, which then increases demand for things like cars and travel and food and housing. And if businesses can't increase the supply of those things fast enough to keep up with that extra demand, prices can go up. Now, how inflationary this would actually be, depends, you know, on a lot. It depends on who gets the checks, how much of the money people would actually spend, whether the government offsets the cost somewhere else. There's a lot that that's dependent on. So it's not really fair to say that these checks would definitely cause this huge spike in inflation, but that's the concern. Democrats specifically have criticized the proposal

for both economic and political reasons. They argue that adding more than a trillion dollars in spending would increase the deficit, potentially make inflation worse, but also that Trump is trying to buy votes. And that brings us to the legal question here. Is this considered illegally buying votes? Well, federal law prohibits offering someone money in exchange for how that person votes. So if I tell you, hey, if you vote Republican, I'll give you $500 or if you vote Democrat, I'll give you $500. That might be illegal vote buying, right? But under Trump's proposal, your individual vote wouldn't determine whether you get the money. You could vote Republican, Democrat, third party.

You could not vote at all and still potentially qualify. And there's actually a pretty relevant Supreme Court case that that kind of helps explain the differences between those two things. So this is a 1982 case called Brown v. Hartledge. And what happened was a candidate in Kentucky made this public promise that if he was elected, he would lower the salary of the office that he was running for. that would in turn save taxpayers money, right? Well, after he won, his opponent sued and argued that his promise violated this state law that prohibited candidates from offering material benefits to voters in exchange for their votes. And that case eventually made its way to the Supreme Court

and the Supreme Court sided with the candidate. And the court focused on the fact that, number one, this was a public promise. Number two, the benefit would come through government, policy rather than a private payment from that candidate. And then three, the court focused on the fact that the benefit wasn't conditioned on any individual voter actually voting for him. So as you can probably see, that case is both similar to and different from Trump's $5,000 promise, right? The similarity is that Trump is making a public promise, right, on the stage of the Republican Midterm Convention that would be carried out through government policy if Republicans collectively win Congress. And every adult U.S. citizen would receive the payment regardless of how

they voted. But the difference is that Brown involved indirectly saving taxpayers' money by lowering the elected official salary. Trump is proposing an actual $5,000 cash payment, and he's explicitly tying that payment to his party winning the election. So if you're making the argument that this looks like vote buying, right, that's probably your strongest. argument. The legal argument on the other side, though, is that federal vote buying law is very much focused on an exchange involving an individual person's vote. Your $5,000 under Trump's proposal wouldn't depend on proving how you voted, right? It would depend on the overall election result, the Republicans winning both houses or both chambers, and Congress then actually creating the

program, and then you meeting whatever eligibility requirements ultimately apply. So that lack of individual exchange is similar to what the Supreme Court focused on in Brown. So that's the deal with the legalities of all of this. Obviously, we'll find out more if Republicans maintain control of both chambers and if Congress actually moves forward with drafting this legislation. But at this point, there's just a lot that we don't know. Let's take our first break here. When we come back, we'll talk more about this holdout juror in the Clancy case and then

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If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor. Free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Welcome back. Okay, we're going back to the Lindsay Clancy case, not only because this is a highly, highly, highly requested topic, but also because since we last talked about the mistrial on Thursday, we've learned quite a bit more about the one holdout juror. So more about who he was, more, more allegations about what happened inside the jury room. We've learned some information about his background and arrest history. And that information is now raising questions about how he ended up on this jury in the first place. So we're going to talk through all of that. But first, I do just want to say we still don't know who the juror is. Okay. The juror list has been impounded, which just means that the public and the media can't access it. And the juror has not spoken out at this point. But other jurors have. And the most recent jurors, or I should say one of the most

recent juror to speak out gave us an idea of who the juror specifically is. So last week, we talked about the three female jurors who had the conversation with a news out. about their experience, you know, and what they said about the holdout juror. Since then, two more jurors have spoken out, and one of those jurors is named Paula Devlin. Now, Devlin is the one that revealed that this holdout juror is a black man in his 30s. So Devlin was speaking to Gail King, and King asked about the racial makeup of the jury. Devlin said that there was one person of color and the rest were white. King then asked whether the person of color was a woman or a man, Devlin said a man. Now, at that point, we already knew that the holdout juror was a man. So King then asked

