Meet the Press NOW — May 25

If it's Thursday, paying the price, the U.S. is warned that it's credit rating will be downgraded if Washington can't get its act together as the president tells progress and talks behind the scenes with just one week until a potential government to fall. Plus, failure to launch, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis tries to steady the ship after a bumpy and botched entrance into the Republican presidential campaign as former President Trump expands his lead on the field. And the future of AI might one-on-one exclusive interview with the president of Microsoft, as Washington looks to rein in the rapidly evolving technology before it's too late.

Welcome to Meet the Press now. I'm Chuck Todd reporting from Washington, where White House congressional negotiators have still not yet hammered out a deal to raise the nation's borrowing limit, which is seven days until a potential government default based on Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's calendar. Negotiators in capital haven't hit the panic button yet, though. They say a deal could be within reach soon.

They can take the weekend. But even if that does happen, we're already seeing some political and economic fallout. The White House appears to be losing the messaging war against Republicans over the debt ceiling. A couple of new polls indicate that.

Here's one from Fox. A majority of Americans 57% agree with the Republican position in these talks that Congress should raise the debt ceiling only if spending is cut. And if you want to dismiss that poll because it's Fox, well, let me show you these numbers from a CNN poll. They're basically identical.

They found 60% of Americans supporting spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. By the way, the president's approval rate fell to just 40% in that poll. With numbers like that, it is perhaps no wonder that we're seeing some Democrats voice their frustration and angst over the White House strategy. Amid that scrutiny, the president addressed the ongoing negotiations from the White House earlier this afternoon.

I made clear time and again to falling on a national debt is not an option. The American people deserve to know that the Social Security payments will be there. The Veterans Hospital remain open and the economic progress will be made and we're going to continue to make it default puts all that at risk. Congressional leaders understand that and they've all agreed there will be no default.

So it's time for Congress to act now. Meanwhile, a number of Democrats privately and publicly have urged the president to stand his ground as Republicans wish for a cross-war cuts to various government programs today. The top Democrat in the House, minority leader, I mean, Jeffrey, is appeared to send a message to his caucus in an attempt to allay their growing concerns. It's clear to me that President Biden is continuing to hold the line as it relates to the types of devastating cuts that Republicans are trying to jam down the throats of the American people, being making sure that he stands up for our veterans.

President Biden engaged with House Republicans at the earliest opportunity. It's important for everyone to accurately lock in on the actual timeline. As for negotiations, House Speaker Kim McCarthy and the president say progress is being made. One of the Karthi's top negotiators told reporters today there is hope for a breakthrough before it's too late.

I think we've been close for six or seven days. The issues are thorny. They're difficult. There is the will to get a deal.

Everybody's trying to do a fine job of figuring out the finer details of this, but nothing's done. And we're at a sensitive phase with sensitive issues that remain. Those sensitive issues are the thorniest issues that we've been discussing. Adding to the anxiety in Washington and Wall Street, Fitch, one of the country's three major credit rating agencies warned it might downgrade the country's credit rating, signing political brinksmanship, and reduced financing flexibility.

The last time a downgrade happened, after a similar standoff with the debt ceiling in 2011, the stock market took a trillion dollar-sized hit. It's going to be now is NBC Senior White House correspondent Kelly O'Donnell and NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent, I like to tell you, Kelly, you and I have done this a lot. And today is one of those days where I was, I'm very optimistic. I see Chip Roy talking about not liking anything McCarthy's about to do.

And I see the head of the Congressional Black Caucus saying Joe Biden needs to speak to the nation and hold Republicans accountable. That tells me we're close. I know that seems a weird way to say that. Kind of tells me we're close, no.

Well, it feels like there is a real sense that a deal is within the grasp of the negotiators. At the same time, as Congressman McHenry pointed out, until all of the elements are resolved and settled, you can't count on any piece of it being done. So there is a mood of wanting to get something resolved. However, there are those outside forces like the thread of a downgrade that are putting some additional pressure.

It's a point in time where when you look at what the speaker is saying that he will not give a shortcut to passing a bill more quickly, we're running out of time for those steps to be taken once there would be a deal achieved. So there is sort of a frustration across the political spectrum about how this has been going, about some of the issues on the table. And I guess that sense gives us some idea of the ultimate outcome should it happen where not everyone will be happy. And that is a way to get to a deal.

Now, of course, it could have done budget as an entirely separate matter through the normal, ordinary process of negotiating in the House. This is a push where the Republicans have tied budget issues to the debt ceiling. Those don't always have to be interlinked. So there is certainly some pressure on the White House.

They are saying they want to give room for these negotiations to go forward. So we've heard from the president, but we've not heard from him as often as we've heard from the speaker and other members of the Republican Conference. Kelly, I'm just curious, behind the scenes, we've seen two polls that are almost identical, one from Fox, one from CNN. And I know there are some that say, oh, this is not the right way to ask this question.

