What A Day - Bernie & Bannon Agree: AI is Dangerous

Episode Date: September 14, 2026

A string of recent warnings from AI industry insiders, including a former Anthropic employee who puts the odds of human extinction at over 10 percent in the next 10 years.Politicians on both sides of the aisle are feeling pressure to do something. And tomorrow we're going to see a very rare spectacle: Senator Bernie Sanders, lion of the progressive movement, sharing a stage with Steve Bannon, the MAGA bomb-thrower, at what they're calling a "Pro-Human Assembly." You don't see that kind of bipartisanship very often in DC these days.But will it be enough? Will the literal possible end of humanity spur Congress to do something? Our guest host, Greg Walters, talks with Burgess Everett, Semafor's congressional bureau chief, about whether lawmakers plan to do anything.Show Notes: Check out Burgess's work – semafor.com/author/burgess-everett Call Congress – 202-224-3121 Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/y4y2e9jy What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/ For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail]

If this idea that AI could basically wipe out humanity becomes like what AI is known for, it would be pretty hard to be the pro-AI candidate if you think that it is going to wipe out all humans. It's September 14th. I'm Greg Walters in for Jane Koston, and this is What a Day. We're here to talk about the concern that AI really could kill us all in the not-so-distant future. What's the risk of this actually happening? So just to back up a little bit. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, just to back up a little bit, does he have any idea how unresuring that sounds?

That was Dario Amadee, the CEO of AI Juggernaut Anthropic, dancing around the question of whether his company's product is going to bring about the end times. He was reacting to a string of recent warnings from AI industry insiders telling us that this threat is very real, including from one of his own employees, who put the odds of human extinction at over 10% in the next 10 years. politicians from both sides of the aisle are feeling pressure to do something. Tomorrow, we're going to see a very rare spectacle. Senator Bernie Sanders, the lion of the progressive movement,

sharing a stage with Steve Bannon, the MAGA bomb thrower, at what they're calling a pro-human assembly. You just don't see this kind of bipartisanship very often in Washington, D.C. these days. But will it be enough? Will the literal possible end of humanity spur Congress to do something? That's what I'm going to come back to talk about, in just a moment. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump seems more concerned with how rising oil prices spurred by the war he started on a whim and now can't get out of could hurt his party's

odds in the midterms. He's promising that this war will end right after the vote, which, spoiler alert, he can't promise. And he's now suggesting that the U.S. might, quote, keep the oil, which doesn't make any sense because the U.S. does not have the oil. Oil prices are surging towards $110 a barrel, and Saudi Arabia just closed a key key. pipeline that was targeted in two places last week. Rising prices are raising concerns about a coming clash between Trump and the Federal Reserve, and that's because higher prices are pressuring the Fed to raise interest rates. And that puts Fed Chair Kevin Warsh in a bind.

He's got to choose between protecting the economy and making Donald Trump happy. And Trump is demanding that Warsh cut rates, because that would spur the stock market and the economy in the near term. But it could also unleash inflation and spook the bond market, which, like a her, herd of water buffalo has a tendency to trample things when it gets spooked. The Fed has to decide this week whether to raise interest rates as most investors think it will or not. So watch that space. But we're going to get into another crisis, and I want to talk about whether Washington, D.C. can save us from an AI apocalypse. And joining me is Burgess Everett, Congressional Bureau

Chief for Semaphore. Burges, welcome to what a day. Hey, Greg. Thanks for having me. So AI insiders are ringing alarms louder than I. I can remember hearing about a possible catastrophe. Are congressional leaders hearing all this on Capitol Hill? Yeah, I mean, they're definitely hearing it. Honestly, like, this is something that's kind of been in the bloodstream on Capitol Hill since about 2023 when Chuck Schumer was majority leader. He started gathering together members of both parties to hear these folks out. Now, what ended up happening was nothing.

