Live updates: Trump to host AI leaders at the White House

President Donald Trump is meeting at the White House today with leaders of major U.S. artificial intelligence companies and unveiling a new AI-powered government website.

Save Add NBC News to Google Updated September 29, 2026, 10:22 AM EDT By NBC News What to know todayJACK SMITH HEARING: Former special counsel Jack Smith is facing questions today from the president’s allies in the Senate about his handling of his investigations into President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the lead-up to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.TRUMP AI MEETING: Trump is hosting tech leaders for lunch today to discuss the rapidly advancing development of artificial intelligence. The president will also unveil an AI-powered website today that’s meant to help Americans navigate government services.U.K. TERRORISM PROBE: Trump said he was “surprised” after British police released on bail five men who had been arrested in connection with a huge security operation near an air base used by the U.S. Air Force to facilitate strikes on Iran. NEW UPDATES7m ago / 10:22 AM EDTSmith asserts he won't speak about his family as Sen. Kennedy tries to attack his wifeSen. John Kennedy, R-La., tried to attack Smith’s wife in his line of questioning by asking if she is an “ardent supporter” of the Obamas.

“I’m not going to talk about my family here today. I’m here to talk about my work as special counsel,” Smith said.

Kennedy noted that Smith’s wife, a filmmaker, had made what the senator characterized as a “glowing” documentary about former first lady Michelle Obama, suggesting a political bias.

“I’m not going to speak about my family here today,” Smith said. “I’m happy though to answer any questions you have about my actual work as special counsel,” Smith said.

Asked if he had desired to be special counsel, Smith said, “I accepted the position as special counsel because I had spent 30 years as a nonpartisan prosecutor. I had investigated every sort of criminal case you could possibly imagine, and I thought I was qualified to do the job. I knew that I would do it independently, and I would conduct it the same way whether a Republican or a Democrat.”

Smith responded to attacks from Chuck Grassley and other Republicans about the special counsel’s office, under his leadership, obtaining lawmakers’ phone records as part of the 2020 election investigation.

Durbin said the records have been characterized as a wiretap, and asked Smith if he initiated any wiretaps of members of Congress.

“No, the records that we’re talking about are non-content records,” Smith. “The toll records are non-content records that we sought to corroborate evidence we had, and also to assist us in questioning witnesses about these events, among other things.”

Smith explained that the phone records were important and relevant to the probe because they helped corroborate other records the special counsel’s office had in the 2020 investigation.

Grassley had criticized Smith in his opening statement for seeking the phone records of 16 lawmakers.

Smith explained that the records were relevant, in part, because on Jan. 6, 2021, some members of Congress reached out to the White House to ask for help and stop the attack on the Capitol.

At his hearing, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, asked Smith if the special counsel’s office obtained possession of donor data and other financial information.

“Yes, we acquired financial information,” Smith said. “As I sit here right now, I cannot recite to you every subpoena we issued. I can tell you why we issued subpoenas, and it was to conduct a criminal investigation of one of the most serious crimes that’s ever happened in our nation’s history,” referring to the president’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Smith said in his opening statement that he stands by his decision to bring federal charges against Trump in the 2020 election interference case and the classified documents case.

“I made those decisions without regard to President Trump’s political association, activities, beliefs, or candidacy in the 2024 presidential election,” he said in his testimony.

“Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in serious crimes against our nation,” Smith alleged.

Show moreSmith argued that as special counsel, he followed the principles of not allowing “status, power, prominence, or political affiliation of the subject of an investigation” to play a role in the investigation or prosecution.

“The charges against President Trump were the result of the evidence,” he said.

Smith referred to personal attacks and threats against prosecutors and other public servants.

“I myself have been threatened with jail by the president of the United States,” he said. “However, I remain confident that the rule of law will endure because so many continue to uphold it faithfully each day throughout our legal system. Public servants have remained faithful to their oaths despite extraordinary pressure to do otherwise.”

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said in his opening statement that the GOP has spent months “spreading baseless conspiracy theories about Mr. Smith’s investigation instead of hearing from him directly,” referring to the 2020 election probe.

“Mr. Smith was tasked with investigating President Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and his unlawful retention and distribution of sensitive, classified documents after President Trump left office,” said Durbin, the ranking member of the committee.

Sen. Dick Durbin at the hearing today. Win McNamee / Getty Images

Durbin said that after Trump lost the election, he tried to “subvert the will of the people and steal the presidency.”

“How do we know this? The president said it. He called the election official in Georgia and asked him to find — find was his word — 11,780 votes,” Durbin said, referring to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Durbin added, “It is sad to see my Republican colleagues contort themselves to support President Trump’s lies. I expect that will continue today.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, alleged in his opening statement at his hearing with Jack Smith that the former special counsel ran a “corrupt operation” that “undermined the rule of law and threatened our very political institutions.”

Grassley suggested that Smith’s investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, which led to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, was not just about those issues, but also a partisan effort to target the Republican Party.

