KRISTEN WELKER:
This Sunday: money matters. With just 51 days until the midterms, oil prices rise and the trade war intensifies. As President Trump rallies his party for the fight ahead, asking them to pretend he’s on the ballot and promising payments if Republicans win in November.
[BEGIN TAPE]
PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000.
[END TAPE]
KRISTEN WELKER:
I’ll talk to Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Plus, drawing the line. The Supreme Court blocks a Republican effort to redraw Missouri’s congressional districts — helping democrats and complicating the final sprint to the midterms. And, digital doomsday. A whistleblower working on artificial intelligence warns it could “kill us all” by the end of the decade. As the CEO of Anthropic calls for the industry to slow down. How dangerous is AI technology?
[BEGIN TAPE]
JACOB COXON:
These people are begging for regulation. They don’t want to end the world. It’s just they think someone else will get there first.
[END TAPE]
I’ll talk to Jacob Coxon. Joining me for insight and analysis are: Jonathan Martin of POLITICO; Marc Short, former Director of Legislative Affairs for President Trump; and Ashley Etienne, former Communications Director to Vice President Harris. Welcome to Sunday. It’s Meet the Press.
ANNOUNCER:
From NBC News in Washington, the longest-running show in television history, this is Meet the Press, with Kristen Welker.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Good Sunday morning. Just 51 days until the midterms and the economic pressure is building. Oil prices are surging, the war with Iran is disrupting global energy markets, the trade war is driving prices higher, and Americans are feeling it at the pump. Regular gas is now more than four dollars a gallon, up more than a dollar since the war began. Diesel is now more than six dollars a gallon. It comes as President Trump is putting himself at the center of the Republican campaign. At the GOP’s first-ever midterm convention in Dallas, he told Republicans to “pretend” he was on the ballot, then made a stunning promise: five thousand dollars for every adult citizen if Republicans win the House and Senate.
[BEGIN TAPE]
PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
Please pretend that I’m running. If the Republicans win, you win with us, and you get $5,000. It will be called the Trump dividend.
[END TAPE]
KRISTEN WELKER:
And joining me now is the Republican Speaker of the House, Congressman Mike Johnson of Louisiana. Speaker Johnson, welcome back to Meet The Press.
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON:
Hey, Kristen, great to be with you as always.
KRISTEN WELKER:
It’s great to have you this Sunday after the Republican convention this past week. And I want to start right there at the convention. President Trump made a promise that he would send $5,000 to every American if Republicans hold onto the House and the Senate. Is that a plan you support, Mr. Speaker?
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON:
Well, look, what the president was doing is reminding the American people of our extraordinary record of success. And the fact that they have more money in their pockets under Republican control of Congress and the White House. I mean, look at it. Under the — this regime and under this presidency and our Republican majorities, we’ve given the largest tax cut in U.S. history, wages are going up. In my state of Louisiana, I’m there this morning in my home state. And the average Louisianan has over $2,900 more in their pocket they did not have to send in in their taxes. And the average take home pay has increased nearly $8,000 for every taxpayer. 97% of filers got a tax refund this year. And that’s all because of our policy. So elections have consequences. What the president is brainstorming about is ways to further incentivize and grow the economy and make sure that Americans keep more of their hard-earned dollars
So that’s an idea, a new one, an idea that we’ll process through Congress and talk through and debate and discuss. But we’re going to continue on this pace of an incredible record of achievement, also in addition to the economy of course.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Yeah.
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON:
I mean, we talked about at the convention highlighting all the great wins. And listen, this is real statistics. You know that we have the lowest violent crime rate in 126 years. We have the lowest level of illegal border crossing in over a century. We have the biggest decline in drug costs, prescription drugs, in over 60 years. And of course we gave the largest middle and working families tax cut in U.S. history, more wages, more jobs, more on-shoring of American manufacturing. And that was a lot of fun to tout at the convention and draw people’s attention to it because we have a contrast election coming up here on November 3rd.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Mr. Speaker, I hear you saying wages are going up. It’s worth noting wages went up 3.1%, inflation 3.4%, so not keeping pace with inflation. But to my question, do you support sending $5,000 to every American citizen if Republicans hold on to the House and Senate?
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON:
Like every idea that the president comes up with, he’s a great idea generator. We’re going to process that in Congress and figure it all out. But I’ll tell you that the trend will continue. And what the president is trying to emphasize there is that the American people want to continue on the pace we’re on, which is more economic growth, expanding the pathway out of poverty for more people, providing more jobs and higher wages. We need to stay on track and continue with these big ideas. He’s the big idea’s president. We’re going to try to implement everything we can.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Mr. Speaker, I want to read for you something that Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine said about these $5,000 checks. She wrote, quote, “Tax and spending decisions should be made based on the needs of the American people and the state of the economy. They should not appear to be tied to election results.” The president said that these checks are contingent on election results. Is this an attempt to buy votes?
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON:
No, of course not. Remember the Democrats who are making that claim are the same ones who gave out COVID checks and all sorts of stimulus checks and everything else —
KRISTEN WELKER:
Well, she’s a Republican.