They heard them out, but there was no bill. There's no new regulations. And so they kind of were left without a conclusion. to that. And so fast forward to today, there have been these meetings with AI leaders. People have been talking about this for a while. There may even be a bipartisan bill that gets released, but the chances of things actually happening before the midterm elections or even after them seem pretty slim right now, especially, which I'm sure we will get to, Greg, with where the president is coming down on this. We will get to that in just a moment. But let me just back up a second on

something you just said. We're talking about, as I understand it, literally the end of the world. Is that not enough to expect Congress to like leap into action? I know it seems it seems silly. Like you would think that this would be prompting tons of alarm bells on Capitol Hill. And I think it is it is for individual members of Congress. I've been covering Congress for more than a decade. I've never really seen them move very quickly on anything other than a couple of Supreme Court nominees. And so when you're talking about something as big as AI, as complicated as AI, and as politically sensitive as AI, it's very hard to imagine quick action on this because there's this inherent tension between the members ahead of an election of whether to do something,

what will benefit each party. It's just not conducive to a bipartisan deal. deal on anything. And when you're talking about something as complicated as AI, when they've been frankly kind of dithering on this for a couple of years, the idea that they're going to scramble and get something together super quickly, it just kind of defies the general reality on Capitol Hill. Now, I think even the most cynical, pessimistic folks will always kind of keep the door open for something to happen. And so, you know, Congress is just getting back. We're going to be hearing from the leaders about what they want to do. Chuck Schumer's already said the minority leader that he wants to have an all senator.

briefing, Senate Majority Leader John Thune has been working on AI legislation. So it's not like nothing is happening, but the idea of something getting 60 votes in the Senate, majority votes in the House and getting signed by President Trump before Election Day is pretty hard to imagine at this point in time, even with those huge stakes like Terminator 2 stakes of AI taking over and killing everyone. Yeah, you have this image of like Terminator walking down Pennsylvania Avenue and Congress being like, well, we got to get cloture. Let's actually listen to House Speaker Mike Johnson talking about why this issue is hard for Congress.

Here he is on CNN over the weekend. Congress is a deliberative body, Jake. You know, it takes a while to do that. And Congress needs to catch up. But the problem is, I'm telling you again, the guys who are raising the alarms right now all have very different ideas on what the guardrails should be. There's no consensus among them.

And Congress is obviously less qualified than the people who are pushing this frontier to know all the ins and outs of it. So this has to be a partnership with the industry itself, with the corporations that are doing this, and with the policy and lawmakers. And that's a very complex thing to resolve. If we overstep it, I'm telling you again, Jake,

it could be a national security threat for every American. So Johnson is kind of like, and I'm paraphrasing here, but he's kind of like, you know, computers are hard. And the Terminator, well, he's a computer. So what you're going to do? What do you make of this issue of Johnson saying that Congress isn't fully qualified to regulate this issue? Well, I think that there is something to that in the sense that I don't feel like most members of Congress really know how AI works. Now, I have noticed in the past year or two, members of Congress in both parties and in both chambers are using AI a lot more than I used to, more even than I am.

I don't use AI a ton. But when I talk to them about this, they say, yeah, I use it for a couple hours a day to do research to help me come up with ideas. You know, they're not using it to finalize their speeches and just pumping out AI. But I do think they use it to gather information. Their staffs use it to gather information, et cetera. You know, what he's not saying there is like, you know, the nuts and bolts of it or the house is in session for one week before the election. Like, that's the reality of this. Like, if they wanted to devote the time to this to really get after it, they could.

That's not where their heads are at right now. What happens in Congress every two years is once that election gets too close, that's all anybody is really focused on. And so I don't know that there's a clear-cut way, a clear-cut bill that you could pass right now that would make your party be in a better position with the public when it comes to AI. Because like Speaker Johnson just said, which I think is true, is that most of the people that would be writing it don't necessarily know what they're doing.

I mean, you would really need to be hiring people that came from these AI companies to come to Congress to help write this legislation. That would probably take a while. So I do feel like there is some truth of that. Now, not doing anything, very risky as well. And once you do one thing, it's very hard to reverse it. So I am struck by him saying that.

