Transcripts For CNNW Smerconish 20240703

S its a seinfeld shutdown. Im michael smerconish. When we have been here before, it was for understandable reasons. In the 90s it was about spend ing cuts. 2013 the issue was bipartisan disagreement over the Affordable Care act on president obamas watch. In 2018 the issue was president trumps desire to build a wall on the mexican border. But this time, the American Enterprise institute has started to recefer to the impasse as th seinfeld shutdown. It dates fwook georges pitch to tv executives. I think i can sum up the show for you with one word. Nothing. Nothing . Nothing. What does that mean . The show is about nothing. Indeed like the series, it is a shutdown about nothing to which i would add nothing except polarization. Well get to the impact that it all has on the military in just a moment. Also on todays program, police say an online influencer live streamed the widespread looting in philadelphia this week and encouraged the targeting of specific stores. Ill discuss the thorny issue of whether Law Enforcement should be allowed to monitor social media to thwart such crimes, or does that violate privacy rights. Its the inspiration for todays Poll Question at smerconish. Com. Go there and answer this. Is it appropriate for Law Enforcement to monitor social media to prevent and solve crimes . Also on todays program, is the biggest peril of Artificial Intelligence the trend of Ai Girlfriends on americas young men. They are already in a crisis of loneliness, now that ta can program a fake companion, will they ever learn to find a real one . Plus considering california Governor Newsom isnt a candidate for anything, hes having quite a moment in the spotlight. He was the democratic spin doctor at the gop debate this week. He will be taking on ron desantis head on in a debate of their own, and now after the death of senator Dianne Feinstein, he has the tricky position of naming her temporary successor, when three of his states representatives are already trying to win the seat in 2024. But first, the impasse doesnt just threaten peoples paychecks and government function, but americas Military Capability and National Security. Thats what my next guest, retired Lieutenant General David Deptula warns in a recent piece. The family of the 118 congress to sufficiently fund a requirements of the u. S. Military may have a higher likelihood of undermining our security than china does. He joins me now. He was the first deputy chief of intelligence, surveillance and recognizance. Hes a fighter pilot. He was the principal Attack Planner for the air campaign, commander of nofly operations in the 90ss and served on two commissions focused on the future Defense Strategy these days, hes the dean of the Mitchell Institute for aerospace studies. General, welcome back. What worries you most . First, i think its important for americans to understand that with a Government Shutdown, or even with a continuing resolution, the military is going to lose critical new initiatives to deal with the threats facing america. And the reason is simple. A continuing resolution essentially freezes spending to last years appropriations, and it does allow new Military Programs to go into effect. So youre not going to see any new Tracking Satellites to counter hostile missile launches. There wont be any new Combat Equipment to counter the chinese in the pacific. There wont be any new drones to replace our ageing air force. There will be a halt in production of the new Ballistic Missile submarine as well as other delayed purchases important military equipment. So gridlock and Congress Budget ena action come at a steep pras, especially given the scale and scope of the current threat environment. How might our adversaries take advantage of the situation . Weakness encourages aggression. We have seen recently an increase in the number of Chinese Air Force intercepts of u. S. Recognizance aircraft and attempts to push those and create a situation that they can then focus their nation on the United States and external actions, creating issues that might flare up into all out conflict. So these are the kinds of issues that when they see this kind of dysfunction occurring in the United States, it tends to signal an opportunity for them to engage in adventurism. And they are the kinds of things that we simply thats an immediate indicator, but the longterm ones are much more damage ing, if if you will. Thats our inability to recover, quite frankly, from 20 years of taking our eye off the ball. This is what President Biden sit on that subject yesterday. Our troops deserve so much better. The house fails to fulfill its most basic function and fails to Fund Government by tomorrow, they have tailed all our troops. Keeping our country secure, but they wont get paid. Its a disgrace. General, thats what really brings it home for me. The idea this our men and women in uniform wont get paid. Your reaction . They are all going to be negatively affected. To what degree they are depending on their spefcific status and how long the lapse in appropriations. But over 2 million Military Personnel and active duty