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON:
It’s not an unprecedented —
KRISTEN WELKER:
Susan Collins is a Republican —
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON:
You know, the president is not —
KRISTEN WELKER:
Susan Collins is a Republican —
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON:
Yeah, I understand that. I understand. Sure — sure, but that’s right. And so is the president. He’s the lead Republican in the country. And what he is articulating there is the obvious truth that you have more money in your pockets with Republicans in control than with Democrats. And at the same time, we are cutting government spending and doing it responsibility. Remember in the Big Beautiful Bill, the working families’ tax cut, we also cut $1.6 trillion in wasteful government spending. So it’s about prioritizing spending and making sure that hard-working families can keep more of what they earn. And we’re going to look at every ingenious idea on how to make that happen. And it’ll all be part of the process.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Mr. Speaker, since you took office though, inflation is up, gas prices are up. Estimates show tariffs have cost American households nearly $2,000 so far. I know you’re saying Americans have more money in their pockets. But as you well know, many Americans say they just don’t feel that. Is there a disconnect there in terms of what you’re saying, what Americans are feeling?
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON:
No, I mean, we have to consider all of the facts of course. But remember that when President Trump took over, the economy was in shambles. I mean, we reached a 40-year high of inflation under Biden and Harris, 9.1%. At this stage, in President Biden’s presidency, it was about 8.3% inflation. Right now it’s 3.4% under President Trump. Now that’s too high, of course. But we are the team that has the policies in place to continue to bring that down. The inflation is tied right now, as we all know, to the Strait of Hormuz and the fact that commerce there is not reopened and stabilized as much as it should be. But we all believe and the president’s working around the clock that that will come to a resolution here very soon. And I think it’s going to be a combination of our allied nations, our, our friends in NATO and other Arab states in the region over there in that Gulf region who will come together to help make sure that the Strait of Hormuz remains open so that that stabilizes gas and fuel prices —
KRISTEN WELKER:
We’re going to get —
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON:
– and brings down costs overall. I think that’s the next phase.
KRISTEN WELKER:
We’re going to get to Iran. It is worth noting inflation was at 3.0% when President Biden left office. It’s now at 3.4%. but let’s talk about the price tag. Because there’s been a lot of discussion about that. The checks would cost the government an estimated $1.2 trillion. I want to pay for you something that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said about how this plan would impact the nation’s already $40 trillion debt. Take a look.
[BEGIN TAPE]
GOV. RON DESANTIS:
What I don’t think you want to do is borrow another million — trillion and a half dollars and then just try to flood that into the economy. Because that will lead to more inflation. That will lead to more debt and more inflation.
[END TAPE]
KRISTEN WELKER:
In the past, you have called the national debt the largest threat facing the country. Why would you want to add to the debt, Mr. Speaker?
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON:
I don’t want to add to the debt, Kristen, and I guess we’re going to spend the whole segment talking about this one issue when there’s so many other things —
KRISTEN WELKER:
No, we’re going to get to other issues —
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON:
– I want to talk about what we’ve actually done and not ideas on the table. Okay well I’d love to but let me just say, no we don’t want to add to the debt. But if you look at what Commerce Secretary Lutnick said in the last 48 hours or so and what the president himself has said, this is not to add to anything. It’s not going to take taxpayer funds. We’re not going to get further in debt if this idea was implemented. This would be in the president’s mind and the way he analogized it like a dividend check for shareholders. That’s how he thinks of it. If a corporation does well, everybody gets the benefit of that. And he thinks of it this way. They’re talking about the new, you know, tariff revenue and other revenues coming into the country. He said at the convention, you know, trillions of dollars are coming into the country since he took office because of the new trades, that things are more advantageous for America. And he wanted — he wants to make sure the American people feel the good effect of it. So again, we’ve got to process it like every idea. We’ll work that through Congress. But you and I are wasting a lot of time this morning when there’s other important things to talk about.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Oh — well, you still haven’t answered the question. Let me just button it up. We’re going to move on to a number of other topics. But do you commit that if Republicans hold onto the House and Senate that Americans will get those $5,000 checks?
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON:
I commit that Congress will work through it and find consensus on that like they have to do everything else. We have a small margin in this Congress. We’ve had smallest — almost smallest in history, one or two vote margin on every given day. So it takes some time. I never go out and give– give big commitments on the front end because I’ve got to work through it. And that’s what we do every single day.
KRISTEN WELKER:
President Trump promised that to voters though. You’re not willing to double down on that promise?
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON:
I’ll work with the president hand-in-hand as I do all the time. And we’ll deliver for the American people. That’s the promise.
KRISTEN WELKER:
All right. Let’s talk about Iran. President Trump said this week that the war will probably last beyond the midterms after initially he said, Mr. Speaker, it would only last for a matter of weeks. Congress controls the power of the purse. Does the White House have a blank check to continue this war, Mr. Speaker?