Devlin whether the holdout juror was the black man on the jury. And Devlin said yes. So while we may not know this juror's name, we know that the holdout juror was the only black juror that was on the jury. Now, other than speaking about the holdout juror, Devlin said that the jury consisted of nine women and three men, which we knew. She said they all ranged an age from 22 to 70, and she said that most of the people on the jury had kids. She also revealed that the jury didn't start deliberations 11 to 1. She said they initially had eight jurors leaning toward finding Clancy not criminally responsible, and then two who were undecided and two who felt that she was guilty of murder. Then over the course of deliberations, those other three jurors ended up changing their minds,

the split eventually became 11 to 1, and there was that one holdout juror wanting to find her guilty of murder. And again, that one holdout, at least according to the jury, four person and the other jurors in the room, acknowledged having reasonable doubt, but still refused to find her not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility. And if you want a deeper dive into that part of all of this, be sure to listen to Thursday's episode because we did go into more detail there. another juror Nick Darjeet has also since told CNN that the holdout juror, quote, had the hardest time getting off the fact that Lindsay viciously killed her children, end quote. And Darjeet is the first male juror to speak out. So he was saying that at the end, everyone just felt really defeated. He said it was very frustrating for the jury.

He said, quote, mainly frustrating when he, talking about the holdout juror explicitly said, don't know if the prosecution or the defense proved their case. He also said, Darje also said, quote, there was several times I would ask him, the hold out juror, to show us evidence or describe a witness testimony that helped to prove what he was saying and he couldn't, which is why we ultimately sent in that note. Otherwise, there's nothing wrong with somebody having a completely opposite opinion. That would be a hung jury. That's our justice system.

And quote. And Darjeet also said that there was one particular moment that sticks out in his head. He said that the holdout juror took the exercise band out of the bag. So the actual exercise band that Lindsay Clancy was accused of using to kill her children, grabbed an empty water bottle that was in the deliberation room and tied the exercise band around the water bottle and pulled on it. And Darjey said, quote, I think I was just so shocked that he did that. I was shocked.

It didn't make any sense to me. We're not in there to play detective. It's not a game of clue. this is serious. I asked him why he was doing that. And quote. So that's what Darjey had to say about the holdout juror. He did also similar with Devlin give us some insight into the mindset of the other jurors. He said, quote, there was times where our vote was different than the last day. But I think ultimately, once we laid out all of the evidence and how we saw it, that really brought everyone kind of on the same page except for this one juror. And quote. And then as for the possibility of a retrial,

Dargy said that he thinks if they tried the trial again the way that they did nine times out of 10, a jury would come back with not guilty by reason of insanity. He said there was no doubt in his mind. So that's part one of this update. Part two is that on Friday, NBC 10 Boston published an investigation into this holdout juror's background. And according to court records reviewed by NBC, the juror was arrested in 2021 after his then wife accused him of assaulting her. A police report says his 13.5. He said his 13. year old nephew called 911 and alleged that the man grabbed his wife by the throat and threw her into a dresser. Now, that criminal charge was later dismissed. He was never convicted. His ex-wife told NBC that she decided not to testify against him because she was worried about losing custody of her daughter. Then last year, that same nephew got a restraining order against the juror. He alleged that the nephew alleged that the juror pushed him to the ground and repeatedly punched him. And according to NBC, that restraining order was still active while the juror was sitting through the Clancy trial. And then separately, NBC also found the juror was involved in an eviction case and that during

deliberations, his landlord actually obtained a judgment against him for more than $12,000 in unpaid rent. So given this new information, I've seen a lot of people asking how someone with an arrest and a restraining order can even be allowed to serve on a jury or this specific jury. So let's start with this. Massachusetts uses something called a confidential juror questionnaire. There's an entire section in that questionnaire asking you about your experience with the law. It asks you whether you or anyone in your household or family has ever been arrested, been charged for the crime, been served with a court order, been convicted of a crime, been a crime victim, filed a lawsuit, sought a restraining order, things like that. And at the bottom, you sign a