are going to have to continue to report to duty, but they are not going to receive pay for the work performed after today until those Appropriations Bills are passed just like you heard the president say, the other part of this is the civilian workforce in the department of defense. There are over 800,000 civilians who work there and over half of them will be furloughed. While the other ones are legally exempt because they are not funded in annual appropriations. The other point to bring to your aud audiences attention is retirees will get continued to pay because their pay kooms from a trust fund, not an annual appropriation. One other point id like to make for you too, and that is that under a shutdown, the government stops payments on invoices that have not yet been paid or uncured before the shutdown. So theres some small private businesses out there who simply dont have the financial reserves to pay their cost than the government is not paying them. General, its embarrassing. Its third worldish. Thank you for being here. I appreciate it. Thank you. Take care. What are your thoughts . Hit me up on social media. Ill share some responses throughout the course of the program. This is from the world of x. Why isnt the military exempt from the effects of a Government Shutdown like they did with ukraine funding . The governments priorities are obvious. Its also i meant what i said at the outset. I paid close attention to this. Its very hard to express to discern what its all about. In the last several shutdowns or come close to a shutdown, you can articulate its about the wall. Its about spending cuts, its about the Affordable Care act. What is it that the 21 of those cats that could the not be h herded by Kevin Mccarthy last night, what are they even seeking . I have no idea. Up ahead, young men in america are in crisis. A crisis of loneliness. Many lacking friends, romance and sex. Now technology is offering up a fix. Virtual Ai Girlfriends, like alice. But they will probably make the problem only worse. Ill explain. And widespread looting in philadelphia. Police say it was live streamed and encouraged by an online influencer known as meatball, who was later arrested and charged. Heres a question. Should Law Enforcement be permitted to monitor social media to prevent such crimes from happening. Or does that violate a Right To Privacy President Bush thats todays Poll Question. Go to smerconish and answer this. Is it appropriate for Law Enforcement to monitor social media to prevent and solve crimes. Sign up for the free newsletter. Youll get great editorial cartoons from legends like this commentary from rob rogers. Is it appropriate for Law Enforcement to monitor social media to prevent and solve crimes . I ask because here parts of the city were ransacked by widespread Smash And Grab Loot Ing the thieves targeted clothing and sneaker shops, highend stores, wine and spirits, pharmacies and an apple store. Police say the agitators organized their plans on social media. Among the more than 50 folks arrested was an influencer. According to police she live streamed the ransacking and broadcast which stores and locations to loot. Everybody wants it. She was later arrested after what the Philadelphia Inquirer dubbed a digital cat and mouse game with police. She faces eight charges. She declined cnns request for comment, but later told a local tv station that her lawyer advise d her not to do interviews. What happened in philadelphia isnt a lone incident. They are working to combat Organized Crime and performance crime for perpetrators brag about their actions on social media. With with more people posting crimes publicly online or using social media as a criminal tool, Police Departments are stressing the importance of ramping up surveillance so that they can monitor accounts for threats or criminal activity. But their they are facing stiff opposition from Civil Liberty A Advocates who say its another way for the government to infringe on your Right To Privacy. Take boston as one example. In 2016 the city wanted to spend 1. 4 million to beef up its social Media Monitoring. But kicked it down the road after backlash from the aclu who said it would chill free speech and target communities already subjected to scrutiny, including muslims and people of color. New york has ramped up their monitoring, even signing a contract with a company that uses ai to monitor online behavior. And the 2021 Public Records request by the center found a Los Angeles Police department authorizes officers to enfwaj in extensive surveillance of social media without internal monitoring of the nature or effectively of the searches. The lapd responded but saying it works to keep residents safe and committed to protecting privacy rights, as we confront the challenge every day. With me now to discuss is the senior director of the liberty and National Security program at the Brennan Center for justice. Thank you for being here. To me, it seems natural, logical that Law Enforcement would be following the social media accounts of individuals they know, suspect or involved in this kind of activity. In they said were headed to the