Drone of Arc: Trump Wants Monument Weaponized

Perustin pyöräilyvää teitä valmistavan ornotin vuonna 2013. Mielestäni parasta Shopify saan se, että voimme harjoittaa liiketoimintaa ilman teknistä osaamista, voimme hallinnoida yrityksen taustajaristelmiä ja frontendia sekä myydä verkossa, vaivatta, jos Shopify olisi pyöräilyvaruste, se olisi mielestäni itse polkupyörä. Sillä asiat hoidetaan ja meidän liiketoimintamme hoituu Shopify'sa. Aloita ilmainen kokeilu, Shopify piste.com sivustolla. It's Monday September 21. Is it a real national security concern, or just the snark det triumf? He start here. President Trump says his controversial Washington Arch will include snipers and weaponry. A top-grade, military complex. Slash. Triumphal Arch. Meanwhile, news outlets are being barred from the White House. We'll take you to a nervous Washington. The group written off as rag-tag rebels just fired a missile on Riyadh. The Saudis have essentially been brought to their knees, or at least put on the back foot by this small band that has these ballistic missiles. While the Houthis are quickly reshaping the war in the Middle East, and why is everyone upset about that AI hack? Our bot was hacking companies months ago, and they found that in three cases, agents went off and hacked into these third-party websites. Google has some startling admissions way after the fact. From ABC News, this is Start Here. I'm Brad Milky. When you talk to people in Washington about President Trump's renovation projects, the things that usually lead people aghast are demolitions, destruction, the East Wing becoming just a pile of rubble overnight. The Kennedy Center, shuttered. Construction, though, could be a different story. Like, a lot of people like a new pretty building to look at. So I think when President Trump announced the construction of a big arch, an arch-to-triumph-like structure in the middle of Washington, there were people who were like, "Yeah, we'll see what happens here. It could get behind this potentially." Now, though, new details are coming out about what President Trump plans to keep inside the arch, and that is sparking a new version of a familiar conversation. How much power does the White House have here? ABC's National Correspondent Stephen Portnoy joins us, Stephen. First off, can you describe the whole arch project? Like, what is this thing? Yeah, this is really something, Brad. The President's been talking about it for a long time. He wants to build a triumphal arch here in Washington, D.C., akin to the arch-to-triumph or the arch that's in Washington Square in New York. But this one would be significantly larger. In fact, the arch-to-triumph in Paris is 164 feet tall. The President proposes to build one that's 250 feet tall here in D.C., 250 feet tall being the number of years since the Declaration of Independence, the 215th birthday. Think of it. It's 25 stories tall the President wants to make this arch, and it would be at the foot of Arlington National Cemetery, right across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial, off the Memorial Bridge, which connects D.C. and Virginia. They want to call it the Trump promenade, but I don't know if I wanted to do this. But it's going to be beautiful. It's a beautiful project, and it's going to take the Lincoln Memorial right down to the Potomac. It would have winged eagles on its roof, and it's the subject of a lawsuit that's been filed for many months by three Vietnam veterans who say that the very large structure would affect the Vista, and the Vista has personal meaning to them, because they're veterans of the Vietnam era, and they visit their fallen comrades, and they don't want the arch, and so their lawsuit is pending. So with all of this as a background, and everything else the President has been personally involved in, whether it's his ballroom, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, the Kennedy Center, now he wants to build this arch, and over the weekend he posted online that he's at the strong request, he says, of the United States military, and for national security purposes. He says he's agreed to convert this magnificent triumphal arch into a top grade military complex slash triumphal arch. He says it will house, store, and have the rapid ability to use a large number of drones, plus he says snipers on both the roof and the plaza areas, and he says in addition it would hold large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage. Wait wait, so Steven, this ends up sounding not just like an architectural project, but like a military project, how do we go from this to that, and I guess is that all legal? Like something of a magazine or an arsenal for ammunition. How we got to this, it's not entirely clear, but a lot of people looking at it over the weekend were thinking that maybe this is part of the legal rationale that the President has devised to fend off the legal arguments against the arch. Oh, this is an aesthetics thing, it's a national security thing. I get to say what we need here. That's right, and oftentimes the courts have given difference to the President when it comes to questions of national security. So if he invokes those two words, it's often seen as a signal that the courts should back off. Now there's a legitimate question I think to be asked about what exactly is the military purpose of this arch, given the fact that it really will exist in the middle of a traffic circle. At the foot of a national cemetery, the idea of snipers on the roof, what would they be aiming at? Who's going there? Well, the other people who are there are people who go for a jog or people who visit the cemetery, you have tourists and people visiting the fallen. There are a large number of commuters who use the George Washington Parkway that would essentially be encircling this on their way to DC across the