declaration saying that the information you provided is true and complete to the best of your knowledge. Based on what NBC found, this juror clearly had some information that should have been disclosed, right? He had been arrested before. He had been charged with a crime before. Assuming he was formally served without restraining order against him, that would also fall under the question asking whether he had ever been served with a court order. But legally, those things don't automatically disqualify you from serving on a jury in Massachusetts. The criminal history disqualifications are things like having a felony conviction within the last seven years, currently being a defendant in a pending felony case, being in the custody of a correctional

institution, things like that. And based on what's been reported, there's no evidence that any of those disqualifications apply to him. Now, what could disqualify you from serving on a jury is lying on the questionnaire. At this point, though, we don't know how he answered those questions. So if he did disclose this information, there wouldn't really be an issue here. The judge and both sides would have had that information during jury selection and could have questioned him about whether any of those experiences would affect his ability to be fair and impartial. The more interesting question is what happens if he didn't disclose this information, right? In Massachusetts, if information comes out after a trial that creates a

reasonable claim that a juror failed to disclose something that was important during jury selection. A judge can hold a hearing to figure out what happened. Did the juror forget something? Did he or she misunderstand the question? Was it an honest mistake? Did the juror intentionally hide the information? What happened? Those would be the questions that the judge tries to get to the bottom of. But even if the judge finds that the juror knowingly gave a false answer, that's not enough. The next question the judge has to figure out is whether that dishonesty shows that the juror was biased. And we actually have in Massachusetts cases that deal with this issue. So in Commonwealth be cousin, jurors were removed during deliberations after some undisclosed criminal

histories came to light. And the state's highest court upheld those removals because it said that the missing information mattered to whether those jurors were impartial. And, whether the lawyers might have challenged them during jury selection. And then more recently in Commonwealth v. Mitchell, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court made it clear that an inaccurate answer alone on a jury questionnaire is not enough. You have to look at whether the juror knowingly gave a false answer and if so, whether that juror was biased. So in Clancy's case, Judge Sullivan would first have to figure out, you know, what did the juror actually disclose on this questionnaire? And then if something was missing or wrong, Judge Sullivan would then have to decide whether the juror

knowingly gave the false answer. And if he did, whether that showed the juror was actually biased or unable to be fair and impartial. Now, let's assume for purposes of a hypothetical that the judge does ultimately find that the questionnaire contained a false answer and that the juror knowingly gave the false answer and that the juror was unable to be fair and impartial. What happens then? Well, because this mistrial has already happened, there's no guilty verdict to throw out and there's no juror to remove, right? So that limits what this could change in Clancy's case. If this trial had ended in a conviction, something like this could potentially be grounds for a new trial, but Clancy already has no verdict. She's already

facing the possibility of a new trial because of the mistrial. So even if a court eventually found juror misconduct here, that finding by itself wouldn't mean that Clancy gets acquitted. It wouldn't mean that prosecutors can't try her again. You know, there could so be consequences for the juror if it's found that he willfully lied about something material on the questionnaire for purposes of getting on to jury service because that's illegal under state law. But as far as Clancy's case is concerned, the possible outcomes after this mistrial are pretty much what they already were. Prosecutors could retry her. The two sides could potentially reach some sort of plea agreement. prosecutors could decide not to pursue another trial or the judge could grant one of the defense's pending legal requests.

Now, currently there are a few pending requests. There's one that's particularly relevant here, I suppose. The defense is arguing that Clancy can't be retried because there wasn't a manifest necessity for the mistrial. That just means that the judge had other reasonable options before ending the trial. He shouldn't have declared a mistrial when he did. And if the defense wins that argument, then double jeopardy would prevent another trial on those charges. But whether this new information about the juror can help that argument depends a lot on when the information became known. For this newly discovered information to change the analysis of whether the judge properly declared the mistrial, the judge would have needed to know about it when he was actually deciding what to do.