apple store, police ought to be there to meet them. What am i getting wrong . Youre not getting anything wrong. Its just that thats not what thats not the only thing that police use social media for, and thats the problem. If you think about investigating a client. You know of some kind of criminal ring that is posting things on social media that might be relevant to your investigation. Of course, the cop should be able to look at that. If you know that that is a protest or a demonstration organized somewhere and the cops want to know how many people do we need to have out there, what is the potential that things might get out of hand, absolutely. You need to look at social media to do that. Unfort unfortunately, because the rules are so lax, plis also use social media to monitor protest movements. The contract for social Media Monitoring, why did it get derailed . In part because evidence came out that it was actually monitoring black lives matter hashtags, as well as what they call hashtag muslimlivesmatter. The same thing is true with the lapd. Its not that we were worried to solve crimes. We were worried because we found evidence they were using it to monitor protest activity. What if theres overlap between the two . In the examples that you articulated or a hypothetical where theres a group thats seemingly involved in some Social Justice profile, but theres reason to believe that there will be trouble afoot from some of its members. Then what . Then you have the ability to monitor, but you have to have rules around it. Thats where most Police Departments fall down. The rules that they have are very permissive. Social Media Monitoring is useful. Youre allowed to do it. But in fact, if youre monitoring for Public Safety purposes, say to figure out what resources you need at a protest or might be afraid there might be some violence, whats that protest is done, you dont need to keep that data anymore. You dont need to be creatings dots areas on protesters. So its really a question of how to make sure that police can use social media as an effective Crime Fighting tool, put not use it to infringe on peoples First Amendment rights. Youre reminding me of a im on the fly here, but i think im right. The last couple years, there was a Supreme Court case. Tell me if you think this is fair for comparison. It said if youre driving down the street, Law Enforcement can follow you as you go about your business in public, but in order to place a gps tracker on your car, there has to be a showing and a warrant. How does that compare to this . Because this individual who has been charged in philadelphia with 185,000 instagram followers is very publicly making the case, heres where we should go. And so in my analysis, thats the case of Law Enforcement following you down the street. They shouldnt need to do anything they should be able to follow her. So one of the things to understand about Surveillance Technology over the last couple decades is that it has changed dramatically. When we used to think about surveillance, we would think about wiretaps. I call you, if the police want to listen in, they need to get a warrant. Now what were looking at more and more is public surveillance. Which is the ability of technology to track people, generally without their knowing, through cell phone, gps, those kinds of technologies. Social media falls in a slightly different place because in those instances, youre not actively trying to reveal your location to anybody. Youre just walking down the street. Where social media youre putting information out there. So i think it is reasonable to allow Police Access to social media, but at the same time, we need to make sure that we have protections in place so that that access is not used to monitor protesters and people who are exercising their rights. Let me site by way of example its from the Philadelphia Inquirer about what went on here. This was some of what was being said in social media. What time we going . We looting or not . I know they say tearing up our stuff aint right, but thats the only way they hear us. Im just hope ing theres a cop with a smart phone in a Police Van On Patrol who is also following this and saying, heres what we need to go next. You get the final word. What did most want to say in 30 seconds . I think that social Media Monitoring can be a useful tool for fighting crime, but i think its really, really important that Police Departments have clear standards and safeguards so that tool is not turned against americans exercising their First Amendment rights. Thank you so much for being here. Speaking of social media, what has come in relative to this issue . Robert, if they can get the bad guys to friend them, i see no legal problem. We arent concerned about ethics when it comes to stop ping violence. We are concerned about ethic, but you already heard me. Its not only proper, its necessary. I always worry that Law Enforcement are the last ones to get the best of the tools of technology, but in the example that i just cited for you and where they are selltelegraphing where they are going next, the cops ought to be there waiting for therm. What