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Monday, September 14, 2026
A week ago, a former Anthropic employee posted a dire warning about Artificial Intelligence’s threat to humanity. Monday morning, it was the lead topic across all morning shows and, curiously, the rare subject that is getting bipartisan support. Well, not completely as Donald Trump is dismissing concerns and some of his media cronies are claiming its just a regulatory scam. Either way, its a major debate topic (along with data centers) ahead of the midterms. Meanwhile, gas prices are still soaring, and Trump is blaming the war…in Ukraine? The navel gazers gaze into Bari Weiss’s navel upon the new 60 Minutes season premiere and get a mixed review? And the president triples down on his $5,000 voter bribe, and Speaker Mike Johnson draws a congressional check-and-balance between the legislative and executive branches. Will wonders never cease?
01. AI Is a Threat Humanity Can’t Control, Both Parties Agree On. Trump Is the Holdout
[Going Mainstream]. Last week, the alarm bells were sounded by an ex-Anthropic employee. By Monday morning, both parties are expressing concern, but for very different reasons, and President Trump is the one dismissing it.
Over the weekend, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay saying AI labs need to slow down. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman agreed just after midnight, with the caveat that slower doesn’t mean stopped, posting on X that “no amount of American competitive pressure should justify recklessness.” Trump was asked about it on his golf course and again in Ireland, and his answer both times was that whoever wins AI wins. He said the worries come from “negative forces” and added that the phrase was his: “it’s an expression that I came up with, and it’s true.”
Speaker Mike Johnson appeared on Meet the Press and argued that AI labs can slow themselves down without Congressional involvement. Last week Senator Bernie Sanders introduced a bill banning superintelligence outright. Politico Playbook reported on a private Democratic strategy session where the group hosting it has raised $10 million for House candidates on this, and the politician they praised most for owning the issue was … Republican Senator Josh Hawley?!
The AI threat was the most talked-about topic on all three morning shows. CNN went with Amodei explaining how regulation would work. Fox & Friends focused much of its segment on the threat from China, though Ainsley Earhardt did say Congress needs to act so there are limits. Morning Joe went deep with Axios founders Mike Allen and Jim Van de Hei.
TAKEAWAY: Before Labor Day, the AI-related election topic was the threat of deeply unpopular data centers. Today that feels like a remarkably innocent time before we learned of a 10% chance of human extinction due to unregulated artificial intelligence? Human extinction aside (which we can all agree is a long-term problem), the short-term one is political, and Trump is an outlier on a threat that has unified Congress and morning-show television.
02. Gas Costs Too Much Because of Trump’s War, and His New Excuse Blaming Ukraine Only Renews the Charge
[ Going Mainstream]. Trump said last week that the Iran war would end after the midterm elections. Today he was blaming record-high fuel costs on the war, but not the one everyone is thinking of.
The cost of a gallon of diesel fuel is now at a record $6.23 this morning, according to the AAA. It had never been above $6 before last week. Trump was asked about it and claimed the real problem is Ukraine hitting Russian diesel plants, saying “This isn’t done by the Middle East.” He then told the press how he had asked Zelensky to stop bombing the country that invaded it roughly three years ago.
Brian Kilmeade played the clip on Fox & Friends during the 7 a.m. hour and said, “It also hurts the Russian bank accounts too, and that’s good.” A GasBuddy expert acknowledged that Ukraine’s strikes are moving diesel fuel prices Sunday night on CNN, adding that that’s exactly why Ukraine keeps doing it.
Ukraine has hit more than 20 Russian refineries since summer, which Morning Joe noted before insisting(entirely logically) that the real reason behind sky-high fuel costs is that the Strait of Hormuz is still closed. Ya think?
TAKEAWAY: The Iran war has left the world short on refining capacity, so when Ukraine knocks out refineries in Russia, one of the biggest diesel producers anywhere, it shows up at the pump in the United States of America.