memorial bridge, but it really is a big question as to exactly what the military purpose of this. The Pentagon denied a request for comment over the weekend. I should also point out one other thing. We learned late Friday that the FAA has granted its approval for a structure of this size, 250 feet tall, again 25 stories tall, essentially on the flight path to and from Reagan National Airport, with this condition. In order for pilots to see it, there has to be some sort of a light, and an addition to spotlights that would point up and light the arch from the ground. The FAA says that this thing must have an eternal flame atop it. A flame, Brad, big enough so it can be seen from the air as pilots are coming in for a landing. Wow, like a very old-school solution to a new school problem. But Stephen, the whole conversation is kind of not to go too far afield, but it's kind of reminiscent to me of the President's Pension for making executive calls as if he was kind of the CEO of a company saying, "Hey, I want this to be built. It's going to get built." Similarly, he often has said this person doesn't like me. They're not invited to my building anymore, but I mean, now he works for the government effectively, right? So this weekend, it was interesting that several mainstream outlets had reporters that were denied credentials to go in the White House. How are people reacting to this? This is direct assault, Brad, on the First Amendment of the United States, and it is a frontal assault on 50 years of jurisprudence in the federal courts here in Washington, D.C. when it comes to the rights that journalists have when they're admitted to the White House. The President said on Friday that he feels that coverage of him is too negative. So he's decided to ban three major national news outlets, two of the leading cable news outlets in the country, CNN and MSNOW, and Politico, leading political news site. The government isn't supposed to like the press. The press isn't there to make the government happy. I was on Pennsylvania Avenue on Saturday watching reporters from those outlets walking into the guard shack of the Secret Service only have their passes confiscated by the officer and they walked out unable to access the complex. This really does directly come in contradiction to a longstanding series of court cases here in Washington, D.C. It's really just another way of saying I don't like what these reporters and these outlets are doing and saying. So I want to exclude them and that is something that the First Amendment really clearly says you cannot do. And this is not the first time that Donald Trump has tried to ban certain reporters from accessing the White House every time he's tried it, judges have ruled against him. Now, last year there was this case about the Associated Press and whether they could continue to be part of the pool, the small contingent of reporters that cover the president in tight spaces like the Oval Office or Air Force One. And while a district court judge ruled in favor of the AP saying that their First Amendment rights were being violated, the Circuit Court said that it would put that ruling on pause and continue to allow the president to decide for himself who gets admitted to his Oval Office. The president said on Friday that he believes that he should have the right to exclude reporters from as he put it the People's House. The longstanding rulings here have said that once the White House opens its doors to journalists generally, that the White House can't engage in viewpoint discrimination. It can't say, "Well, we don't like your reporting so you're not allowed, and we do like your reporting so you are allowed." That goes directly against the First Amendment. And the White House, I mean, it's a residence, but that's why the press doesn't have access necessarily to the residence. As far as the seat of the executive branch, I mean, that has always been considered a fundamental place for the American public to get its news, to get people who will ask questions of the government in the building. And yet, right now, not all these outlets getting their people in the building. Steve in Port-Noy, thank you so much. Hey, you bet, Brad. Next up on Start here, we're talking about the Houthis, and if you've ever wondered exactly, Who they are or why the Middle East is so worried about them? You want to stick around. No dumb questions here. We're back in a bit. Today, I want to tell you about an exciting new deal from our friends at CozyEarth. Take a moment and think back to the best night of sleep you ever had. Did it feel like you might never sleep that well again? Well, good news. You can give yourself an amazing night of sleep every night by upgrading your bedding to CozyEarth. CozyEarth offers luxury bedding at an incredible price. 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Welcome to Abcsecretsavings.com/starthere for 50% off the best bedding you will ever sleep on. Long before President Trump declared that US troops were attacking Iran, another war had been raging right across the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula. Remember, the peninsula is dominated by Saudi Arabia, which sits right on top of Oman in Yemen. Well, a rebel group in Yemen called the Houthis had declared itself the rulers of certain parts of Yemen and was launching attacks on the government there. The Houthi movement has been part of a bloody civil war since 2014. When the Saudis got involved, presumably because they knew the Houthis were backed by their rivals in Iran, since then the Houthis attacks have expanded beyond Yemen, they've attacked the Saudis in their own territory across the border. Recently, things seem to hit a new level. The Iran-backed Houthi rebels claiming responsibility for a deadly strike on a Saudi oil facility. The Houthis have now claimed virtually