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON:
No, and the war’s not continuing. What we’re trying to do now is resolve what has already been a big success. Operation Epic Fury, of course, achieved the objectives. We had to make sure that the largest state sponsor of terrorism did not have a nuclear weapon. That has been an objective and commitment of every administration for almost a half century. And everybody around the world, and the world is safer, and Americans are safer because we took care of that problem. Now we’ve got to resolve it. And the president’s spending lots of time and energy every single day making sure we do that. But it has to be in a way that’s advantageous at — for the American people and keeps the American safe. And so we’ve got to make sure they can’t restart a nuclear program. But at the same time, we’ve got to make sure that gas prices are down at Planet Earth. And so that’s what the president works on every single day. The Iranians are not trustworthy negotiating partners of course. They lie every day. They sit at the table, tell you one thing, do the opposite. For some of them it’s part of their religion. So this is a difficult, complex situation. It will involve, I think, other — as I said, other allies and partner nations around the world to ensure that we keep the region safe and keep all of our own countries and our people safe. And that’s the objective.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Mr. Speaker, there are still 50,000 troops deployed to the region. You still have a Naval blockade in place. President Trump continues to refer to the conflict as a war. Let me ask you. Are you confident this war will be over by the next presidential election, Mr. Speaker?
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON:
Oh, of course, we certainly plan for that to be true. And I would like it to be done, of course, today, certainly before the midterm election. But that’s just about a little more than 50 days away right now. And so we’re going to be realistic about this. It’s a complex situation as we all know. But its one that everyone, I mean, it’s quite literally an all-hands-on-deck approach to resolving that for the American people. And by the way, the president’s right about what he said at the convention and has said consistently, all the time. As soon as that is resolved, the Strait of Hormuz, the commerce there to get, you know, oil, you know, transferred and transported through that international waterway, that will bring down the cost. Because it’s not just fuel and everything related to that. It’s, for example, grocery prices because your — your grocery prices are higher because of the transport costs. So we’ve got to do that. We have done every — we put every economic condition in place in this Congress and in this administration to bring down costs and put more money in American’s pockets. And so this is the last little piece of that. We believe it’ll be resolved soon. I — the president says right after the election and I certainly pray and hope that that’s right.
KRISTEN WELKER:
All right. I have to talk to you about AI. I will be speaking with the AI researcher who warned this week that AI could kill us all, the dire warning. And then as you know the head of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, came forward and said the industry does in fact need a global slowdown. That was echoed by Elon Musk and others. There are calls for you from Democrats, Mr. Speaker, to cancel recess, to keep Congress in session to pass legislation that would better regulate AI. Will Congress take action to regulate AI before the November elections?
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON:
This is a very important issue. And it’s not one that we can rush into. And we have been very deliberate about this. I mean, right after I became Speaker, almost three years ago, we put together a task force, bipartisan, a large group of members of the House. Both sides of the aisles have worked deliberately to look into and research and debate and deliberate over what’s the best way to do this. Here’s the challenge. We have to put some guardrails, some safety measures in place to ensure that AI doesn’t run away, you know, that we don’t have an out-of-control AGI, artificial general intelligence. But at the same time, we’ve got to make sure that we don’t lose our edge in the global competition on this with China. Because that would be a national security threat. And so we’ve got to balance that apparently. Now, look, I’ve talked to all the providers of AI, I mean, Amodei and Altman and Elon and everyone, all of them. And they all say that we need some guardrails. But they all have very different ideas on what that looks like. So they don’t themselves even have the answer as of today. So we can’t rush in and have Congress do something that would be detrimental to national security. We’re going to balance this. We’re going to have steady hands at the wheel as we do on every issue. And I believe we need to summon the platform providers all to one big meeting and work this out together in the same room. They’re also competitors of one another, right? So they also have a corporate responsibility to be safe in the product that they are producing.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Mister —
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON:
And all of this has to come together in a way that can’t be haphazard or rushed.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Mr. Speaker, very quickly before I let you go. Are you willing to cancel recess to address it? And do you think unregulated AI is a threat to humanity?
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON:
I think I just answered that question. I think we’ve got to have meaningful regulation that does not smother American innovation. Now, the, the — how to solve that equation, no one knows yet. We’re not going to rush in and pass a piece of legislation that would do harm to the country and put China at a — as an edge. And so we’ve got to do this carefully. Of course, we’d vote on that tomorrow if we had the solution. And I’ll call everybody into the session any day. But we have to make sure we’re doing it the right way. I think the first step is to have a meeting of all the platform providers. I’ve talked to the president about this and others. That — I believe that’s the next step. I think we need to do it quickly. And each of them, even those gentlemen that I’ve named, they all agree that that would be an efficacious thing.
KRISTEN WELKER:
All right.
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON:
And so we’re going to pull everybody together and make sure we do this in the right way. But it is a top priority for me and for the Congress.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Alright, well we will track that meeting very closely. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, thank you so very much for joining us. We appreciate it.
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON:
Thanks so much.
KRISTEN WELKER:
When we come back, former transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg joins me next.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Welcome back. And joining me now is former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Secretary Buttigieg, welcome back to Meet The Press.
