When AI Attacks! - September 18, 2026

Cenk Uygur (0:13)

Let's go. Young Turks, Cenk Uygur, John Iadarola with you guys on a lovely Friday evening.

And so John's of course host of Damage Report. You're all already checking that out at 1 o'clock Eastern every day. So on tonight's show on The Young Turks, AI, the juries come in for me, and I will tell you if we're all gonna die or not. And so that'll be interesting. I mean, I make predictions, that would be a hell of a prediction, all right? It's gonna be one either way. All right, so now on top of that, Donald Trump has of course decided that he's gonna take on the media. I have some surprising points about that. Fox News has decided they hate free speech, it's a nice turn. And then Israelis attacked their own, no dissent or criticism is tolerated. And, yes, they have accused Israeli Jewish citizens of tropes.

Of course they have, cuz there's no bottom of that barrel. All right, having said all that, let's get started.

Donald Trump has decided to take on the media, attack it, ban it, cancel it. He loves cancel culture, he's never been for freedom of speech. Wait a minute, I thought he ran on the opposite. But then on the other hand, didn't he run on the opposite on war and inflation and just ran on everything else, dead. So CNN, Ms Now, Politico, banned from the White House. Is that going to stick? Is he going to eat a taco later tonight? And my surprising point of view on that, drums. All right, John, tell us the whole story.

John Iadarola (1:51)

I can't wait to find out what that's going to be. But yes, they are calling it the ultimate final form of free speech absolutism. The president doesn't like critical coverage, so off with all your heads. You all gotta get out of here. So he posted this fundamentally unconstitutional thing to Truth Social saying, I am proud to announce that effective immediately. I am banning fake news, CNN, Ms Now, who recently changed her name from MSNBC due to lack of viewership and credibility. And Politico, the recipients of an illegal and ridiculous $8 million subscription, an all time record directly from the US government under crooked Joe Biden in order to keep them alive seems like corruption to me.

I'm surprised you'd know he's never engaged in anything like that himself.

From the White House, they're banned as a result of their constant reporting fake news. And he goes on to say, media outlets shouldn't be able to constantly write or report fiction and lies when they're covering the president of the United States, the Trump administration, or the US. Other fake news media outlets to follow, thank you for your attention to this matter. So look, everybody knows exactly what is going on here. It's not about fake news, it's not about them making up things. This is about critical coverage of a president who's doing a terrible job. And his approval ratings are going down, which he knows, despite him constantly talking about those being fake too.

If he thought that he was actually had super high approval ratings, why would he care about the fake news? Evidently, it's not actually hurting his approval. No, he doesn't like accurate coverage. This is, it's obviously fundamentally anti-free speech. It's fascistic, whatever, it's hungry coming to America. In any event, he sort of has to answer for it. And he's not going to have a lot of specifics because he probably came up with this a minute before posting it on Truth Social. But here is a reporter pushing back.

SPEAKER_3 (3:39)

Earlier today, you posted that you intend to ban CNN, Politico, and MS Now from the White House. Every president takes an oath to uphold the Constitution, which includes the First Amendment.

Donald Trump (3:51)

How do you justify-

Donald Trump (3:53)

Much more so than you, because they're fake news.

John Iadarola (3:58)

Yeah, he got her there. He takes more of an oath to uphold the Constitution than she does because that's not a thing that you swear on as a reporter. What are you talking about? What point do you think you're making? In any event, so they're fake news, so that's why. Okay, well, let's dig in a little bit deeper and see if we learn anything about this.

Donald Trump (4:18)

You get so tired of reading and seeing fake news.

When you look at CNN, it's just fake. That's why their ratings are no good. When you look at MS Now, which used to be MSNBC, which some people call MSDNC, Democratic National Committee.

It's fake news, it's fake news. And excuse me, excuse me. And when you look at political, I mean, they got a government. The government under Biden gave them like $8 million to keep them afloat.