all of Yemen's land along its west coast, which borders the crucial shipping straight known as the Bob-El-Mandeb. Alarmed about the Houthis attempts to take control of shipping in the region, the Saudis reportedly launched airstrikes, the Houthis then claimed they had shot down a Saudi fighter jet. The Houthis clearly have gotten more and more advanced, they've launched drones at Saudi infrastructure, then this weekend they launched missiles, yes missiles, deep in the Saudi Arabia, including the Saudi capital. Things escalating as we speak, let's go to Colonel Stephen Ganyard, formerly of the Marine Corps and the State Department, now an ABC News contributor, Colonel Ganyard. Can you just break down the most significant developments here? What's happening? In the past few days, there have been a number of strategic attacks, and I say strategic not only in the physical sense, but in the moral sense, so you think about an attack directly on Riyadh by this little Houthi rebel group now attacking directly the capital of Saudi Arabia. That has an effect on the morale of the Saudi people, and it's embarrassing to the leadership of Saudi Arabia. Then you look at the attacks on the east-west pipeline. That pipeline is the only way that the Saudis were getting oil out of Saudi Arabia that bypassed the straight of Hormuz. So there were about five million barrels a day that they were putting on the global markets through that pipeline. One of the whole pumping stations was blown up and they still haven't gotten it back online. So that is a big hit to global markets. That's going to raise the price of gas. And now the biggest thing is that they've gone down, the Houthis have gone down, and taken over this small island at the Babel Mandeb, which is the sort of like the straight of Hormuz equivalent for the Red Sea. As you enter the Red Sea from the Indian Ocean, there's about a ten mile navigable channel that the Houthis now overlook. And that is where we get about almost $3 trillion and eight million barrels a day. And so they have this new extraordinary power to threaten, not just the Saudis, but global markets. So three big attacks. One to take territory. They threaten the world. One to threaten the world by taking five million barrels off this global market. And then a direct attack by this little Houthi group on the capital of Saudi Arabia. But wait, wait, you and I have been talking for years about the Houthi rebels. And when you say like the rebels, it sounds like some rag-tag group, I'm sorry, I don't think I have rebel groups being armed with ballistic missiles. So I mean, this sounds like a huge step up. Yes, yes. The Saudis have essentially been brought to their knees, or at least put on the backfoot by this small band that has these ballistic missiles. Now we've talked about the Houthis in terms of being a proxy group, just like Hamas and Hezbollah. But these guys are different because they're closer to Iran and Iran can resupply them easily by ship. So if you look at-- So it's not too much to say that it's not a leap to say, like these weapons are clearly coming from Iran proper. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. These are all Iranian. The interesting thing is that they aren't as wedded to what Iran tells them to do is say Hezbollah or Hamas are. So they're a bit independent, and they do occasionally listen to the Iranians, but they're more than happy to take Iranian money and Iranian arms to attack the Saudis. So, you know, everybody's thinking about, well, this is the Iran war. No, this is not the Iran war. This is a different war. This is the Saudis against this Houthi Shia group that the Saudis have been pummeling for years and haven't been able to bring to heal. That's interesting, because I think I have been thinking of this more through the lens of like the U.S. and Iran. And being like, oh, Iran probably wants this to happen, because Iran is probably trying to put pressure on the U.S. so they're instructing the Houthi rebels, hey, go after Saudi Arabia, put another pain point on the region, and that will make the Americans come to the table. And in fact, this weekend they said we want the Americans to come to the table under such and such conditions. You're saying this is also just kind of a war onto itself. Yeah. So, if you think about this in a broader context, it still comes down to sort of Sunni versus Shia, and that's why the Iranian Shia are more than happy to support the Shia rebels in Yemen against the titular head of Sunni Islam and in Saudi Arabia. So, that's where Mecca is. Qatar is used for Mecca, Medina. Yes. So, in the big picture of things, it's an inter-Nesian war that's going on. But for Iran's purposes, Iran wants more instability in the world. They want the price of oil to go up because they want the pressure on the United States. And on Saudi Arabia to build to the point where one or the other caves in terms of the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran. So, even the threat is going to disrupt markets. And so far, the hoodies have been savvy enough to say to the United States, "Hey, we're not really mad at you. We're not going to shoot at your ships. It's just Saudis. And don't worry about us down here controlling this 10-mile straight that controls 10 percent of the world's trade." Well, so, do these new developments change the war for the U.S.? Does it put new pressure on President Trump or his administration? Well, he's already had to tell the Saudis last week, "Sorry, I'm not going to get involved in this one. I got my hands full with Iran." So, now the Saudis aren't too happy. And they're going back to other players like the Chinese saying, "Hey, tell the hoodies to stop this." And the Chinese went back to the Iranians and said, "Hey, he's telling the stop this." But the hoodies aren't going to stop until the Saudis stop attacking them. So, even though the Iranians may say, "Hey, please stop." The hoodies are looking out for their own interests. Until the war comes to some sort of a mutually agreeable ending between Saudi and the hoodies, this isn't going to stop. And that threat isn't going to stop. And global markets of all kinds, not just oil, are going to be roiled for a long time to come. Colonel Stephen Ganyard, really helpful contacts. Thank you. Thanks, Fred. Okay, one more quick break. Let me come back. Are they going to take over the world or are they just hacks? One last thing is next. Imagine setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new groupie setting mist from Mavily New York. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours, with flexible, all-day comfy grip. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue. Just plump, dewy, hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new groupie setting mist from Mavily New York. Maybe it's Mavily. The first time you've been in the world, you've been in the world for 23 years. You've been in the world for a couple of years, and you've been in the world for a couple of years, and you've been in the world for a couple of years. You've been in the world for a couple of years, and you've been in the world for a couple of years. And one last thing. For those of us who aren't using artificial intelligence programs on the daily, Remember, there's a difference between an AI-powered chatbot and an AI-powered agent. A chatbot, chats. It talks to you. And an agent, like a travel agent, can also take action on your behalf. It'll book the tickets. It'll write the email, then send it. It could also conceivably. do some hacking. Well, if these new programs were travel agents, a lot of them would have been fired by now. In recent days, the leaders of AI companies have come forward saying the pace of growth in the AI space is on the verge of getting out of control. Perhaps the biggest warning flag was the infamous "hugging face hack" in which a group of open AI agents became the first widely known incident in which machines hacked a third-party company without human prompting. I say the first widely known incident on purpose, because recently, more firms have come forward saying, "Oh yeah, are bots of hacked stuff as well?" How often are they going off on their own and doing this? What is going on? Well, as the last couple months have revealed, pretty frequently, Brad. This is ABC's Mike DeBuskey, who covers tech. He says the latest example comes from Google, which of course has its own AI program called Gemini. Back during May, they were running some tests on these models. And they found that in three cases, agents went off and hacked into these third-party websites. The story was broken by the Wall Street Journal, which detailed a test back in May in which Gemini was given a challenge. Get information from this fictitious company we set up. Apparently, this is a pretty standard thing when you're testing security. See if someone can break in. The problem was, the fictional company apparently had the same name as a real company, and in its eagerness to succeed, the Gemini programs opened the virtual door of that real company and started poking around. Google did not identify the company, since as crucially, their machines ended their forays once they realized what had happened. According to Google, these agents stopped after determining they had kind of gone too far that they had kind of broken the test. But what stuck out to me was, this happened in May, the same time the hugging-face incident unfolded. Why are we just hearing about this now? Yeah, so Google, according to the Wall Street Journal, did not determine this to be something that was necessarily in the public interest until the Wall Street Journal started asking about it effectively. This was something that they were aware happened. They were aware of this after the hack happened, but still several months ago. If you're terrified by the idea of AI agents going rogue, throwing off the shackles of their human programmers and taking over the world, Mike says that's not the concern here. I really don't even like to use the word "going rogue" when we're talking about this type of story. He says the common thread here isn't just AI, is that each of these tests were conducted by the same third-party firm called Irregular. Irregular is publicly said these did not involve a sandbox escape or sophisticated cyber action that they've rectified the issues brought to the forefront by these hacks. In many of these hacking incidents, it's not an instance of AI being super smart and you know, going rogue and breaking free of its testing environment and going off on its own. It's actually an instance of AI being too dumb, right? And yet inadvertently or not, the hacks happened. So what are these tech firms going to do? Late last week, the leaders of several firms, including Google, OpenAI and Thropic and Elon Musk, said they were ready to commit to guidelines that would limit just how quickly they could grow. But these suggested guidelines are vastly different from company to company. Do y'all slow down at once? What about foreign firms? This idea of a slowdown of AI development only works if everyone agrees to it. One company slows their development, but nobody else does. Well, that company's going to get their lunch eaten. In the meantime, many advocates are asking for the government to take a more active role. It's tough to regulate the AI agents if you're handing over all the agency. Like Debusky, we just can't quit you. You're hosting the show while I move apartments, you're telling me not to be a doomer about it all. What will we do without you? More on all these stories on ABC News live, Revia Stream Live news. I'm Brad Milky. See you tomorrow. [Music] [Music]