FMR SEC. PETE BUTTIGIEG:
Thanks for having me back on.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Thank you so much for being here. I want to start by getting your reaction to some of what we heard at the Republican convention where Republicans spent two nights calling Democrats, quote, “communist, extreme, anarchists who hate our country.” This weekend you’ve been campaigning in Arizona. You’re in New Mexico right now. How do you think Democrats should respond to those allegations?
FMR SEC. PETE BUTTIGIEG:
Well, look, they’re doing that because they cannot defend their results. And they cannot defend their unpopular agenda. I mean, I just heard on your program Speaker Johnson hemming and hawing because even he can’t endorse what President Trump has been saying like this idea that everybody’s going to get $5,000. I think that tells you everything you need to know that that’s just not going to happen. And the tragic thing about it is that, you know, extra cash would mean a lot to a lot of families that are hurting in the Trump economy. I’ve been traveling all over the country, yesterday was at a county fair ground in Arizona, about 1,000 people turning up to support JoAnna Mendoza who is the Democratic candidate there. And we’re seeing that kind of energy, that kind of momentum around the country because you can’t fool people about what’s going on in their own lives. They see that this economy is worse. Diesel right now is at the highest price ever recorded in American history. They’ve seen so many broken promises from Speaker Johnson, House Republicans, and this White House that they are ready for change, even in districts where I didn’t think we’d be able to compete if you had asked me six months ago.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Well, I want to ask you about another moment at the convention, this surprise when Democratic Senator John Fetterman appeared by video. He criticized far-left Democrats and talked about the importance of across the aisle, working with President Trump. Take a look. I’ll get your reaction on the other side.
[BEGIN TAPE]
SENATOR JOHN FETTERMAN:
I’m a common sense Democrat. I’m always going to stand with America. I’m always going to reject the extremes and socialism and that anti-American way of life. We’ll work with President Trump to fight and defend the steel way of life right here in the Steel Valley.
[END TAPE]
KRISTEN WELKER:
Mr. Secretary, do you want Senator John Fetterman to stay in the Democratic Party?
FMR SEC. PETE BUTTIGIEG:
Yeah, of course. And look, the issues that he ran on to become a U.S. Senator are those common sense Democrat issues. And they’re the issues that I see people across the country running on. I wouldn’t even call them just Democratic, because they’re such a strong American majority that believes that for example it makes no sense to be dishing out tax cuts for the wealthiest people in the country at the same time as you’re cutting Medicaid and cutting food support like Speaker Johnson and President Trump have done. You know, another thing I’m noticing in a lot of my travels is I meet a lot of people who volunteer or work in food banks. And they’re talking about the lines getting longer, people coming in, working people who never had to access a food pantry before. That is the reality of the Trump economy. And again, we just saw a few minutes of it in Speaker Johnson’s interview. You could see him trying to do the same thing I see Republican Congress members trying to do across the country which is to shake off this Trump stink that is making it almost impossible for them to earn the support of voters, not after they cut health care, cut taxes for the wealthy. You know, those rural hospitals around when I’m sitting right now in New Mexico that are in danger of closing. And again families paying more for groceries, paying more for gas, paying more for mortgages as a direct result of Republican policies.
KRISTEN WELKER:
But let me just follow up with you. Because Senator Fetterman, according to a recent report, accused by some of his young staffers of not meeting with his own constituents. I know that some lawmakers in Pennsylvania were livid with his appearance, saw it as a betrayal. Does any of that concern you?
FMR SEC. PETE BUTTIGIEG:
Sure. But we’ve got bigger concerns right now around the country. Our nation is at war. And it’s a war that we were told would end in a matter of weeks. And there is no end in sight. People are hurting economically as inflation is at a higher level than it was when President Trump took office. I mean, look at where we’re at right now, right? Every promise that they’ve made the opposite has happened. They said when they put in these tariffs it would add manufacturing jobs. Manufacturing jobs are down. They said we needed the tax cuts for billionaires in order to speed up the economy. Economic growth is slowing down. And when it comes to the dangers of AI which may well be the most important issue in the world, they’re doing nothing. Congress under Speaker Johnson has done nothing. And the White House has done nothing real to get on top of that issue.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Well, and let me ask you about AI because as you note, it has become a major flash point, particularly in the wake of the warning that was sounded by Jacob Coxon, the urgent and growing calls to regulate AI. And yet a lot of Democrats right now are running on outright opposition to AI. Mr. Secretary, do Democrats need to better address AI head on?
FMR SEC. PETE BUTTIGIEG:
I think we do need to address it head on. And this is an issue that shouldn’t be partisan, although again I’m very concerned about a White House that has just told these companies to run free and basically opposed any kind of meaningful regulation. And you look at Congress. I mean, I was shocked to hear Speaker Johnson just now saying, you know, we really shouldn’t be rushing. We shouldn’t be moving too quickly on this. You know what’s moving quickly? AI is moving quickly. And for Congress to just sit on its hands, for the White House to do nothing real is something that is deeply dangerous to the American people and the world. There need to be safeguards. There need to be rules. There need to be limits. There needs to be a kill switch on rogue AI. You can set up frameworks that can be adjusted and changed every 30 days. You might want to revisit some of what’s happening because it changes so quickly. But the idea that you’re just going to sit around and repeatedly say, “no rush.” What have they been doing this entire time?