Okay, but this is how the public seems to be consuming this. How does the White House taking the fact that majorities in two different polls are taking the Republicans side of this argument, which says that debt ceiling should only be raised with spending cuts? Well, there's frustration. And I think there is an argument to be made as the White House told its story in the most effective way, because Republicans have been on a daily basis putting this in the context of how ordinary people live their lives.

They've got a budget to need to pay the bills at home, whether it's mortgage, rent, groceries, whatever it may be, and that you can't just keep spending. That can be very persuasive to many Americans as they compare it to their own lives. At the same time, the White House would argue that threatening important programs that people rely on will be disastrous and will have a real impact on Americans' lives. So the idea of how much do people understand this debate as it's playing out?

You can argue that the American people know very well what's at stake here. And at the same time, you could have people who say that the way you look at this really comes down to very strong feelings about his government working for you or not working for you. And that's a real debate right now. Let's go over to Ali Vitale, on Capitol Hill.

I've noticed there's grumbling on the right. I noted this to Kelly. There's grumbling on the left. But here's a question I have for you specifically about Speaker McCarthy.

He's won the PR battle, if you believe he's pulling. Does he know how to land this? Can he do this? I mean, because he's going to have to keep the freedom pockets at bay if the votes are going to be there.

I think he knows that. I don't know if the freedom caucus knows that yet. Can he land this way? I think the Freedom Caucus is aware, but I don't know that they've come to terms with that yet.

I mean, even just as I was walking over to come talk with you guys, Chip Roy was going back into McCarthy's office. And after having spoken to him this morning, it doesn't sound like anything that Roy or any of his colleagues in the Freedom Caucus want in this is actually going to come out in this bill. But what I said to him is the same thing that you and I have talked about here before. Were you going to vote for anything that was bipartisanly negotiated?

And he didn't say no. But I think all of us who watch this and track this know that the most conservative members of the Republican Conference were never really going to get on board with something like this. Now, here's the question though. You can cover the 30 or 40 votes that you lose on the ultra conservative side of the spectrum with moderate Democrats coming in to vote for this.

But I have heard from Democrats who are grumbling around the idea that this is something that they will need to be whipped on. They're going to need to see the details on this if Republicans are in the dark, which by and large they are. Democrats certainly are in terms of where the things are in the room on this. Our understanding is that they are apart right now based on still talking about spending.

They're still far apart on that when you're talking about these issues as thorny. This has been the through line over the course of the last few weeks that they have been in the hard knuckle negotiating phase of this. So I think that there's progress in the room, but they're clearly still not in a place where they're ready to come out and release this. I do think the other thing that we need to focus on here though too when you talk about the timing.

I think my concern here was always that people accidentally stumble into a default because both sides agree that you shouldn't have one, but they're not working expeditiously enough to do it. It's important to understand that when the House rules say you need 72 hours between getting the bill and being able to vote on the bill, it actually the clock starts when they file it. So as soon as text comes out, that clock starts and then that's nothing to say from the Senate side of this. But at least we understand the House mechanics there.

Right. But you know, all those rules are, I'm sorry, they're not, they're telling us this. We've done this. All those rules matter until they don't.

I am curious though, if they fitched news, the idea of a downgrade, did that move anybody? I don't think so. I mean, the people who were dug in on hating the steel still kind of hate this deal. I think for Democrats, it was another reminder.

I think more of them started looking at their calendars on their phones or their watches being like, are you aware of where we are on the calendar right now? I do think that when you hear from, and we've rightly focused on the House side of this because that's where the action is, especially on the Republican side, but the concern is that when you see people like Senator Mike Lee saying that he's going to gum up the process when you get to the Senate side of this, that even further elongates this, and I think that could get some people concerned. Can I go down from the White House, I don't have Italian Capitol Hill. Thank you both.

So joining me now is John Chambers, who served as head of sovereign ratings for S&P when it downgraded the U.S. credit rating in 2011. Mr. Chambers, I appreciate you doing this.

So let me start with explaining what goes into a decision to downgrade, specifically 2011. The U.S. credit rating was downgraded for how long were we downgraded before it got elevated again? Well, it hasn't been elevated.

And that standard in force of rating is still double A+, so you've got 12 years out of elapsed. Other sovereigns that had a triple A that have regained it, of which they're a handful took over a decade on average. And the downgrade was motivated by two factors. One was the very divisive political environment that we had that was highlighted by the impasse over the debt ceiling.

And the second was the fiscal trajectory. And I think that what we're seeing now validates the decision back then to have lowered the rating because we are confronting the same problems we have now. So you see, go ahead. No, I was just going to say, not only does it look like the same problems now, but we see more polarized and the trajectory seems worse.