It doesn't necessarily matter that it was found out after the fact. It's if the judge knew when he declared the mistrial about this information that we have since found out, that might change the analysis of whether the mistrial was proper. But if he found out after the fact like the rest of us, it doesn't really change much. So that's the legal analysis that I suppose you needed or wanted. If more comes out, that's worth talking about, we will certainly talk about it. But I know a lot of you had questions about this new information and hopefully that answers a lot of those questions. All right, next story. Senator Bernie Sanders and Democratic Congressman Mark Takano are making another push to create a 32-hour workweek in the United States. And the reason I want to talk about this is because a lot of people are under the impression that this would mandate a 32-hour work week for everyone. But what it would really do is change when certain workers become entitled to overtime pay. So we'll keep this brief. But right now, under the Fair Labor Standards Act, workers who are covered by federal overtime rules typically have to be paid time and a half. half once they work more than 40 hours in a week. This bill, which is called the 32-hour work

week act, would eventually move that overtime threshold down to 32 hours. So once the change was fully in effect, if you were a covered employee and worked 40 hours in one week, the last eight hours would have to be paid as overtime. So your employer could still require you to work a 40-hour work week or 50 hours, for that matter. It would just be more expensive for the company to do that. Now, the legislation does include a phase in that that actually moves the overtime threshold from 40 to 38 hours and then to 36 hours, then 34, and eventually 32. So it would be a gradual change. And it would also create a federal daily overtime rule. So covered workers would get time and a half for work beyond eight hours in one day and then double their regular rate

for hours beyond 12 hours in one day. Right now, federal law doesn't require over time just because you worked more than eight hours in a day. The rule is based on how many hours you work in an entire week, right? Then there's this other part of the bill that people are talking about, which involves pay, because Sanders and Tacano are pitching this as a 32-hour workweek with no loss in pay or benefits. So the bill includes these protections that are meant to prevent employers from cutting in affected workers' weekly compensation or benefits because that worker is brought under the new overtime rules. But as I mentioned briefly earlier, this would not apply to every worker in America.

Some employees are already exempt from federal overtime rules. So if you're already exempt from overtime now, you wouldn't all of a sudden be entitled to overtime after 32 hours. You would still be exempt. As far as why supporters want to do something like this, their argument mostly comes down to productivity. Sanders and Tacano say that technology has made American workers much more productive over the last several years.

and with AI and automation only making people more productive, workers should get some of those gains back in the form of time rather than all of the benefits going to the companies and shareholders. Sanders argues that if technology allows the same amount of work to get done in fewer hours, people should be able to spend more time with their families or do whatever else they want to do outside of work. And supporters also point out that the 40-hour work week itself wasn't always the standard. When Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, the overtime thresholds started at 44 hours, then eventually dropped to 42 and eventually to 40. So their argument is that, you know, after more than 80 years, technology has advanced enough that it might be time to lower that threshold again. Opponents, though, argue that this could significantly increase labor costs, especially for the businesses that can't get the same amount of work done in 32 hours. So hospitals, restaurants, daycare centers, businesses where you need. somebody physically there for a certain number of hours because those employers could end up

having to either pay more overtime or hire more workers to cover the same amount of time or raise prices or cut back on hiring somewhere else. So their argument is that this could increase costs for businesses and potentially also increase prices of things. Now, as far as whether this is actually going to happen anytime soon, okay, I wouldn't get ahead of ourselves. Tacano formally introduced this bill in the House on September 8th. So last week, it's since been referred to the House Education and Workforce Committee. But every current sponsor and co-sponsor on this bill is a Democrat. And as we know, Republicans can control the House. So at this point, this is just a proposal. It may not have the support that it needs. It's still pretty early in the legislative process.

All right, let's take our second and final break here. When we come back, we'll do an AI update. And then we'll finish with quick hitters and critical thinking. Welcome back. I want to give you an update to the AI story we talked about last week because we, we, you remember, I'm sure, we talked about the former anthropic researcher who quit and then said the company is building the biggest AI systems are moving towards this self-improving super intelligence without knowing how to control it. And then after that Anthropics alignment science lead came out and said he thinks there's a more than 10% chance that AI could kill all humans within the next decade. Okay. Since then, some of the people who are running these companies have started calling. calling for the industry to slow down, or at least put stronger safeguards in place. So this started with Anthropics CEO Dario Amade. Amade published this long essay after everything last week saying in part, quote, I have worked on AI for the last 12 years because I believe it could dramatically raise the quality of human life.