KRISTEN WELKER:
Let me ask you the same question I just asked Speaker Johnson. Do you believe AI poses a threat to humanity?
FMR SEC. PETE BUTTIGIEG:
Of course. And so do the people in charge of it. That’s the really shocking thing. You’ve got people leading these companies and they’re the ones saying, “Hey, we’ve got to tap the brakes.” But there’s no one other than the White House that has the convening power to bring them to the table. And that’s something that should have happened a long time ago as well as making sure that there are rules, that there are observers embedded. It’s nice to see some of the companies now promising to do that voluntarily. But it shouldn’t come to that. Look, we as a country have a track record of dealing with new complicated and dangerous technologies from nuclear weapons to making sure aviation is safe. I’ve heard a lot of people comparing AI safety to aviation safety. And I think there are. Obviously that hits home with me because of having worked on that. And there are a lot of parallels. Think about what it takes to make sure that any given year, about a billion people can get on commercial airliners. And in a typical year, at least when I was secretary, zero fatalities in a form of transportation that involves being propelled through the sky by flammable liquids at nearly the speed of sound, miles above the surface of the Earth. We have ways of taking this on. But it requires the people in charge of the government to be serious. And it requires them to be sober. And it requires them to act with urgency, not keep saying, “no rush, no rush, no rush,” like Speaker Johnson or say, “Go do whatever you like,” like Donald Trump has been.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Let’s talk a little bit more about the midterms, your role in them. You have been criss-crossing the country. You’ve become one of the more accurate democratic surrogates in fact out on the campaign trail, active, I should say, surrogates out on the campaign trail, including with Black candidates in Arkansas and Georgia, running long-shot House races in deep red districts. In 2020, of course you did struggle a bit to build support among Black voters in your presidential run. Is part of your strategy to try to build up that support among Black voters now that you didn’t necessarily have then?
FMR SEC. PETE BUTTIGIEG:
Well, any strategy to make sure that Democrats win nation-wide and in these key races has to include making sure that we engage and support and turn out Black communities, especially at a moment like this where the Republican project of systematically dismantling Black political representation, especially in the South, has hit home in the wake of that horrific Supreme Court decision, gutting the Voting Rights Act. Look, you know who definitely understands the power of the Black voter is Republicans who have been working to suppress it in a number of different ways. And so I think it is very important to be supporting these candidates, to be supporting these communities. And that’s been a big part of my travel campaigning with these candidates who’ve taken on tough races in places where I really believe that we can win. You mentioned Georgia. Little Rock saw hundreds of people that support Chris Jones there. We even saw hundreds of people that support Shawn Harris, the retired general and cattle farmer who is in Marjorie Taylor Greene’s district. Something big is happening in this country. And of course, any big wave of Democratic momentum, Black voters are going to be a critically important part of it.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Well, you raised the Supreme Court. You take me to my next question. Some Democrats like former Vice President Kamala Harris have called to expand the court as you know. In the past you’ve even supported increasing the number of justices from nine to 15. As we sit here today, Mr. Secretary, do you support adding seats to the Supreme Court and how many?
FMR SEC. PETE BUTTIGIEG:
Yes, I talked about this years ago when I was running for president. At the time, it was a pretty lonely position. People were looking at me funny when I was talking about reforming the Supreme Court. I think with the years that have come in between, a lot more people are onto that idea. Because it has become a nakedly partisan institution. And I want to be clear. The idea is not to just add justices for its own sake. The idea is to reform the institution, to make it less partisan. There’s a measure right now for term limits. I think that’s a very common sense measure. But I think it’s likely that we need to do more. And as this country has done, by the way, several times in our history, we should look at the size and make-up of the Supreme Court as part of that reform.
KRISTEN WELKER:
You supported 15 back then. Do you still support 15 justices today? Is that what you’re calling for?
FMR SEC. PETE BUTTIGIEG:
Well look, again, the number is secondary. I proposed or was interested in a model where you have 15 justices, but it’s called a balanced bench. Five of them can only be seated if there’s a consensus among the other ten. It’s a way to make sure that you have more independent minded justices and that it’s not purely partisan. Some believe that it should be 13 which would mirror the structure of the appellate court, the number of circuits that are out there. To me, it’s not about the number, although I believe we will need to add justices in order to make this work. The point is that we cannot go on like this where the Supreme Court is losing legitimacy each passing year because it’s viewed as a totally partisan body.
KRISTEN WELKER:
I do want to talk a bit about your political future, Mr. Secretary. Former Vice President Kamala Harris wrote in her book about the 2024 election that you came close to being her running mate. Let me remind people of this passage. She writes of, “the eight names on the list for vetting. “I might as well say that Pete Buttigieg was my first choice. He would have been an ideal partner if I were a straight white man. But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk.” She was essentially saying that she didn’t think America was ready for a gay vice president with a Black woman at the top of the ticket. Let me ask you today, do you think America is ready for a gay president?