You don't want to screw this up because we've seen that with social media. Right. The social media laws governing them are very old now. It was before people really understood how the Internet was actually going to work. So there is some truth to, hey, don't take action just to take action, because once you do, it may be law forever. So part of what's so interesting about this dynamic to me is this isn't just a situation where opponents of the industry are calling for more regulation. But the industry itself is asking for government to step.

in and stop it to save us from it, which to me is pretty crazy. But so this weekend we saw three of the biggest names in AI. We saw Dario Amadeh from Anthropic, Sam Altman of Open AI, Elon Musk of XAI, all saying they want more regulation. They want to stop this runaway train. And then we saw remarkable skepticism about doing it or even responding to this call. I mean, let's listen to a clip we have here from J.D. Vance on this over the weekend. I have to say, just personally, I feel a little bit weird about the fact that you have so many frontier AI tech companies kind of coming to the government and begging the government to regulate them. It feels a little bit to me like a bit of a Trojan horse.

So I think we just have to be careful about this. Where do you think that skepticism comes from? Well, I think he's not exactly spelling it out as the way I would, but I think part of it is these companies are reacting to negative public sentiment. about them. I think it started, honestly, with the data center issue, becoming this kind of populist revolt about people don't want these things near them. The politics of that have played out pretty clearly in the past few months. You know, if you are a candidate running for office, you do not want to be the pro-Data Center candidate. I think what you're going to be seeing is you

don't necessarily want to be the pro-unfettered AI candidate either. And I do think, like, he, I think these companies know that Congress is not going to take action to regulate AI right now. So they're kind of getting a free pass by making it sound like they want that to happen, knowing full well that it's not going to. So I think that's a little bit what he's getting at in the sense that they're saying, hey, we want government to regulate us, knowing full well that it's not going to happen in the short term. We'll get back to my conversation with Burgess Everett in just a moment. Why Today is brought to you by Quince. You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself reaching for over and over again, the sweater that somehow works with everything, the jeans you know

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No questions asked. Head to Zbiotics.com slash wad, code Wad for 15% off your first order. Zabatics is a partner of our show. Let's get back to my conversation with Gurgis. And then, of course, there's the President Donald Trump of it all. He chimed in this morning to say, quote, and I got to read this, the only control or guardrails that AI needs is a all caps. strong and smart, parentheses, high IQ president, and the USA has that in spades.

He then blamed the panic on conspiracy theorists, treasonous, and traitors. To your point about the politics of this, why do we think Trump has an incentive to let AI run free? He's not on the ballot, right? And this is something we can extend to a bunch of other topics, Iran, Canada, tariffs, things like that, things that are damaging politically on the short term to his party, to his candidates. He's not necessarily thinking about that. We see the way he's rebuilding Washington, D.C., kind of in his own image. I think he's a president who is very focused on his legacy, his long-term legacy, what people say about him in five, 10, 20 years. And that conflicts directly,

in my opinion, with what it takes to win elections sometimes. And so you're hearing a president saying, don't regulate data centers and don't regulate AI where all of his candidates who are on the ballot are basically saying the opposite. And I don't think that's a coincidence. So I think he's trying to weed his party, but he's looking at it from a totally different perspective. Because if he was on the ballot, I do not think he would be saying some of these same things if he had to face voters in two months from now. But he keeps telling us that he is on the ballot. So what do we make of that? I think there's some places where that is useful to candidates, and I think there are places where that is not useful to candidates. I think there are some Republicans who are running

almost as a quasi-check on Trump. Think like Susan Collins, for example, in Maine. And so, you know, she doesn't want voters thinking that Donald Trump's on the ballot. That would be a clear electoral loser for her. And so I think to a lesser extent, you're going to see that in a bunch of other races across the country. And so I don't, you know, any place where Trump is underwater, which is now most of the country, I don't think Republican candidates and incumbents want voters going into the booth, thinking that Donald Trump is on the ballot. Okay. So you raise a great point here, which is like taking this into the midterms. Data centers and AI broadly have already been a big political issue here. What is your sense of how this is playing out into the midterms? What are the

concerns of the voters? How is that dynamic playing out? Yeah, I mean, I think you're the pro-data center candidate. You're on the wrong end of this issue. And I think even the most pro-data-center Republicans and Democrats are now coming at it from a perspective of, hey, if localities don't want this, don't force it on them. Let them say no to this. Hopefully we will build data centers in places that want them. So that, to me now, that other than President Trump, that's like the most pro-data center position you're going to find. And then from there, you can go pretty quickly to find people who are saying, don't build them at all. My opponent is pro-data-center. Please, you shouldn't vote for them because of that. I support moratoriums. You know, there's a,

