Has Donald Trump done enough in Dallas?

0:00I'm Sam Cotes. And I'm Ann Nicole Hoey. Britain has a new Prime Minister and every day, from 7.45 AM, will help you make sense the day ahead in just 20 minutes. That means taking you inside Westminster with our forensic insight, sharp analysis, and the stories behind the headlines. From the battles in Parliament to the conversation shaping government. We'll set you up each morning for the day ahead in British politics. Hit follow and listen to politics at Salmon Ants, wherever you get your podcasts. Sky News, the full story first. Hi Martha. Hey, how you doing? Yeah, all right, how are you? Ha ha ha ha. That is hilarious. We've gone native. You have gone native. That's hilarious. That is so funny. How much do you pay for a cowboy hat in Texas? Well, it quite a good value, actually. For any of you listening or not watching and bringing what we're laughing about, Martha, explain.

1:02You're wearing a proper 100% genuine cowboy hat. You've gone full Texas. Yeah, yeah, I am whether I'm Clint Eastwood or Woody from Toy Story, I'm not quite sure. So I might be between the two, I think. I'm Mark Stone in Dallas, Texas. And I'm Martha Calmer in Los Angeles. And I think I must take this hat off now for the rest of the record. Oh, your hair looks remarkably good to say you've just taken that hat off. Oh, thanks very much. Thanks very much. I did have an embarrassing moment, actually, when I was trying it on in the shop. And we were filming around it. And then I took it off. And the very, how should we say? She was very keen to make sure that I looked my TV self. The saleswoman that is. And she said in her text and accent, she was saying, your hair's not quite right. I was then fiddling with my hair and a slightly over familiar way. Which was just a little awkward. But anyway, there we go. What are we talking about today?

2:03AI. Is it about to kill us all? The world could be waking up to the major tech advances coming out of California. Our humans right now building technology that will one day wipe us out. Yeah, scary prospect. First of all, though, Mark, you are, I believe, still in that main convention hall where Donald Trump has just wrapped up the very first Republican midterm convention. The question now is whether these two days in Dallas have done anything to shift the dial ahead of the autumn elections. Please raise your right hand. I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States. That loves us so much. He can't even breathe. That loves us so much. He can't even breathe.

3:04That I will go out with my family, my friends. I'll do it anyway. I don't care if I'm registered or not. I'm going to try and cheat like hell like they do. There's never been bigger cheaters that I don't care. I am going to go out and I'm going to get my friends, my family, and we are going to vote on November 3rd or we are going to vote before that. Mark, we've just heard Donald Trump wrapping up this midterm Republican convention. Speaking for the second time in two days, we heard from JD Vance just before him. What did you make of the tenor of both of those speeches? Well, look, I think, I mean, I guess the first thing to say is why was this happening at all, after all, midterm conventions are not a thing. I think it was really clear from the tone of all the speeches that the reason we're having it is because they're really worried that Republicans beyond the bubble, beyond this die-hard bubble,

4:06the sort of people that turn out to these conventions. Beyond that, they're really worried that Republicans are not going to turn out and vote in the midterm elections. In presidential elections, as you and I both know, lots more people turn out. The turnout is much higher. In midterm elections, it's low. And the worry from the Republicans is if their side don't turn out, then the Democrats who clearly want to get back into power and win power in the House, and maybe the Senate as well, they will turn out and therefore states like Texas could flip. And it was clear pretty much all the speakers that they're worried about that and that they just want people to get out and vote. I mean, listen, for example, to President Trump speaking in the last hour. You know what happens if you don't vote? You go to hell, you know that. Okay? You go to hell. And I don't want that to happen to you, so please go and vote. What I was struck by with Trump Mark is that he didn't really offer