FMR SEC. PETE BUTTIGIEG:
I wouldn’t have run for president in the first place if I didn’t believe that. Of course. And look, my experience in South Bend, Indiana, getting re-elected with 80% of the vote after coming out, and my experience right now traveling the country shows me that what’s really on people’s minds isn’t about you, your identity as a candidate. It’s about them. It’s about their lives. Right now Americans are hurting in Trump’s economy. There’s an opportunity to change that. And the voters that I see, they’re turning out in levels I didn’t think was possible. Coming out hundreds and hundreds at a time because they want to be part of this effort, this conversation, this movement to change the course of our country before it’s too late.
KRISTEN WELKER:
You have said you are inclined to run for president. If you had to make your decision today, are you running in 2028?
FMR SEC. PETE BUTTIGIEG:
I don’t think now is the time to even be talking about that. We’re about 50 days away from a critically important midterm race –
KRISTEN WELKER:
When are you going to make your –
FMR SEC. PETE BUTTIGIEG:
One that I believe –
KRISTEN WELKER:
– decision, Mr. Secretary –
FMR SEC. PETE BUTTIGIEG:
– Democrats are, are going to win. It’s 2026. We got to focus on what’s happening right now. That’s what I’m doing. I think by my count, we’ve been to 35 states since I left the cabinet. I don’t want to do anything that would take the focus off of that.
KRISTEN WELKER:
All right. You are in New Mexico which is on the primary calendar. So you’re still leaning heavily and seriously considering it.
FMR SEC. PETE BUTTIGIEG:
I’m in New Mexico just like I came to New Mexico when I was Secretary of Transportation and excited to campaign to Gabe Vasquez, somebody who grew up in the borderlands, understands the issues here, has delivered and is exactly the kind of candidate who I think will continue to make it possible to have a Democratic majority. We’re going to win. But we got to stay very, very focused here and around the country.
KRISTEN WELKER:
All right, Mr. Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate it.
FMR SEC. PETE BUTTIGIEG:
Thank you.
KRISTEN WELKER:
When we come back, President Trump’s $5,000 bet. Will it work with voters? The panel’s next.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Welcome back. The panel is here: Jonathan Martin, politics bureau chief and senior political columnist for Politico, Ashley Etienne, former communications director for Vice President Harris and Speaker Pelosi, and former Trump director of legislative affairs, Marc Short. Thank you to all of you for being here. J-Mart, I have to start with you. So is — did President Trump put his party in a stronger place coming on the heels of this convention?
JONATHAN MARTIN:
Well, after so much polarization and division in this country, I thought it was heartening this week to see the two parties unified for once. President Trump wants to make the election about himself, and so do Democrats. This is the challenge Republicans have is that they have the golden handcuffs on. The big, beautiful, golden handcuffs. They — they can’t get rid of Trump because they need him for their base, but they can’t embrace him because he alienates the center. And so it puts them in an unenviable position. And then, on top of that, Kristen, they go to Dallas for this convention. And what’s the reward they get? They get this — this thing dropped in their lap about giving away money to the American people. And you saw from the speaker’s reaction when you interviewed him. It’s embarrassing because it’s just the culmination, or maybe not the culmination yet Marc, but it is one more element that is not remotely conservative or a small-government approach. My colleagues had a story this week that he keeps trying to give checks away to Americans and Congress has been stopping him all year from doing this. But they couldn’t stop this. You know why? They didn’t know he was going to say it. Johnson and John Thune didn’t know this was coming in the speech. And now they have to defend it for days afterward knowing that it’s never going to happen and knowing that their base doesn’t necessarily like it because yeah, it does smack of socialism.
KRISTEN WELKER:
And Mark?
ASHLEY ETIENNE:
Or bribery.
KIRSTEN WELKER:
Mark, to you on that?
JONATHAN MARTIN:
More to the point, more to the point.
ASHLEY ETIENNE:
Bribery, right.
JONATHAN MARTIN:
Yeah.
MARC SHORT:
For the Democrats who promised free health care cycle after cycle, I don’t know how much is bribery.
JONATHAN MARTIN:
Oh!
MARC SHORT:
But look Kristen, there — Kristen, you know, nothing to us says, “We’re going to beat socialists like saying I’m going to tax the hell out of you with record tariffs and then I’m going to redistribute the wealth to every American across the country.” I think that the — the convention was fine. I think it continued to rally Trump supporters. But the problem is the point it continues to show more and more Republicans are now identifying as traditional Republicans and those are the ones who are disaffected who feel like they don’t have a home right now. And so yes, I think Ashley’s party has nominated people who proudly wear a socialist banner. And are real, significant threats. But it’s harder for us to make that case when it’s this administration that has seized 30-some private companies. It’s this administration that has pushed forward price controls. It’s this administration that just two weeks ago, JD Vance is pushing for expansion of giant new entitlement programs. So it’s harder to make the case economically that there is a limited-government party there for you still.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Ashley, and of course this comes as we got this news out of Missouri that basically to whittle it down, the map that favors Democrats is the map that’s going to be voted on in November. What has the reaction to all of this been?