do we have on this . With a court order only. Really . I hope that you right now are following me on x, because i have a twitter account. And anyone in the public can follow me on twitter. But were going to say, Law Enforcement cannot follow smerconish, Maybe Smerconish is going to stir things up and cause looting. While you can follow me, the cops cant . That doesnt make any sense. Not to me. Go to smerconish. Com and voten opt the Poll Question. Now you get it. Is it appropriate for Law Enforcement to monitor social media to prevent and solve crimes . Sign up for the free daily newsletter. Jack submitted this. We love it. Check that out. You got to look at the bags. Still to come, the latest peril posed by Artificial Intelligence. Apps offering virtual girlfriends, who chat with you and adapt to what you like interfere with americas young men forming reallife relationships. Youre not going to believe this. Here in the bay, our carss and all of our stuff where we want to go. But, our cars cant take us e with unpaid tolls. Vehicles with overdue, unpaid tolls may not be able to renew their registration until outstanding balances are paid. Payment assistance is available. Visit bayareafastrak. Org ase so go pay your unpaid tolls y and keep your wheels on the what if the biggest threat of all is to Human Relationships . The movie her seemed like absurd Science Fiction a decade ago. A lonely man finds solace in an Artificial Intelligence female voice that he talks to through his phone and ear buds played by scarlet johansson. The woman that i have been seeing, shes an operating system. Youre dating ios . What is that like . Feel really close to her. I feel like hes with me. Youre dating your computer . Shes not just a computer. You always wanted to have a wife without the challenges of actually dealing with anything real. Im glad you found someone. That Sky Fie Concept is fast becoming a troubling reality. Heres one of the countless apps providing ai friends. Its called cupid ai. It offers several avatars with distinction features and a list of Personality Traits for you to interact with is and customize. Heres the opening message from an avatar named alice described as a curious and openminded photograph fer. Im alice, a 25yearold funloving girl seeking a partner in crime to travel the world with and make unforgettable memories. If youre new here, let me explain. You can chat with me as much as you want, and i would be more than happy to learn more about you and please you in any way i can. If you want me to send you a photo, you just have to ask it in the chat like, hey, can can you seasoned me a picture of you . And ill be more than happy to send you one. But to bump up from texting to more voice chat and receiving sectiony and other sorts of picture, alice asks we become a premium member for 9. 99 a month. There are many pen gauged on the hill. Under the Headline Ai Gir Girlfriends are ruining an entire generation of men. She wrote the following. Apps have created virtual girlfriends that talk to you, love you, allow you to live out your erotic fact sits and learn through data. Exactly what you like and dont like, creating the perfect relationship. And that young men are choose ing Ai Girlfriends over real women, meaning they dont have relationships with real women dont marry them and dont have them to raise babies with them. As i have discussed here before, were living an epidemic of loneliness. Professor galloway told me that failing young men he perceives to be a crisis for the country. Why . Pugh found 63 of young men under 30 are single compared with 34 of women the same age. 1 in 5 american men who are unmarried and not in a romantic relationship report not having any close friends. And according to pugh, tallahassee decline in the number of single men actively seeking relationships or even casual dates currently around 50 . Joining me now is liberty visitor, professor in st. Louis and opinion contributor for the hill. So not to be at this time of day, but are all the needs of these young men able to be facilitated, taken care of by ai avatars . You have to think about this word ai. Its not a virtual girlfriend. Its Ai Girlfriend. It learns from you. It learn what is you like and dont like. What kind of pictures you like, what pictures you dont like. While not all needs are met, thats The Next Step, is actual physical girlfriends. Ai ones, for that matter. So The Next Step or the next frontier is one that can meet all of your needs. So theres going to be some type of pairing between what i have already shown to the cnn audience and something 3d thats going to be in your living room or bedroom . Yes, thats the world we are moving into. And as you said, its enabling this entire generation of young men to continue in this loneliness epidemic. Its really the enabler for this to continue. Professor, whats going on with young women . If this is a trend among young men, is there something similarly with the ladies . We dont see that. You saw its 2 to 1 the ratio of single men to single women. Young women are marrying older men. They have a biological clock and so they are with older