So should we be prepared for another downgrade, no matter what happens, even if we don't breach the debt thing? Well, I'm retired now, but in my opinion, the situation is much worse. You had a failed coup d'etat two years ago. The debt is much higher, much higher than we projected at the time when you look at the debt of both the federal government and the states combined.

And here, right now, we have a path to default, which most of us, including me, believe will not take place, but still, you can see how it could take place within a week. And that is not consistent with the triple rating. And I think that's what the Fitch is signaling to us today. You just heard from my report that the Fitch signal, the bad signal, if you will, didn't move anybody.

Maybe the markets dropping thousands of points would move folks. Are you surprised markets haven't reacted yet, or have we boiled that frog, if you will? Well, some of the markets have reacted. But if you look at the Treasury bill that's for the June majorities, it's costing 50 basis points more than the July bill.

So clearly, there's some dislocation there. But I promise you that if there's a default or even a sequestration of ordinary payments, this is going to be Lehmanon steroids. You're going to have disruptions in the money markets and the capital markets and the FX markets. It's going to be quite severe.

If explained to my viewers here, how much this costs the government, right? If we lower credit rating, it means our borrowing costs go up, which means we're going to accelerate our debt issue? There's a correlation between ratings and what you pay for your debt. But regardless of what the ratings do, I think that market participants are going to insist on a premium to buy US government debt if they're not 100% sure that they're going to get paid on time.

Now, all of this is not to say that a fiscal correction isn't necessary. A fiscal correction is necessary. But this is not the way to do it. These deficits and the past debt have been approved by Congress.

And to separate the budget process from the debt approval process is unique among the 130 sovereigns that I used to rate. When you compare us to other countries, AA plus, does it still put us at the top or not? Well, AA plus, you've got a dozen countries that have a AAA rating. So no, they're not at the top.

And if you look at credit default swaps, you'll see that you've got 10 or 12 countries that pay less for the credit default swaps in the United States. So if you could talk to some of these members of Congress, because I'll be honest with you, sometimes it feels as if they don't quite understand the matches they're playing with right now and the lethal nature of that propane. Well, I used to talk with them and most of the staffers understand that the politicians have their own agenda to try to advance. And I think that's probably where the problem lies.

It's really quite irresponsible. And what you're saying is to recover this downgrade at best, we're looking at a decade. I'm saying to, for the investors at large, to perceive the United States as the preeminent credit in any strength, it has its largest economy and education, it has to reserve currency, it's got the strongest banking system and deepest capital markets in the world. It's got to fix two problems.

One is it's got to fix its governance problems, which is going to take work on both sides of the aisle. The second problem is going to have to fix its fiscal trajectory. It's one thing to run deficits during a recession. Everyone agrees that that is appropriate, but during good times, or at least during normal times, you have to at least run a primary fiscal balance, which means a balance of your receipts and your expenditures before interest payments in order to stabilize the debt over time.

And we're not close to that right now. Well, I would argue those two issues just pointed out are related. The governance, without good governance, you're not going to have the conversations about how to deal with the debt trajectory. That's for John Chambers, who had done this for a living for years, knows this up and down.

It's really good to have an expert on here on these downgrades and what they mean. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Chuck. Thank you, Chuck.

The census is very bumpy, sir. The presidential candidate is facing the fallout. After his campaign launch was marred by technical difficulties, ended up being mocked by his Republican writers. The reaction, but it means that it's next.

Plus, with great power comes great responsibility, my one-on-one interview with a top Microsoft executive as the tech tight wrestles with the potential promise and profitability and peril of AI technology. And we're Microsoft, the biggest investor behind chat, GPT. I'll talk to him. That's ahead.

You're watching me the person now. Welcome back. We're going to go around to Santis. Some will into the 2024 race last night, as his much anticipated Twitter space is launched with CEO Elon Musk was plagued by technical difficulties and frustration that was capturing hot mics.

Santis did eventually deliver a scripted announcement and his team tried to downplay the misappling they broke the internet. Here's how the Santis handled an interview on Fox last night. We had a huge audience. It did.

It was the biggest they'd ever had. It did break the Twitter space. And so we're really excited with the enthusiasm, but ultimately it's about the future of our country. I try I'm running to lead a great American comeback.

The Santis opponents are reveling in the rollout and a flurry of posts on his own social media platform down in front of the launch of disaster and a catastrophe adding, I know Ron, the way he handles his announcement, he will handle the country. Before last night's numbers, the Santis was already facing an uphill climb for this nomination. He trails Trump by more than 20 points across four different polls that we saw released this week. And today Trump picked up another endorsement in Florida from Congressman Daniel Webster, former president who's now ranked up 12 endorsements just from Florida congressional Republicans while the Florida governor has just won.

So how important is that moment? I mean, it's our panel. Eugene Scott, the politics reporter at Axios. Simone Sanders, the former advisor of Vice President Harris, host of Simone MSNBC, and Brendan Buck, former advisor to speakers, John Boehner and Paul Ryan.