ASHLEY ETIENNE:
I mean, I think we’re incredibly excited about that possibility. I mean, the president, you know, has continually, if there’s one thing he’s been consistent on, and that’s trying to cheat the elections, Republicans move forward with trying to redistrict all of these key states so that they would have the advantage going into the midterms. They clearly have not succeeded in that. Now you see all these signs of desperation from the $5,000 the president’s offering to trying to muddy — mucky up the system by eliminating mail-in ballots. I mean you know, it’s consistent — consistently trying to cheat the election. But here’s the reality. You heard what Speaker Johnson said, you know, it could’ve been a Freudian slip, but really what it exposes is the political vulnerability of the Republican Party right now. He said that they’re creating “pathways to poverty.” That’s what’s going to be top of mind and that’s going to win all of these races. He’s starting to lose support even among Republicans on the issue of the economy. Ninety-four percent of the country believes we’re in an affordability crisis. So Democrats are going to continue to — to run on not putting Donald Trump at the center of the election, but pitting — putting the American people and their economic anxiety of the center of the election.
JONATHAN MARTIN:
Well, they’re making Donald Trump own the economic portion.
ASHLEY ETIENNE:
Absolutely.
JONATHAN MARTIN:
Look, AAA had the average price of gas at $4.30 on a Friday. Diesel’s now at $6.00, as Pete Buttigieg masterfully read off from his litany of talking points there. Sort of the shorthand that I use, guys, is every nickel that the average price of gas goes north, you can add one more Democrat House seat to their pick up. It’s directly correlated to voter sentiment right now. And if you talk to smart Democrats, they’re holding their breath right now. It’s September 13th. And I think the view of Democrats right now is the — the onslaught is coming. There’s going to be a massive financial edge here in the next couple of weeks for the GOP because the money’s finally flowing. And it’s all going to be on the culture wars. If on October 10th those Democrats are still leading their races after that onslaught, I think this is going to be a banner cycle for Democrats. But these next few weeks are crucial because the money is finally here for Republicans.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Marc, how do you see it?
MARC SHORT:
Look, I think that the money matters less and less today. It matters still some, but I think that –
JONATHAN MARTIN:
It can mitigate, right?
MARC SHORT:
It can mitigate, sure. But, I mean, we’re talking about $48 million the president is spending across 12 states. It’s not like it’s really going to have, I think, enough to change the dynamic. I think Mike Johnson did a much better job of explaining what the economic record of Congress has been than the president’s team of looking to say, “We’re going to take a tariff revenue and redistribute it.”
KRISTEN WELKER:
Ashley, final 30 seconds, final thoughts?
ASHLEY ETIENNE:
No, I think Democrats are feeling really good going into November. I think the question is — is we’ve got to keep — we’ve got to run our own race. And that is ensuring that we’re investing in the ground operations. That’s always been our advantage. There’s reports now that are suggesting that Democrats are divesting in the ground game. And that could be a problem.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Huh. Okay, well, we’ll watch that very closely. Thank you all for a great conversation. Still ahead, does AI mean the end of humanity? I’ll talk to Jacob Coxon who is sounding that alarm. But when we come back, 25 years after 9/11 we remember the resilience in the aftermath. Our Meet the Press Minute is next.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Welcome back. Twenty five years have passed since the September 11th terrorist attacks, a whole generation has grown up in the shadow of that horrific day. Following an interview with Vice President Dick Cheney, Tim Russert ended this broadcast with a personal message for America during one of its darkest hours.
[BEGIN TAPE]
TIM RUSSERT:
Like all of you, I spent this week wiping my eyes and grinding my teeth and wondering why. I’ve drawn strength from a story about a man I knew, Father Michael Judge. The chaplain of the New York City Fire Department, a Franciscan. He raced to the World Trade Center after the explosion to comfort the injured. While administering the last rites to a dying rescue worker, he, himself, was killed by flying debris. New York’s bravest physically carried Father Mike away. They brought his body first to the altar of St. Peter’s Church, where it would be safe, then to their firehouse on 31st Street, Hook and Ladder Company Number 24, directly across from the friary where he lived. They wrapped him in sheets and placed him in one of their own bunks. They asked his fellow Franciscans to cross the street and join them. Together, firemen, priests, and brothers, wept and sang the prayer of St. Francis, “May the Lord bless and keep you and show his face to you and have mercy on you.” That is the way of New York. That is the spirit of America. From February 1945 at Iwo Jima to September 2001 at the World Trade Center.
[END TAPE]
KRISTEN WELKER:
Welcome back. This week, artificial intelligence researcher Jacob Coxon set off alarm bells across the country when he resigned from AI giant Anthropic writing, quote, “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible — but I hear the same people express fear, privately. No other human activity poses this level of danger.” His resignation post received more than 160 million views. Jacob Coxon, welcome to Meet the Press.
JACOB COXON:
Nice to be on.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Thank you so much for being here. So why did you sound this alarm right now?