5:06anything too different than he usually does. You know, it's the same old talking point. It's attacking the Democrats. It felt to me like he was trying to energize and excite his base rather than trying to broaden his appeal to independent voters. You know, felt like more of the same to me. Yeah, I mean, clearly, I don't know, he was trying at all with the independent voters. And actually, I'm not sure how many more moderate Republicans, as I say, the sort of people who don't get tickets to come to events like this. How many of them will he have convinced? I think the thing that will save Trump and the Republicans at the midterms if they end up retaining one or both houses is not that voters think Trump is great. Not at all. It's that they are more frightened of what the Democrats, this new form of Democrat, which is tacking to the left what that could bring. And that was the theme threaded through this convention. It was that the Democrats are evil, that the Democrats are far left,

6:06that the Democrats are socialist, that the Democrats are actually communists. Again and again, that attack line was repeated. And there was so much of that and yet so little in terms of solutions from any of the policymakers from the administration who were here. Solutions to things like the cost of living. Yeah, I think that's what they're bargaining on, isn't it? That they're casting, like you say, the Democrats as communists who hate capitalism. And that like you say, that is enough of a fear to steer them away from democratic candidates. What I thought was interesting, I know Donald Trump mentioned that $5,000 payment that he's guaranteeing to every American adult should the Republican Party retain the two houses of Congress. But actually not many of the other speakers mentioned it. If any, I don't know, did you hear anyone else mention it, Marks? I wonder just how much the talking point that will be. Yeah, you're right. I didn't hear anyone else mention it. Trump though, he did double down on it, mentioning it again and being no doubt, he will have seen all the criticism over the course of the day,

7:08even criticism on right-wing news channels, or at least a sense of bewildermance about quite how this will work, this $5,000 for each adult, if the Republicans win in November. How will it work? I mean, I even heard on Fox News, the word bribe was used. They are finding this hard to understand. They think there's a sense of their economic illiteracy going on here. He did sit down for an interview with Laura Ingram over the course of the past 24 hours on Fox News. And she came up with it, why I thought it was quite a good question. Basically, say, look, if you've got all this money, why do you have to make it dependent on whether you win? Why not just give it to people? My name's just give the money now. If you have the money, why don't you give it now? Of course, they can't. I'll tell you what, because the Democrats can't do it. Because with them, it's negative growth. With us, it's so positive. So we're taking in $21 trillion. Nobody, no country's ever taken in anywhere near that. It's four or five times higher than the next. All because of that beautiful word that you and I love more than most others tariffs.

8:08I thought it was a really good question for Laura Ingram there. Basically, if you've got all this money, why not just give it to people? Why do you have to make it dependent on whether or not the Republicans win? So criticism from the right as well or confusion, certainly, about what that policy is all about. JD Vance Mark, he spoke just before Trump made his closing remarks at this convention. One of JD Vance's most high profile appearances before these midterms and before a 2028 presidential run kicks off. And it did feel like this speech was more about his vision for America than it was about any of the candidates involved in the midterm elections. Very much so. It was the big moment for JD Vance. I think his chance to capture the crowd. The crowd not just in the room, but clearly he knows this will have been broadcast live, certainly on the conservative news channels.

9:08Around the country, clips will have been clipped up the whole time. They'll be on social media. This was his moment to capture that crowd, to give them a glimpse of what president Vance might look like. I do think though that he had quite a difficult job. He had to walk a fine line between those who think Trump is the Republican party and those who think that actually the Republican party is everything but Trump. And they'd like him not to be there. So I think that was the the fine line that he had to to walk a tricky one for sure. He's steered away, didn't he as well from talking about the Iran war, but he did say, you know, you might not agree with everything. I say you might not agree with everything that this administration says. But again, he said, you know, the alternative is far, far worse. I thought it was interesting as well. He spoke about how his wife Usher had given birth six weeks ago. So she couldn't be there. And he used that as a segue to talk about nuclear families. And that is one of his, you know, main political platforms, isn't it? This idea that women should be focused on being stay at home mothers.