there's a whole litany of proposals that you're hearing now from these candidates. And to me, that's reacting more to public sentiment than necessarily to how does the United States win the data war with China. This is more like, this is what people want to hear. So this is what people are now saying about data centers. I think AI as a whole is in a slightly different place, but it could be going there, especially if this idea that AI could basically wipe out humanity becomes like what AI is known for.

It would be pretty hard to be the pro AI candidate if you think that it is going to wipe out all humans. Yeah, side note, I kind of can't believe that this morning I got up and my plan for the day was to have a conversation about the possible end of humanity. You know, this is just this wild reality check moment, I think, for so many of us. And it is still, you know, the second piece of that is to be like, and Congress might do something about it or it might not. It's just a crazy place to be.

Also, like you and I are news people. We're following this very closely. We're paying close attention to it. What does the average median voter think about that? Maybe not much, right? Like most people, if I'm being honest with you, are not paying attention. to what people are putting on X about AI. They're watching college football on Saturday

and they're watching the NFL on Sunday, right? And so, like, over time, this is going to creep into the average median American is going to have an established position on AI with regards to, what do you think about it, wiping out all humanity and how dangerous it could be? I don't necessarily know we've gotten to that point yet. And so I do think it takes a few weeks or months for that to happen.

I think that's what we saw with the data centers. At first, it was just kind of a gradual shift away from them. And then it happened all of a sudden. And I think that could happen with AI as a whole as well. Right. So are you saying that we may be at a kind of pivot moment when the concerns about AI go from this big, annoying data center is raising energy costs and messing up my neighborhood to, wow, the killer robots might kill everyone.

Yeah. And I think there's also like an interim point, which I've heard from members of Congress, which is that people are really concerned about AI taking their jobs. And so I definitely think that has been in the bloodstream for, you know, well over one to two years now at this point. And I think the existential threat of it all obviously would supersede even like whether you have a job or not. And so I'm trying to dodge the question. I just don't think we have a great grasp on how the potential existential threat of AI. is going to affect individual congressional races and how candidates are going to start reacting to it.

I think we're going to learn a lot, honestly, over the next six to seven weeks, because when there is very unlikely prospects of legislation, that allows candidates to kind of say whatever they want to, because there's not an actual bill that's going to be on the floor. And so I think we're going to learn a lot about what candidates think people want to hear between now and November. Yeah, and it'll be interesting to see how that shapes the 2028 race as well. But tomorrow in D.C., speaking of unprecedented times, we're going to see something very unusual, which is Bernie Sanders getting up on stage with Steve Bannett to talk about AI and safety and humanity. And you just don't see this kind of bipartisanship every day.

And I'm wondering what it tells us that you see Bernie and Bannon joining forces on this issue. You're probably familiar with the horseshoe theory of populism, which is that the far right and the far left. left will eventually intersect over time on certain issues. And so I think that this is one of them. I think it's related to these folks don't like big tech and haven't for a long time. And what is more big tech right now than AI companies? And so if your politics are anti big tech, this is a natural place for you to be, whether you're on the left or the right. Now, is that going to be representative of the median member of Congress, the median political strategist. No, it's not. But it does tell you that, you know, these folks, Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon, they both know how to work the media.

They know how to work the timing of the media. And they react quickly to things. And so there is a demand right now for what they are talking about. And so they're going to exploit that and get attention for it. And so it's smart politics for them because they're just reacting quickly. And they know that Steve Bannis plus Bernie Sanders is big headlines. And so they're being smart about it, frankly, in terms of getting attention, drawing attention, and getting their message out, making more people pay attention to it. One of the things that we have seen with social media is that there wasn't a whole lot of clampdown from Washington on these companies and their growth and what they did. And instead, what we have often, we've seen that issue be kind of handed over to the courts.