Here's one thing I think we know for sure, Eugene, is that no matter what happens to the same presidential campaign, if he's taken the oath of office up there on January 2025, or if it doesn't make the Iowa, the Twitter announcement will be the first sentence of the campaign, right? Either he overcame it or it was a metaphor for the disaster. That's fair. Yeah.

And I think people will be talking about for a while. It's such a good legal mark. Yeah. And but not even the mark on some of the people he needs to reach.

Like, first of all, there are a lot of people not on Twitter who he needs to vote for him, especially outside of his tribe, and choosing this way to connect with people or make this very important announcement could signal to them that he's not really interested in talking to them, something that people already think about the scientists based on his policies and the positions he's taken. Simone, you've been on presidential campaign. Talk about announcements. This was mild.

Just being on, but no, but no, no. Yeah, no. You never see control. Talk about how campaigns, how often do you see them see control of announcement day to another answer?

Because there are very few big stages you get on a, on any campaign, but especially presidential campaign where you have the most eyeballs and the attention. Your announcement day is one of them. I would argue the first debate is one of those. And then those are only two things you're guaranteed to get to the general election.

It is the day you know you're running, again, biggest, biggest stages. And so because of that, this is your opportunity to introduce yourself to America, to the voters. And although Ron DeSantis has high name ID, right, governor of Florida, you cannot assume everyone knows you. Bio is very important.

That's what a speech to do. Now, I don't agree with a lot of the things that, for instance, were in Tim Scott's speech, but Tim Scott had a good announcement. He gave a little bio. He gave you a little background.

Tim Scott, you walked away from his announcement knowing more if you saw clips and pieces of it. The other important part of an announcement for presidential campaign is you obviously want to raise some money, okay? You want to raise money so that people see you. How do people see you?

You go down a nice video. You have a nice speech. And then on network television, on cable television, and on local television, they run the b-roll, they run the clips from your speech. If you're looking presidential and people behind you waving American flags, yay, America.

There was not much of that. Even Ron DeSantis says a video, which I was glad to see that the campaign did think enough to have a visual component. It was just him walking, talking, there was no interaction of him with individuals. He has been out here on the campaign trail, but not the campaign trail for a number of weeks now prior to officially announcing.

So there was opportunity to have video or pictures of him interacting with real people talking about why he's running for them. I think that this is a campaign that seems very one line, playing to what the media apparatus is saying, what folks are saying on social media, and that is not real life. Brendan, I will say one thing I want you to chime in on all the different ways you want to chime in. We all know how Washington works.

We're almost at 24 hours since tobacco. If the idea of Elon Musk and Twitter spaces around DeSantis was the idea of some campaign staffer or strategist, the tire tracks on that person would argue visible, we know who it is. That has the sneaking suspicion of the candidate idea. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

I was going to say it's a tiresome. Unfortunately, I'm on a vehicle. I think the problem for Ron is at this point is that it's kind of a narrative forming. Maybe he's not so good at this stuff.

And he's had a number of missteps. Every time he seemed to have popped up in the last several months, it's been for bad things, whether it's Ukraine or Disney or whatever it is. And one of the most interesting politics is a narrative getting set because it becomes self-reinforcing. What's your Donald Trump?

Well, certainly. But everything sort of feeds on itself and all of a sudden every time you do something, it's like, oh, there goes Ron DeSantis against screwing something up. And that may catch hold if he doesn't turn around pretty quick. Right?

That this person who can't even lay out an announcement, how can he run this country? But I want to say, the louder somebody talks, the more you got to acknowledge their nerves. Donald Trump obsesses over by the Census right now. So it is, let's not pretend that this is all of these problems.

There's no doubt. It's still rattles Trump. Yeah, which is why I think more likely than that Donald Trump will show up on at least a few of the debate stages as we get closer to January 2024. Because remember, Iowa caucuses are January 8.

That's when the Iowa voters go to their caucuses, either polls. Look, I think, again, we talked about this early. Is it late or right in the middle in that sweet spot? I think we have to see these candidates on the campaign trail.

The polls that you put up and showed, these are so national polls. There's some we haven't seen. I would argue very great polling yet coming out of Iowa in New Hampshire or South Carolina. But not as badly.

Exactly. From my understanding. And so those are the numbers that matter. How are voters responding to each and every one of these candidates?

Remains to be seen. Is there a chicken salad to be made out of this, but Brendan? Does he know to do it? Yeah, that's a question.

Is he actually good at politics? And so that's the ultimate question I have with Ron DeSantis now. Look, he got reelected by 19 points in and stayed Florida. Like, that's not nothing.

But a lot of that was just built off of, he made a bet on COVID. And it played off. It played off. That worked out well for him.

Whether or not he's actually... I got a bet on the Heat winning the Eastern Conference. I put down a month and a half ago. I'm hoping that bet pays off.