10:14And that seemed to be a real rousing moment for the crowd in the convention hall. He'd probably loved the one couple that I came across Martha when I was doing Voxpops speaking to people afterwards. And I asked the man, the husband who approached first and I said, you know, what do you think of that? And he said, oh, fantastic. He isn't Trump. Wonderful. And all the rest of it. And I turned to his wife. And I said, what did you think to her? And she said, oh, I just think what he thinks, my husband, my, she was deferring to him on everything. Vance would have liked that. I'm sure. The amount of times that happens when you're at these, you know, Republican events in recent years where the woman sort of meekly stands silent while the man answers the questions is amazing. And it's not that they don't have anything to say it's that for some reason they don't feel like it's their place to say anything. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And the whole nuclear family thing and the tone of what the way Vance was was framing it all for me. The inference was that there's only one way and it is a nuclear family and anything else is just just not on. And you know, there was no sense of inclusion or, you know, nuclear families are great, but maybe so to our other ways of living and other ways of doing it, doing things.

11:29Absolutely not, not the tone of, of, of Vance's speech at all. And he ended it with that line, didn't he? Take your hands off our kids, I think it was. So roaring applause. I'm Sam Cotes and I'm Ann Nicole Roy. Britain has a new Prime Minister and every day from 7.45 a.m. will help you make sense of the day ahead in just 20 minutes. That means taking you inside Westminster with our forensic insight sharp analysis and the stories behind the headlines from the battles in Parliament to the conversation shaping government. We'll set you up each morning for the day ahead in British politics. Hit follow and listen to politics at Sam and Ann's wherever you get your podcasts. Martha, did you see, I don't know how much of the, of the event you caught, but did you see some of the other speakers in the arena? There was, there was Caroline Levit. Yeah, I saw, I saw Levit and I saw Don Trump Jr. Caroline Levit, of course, no longer the press secretary and had had a one gag which received a huge laugh where she, guess what, slagged off the media.

12:42It feels good to be back behind a podium and let me just say, let me just say it feels much better speaking to a stadium full of patriots in a briefing room full of journalists. And Martha, in between the speeches, there were videos, short videos, peppered through the afternoon into the evening. And one of them was, I mean, I think, well, I was going to say objectively extraordinary. Clearly that's wrong because they loved it in the run, but it was, it was certainly pretty odd. And on June 14th, 1946, God looked down on his plan, Paradise and said, I need a caretaker. So God gave us Trump. Yeah, I mean, that is just utterly bizarre. And I think we've got to the point where we sometimes don't appreciate just how weird this all is. But yeah, I found it fascinating, you know, to get a sense that I listened to the episode that you did yesterday, and if anyone's not caught it, I'd urge them to have another listen.

13:47It is a real look, you know, through the looking glass inside this conventional hall in Dallas. And I wonder like how have you found the people that are there? Did it feel different to being in Milwaukee in 2024 before the last election? Actually, it didn't. It felt very similar to that. It felt very similar to any of the many Trump rallies that I've been to now over, you know, quite a number of years. These are the diehards, the most faithful who turn out to these events. And they are, you know, they're a very particular breed. And almost every speaker today reflected on the death of Charlie Kirk, it almost felt like an event in memoriam to him. He of course was shot dead exactly a year ago. Yeah, I can't believe it's a year since that moment in Utah, the college campus in Utah. That's where the 31 year old conservative activist was shot in the neck and killed when he was giving a speech.

14:51And JD Vance, the vice president, who was a close friend of Charlie Kirk, he made special mention of that moment a year ago. We mentioned Milwaukee two years ago, and you really got the sense there that this was a party atmosphere that this was a Republican party in the ascendancy preparing for victory really. Did it feel like that, you know, in Dallas? At the very end, it did for sure. There were the balloons that fell down from the ceiling hundreds and hundreds of them. There was opera for, you know, Nest and Dorma was, was belted out by an opera singer. Trump, of course, loves all of that. In fact, after JD Vance spoke, Trump came out and he said himself that he wasn't going to speak because, you know, he'd spoken for two hours the previous evening and there was a bit of pantomime stuff. Do you want me to speak? Yes, yes, yes, they said, no, I don't think I can. And then at one point, he actually, I thought it was quite interesting.