And we've seen these big legal battles over what the companies are allowed to do. safety for children, stuff like that. In AI, what we have seen is states beginning to get more involved, and a lot of state initiatives, legislation, stuff like that at the state level to try to hem in AI. Are there possibilities that maybe Washington doesn't do this, but some of the other institutions in our life might step in and take up the burden?

For sure, but you don't have to go far to see this fight has already played out once. Last year, the president was trying to get an aid, moratorium on state-specific regulations in the big beautiful bill, that big tax cuts, Medicaid cuts, defense spending bill, that sort of catch-all law that they passed last year, there was a big fight over whether to bar states from doing their own regulations. It did not get in there, but that told you where the administration was coming from, and that there's a fear among pro-AI forces, including the White House, that states will do that and class.

down on AI and potentially stifle innovation from their perspective. I think, you know, the other perspective is that, well, at least states would be stepping in to protect Americans or protect people from AI's rise and its negative effects. So we've seen that play out before, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it play out again if states start to step more into the void that the federal government is leaving on this issue. So wrap this up for me. For people who are sitting at home and watching or listening and thinking, man, I really hope that the government is out there to protect me from the rise of killer robots.

Is it? I do not feel like this is an issue that has forced the hand in Congress from both parties to actually get together and do something about it. I think you're going to hear a lot of talk about who's better on this issue or not. But no, I do not feel the urgency right now for that to happen. You know, the traditional rhythms of Congress, it takes a lot to disrupt them. And so what I would tell somebody who wants to see that happen is, well, let's see what happens next year in the new Congress. That's what it feels like to me right now. But it kind of, let's say Democrats take both chambers of Congress.

They have a great wave of election and they want to regulate AI. You still have President Trump in the White House. And so if he is totally anti-regulating AI or data centers, I don't see anything happening until there's another president. He has a veto pen. You've got to get a veto-proof majority if he doesn't like it. And so, no, I mean, I don't think the prospects are super great for this right now. That could change, but that's the kind of thing that I think Mike Johnson was talking about in that earlier clip.

It's going to take a long time to get there. And so if you're thinking that folks in Congress or the White House are going to snap their fingers and come up with a solution to this thing in the next few weeks, you've got another thing coming. and it's just probably not going to happen. Well, Burgess, that was very informative and not very reassuring. No. Do not look to Washington for reassurance on most things. But, you know, sometimes it will surprise you.

And I've just used this very quick example. I've covered lots of gun bills over my time. I thought Congress would never pass anything. And then Joe Biden becomes president, and they passed a bipartisan gun safety bill. It wasn't what both parties wanted, but they did tackle an issue that seemed like it was politically radio. active for a very long time. So I say that just to say that things can change and this institution

and the city can surprise you. I like that. Thank you, Burgess. Yeah, thank you. And that was my conversation with Burgess Everett, Congressional Bureau Chief for Semaphore. Before we go, New York. This fall, join Crooked Ideas in Lower Manhattan for an immersive two-hour walking tour inspired by the excellent podcast, Empire City. You'll learn all about the troubling history of the NYPD with your guide, Asa Dondia, someone who didn't just study this story. He lived it. He sued the NYPD and won. As a college student, Asad joined the ACLU lawsuit challenging discriminatory surveillance practices, helping secure policy protections for all New Yorkers. Join Assad on October 9th or November 21st in New York City. Tickets are just $10.00. Reserve your spot today at crooked ideas.org

slash Empire City. If you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, make friends with a wealthy Russian oligarch so he can pay for part of your lavish wedding weekend like Don Jr. reported they did and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just about Don Jr's wild wedding weekend, which was described as Monte Carlo meets a frat party, Whataday is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Greg Walters. And may you have the oligarch funded wedding of your dreams? What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. Our show is produced by Emily Ford, Erica Morrison, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Haley Jones, Greg Walters,

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Yeah. Numbers are hard, takes her easy. And frankly, numbers have only gotten harder. What does the data actually say? How do we reconcile that with the other things that we're seeing in American politics and around the world? And how do we use that data to understand or maybe even dare to predict the future of American politics? New episodes every Wednesday starting September 9th. Subscribe to Stillcounting on YouTube.com slash at Stillcounting podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.