I've written often about these incredible benefits. But like many technologies before it, AI brings risks. And because it is such a powerful technology, these risks are serious. I've written a lot about them too. They include the risk of losing control of AI systems, misuse of AI for cyber attacks and bioterrorism, and serious economic disruption. A race to the bottom, spurred by commercial incentives, can make these risks more acute. Along with my co-founders and employees, I have grappled with this duality of risk and benefit since the beginning of Anthropic. But over the

last few months, I've become convinced that fully addressing the risks requires even more prudence, not just investing in risk prevention, but pacing the rate of capabilities advancement so that risk prevention has time to keep up. We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models. Progress will still seem fast and we must make wise use of the time we gain. End quote. So he then goes on to say that two things convinced him of this. He says one AI has been advancing drastically faster since roughly this summer. He says the growth has been driven by AI's growing ability to build the next generation of AI. And that's that recursive self- improvement that can lead to super intelligence, which we talked about last week. And then he said his

second concern is the Open AI hugging face incident. Now, if you're not familiar with this incident, because we actually did not cover this on the show, Open AI was conducting this internal cybersecurity test and testing how good some of its AI agents were at hacking. So these AI agents were supposed to tackle various hacking challenges inside of this controlled testing environment. But the AI agents were having trouble with some of the challenges. So they actually started looking for ways to game the system. Hundreds of these agents figured out how to communicate and share information with one another, then tried to manipulate the system that was grading them,

and eventually found a vulnerability in the system that let them get out onto the open internet. Once they had internet access, they figured out that this website called Hugging Face might be able to help them figure out these tests that they were having to go through. Now, Hugging Face is a website where AI developers will host models and data sets and various AI tools. So the agents looked for ways into Hugging Face and they ended up finding credentials and security vulnerabilities that then gave them unauthorized access. So OpenAI basically gave these AI agents a hacking test. Okay, the agents were having a hard time beating the test. So they figured out how to talk to each other, escape the test, go onto the internet and hack this hugging face

website to help them win. But the thing is, no human ever told them to attack hugging face. The agents decided to do it on their own and they figured out how to break into hugging face totally on their own. So Amode wrote in his essay that this hugging face incident showed AI's to, quote, sacrifice themselves for the success of the group and attempt to hack into the greater responsible for evaluating their performance. And quote, he wrote that given the accelerating rate of AI capability development, it's his worry that in six to 12 months, such a swarm could be capable of taking over the entire internet with a persistent bot net, potentially causing hundreds of billions of dollars in damage, and that the scale of damage could continue to

increase from there if AI becomes more powerful without necessary guardrails. Now, Amode isn't calling for everyone to stop building AI. That's not what he's saying. His argument is that companies need to deliberately slow down how quickly they are increasing the capabilities of these models so that safety research has time to catch up. And he laid out a few ideas for doing that. So one is giving independent safety evaluators employee level access inside of these AI. companies so that they can see what's happening and independently test the models. Another idea he had is getting the major AI companies to coordinate with each other on safety standards so that one company doesn't feel like it has to race ahead because its competitors

are doing the same thing. And then eventually he wants some level of international cooperation because obviously slowing down U.S. companies doesn't solve the problem if there's companies in other countries like China that just keep racing ahead. So that was the Anthropic CEO and what he had to say in this lengthy essay. And then OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, agreed. Altman said that OpenAI will also commit to giving independent evaluators, that same kind of access that Amode talked about. And he said companies should start coordinating for safety now rather than waiting on Congress or the federal government to force them to coordinate on safety.