15:52He said, I'm getting quite tired of politics. I thought that was a fascinating moment. Is this the beginning of Trump actually saying, you know what? Maybe it's time to hand over the batten. I don't know. But he, he then, I mean, the sort of the, the, the inference of what he then did was basically to say, I can't be asked to do anything tonight. So we're going to play some music instead. But then, of course, because it's President Trump, he couldn't help himself. So he then did speak off script for what was it? I don't know, 20 minutes, basically repeating everything he'd said the previous evening. Why? Because he knows it'll go on loops on right wing channels and on social media. It'll get out beyond the faithful here to those conservatives across the country who might not be totally tuned in, who might be a little bit on the fence about whether to bother to vote. So he repeated all of that. And then at the end, he said, well, let's have some music. And the opera singer came on. That's enough of politics. I've been doing this now for seven days straight. I want a little music of you to mind enough with the politics.

16:55I guess, however optimistic it felt in the room, Mark, though the sobering reality for the Republican Party is that if these midterm elections are as they usually are a referendum on the party in power, you know, the popularity ratings are rock bottom. So it probably isn't going to be happy news for them, come November. No, there's a lot of work to do. And I think my, my week in in Texas, beyond this bubble, this arena has made that very clear. Now Martha from Texas to California, and a story that has emerged from there over the course of the past couple of days leaks from insiders in Silicon Valley.

17:58Yeah, this story has really caught fire over the past few days, an insider and the topic, which is the company that owns Claude, the AI large language model. He said that AI companies are gambling with human lives. Yeah, his name is Jacob Coxon. He's a researcher at Anthropic, he was for a couple of months before that he worked at OpenAI, the company that owns chat, GBT. In a series of posts on X, Coxon wrote that the engineers building the AI we use every day, quote, earnestly believe his words that it could kill us all by the end of the decade, which sounds utterly terrifying and exaggeration. Maybe, maybe not, but his current colleagues at Anthropic came out very quickly, quite a few of them and agreed with him. Yeah, I think that's what's made this such a talking point because it's not just Jacob Coxon, fellow engineers, design heads at Anthropic, responded to his post and agreed in large part with his assessment of the dangers of AI.

19:08I was listening to one science leader, Anthropic, saying that the chances of humans being wiped out in the next four years due to AI was around 10%. That is not odds that I like the sound off, to be honest, 10% chance he said of human extinction by AI in the next four years. The suggestion there is that perhaps these models that are being trained up are so smart that they may in the future go rogue and that humans will be rendered useless, they won't be able to do anything about it. And these are not just empty words because we have seen recently examples, real life examples of AI going rogue, there was the hugging face hack where AI agents went against their human controllers. If you don't know about that, look it up, it's quite complicated, but it is very interesting and very scary. There's a really, really good bit of video by our colleague, Roland Manthorpe, which will post in the show notes that actually he did it about a month ago in July when this story broke the hugging face hack.

20:18And he explains in real detail but very, very easily understandable detail about what happened then. I don't know about you, but I feel like I've really woken up to the AI thing just over the course of the past few weeks that there was a fascinating podcast by the New York Times daily about the same thing. Again, we'll put it in the show notes, listen to it, it's really, really interesting. And then I found myself in one of Elon Musk's Robo cars the other day in Austin, which I was with our producer, Gabriel. And at the time, both of us thought it was quite funny, quite exciting, this extraordinary car, no steering wheel, nothing. And by the way, I've since learnt that they haven't actually gone through all the regulatory processes in Austin. I just kind of just put them on the streets and the city council is kind of catching up with him and the fact that these things are already on the streets of an American city. They are extraordinary, they don't have that many cameras built in around them, they have some, but they work largely on AI.

21:23And so obviously people are going to be worried that they might go wrong. Elon Musk and his company says absolutely nothing to worry about, these things are fine. It was pretty cool, but it was also quite scary. So I feel like I've really woken up to all of this. And then of course everyone is talking about it. Jacob Cox and the whistleblower, if that's what he is, we're speaking to Anderson Cooper on CNN over the course of the past couple of days. Right now there's no risk of extinction. The current models, the worst they can do is maybe hack into something, potentially cause a lot of damages in infrastructure. There's no, they're not intelligent enough to outsmart us at a level that would lead to extinction. I think what's just crazy is to look at the rate of progress. And there is a very real possibility that in the immediate future, these years that like next year, the year after, the recursive self-improvement will happen and will enter the phase of Evan's post where he argues that there's a chance we could all die. Like that is coming soon.