Yeah, but whether or not he's agile enough and talented enough to navigate some of these things. Well, I think Donald Trump certainly worries about Ron DeSantis, but he doesn't just worry. He goes on the attack. And I think that's one of the reasons why you've seen Donald Trump's numbers go up.

And Ron DeSantis's numbers go down is because he takes swings at him. And Ron DeSantis has yet demonstrated that he knows not only how to take the punch but just throw one back and put some points on the board against Donald Trump. And until he figures that out, he's going to remain far, far behind. Sometimes I wonder if Trump is mostly worried about DeSantis or if he's just angry and offended by DeSantis.

Or if he's just going after who's ever number two. Yeah, right. He's going after nobody else. No one seems to want to go after Donald Trump, but Donald Trump's not going to take it.

And how does the media narrative? Oh, the other kid. Yes, he does. Well, this to me, Eugene, is DeSantis's biggest problem.

If you have progressive Twitter and MAGA Twitter, all piling out DeSantis, that's an ugly day. Yeah. And I don't know that there's much of a DeSantis Twitter. I mean, we see people defending him who seem to want something Trumpy but an alternative, but they aren't allowed as voices and they aren't controlling the narrative.

And he's not really giving them new material to show them why he could be better than what, you know, is currently being said of him. You pivoted to the debt ceiling. Simone, we have two polls that indicate the White House has lost the messaging. We're here.

How'd that happen? I don't even think we needed the polls to know. Just ask the people up on Capitol Hill. Look, I think it happened because this was a complicated issue.

And at the beginning, all you heard from the White House, a consistent message. The president is not going to negotiate on the debt ceiling. People talk about the budget. He will not talk about the debt ceiling.

Without forcing Speaker McCarthy to put his budget on the table, you are negotiating on the debt ceiling. And without being able to pass a clean debt ceiling, without talking about the budget, you are negotiating on the debt ceiling. And so I think such forceful language on the front end is what they believe. I'm pretty sure it was, but obviously it wasn't a strategy that they could hold to.

And so the pivot now is, well, the media apparatus does not understand the state. And it is not being framed correctly. And I think it is actually being framed quite accurately. I think the only misstep, if you look at the media apparatus is giving Kevin McCarthy so much credit for barely passing his debt ceiling bill.

Because now there is no guarantee that he has the votes to, even if folks agree on the negotiation. But Brendan, the real test is, you have heard the chip Roy stuff, right? You are hearing the Byron Donald stuff. And they are not going to vote for McCarthy's deal.

Will McCarthy survive? Can he land this? He has won the messaging war. And I know he is trying to tell, hey guys, look, I got him to the table.

We are winning politically. And I heard Byron Donald say, I don't care that we are winning politically. I want to make an impact. Can he land this?

This whole process could not have gone better for Kevin McCarthy. Everyone is playing Kevin McCarthy's game. He is winning the PR game. But we also always end up in the same spot.

I was like, no that matters. We have a bipartisan deal. And nobody is going to like it. And look, he starts off from a really strong position.

Like, there were not a lot of people making veiled threats about him going into this. Like, they've all been sticking by him. I'm much more concerned now, though, about the ability to pass it and to get a majority of the majority. And that's ultimately what it comes down to.

That is the mantra of that conference. You need a majority of House Republicans to vote for it. And it's going to tell you. You do not play a clip about King Jeffries.

I've spent a lot of time on that. King Jeffries on the record. I've never heard a more unenthusiastic. King Jeffries trying to sell.

Hey guys, here's this chicken salad. We're not going to cut veteran's benefits. Yeah, I was at that conference. Wow.

He made it very clear, you know, where he stands and what he thinks Democrats value and what he hopes will not happen. But the reality is, he doesn't know what this agreement is going to be yet. There's going to be a majority of House Democrats having to bring this cross finish. I mean, they should have spent more time trying to get the five Republicans on board with them for a discharge petition.

I think that's my Monday morning quarterback. I'm going to get in trouble here, but can a majority of Republicans? I mean, I think they'll have a majority of Republicans. Oh, I mean, that's what Kim McCarthy is projecting a lot of confidence that he'll be able to.

I think that will be very difficult. Well, if the Democrats have to deliver more votes for Kevin McCarthy's deal, I don't want to be at the next lunch between I King Jeffries and Joe Biden. Anyway, Eugene Simone and printed thank you up next. My exclusive interview with Brad Smith, the president of Microsoft, as the multi-billion dollar company, plunges headfirst of the brave new world of artificial intelligence.

But he's here in Washington, because he says, regulate us. He's ready for regulation. Here is version. Don't go anywhere.

You're watching the president. Welcome back as new AI technology and chatbots, like chat and GPT explode under the scene. Here in the nation's capital lawmakers are grappling with how to keep up. In recent weeks, tech executives and AI leaders have been descending on Washington testifying on a meeting with the White House, even having off the records with members of the press as they try to shape future regulations.