03. 60 Minutes Has Gone Trump-Friendly Under Its New Owners, and the Premiere Didn’t Settle It
[ Emerging]. Critics charged that Bari Weiss would make the show friendlier to Trump. CBS News insisted that was nonsense. Sunday’s 60 Minutes premiere gave evidence for both sides.
The lead segment centered on a Pete Hegseth interview about a downed pilot. The same hour had Lesley Stahl running a hidden camera on people selling access to Trump for pardons, and the show called the Iran war “costly and unpopular.” The reviews came down on the side of not much changed. The Times called it “more tweak than overhaul.” The Hollywood Reporter said the Hegseth piece was “not dynamically propagandistic.”
None of them dealt with how the Hegseth segment got booked. Brian Stelter reported Sunday night that Hegseth pushed the two airmen to do it. Monday morning he added that Hegseth met with both men, political appointees leaned on them, and one refused. Defense secretaries don’t normally get involved in bookings. Stelter said all that as the show started; then, a few minutes later, called the show “still 60 Minutes” and “as strong as it ever was.”
TAKEAWAY: Critics looking for evidence of a heavy Bari Weiss hand were certain they saw it, and to be honest, they weren’t entirely off. But most reviewers found the new season premiere to feel a lot like past episodes of 60 Minutes. In other words, Rorschach test gonna Rorschach test. No one’s navel has been more deeply gazed upon than Bari Weiss’s navel.
“Blaming Ukraine amid Iranian and Houthi attacks on Mideast oil production and transport is political excuse making on a grand scale.” That’s the Wall Street Journal editorial board mocking Trump’s recent claim that Ukraine attacks on Russia in a Sunday editorial headlined “Trump Lectures Ukraine, Not Russia.”
At issue was Trump directing Volydmyr Zelensky to stop hitting Russian energy targets, but having nothing critical to say about a passenger train hit by a Russian drone near the Polish border the same weekend. “Go ahead, make Vladimir Putin’s day, Mr. President.”
The Journal‘s editorial page has long been conservative, but recently has become an institutional voice of dissent on the Trump administration and, more importantly, the voice of the business right, and diesel is a business cost. The board took the president’s central explanation for record fuel prices, then mocked it as a particularly lame excuse.
The data tells the real, better stories beneath the headlines.
Trump and Johnson Contradict Each Other on $5,000 Voter Bribes. Mike Johnson said on Meet the Press Sunday morning that “Congress will work through” the president’s midterm convention pledge to offer $5,000 payments if Congress stays Republican. But when asked in Ireland whether Congress would need to approve the $5,000 payments, Trump said, “It’s easy. And no.” (Axios)
Kennedy Center Board May Vote to Close It Tomorrow. The center’s leaders told the board it faces bankruptcy unless Trump’s name goes on the building, because it depends on the president’s fundraising help. (Washington Post)
Republicans Engineered the Fetterman Video. Convention organizer Tony Sayegh drove the idea of featuring Dem senator John Fetterman. Trump aide Jason Miller backed it from the White House, Dave McCormick made the ask, and Fetterman kept it secret from his own team. (Axios)
Based on transcripts from the 6 and 7 a.m. hours of Fox & Friends, CNN This Morning, News Central, and Morning Joe.
“People are really, really scared, and they’re looking for Washington to do something even if Trump’s not there yet.” That’s Jonathan Lemire teeing up Mike Allen and Jim Van de Hei during the 7 a.m. hour of Morning Joe in a segment focused on the sudden alarm posed by an unregulated AI. The Axios founders seemed somewhat justified because it's something they’ve been warning about for the past year, and when even Ainsley Earhardt is comparing it to the threat of Skynet from The Terminator on Fox & Friends? That’s a singularity of another sort. In fact, AI was mentioned more than any other topic on all networks from 6 to 8 a.m. This IS a massive bipartisan issue and one that Donald Trump is on the outside of because either he thinks the alarmism is way off or isn’t yet read in on it. Either way, Trump is acting like a guy who’s been told that AI will produce another economic golden age, which hasn’t yet materialized, and won’t before the midterm elections happen in less than two months, becoming just one more issue on which a majority of voters disagree with the White House.
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