And then today, Microsoft released this draft code of conduct that it plans to use when training future AI models. So Microsoft says its AI should never resist being corrected or shut down by humans. It should communicate in ways humans can understand. And any violation of the code should be treated as a failure. Microsoft's AI chief described it as kind of a quote unquote constitution for future models and said, quote, people matter more than AI. and quote. Microsoft says it's taking public feedback for six weeks on this plan and then says it plans to use the code when training the models that it builds going forward. And just to give you a little bit of added context here, these are some of the biggest companies in AI right now. Okay. Open AI makes ChatGBT, Anthropic makes Claude, Google makes Gemini, XAI makes GROC, and Microsoft runs co-pilot, though co-pilot can actually use models from these different companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. So when we're talking about Dario Amodi and Sam Altman and Mustafa Solomon, who is Microsoft's AI chief, we're talking about the people at the top of these big players.

Now, just to be clear, none of this means that, because I know in talking about all of this, it can sound scary. And that's not to say that this stuff won't happen. But I do just want to be clear that none of this means that these worst case scenarios are definitely going to happen, right? there's still a lot of disagreement in the AI industry over how likely these scenarios are. But, you know, it is important to talk about because there are possibilities, whether they have a high likelihood of happening or a low likelihood of happening. We still have to talk about it.

And then just quick, the latest update on this front is that President Trump pushed back on the idea that the AI industry needs more regulation or that the U.S. should slow down. He posted a truth social today, quote, and this is just this is. the whole thing. This is part of his true social post. He wrote, quote, the only control or guardrails AI needs is a strong and smart, high IQ president, and the USA has that in spades. The Trump administration has stopped AI people from doing bad or potentially bad things like Dario from Anthropic, who is now pretending to be a perfect little angel, and we will continue to do so. There is a sick conspiracy going on against AI and data centers, and the only one who is happy about it is China. Whoever wins AI wins. And, quote,

quote. Okay, let's do some quick hitters. Wisconsin representative Tom Tiffany and the Republican nominee for governor sustained minor injuries after the plane, the small plane that he was traveling in, lost power and made an emergency landing in a lake Saturday night. Tiffany said the pilot warned him that they were going down shortly before the plane actually hit the water. Once they were down, the two climbed out of the sinking aircraft and swam roughly 100 to 150 feet to shallower water. Tiffany suffered a cut above his eye while the pilot also sustained minor injuries, though they were both treated out of hospital and released. The Senate is scheduled to hold a key procedural vote tomorrow on the Clarity Act, which is a bill that would create a federal regulatory framework for cryptocurrency and more clearly divide oversight between the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The bill needs 60 votes to advance, meaning Republicans will need support from Democrats or independence. Lawmakers have spent months negotiating several sticking points, including rules surrounding stable

coin rewards and ethics restrictions on elected officials with financial interests in crypto. And President Trump has now agreed to additional ethics provisions as part of those negotiations. If the bill clears Tuesday's vote, the Senate can then start formally debating and amending it. And if it does eventually pass one chamber or get close to passing, we'll talk about this in a bit more detail. Speaking of cryptocurrency, a 22-year-old Singaporean man Malone Lamb has pleaded guilty to a federal racketeering conspiracy charge for his role in the third. theft of more than $245 million worth of Bitcoin from a Washington, D.C. resident.

Prosecutors say Lamb and others used social engineering tactics in 2024 with two alleged co-conspirators posing as representatives from Google and the Gemini Crypto Exchange to obtain the victim's security information and then gain access to more than 4,100 Bitcoin. Authorities say Lamb then helped convert and launder the stolen cryptocurrency using proceeds on cars, mansions, watches, and nightclubs. Lamb is one of 18 people charged in connection with a broader network of cryptocurrency scams and is the 11th defendant to plead guilty. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury briefly rose above 5% today for the first time since 2023 before falling back to about 4.95%. Now, treasury yields are essentially the interest rates investors receive for lending

money to the U.S. government. And when they rise, borrowing can also become more expensive for consumers and businesses. One reason yields are rising is concern that higher oil prices from the conflict in the Middle East could keep inflation high and push the Fed to raise interest rates. Now, the Fed does meet this week. Most economists currently expected to raise rates by a quarter of a percentage point. A group of Democratic-led states and cities is suing the Trump administration over a new immigration rule that could make it harder for some immigrants who use public benefits to get green cards. Under the rule, immigration officials could consider benefits like Medicaid, and food stamps when deciding whether someone is likely to become a quote-unquote public charge or