Earlier today, I had a chance to sit down with Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith, an exclusive interview about the future challenges and opportunities of AI, how to regulate this rapidly evolving technology. Here's some of our conversation. Is this an open-himer moment? I mean, you know, we had this amazing, incredible, powerful technology with nuclear.

That was ahead of where government could figure out how were we going to regulate this and we came up. What should be the model as we tackle artificial intelligence? Is it sort of the way we tackle nuclear? I think it's a great question.

But I would really say the answer is almost the opposite. Humanity invented or tame the atom to create a bomb that could destroy people. And later on figured that they could tame the atom to produce power as well. We are, open AI is creating artificial intelligence to do good, and yet we also need to think about how it can be misused and do harm.

But let's at least start with, we're doing this for a good reason, let's protect against the abuse. We're not doing it to create a weapon in the first place. All right. Let's look before we had guardrails.

And that seems to be a bit disturbing because the last experiment we did on the population was social media. We released it with our guardrails. And after a few years, we realized, oh, that was a mistake. Do you at all regret that chat GPT is public right now?

No, but I would first embrace the premise, if you will. Okay. We need guardrails. And we need guardrails that are built by companies and that we need guardrails that are in the law and are supervised by governments.

In the case of chat GPT or really GPT for, call it, the model itself, there is a deployment safety board that's managed by OpenAI and Microsoft. Who's on that board? What makes up that board? It's people who are...

What are their backgrounds? Some of their backgrounds. Engineers? It is fundamentally engineers, but they are engineers with a broad perspective on life.

So if you were to ask Congress to act now, it's going to be tough to get this Congress to do this, what's the first regulation you think should be put on all of you right now? Well, we're really asking for two things, and it's why I've come to Washington this week. The first is we're asking the executive branch to move forward with an executive order so that it will only purchase or procure AI services in certain categories from companies that are applying an AI risk management framework that's been adopted by the government itself, the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Let's send a signal to the market.

Do they have that framework? Yes. It was released in January, and actually it resulted from 18 months of work pursuant to a law that Congress passed in 2020. So that week should say, that's good news.

But then second, we are going to need another law. And I think what we're going to need is a new agency that is responsible for deciding when these most powerful models will be licensed. Do I pursue it to safety requirements? Do we need a commission?

We have a nuclear... The reason I started with OpenAI is we have a nuclear regulatory commission. Is that a model? I think we should look to those kinds of models.

We have a federal aviation administration. We have a food and drug administration. If you buy a product in the grocery store, then go next door to the pharmacy. Get in your car and then go to the airport.

Every step of the way, you are getting a product that has been reviewed and to some degree is regulated by the government. It's okay for all of us from the sector to say, you know what? Innovation flourishes. People have confidence in what they buy.

There is a role for balanced regulation. And that is what we're going to need from Congress. What responsibility do you think Microsoft has? Regardless, you're sort of morality and ethical responsibility here.

Because that's not something you could legislate. I think we do and always will have the first responsibility to get this right. I mean, I do not for a moment think it's ever appropriate for a tech company to say, we're waiting for the government to tell us what to do and until they do, we're not going to think about these hard questions. We need to think about them.

We've been preparing for this moment for six years. We adopted six ethical principles. We have corporate policies. We have testing.

We have training. We have tooling. We have an oversight mechanism. We better get it right just about every day.

This is the week that we had the search in general put out a warning about social media. And there's been a lot of look, I absolutely believe some of this stuff is like, is an addiction for some people. I think some people know how to not be addicted to things and some people do. And like tobacco, like cigarette smoking, there's something to it.

But this gets at the heart of sort of a skepticism here, which is, the social media companies let us down. Why should we trust you guys too on AI? I sort of go back to the famous phrase from Ronald Reagan. Trust but verify.

Let's all learn from the past whether we were responsible for it or not. Frankly, it's a lot easier to learn from other people's mistakes than from your own. Let's learn. Let's be responsible.

But let's have the government play an appropriate role to supervise and affect the things that we're the most worried about. And let's do it from the get-go rather than wait for things to go off the rails. There have been a lot of your tech competitors and colleagues who have also come to Washington over the last month. Everybody's trying to shape this conversation.

Some of the Google engineers are a little more nervous about where things are going than say some of the meta engineers who think that this is headed in a certain place and certainly chat GPT CEO came in here and said, hey, regulate us do this. The Google engineers seem to be worried about that moment that the machines could take over. What is the level of concern you have on that? I think we should be concerned if we fail to address the problem.

So let's start by defining the problem. In that case, I think the problem is defined as, look, we don't want machines to start running critical infrastructure and go online. They're all deciding health outcomes. Some health care outcomes.

And that's mostly good. But when it's an insurance company, using AI to decide a claim is we're going to pay for this claim and not that claim. Suddenly, that feels like a machine deciding my health care. And it raises two really important points.

