Rep. Ro Khanna, Sen. Bill Cassidy, Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, Gary Cohn

Margaret Brennan (0:00)

I'm Margaret Brennan in Washington, and this week on Face the Nation, President Trump bars three major news organizations from covering the White House, as Republican concern over the impact of his policies continues to grow.

The countdown clock to the midterm elections continues to tick down, but the rest of the numbers affecting the economy continue to go up. We're now 200 days into the war with Iran, and gas prices remain high. With diesel prices at new record highs.

SPEAKER_2 (0:33)

Actually, that's the war that's driving up the diesel prices, but it's all going to end very soon.

Margaret Brennan (0:37)

That's a promise that's wearing thin with some Republicans, especially in Iowa, where farmers are struggling and where two House Republicans in tight races voted last week to oppose the president's open-ended war in Iran.

Trump's deportation policy is an issue for Republicans in some districts. Florida Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar made a direct appeal to the president in a campaign ad.

Maria Elvira Salazar (1:01)

The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.

Margaret Brennan (1:06)

We'll talk with Congresswoman Salazar, California Democrat Ro Khanna, plus Louisiana Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, and Trump's first-term economic adviser Gary Cohn. Finally, we'll hear another viewpoint in the debate over how to manage the fast-moving pace of artificial intelligence development, as our Jo Ling Kent spoke with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. It's all just ahead on Face the Nation.

Good morning and welcome to Face the Nation. We begin what could be a pivotal week for President Trump with respect to foreign policy, especially when it comes to the conflict with Iran, Russia's war with Ukraine and US China policy. He'll head to New York for the annual UN General Assembly Monday, then host Chinese President Xi Jinping here in Washington later this week. The energy shock from production and oil supply disruptions is intensifying and we have seen assaults on Saudi Arabian infrastructure from Iran affiliated forces. The struggle over control of the Strait of Hormuz continues, and overnight, new attacks from Ukraine on a Russian energy facility as well. With midterm election day now just 44 days away, that pressure over high gas prices is hitting the president and his party hard. All 435 seats in Congress are up on November 3rd. So perhaps that explains why Speaker Mike Johnson sent the House home until mid-November.

We begin today with California Congressman Ro Khanna, who is the top Democrat on the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and he joins us from Fremont. Good morning to you, Congressman.

Ro Khanna (3:06)

Good morning, Margaret.

Margaret Brennan (3:07)

So China and the US are in an arms race.

You've proposed this idea that Chinese AI firms should cooperate with American companies. You've sent letters to DeepSeek, Alibaba, other firms urging them to follow the lead of the American firms like OpenAI and Anthropic to slow the rate of AI advancement until society develops guardrails, as you put it. Have any of these Chinese firms responded to your proposal?

Ro Khanna (3:37)

They have not.

Winning an AI war is like winning a nuclear war. It is catastrophic for civilization. And what we have asked is that they agree to some basic terms. Look, there are two dangers to AI, either the loss of control or misuse. And the Chinese firms have taken no actions on either of them.

Margaret Brennan (4:05)

Well, I'm looking at what the FBI, the NSA and Homeland Security, their division, CISA, they have all warned that China-based IAI companies are targeting and copying American artificial intelligence at what they describe as an industrial scale. So how can you ask competitors to collaborate? Isn't it inherently at odds if they're stealing technology?

Ro Khanna (4:33)

Well, they're right that they are engaging in distillation. Basically, they are copying American models. That's one reason, frankly, to regulate American models, because they're copying them. Some of the safeguards would protect the world. But at the same time, we also need an international agreement with Xi Jinping to have basic standards. That should include international monitoring. It should include checks through the data centers where you can tell whether a model is being used for inference or training, and it should use enforceable and verifiable tools. Now, obviously, you can't just trust the Chinese. But like any agreement, like an arms control agreement, as Reagan said, you need to trust and verify.

The world has done this before. There's no reason we can't do it when it comes to AI.

Margaret Brennan (5:26)

Well, I'm looking at Bloomberg's figures. They report China is preparing to spend about 300 billion over the next five years to build data centers across that country which will be operated by state-owned firms. As you know, there's really no wall between the state and industry in China.