22:54I think that's why they control have over us. It's maybe ironic that my Instagram feed is now full of videos of robots going wrong in different countries. There was a robot that went wrong in China and the humans were trying to get it onto the ground, wrestling it to the ground. I guess my algorithm now ironically is now full of AI going rogue. What everyone's wondering now is have we been asleep on AI and is the Trump administration going to do anything to regulate these tech advancements? What I would say on that is that although everyone outside the building I'm in seems to have been aware of and talking about AI and the developments coming out of California, it hasn't really featured at all here in this convention. The north of data centers all linked to AI, data centers being built at record pace here in Texas, massive concern for people but not mentioned here at the convention.

24:00So they seem to be, well the crowd seem to be kind of oblivious to it and the politicians to answer your point. I don't think there's any sense at the moment the administration has any plans to get involved. Full speed ahead seems to be the message. Ted Cruz who did speak at the convention was asked about it by Politico. His answer wasn't particularly inspiring. There's a bipartisan cohort of voices right now, Republicans and Democrats saying, whoa, we need to pause. We need to really slow this thing down. Here's the problem we can't. That is an impossible endeavor because you know who's not pausing China. They are not going to stop. If you look at where the US so if AI is going to kill us, it should be USA, I'm not Chinese. I've actually joked that if and this is somewhat tongue and cheek, but it's not entirely if they're going to be killer robots. Rather than they be American killer robots and Chinese killer robots. I don't know. We're all screwed Martha. I do think that you know we laugh about this kind of because we what else can we do and also because none of us truly understands or can comprehend.

25:08What we are being told could happen. It is utterly extraordinary and horrifically serious. But what can we do about it? I just don't know. We seem to be being run and our future is being predetermined by such a tiny group of tech bros. We've talked about them so many times on the pod, haven't we? Of tech bros in California that we know about and a whole load of others in China who may or may not be getting ahead who we don't know about it. It's a really, really frightening prospect. We were only discussing JD Vance talking about end times last week, weren't we? I tend to think like the while I wouldn't be shocked if we are living in the end times what I'm trying to focus on is doing as much of God's work as possible right now. And if that leads to the end times, okay. And if that leads to you know us building a better world that thrives and survives for a very long time after I'm gone, that's great too.

26:14Maybe he wasn't wrong. Yeah, it's definitely all pretty mind bending. Yeah, certainly is. Now, the mother, you'll be back with David on Saturday's episode to mark 25 years since 911 and to explore how modern American politics and actually so much more is shaped by the events of September the 11th. Yeah, David's already in New York, you might have seen him on your TV screens covering the memorial events, filing reports that reflect the tragedy of 25 years ago. If you want to watch David's latest report, which is fantastic, and we'll put a link in the episode description. Yeah, there's lots of homework in the show notes today. We've mentioned it a few times. So we'll get all those links out for you all to look at. Yeah, and as a reminder, you can listen to the full episode with David and I if you are part of our members club, you can join for just two pounds 99 a month if you're in the UK.

27:15And we promise you won't regret it. You won't and a little plug to for the Sky News defense inside app, which launched this week as well. All the details for that are on the Sky News website. We will be back with our regular episode next week. Thanks as ever for listening or watching us on YouTube. If you want to catch the podcast that we did from day one of the convention inside this place, that is on YouTube as well. An email us as ever, trump100 at sky.uk. Oh, see you soon. Bye bye. The most excruciating period of politics that I can ever remember. After Zay as a government minister, never quite sure what the cabinet office did, but just hold meetings. It has gone down like a bucket of sea. I kind of thought the decades of experience meant that you weren't swallowing this vapid. Hello and welcome to a lecture dysfunction with me, Beth Rigby, me Ruth Davidson, me Harriet Harmon and me Jess Phillips.

28:18Electural dysfunction, wherever you get your podcasts.