First, let's all recognize the law applies. There is no defense called your honor. A machine may be doing this. Right.

People. We. How does this? You're comfortable being liable if it's misused.

I think what one needs to do when it comes to liability questions is look at where the control and the decisions are being made. In some cases, it may be the company that makes the model. In some cases, it may be the company that has the infrastructure where it's being deployed. In that case, it might be the insurance company itself.

It needs to be accountable for ensuring that humans are taking the output from a computer and using their brain. Let's not stop thinking here. That's why we have fundamentally taken every service that we're creating and calling it a co-pilot. Let's not put our brains on autopilot.

Let's use this to get smarter and learn faster. What's the, what's something you think Congress could do in the moment right now? Like a simple thing early. I would love to see the Congress move forward with a piece of legislation that frankly would create a new regulatory agency and give it the authority to get to work.

So get it out of there. No FTC offshoot. No CISA offshoot. Do this separate.

Create a new agency. Yes. Okay. And that can be done.

I mean, here in Washington, people say, oh, no, we use that. We did that last century. Create alphabet soups all the time. Yeah.

It can be done. And then give it the authority pursuant to legislative oversight, but then direct the agency as to the goals and the roles it should play, but not it get into the details. The future of Microsoft. How important is AI to it?

I think AI is important to the future of every aspect of digital technology. So I think it's a fundamental importance to the future of Microsoft. So it's sort of like it's, it's the equivalent of sort of like the internet is foundational. AI is foundational.

Not every tech company. I think it probably is. In fact, I'd almost go as far as to say AI will become important to every company regardless of the fields it's in. There's a real sense or some lawmakers that would love to just hit pause.

Come on. Let's figure out the guardrails before we go full bore into this. Everything I've learned says, well, this is out the two paces out of the two. Is it or is there a way to slow things now?

I fundamentally think it's extraordinarily difficult, especially in the world that we live in today with different countries, different approaches, China, the United States, elsewhere, to slow the pace of technology. What we can do. Someone argue that that's in your business interest to not slow the pace for what it's right. Yeah.

I'm not going to confess that. We believe in innovation moving forward. Let's accelerate the pace, allow public responsibility, self responsibility, self governance, but governance under the law by the government. That's where we should speed up.

We got a lot more that we got into more specifics, if you will, on who should decide how AI works. You can catch my full interview with Brad Smith on meethepress.com and YouTube right now. After the break behind bars, the founder of the far right of keepers has been sentenced to 18 years of prison for his role in the January 6th attack. We'll have the details next.

You watch me present. For today, I have the honor of introducing my nominee to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charles Q. Brown Jr. General, welcome.

Over the past three years, as chief of staff of the Air Force, General Brown has become known for his signature approach, accelerate, change or lose. Welcome back. We had a couple of important and significant events happen today in Washington. President Biden announcing that Air Force General Charles C.

Q. Brown is his choice to succeed, General Mark Millie as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the most senior military role in the country. He is confirmed by the Senate. General Brown would become only the second African American man to hold that position.

Of course, the first was Colin Powell. A confirmation could also be a sorghurt in its own rights. Since it could be the first time in American history, both the Pentagon's top military and civilian officials would be black men. Secretary Lloyd Austin has served since the beginning of the Biden administration, but I should tell you, Alabama Senator Tommy Tupperville has a hold on all military appointments right now before the Senate, and this falls under that category.

So this could be held up for a while. And in another historic development in DC today, Stuart Rose, who's the founder of the far right extremist group, called the Oath Keepers, was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison on seditious conspiracy charges and connection with his role in January 6. It's the longest sentence handed down so far to anyone convicted for actions surrounding the riot at the Capitol. Rose is one of 14 people that have been convicted of seditious conspiracy in the wake of January 6.

He's the first one to be sentenced. Rose's sentence was below the 25 years prosecutors had asked the court handout and lower than the federal sentencing guidelines, which range from 21 to 28 years. Another Oath Keepers, Kelly Megs, was also sentenced today to 12 years in prison for seditious conspiracy. When he was given time to speak in court, Rose called himself a political prisoner and said his only crime was opposing those who were, quote, destroying our country.

The judge responded, calling him a threat to the very fabric of democracy. Up next, War Warning. The head of a pro-Russia militia group says there could be a new revolution in Russia if Putin can't turn the tide of the war in Ukraine, astonishing comments from Putin's so-called chef, who by the way prefers to be called Putin's butcher. We'll get a reality to check next.

You're watching me at the press now. Welcome back. It's stunning morning to Moscow today from a Russian mercenary leader, Yevgeny Pergosa. According to the Washington Post, the leader of the Wagner group strongly and publicly criticized Russia's approach to the war in Ukraine.