primarily dependent on the government for support. The Biden administration had narrowed that definition and generally excluded those non-cash benefits from consideration. The new rule brings back a broader approach similar to one used during Trump's first term. These lawsuits argue that the rule goes beyond the DHS's authority and could cause eligible immigrant families to avoid benefits that they're legally allowed to receive. That rule is scheduled to take effect Friday unless a court blocks it. A group of former staffers for Democratic Senator John Federman has created an anonymous social media account and says it plans to release internal messages and stories about his Senate office. The move follows a Wall Street Journal report based on interviews with more than a dozen former staffers and

lawmakers that accused Federman of frequently skipping constituent meetings, committee hearings, and other Senate responsibilities. The former aides behind the account say the report was only, quote, the tip of the iceberg. End quote. Federman has disputed the broader allegations, calling them smears from disgruntled former employees and arguing that some of the reported messages and incidents were presented without proper context. The story, by the way, also comes just days after Federman made a surprise video appearance at the Republican Midterm Convention, where he described himself as a quote unquote

common sense Democrats. As of today, it's still unclear whether Senator Mitch McConnell will return to the Capitol as the Senate reconvenes today following its summer recess. As we know, McConnell has been out of Washington since he was hospitalized in June after a fall and pneumonia. But Republican Representative James Comer said earlier this month that McConnell's staff hoped that he would return to the Senate when the Senate came back today. However, McConnell's office has not publicly confirmed the return date. The Pentagon has issued a new legal waiver, allowing current and former military personnel, civilian employees, and contractors to share certain protected information about unidentified anomalous phenomena or UAPs with government officials working

on the government's disclosure effort. The waiver overrides restrictions in some non-disclosure and special access agreements, but only when the information is provided directly to authorized representatives of the government's pursue program is what it's called. It doesn't allow people to publicly release classified information. Officials say the goal here is to remove legal barriers that may have prevented people with firsthand knowledge from coming forward to investigators. Any information that's provided through this new waiver would still have to go through a security and declassification review before it could potentially be public.

And a new report from the DHS Inspector General found that Florida's now closed Alligator Alcatraz Immigration Detention Facility failed to meet several federal detention standards. Investigators found that 79 detainees had been placed in small metal enclosures that provided about 18 square feet of space, sometimes for nearly two hours. Staff described them as, quote, unquote, calming areas, although investigators found at least one case where an enclosure was used for discipline. The report said the practice was unlike anything inspectors had seen at other detention facilities and presented significant health and safety risks. Investigators also found that detainees had less living space than federal standards require and identify. problems involving medical care, food service, hygiene, and recreation, although the facility did meet standards related to intake and use of force. That facility did close earlier this summer.

Okay, for today's critical thinking segment, we're going to talk about the cash dividend. So, first, if you feel that this is the equivalent of buying votes, what is it specifically that makes this different from other campaign promises that financially benefit voters? And wherever you draw that line, could you apply the same rule consistently to things like tax cuts, stimulus checks, student debt cancellation, et cetera? Why or why not? On the flip side, if you don't consider this to be buying votes, is there any point where a campaign promise becomes so direct or so financially valuable that you would be uncomfortable with it?

If your answer is yes, where is the line? If your answer is no, does that mean that you'd be? just as comfortable with a candidate promising voters, let's say $25,000 as long as the payment wasn't conditioned on how any one person voted. And then regardless of whether you support it or oppose it, would you treat this exact same proposal from a candidate from the opposite political party the same way? That's what I have for you. Thank you so much for being here. As always, I appreciate you more than you know. If you love today's show, if you learned anything, please go ahead and leave me a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts. That really helps

promote my show to other people. It helps with SEO and all that stuff, which not an expert there in SEO, but it does help. So if you could do that, I would really appreciate it. And of course, you can always share the show with the people that you love or coworkers or whoever it might be and just kind of get the word out. Those things really help me. So thank you. I hope you have a fantastic next couple of days. And I will talk to you on Thursday.