JACOB COXON:
So there were, there were two factors that led to me wanting to sound the alarm right now. The first was the rapidly accelerating pace of capabilities. So these, these AIs are getting smarter, very, very quickly. And in particular, in the next six months to a year, I expect the capabilities of our AI systems to be quite scary. And the second reason was recent incidents, such as the OpenAI hacking attack on the website Hugging Face which showed that these AIs really can just go rogue.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Yeah. I think that that certainly did send shockwaves across the country. And as you know, in the wake of your resignation this weekend, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called on AI companies to slow their development in an effort to try to manage these risks. You had Elon Musk, Sam Altman all in agreement. Is Amodei’s plan enough to address the risks that you are warning of?
JACOB COXON:
It seems like a, like a great plan for addressing domestic slowdowns, so for the frontier laboratories in the West to slow down. But, I would guess that part of my worry was that I feel we need international coordination, or else we risk running the same race with China, which could be equally dangerous.
KRISTEN WELKER:
So there needs to be a global effort, a global coordinated effort?
JACOB COXON:
That’s my opinion, yeah. I think there needs to be some sort of global coordination around not, not racing.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Well, I want to better understand what you mean when you say, “AI could kill us all.” What is the worst-case scenario or scenarios that keeps you up at night?
JACOB COXON:
Yeah. I think before discussing specific scenarios, it helps to just think of building AI as sort of inviting an alien mind onto the planet. You’re building a human-level or superhuman-level mind without understanding what it wants, or thinks, or the way it thinks. And I think that intrinsically should be quite scary. And indeed, the people who write science fiction have tend to found it scary, when they’ve written about this in the past. In terms of concrete scenarios, these AIs are already capable of a certain degree of hacking and also a certain degree of biological research of autonomous robot control. And if you extrapolate into the future, they could have strongly superhuman hacking capabilities, very superhuman abilities to create novel bio-weapons and also abilities to control, say, autonomous drones or all the robots that are currently being built, very rapidly.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Well, it’s just terrifying to consider. There is, as you know, a lot of talk about a kill switch, some lawmakers even proposing legislation to impose a kill switch. Is a kill switch possible? Is it realistic? Would it work?
JACOB COXON:
Well, in Dario Amodei’s recent, most recent letter, he also mentioned the possibility of, say, a cyber swarm that kind of goes rogue on the internet and can’t really be taken down. And a — so a kill switch probably would work on a lot of AIs, for now, although I think it’s important to remember it’d be quite a lot of switches. We have a lot of — our data centers are pretty big. It’s not the easiest thing in the world, but definitely doable while it’s constrained to one, one sort of physical location. But like Dario said, very soon, there’s the possibility that the kill switch just wouldn’t work because a swarm might have, might have, might have gone on an internet-wide hacking run.
KRISTEN WELKER:
So this has to be an ongoing effort to regulate and to rein in AI? It can’t just be a one-time shot?
JACOB COXON:
I think, yeah, from here on out, for as long as we’re developing it, and precisely because it’s new every time, and that, maybe, every time there’s a change to the recipe for building an AI, there’s all sorts of new risks about the mind, the nature of the mind changing. So it’s a continuous effort to ensure that every new mind that we create is appropriately kind of constrained.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Hmm. You know, I heard you tell my colleague, NBC’s Tom Llamas, and you just repeated it here, quite frankly, that AI models could take over the world, anywhere within six months to a year. Let me ask you, if Congress were to act in the next 50 days, say, what would you ask Congress and lawmakers to do?
JACOB COXON:
So this is my personal, my persona;l take, but my personal opinion would be to insist and allow that the current labs regulate themselves. I do think that the people running the labs, especially their recent communications, are completely genuine. They would like to slow themselves down. So — and I think the advantage of that is you can move very quickly, rather than taking a long time. So, I guess, I would say that obviously in the future, there’s the potential for a formal regulatory body to be established. But in the interim, it seems prudent to self-regulate because it’s so much faster, that we can get that off the ball, like, immediately.
KRISTEN WELKER:
If you are in agreement, though, with what Dario Amodei is saying, why did you resign, if you think they do have the capabilities to address your concerns and rein in AI?
JACOB COXON:
Yeah. Well, it wasn’t obvious to me, when I resigned, that there would be an imminent domestic slowdown. I also still think that coordination with China is important. And I would feel a lot happier, working on this technology, if I thought that internationally, we were likely to not enter into an arms race.
KRISTEN WELKER:
People who were skeptical of AI companies who say they can’t be trusted to self-regulate, you say what?
JACOB COXON:
I’d say, for now, it’s prudent. But in the long term, I probably agree that we need some sort of international regulatory agency that’s independent of these labs. I think that right now, in the immediate future, if it’s going to be hard to get something through, quickly, then it seems like a pretty good idea to let them slow themselves down.
KRISTEN WELKER:
All right. Jacob Coxon, thank you so much. We appreciate it.
JACOB COXON:
Thanks.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Before we go, some very happy news from our “Meet the press” family. Our dear friend and Senior Producer Sally Bronston Katz and her husband Michael welcomed a beautiful baby boy on Tuesday: Theo Ezra Katz and we hear big sister Frankie is already loving her new role! Sally, Michael, Frankie, we could not be happier for all of you. And Theo, welcome to the world! We can’t wait to meet you. We send our love to all of you. That’s all for today. Thanks for watching. We’ll be back next week, because if it’s Sunday, it’s Meet the Press.
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