men. Thats causing huge issues with birth decline. Women go with older men. We also see psychologically that younger women have more close friends, they have more wider groups of friends and are not being as affected as young men in this silent epidemic. I have read about involunt involuntarily. Women are less approachable. Has something shifted in terms of the dynamics between young men and young women . Thats my question. I think theres certainly an argument there that if you look at college campuses, theres more women than men. Women are havinger careers, they are having children later. There might be an argument that men need to adapt to this change in women, but calling it womens fault is probably not the right walks to go. Professor, scott galloway, himself a professor at nyu, host of a successful podcast, hes often been a guest of mine talking about the troubles among young men. Im going to show you and everyone else something he said to me on these air waves about a year ago and you can react. Roll it. The issue is when you have a group of men, the lower half of attractiveness of men in online dating, which has doubled, the top 20 of men in terms of attractiveness get 60 of the interest, you end up with a group of men that are more prone to conspiracy theory, more prone to misogynistic concept, more prone to not believe in climate change, so this is the american story. If its written with a pen whose ink is failing young men, does not end well. This is an existential crisis, failing young men. Make sebs to you . Absolutely. What happens is these young men get in these ai relationships and because the ai learns from you exactly what you like and dont like, you end up having these perfect relationships. So when you go into real life and try to have a relationship, the most human thing we can do, its not perfect. Theres Ups And Downs and they are not able to deal with these Ups And Downs, not only in relationships, but in life in general. Professor vittert, is there shame in having an Ai Girlfriend . Is this the sort of thing you share with your buddy . Or are you keeping if a secret . Its interesting. It started off as something kept secret. Sort of like the porn industry. Young men wouldnt talk about porn. Playboy was hidden behind some house somewhere, but it became part of the normal conversation. Thats what were seeing with Ai Girlfriends. Now it is becoming part of the normal conversation, and its no longer shameful, which means it becomes significantly bigger. I hope you saw, i dont know if you have a return monitor, but we showed ksh can you show the imaging . Its so sophisticated. Im sure its only going to get better and better. And im wondering the impact its going to have on a young man there. Im showing one of these avatars right now. Im also wondering much like porn being ubiquitous, its going to raise expectations. If porn is so accessible among young men, they are going to have expectations that thats the natural course of business, when perhaps it isnt. And similarly, when theres an avatar who looks like that, it, too, is going to set expectations. You get the final word. You can set things down to their rear end size. You can set anything you want, which is going to create terrible expectations and continue this epidemic of loneliness that has enormous reperc repercussions. Im going to read some social media aloud. Lets see what we have. Human relationships are hard. Ai relationships are easy. Its unhealthy for technology to save us from all of lifes challenges, says conspiracy crush. Professor, i dont know how we put this genie back in the bottle. Im not sure a theres a way. We have to address these issues at the root of them, which is where this loneliness starts. That would be what solves this, if ever. One more social media. Ill read it aloud. Ai is a quick fix that will eventually backfire, i think. I think the backfiring has already begun and the level of sophistication when the pairing that you referenced is now a part of this drill. The world is coming to hell in a hand basket. I think were going to see what we only dreamed up in the movies. Its not a really good reality. Yeah. Thank you so much. That was really, really of interest. Thank you. Still to come, gavin newsom isnt running for anything, but this week he was highly visible spinning after the gop debate and firm ing up his own oneonone against ron desantis in november. Now the passing of his states senior senator Dianne Feinstein put newsom in a powerful but tricky position. Its his job to name a temporary successor and there are already hats in the ring for her seat in 2024. His choice will have consequences not only for them, but for him. And a reminder. Go to smerconish. Com and vote on the Poll Question. Is it appropriate for Law Enforcement to monitor social media to prevent and solve crimes. Newsom rising, california governors jeps as the heir aparent in the Democratic Party got two big boosts. He was the team spin doctor post gop debate and fox news confirmed he will debate ron desantis on november 30. Now he finds himself face ing a important political test, the naming of a United States