In an interview with a pro-war blogger in Latvia, Pergosa, called the war failures, saying, quote, we are in a situation where we can simply lose Russia. He also said losses from the war could lead to an uprising from the Russian people and he called for a totalitarian response from the government, suggesting Russia needs to, quote, live like North Korea for a few years. Well, if your job was on the floor, so was mine. I'm joined now by Mike McFaulich, the former U.S.

Ambassador Russia, her NBC News International Affairs Analyst, and our resident Kremlin knowledges. Mike, I couldn't believe what I was reading. I'm sure you felt the same way. How is this going to reverberate?

This feels like if anybody else had said this about the war and they were a supposed to put an ally, I would suggest they not go on an elevator higher than a second floor or third floor. Well, Chuck, most certainly in my email today, there were people joking along the lines you just described, because that most certainly can happen in this regime. These were shocking comments. It's not the first time he said these shocking things, but he continues to say them.

Remember, he's the commander of the Wagner group. They've been fighting in Bachamut for a long time. And just think about that for a moment. He's fighting a private army, is fighting alongside or with the conventional Russian armed forces.

That already has created tension between him and the Minister of Defense and the Commander in charge, General Karasimov. But now that he says this, this is the first time he said something threatening towards Putin. And I'm confused by it. I want to be clear.

I don't know what he's seeking to achieve with us. Analytically, I don't think he's accurate at all, but he thinks he's playing some kind of political game. I think it's a pretty dangerous one for himself. He really took a shot at the children of the, I guess, the Moscow elite.

I mean, he took a pretty direct shot at the Defense Minister, obviously, he was referring, I guess, to an Instagram post and all of this, of essentially saying, hey, the children of Russian leaders need to be participating in this war too. Like it's not something, you know, it was said in this country during Vietnam. So it's an interesting remark, but it seemed very personal and directed almost exclusively at the show group. My apologies.

Sure. Yeah. Well, definitely. That was very personal.

You're right. And they have a long history of animosity. Just to remind everybody. There's not the first time he's gone after showing you.

But I just don't know if he understands his audience back home. I think he thinks that there's a lot of nationalists just like him and Russia that just are so disappointed in the way they're fighting and they want to double down. You just reminded me of Vietnam. There's another way that society's going to react.

It's like, hey, why are we sending our children there? Maybe we need to pull out. And that's what happened in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan too. So I'm not so sure.

Pragoshan is so in touch with Russian society as he may believe. So what are we used to make of the Russian military right now? It turns out the Kremlin is not safe from rogue Ukrainian drones. The Kremlin has got backbiting taking place among its military leaders.

This feels like a rapidly deteriorating situation politically for Putin. And you know, I'm just curious how you think he's going to handle this? Well, in check to add to your list, you know, here at Stanford, when I teach about history, I talk about non-events because we don't talk about non-events in the press. We don't write books about them.

But the non-event of the last six months was the Russian offensive. You know, if you go back six or seven months, they were all waiting for it. And it petered out in buck moots and it died in buck moots. So you add it all up.

It does not look like a pretty picture. They're now waiting for the counter-offensive. Very mysterious what happened with these groups of Russians and I want to emphasize they were Russians that went back into Russia to liberate Russia from Putin in this town near Kharkif, Belgurad. This does not feel like a moment where Putin feels firmly in control.

And on the backdrop of that, everybody's waiting for the Ukrainian counter-offensive. If I were going to put that, I'd feel pretty nervous right now. So I mean, this, look, I don't want to, you know, as we all know, regimes take, you know, never end. And then they end quickly.

It's kind of like bankruptcy. You go bankrupt slowly, then quickly. Yeah. But a successful Ukrainian offensive does seem to put Putin in about as weak of a position as we have ever seen him.

Are we, should we think about the unimaginable that maybe he doesn't survive the year? We can think about it, but you're right. It's hard to predict. I do think history will record no matter what happens in the next year, that Putin's invasion of Ukraine was the beginning of the end of Putin's regime.

Right. Doesn't mean it's going to happen next year. It may happen five or ten years, but he overreached. This has been a disaster.

There's been no good outcomes. The economies and shambles. All the economic elites think this is a complete disaster. And nobody after this war is going to say, oh, we need another Putin 2.0 to replace Putin so that we can double down on this.

And I think for him, this is the beginning of the end of his regime, whether it's him himself, I think for in the long run, it's the beginning of the end. That's our Mike McFaul, the Kremlin Lologist, that I listen to the most. Good to see you, sir. Thank you for that.

I'm effective. And thank you all for being with us this hour. We'll be back tomorrow with more meet the personnel. NBC News now coverage continues with Hallie Jackson.

Right now. I'm Craig Malef. Cheers. Cheers.

I've always been a glass half-hole kind of guy. And now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way too. Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, their challenges, their stories are funny, and I can it. So I hope you'll join me each week.

Who knows? You might just come away with your own glass half-hole. Search glass half-hole with Craig Malefold from today.