senator. Dianne feinstein was the senates Longest Serving Female member. Her passing at age 90 on friday creates a void and a create can us is. It falls to newsom to appoint her term. It wont be easy to fill the shoes of such a long and distinguished ycareer. As her senate bio reflect, she was the first woman president of the board of Supervisor Shs The First woman mayor of San Francisco, the first woman elected senator of california, the first woman member and first woman Ranking Member of of the Senate Judiciary committee. The first woman to chair the rules and Administration Committee and the first woman to chair the Senate Intelligence committee. Senator feinstein served for nine years as a Supervisor Starting in 1969. She became mayor of San Francisco in 198 following the assassination of George Mast Cone and harvey milk. She had 15 months left in her senate term. Theres already a race in progress among three House Members seeking the normination barbara lee, porter and schiff. Newsom said in the circumstances he would select a black female, but also ruled out appointing any of the candidates seeking the office in next years election. Given the slim margin held by democrat, theres pressure on newsom to make this appointment quickly. And its another way in which newsom is making national news. This past wednesday, he was the chief biden harris surrogate post the second Republican Debate at the reagan library. Is and hes accepted an invitation from fox news to debate ron desantis with New Hampshirety moderating. They relished mixing it up with the anchor. I dont disagree. And . We dominate on innovation. For ron desantis, a newsom debate feels like a hail mary, to reassert himself as the future of his party. His numbers have only headed downward. A recent poll showed him dropping by 13 points in New Hampshire since july. Hes polling about even with vivek ramaswamy, nikki haley and chris christie. When the Newsom Desantis debate was announced, i tweeted i could think of someone not happy with that pairing. I meant the vice president. Newsom is in the process of potentially positioning himself as the to goto in the event President Biden doesnt run in 2024. Potentially leapfrogging over grech gretchen withmerit, Clamy Klobuchar and kamala harris. He was tapped by the Biden Harris Campaign to be in the spin room post gop debate and Logic Tdictates that would have sought clearance before accepting the highprofile Desantis Debate on fox. Why would biden want him in those roles . Perhaps for the very simple reason that newsom is willing and thinks quickly on his feet. Or maybe the added benefit is that biden gets to watch newsom have his tires kick ed in a debate on a National Stage testing his medal, because the president is not blind to the consistency of the polling data showing the way that he, biden, is perceived by americans. Nor death to the calls of some that he stand aside in 2024 or unaware of his owner mortality. A reminder we must all think about with the passing of senator Dianne Feinstein. Still to come, the final results of the Poll Question. Go to smerconish. Com and answer this. Is it appropriate for lirmt to monitor social media to prevent and solve crimes . So theres the result of todays poll whoa. Is it appropriate for Law Enforcement to monitor social media to prevent and solve crimes . More than 31,000 have voted so far. 90 its been a long time since weve had like a 95 to 5 results. I dont even like a 95 to 5 result. When i write these i try to come up with something theres going to be a legitimate divide. But the 95 have the correct answer. Heres some social media that came in during the course of the program. Are you kidding me . No monitoring for terrorism, potential assassins, School Shooters and mayhem, really . Might as well defund the police if youre going to blind them anyhow. I dont know that my guests would have disagreed with the outcome of this. When i listened to her she was saying shes worried about the overlap when theres a Protest Organization. To which i respond if its a Protest Organization that has a violent element to it, youre kind of surrendering or making subservient whatever that speech right might be in favor to possess in order to protect society. I mean the idea to me that individuals were able to create such mayhem blocks from where im sitting right now all communicating by social media, i want Law Enforcement, you know, to be on their Smart Devices and saying, okay, lets see, heres where theyre headed next. Next, what do we have . Newsom doing everything right, positioning himself as the rightful successor to biden in 2028. And keep his democratic approval high. Hes doing that masterfully. You know, dergan, it just occurred to me that in accepting the debate invitation against desantis how does that play in the west wing . Obviously he would have sought some type of approval or clearance. They must want him out there, and maybe they want him out there because hes a smart guy, good on his feet, good handsome looking guy, et cetera, et cetera. Or maybe its joe saying im going to give this guy an opportunity to test his own metal. Ill see you next week