Sen. Chuck Grassley waits to hear testimony today. Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Grassley said Smith’s team subpoenaed records on GOP groups as early as 2019 and as late as 2023.

“You see, that’s what you must do if your case is designed to map out and target the entire Republican Party,” he said. “In the end, Smith indicted one person — President Trump — but in the process, successfully mapped out the Republican apparatus, a fact he didn’t put in his report.”

Three Democratic lawmakers penned a letter to the leaders of AI companies asking them to provide a list of times their AI agents tried to gain access to systems outside of their company.

The letter, first reported by Politico, was signed by Reps. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, Ted Lieu of California and Valerie Foushee of North Carolina, and it was addressed to Sam Altman of OpenAI, Dario Amodei of Anthropic, Elon Musk of SpaceX, Sundar Pichai of Google and Mark Zuckerberg of Meta.

“We are writing about the growing number of incidents in which AI agents developed by each of your companies gained unauthorized access to the systems of real organizations,” the lawmakers wrote.

The lawmakers pointed to the companies disclosing instances of their AI models improperly gaining access to outside organizations’ systems.

“In nearly every case, your companies alarmingly disclosed the incident weeks or even months after it occurred,” they wrote. “These are incidents that would constitute serious cyber crimes if a human was responsible. That is deeply concerning.”

The lawmakers asked that the companies detail times when models tried to or successfully gained access to outside systems, the impact of the breach and the timeline of the AI company notifying the impacted group, among other information. They also asked companies to provide information about how they will “safeguard against future breaches.”

One of the most prominent examples of an AI agent accessing an outside company was the July hack of Hugging Face. Hundreds of OpenAI agents allegedly hacked Hugging Face, and some of the AIs tried to cover up their involvement.

In recent weeks, industry insiders have warned about potentially catastrophic impacts of rapid AI development, prompting calls from AI critics to implement guardrails on the technology.

CNN, MS NOW and Politico filed a motion late last night asking a judge to extend his temporary block of the Trump administration’s effort to ban the three outlets from the White House.

The outlets requested that U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly set a hearing on their request for Oct. 8.

The White House did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment. The administration has argued that White House access is a “privilege, not a right” and alleges certain reporting from the outlets has compromised national security.

The outlets pushed back on the White House’s arguments in their filing, arguing they were not banned for national security reasons.

“Even after the White House Press Office letters and Defendants’ opposition brief invoked national security, President Trump has continued to justify the ban on the ground that he dislikes Plaintiffs’ coverage of him and his administration without even mentioning national security,” the filing said.

The three outlets also argued in the filing that they would “suffer irreparable injury to their constitutionally protected newsgathering and reporting” if the administration was able to reinstitute the ban.

The judge gave the Trump administration a Friday deadline to file its response.

Trump announced his ban on the outlets on Truth Social earlier this month, saying it was “a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!”

In his temporary restraining order last week, Kelly wrote that Trump’s ban was likely unconstitutional and the plaintiffs’ lawsuit would likely succeed on due process grounds.

In Georgia’s closely watched race for governor, Democrats always expected uber-wealthy Republican businessman Rick Jackson to flood the airwaves with tens of millions of dollars in ads, outspending their nominee, Keisha Lance Bottoms.

They didn’t expect her to go practically dark on the airwaves for the better part of September — a key stretch of the campaign — in the critical battleground state.

Trump has said he was surprised after U.K. police released on bail five men who had been arrested in connection with a huge security operation near an air base used by the U.S. Air Force to facilitate strikes on Iran.

Later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the incident “clearly involves the hands of a foreign actor” — an allegation that British officials have not confirmed.

“I would have said, ‘Don’t let them have bail,’” Trump said in the Oval Office Monday. “I’m surprised that they released them, I wouldn’t have done that.”

Trump also indicated U.S. officials were cooperating well with their British counterparts on the case.

“Look, they’ve been very good. They are working with us very closely,” he said, adding that the U.S. knew “everything” about the bailed suspects.

Police man a roadblock Sunday outside RAF Fairford. Justin Tallis / AFP via Getty Images

Former special counsel Jack Smith, who brought two since-dismissed federal criminal cases against Trump, is expected to face questions on Tuesday from the president’s allies in the Senate about his handling of his investigation into the president’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the lead-up to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Smith is set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee amid the Justice Department’s push to target law enforcement officials involved with Smith’s investigation into Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results as well as the probe into his handling of classified documents after he left office in January 2021.

As he brushes aside artificial intelligence doomsday warnings as a “hoax,” President Donald Trump will host tech leaders for lunch Tuesday to discuss the rapidly advancing technology.

Also Tuesday, Trump will unveil America.gov, a website that will feature an AI-powered tool meant to help Americans navigate government services.

In recent weeks, tech executives on the AI frontier, including OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, have sounded the alarm about the potential dangers of AI, calling for greater government oversight and global cooperation in regulating the technology.

Amodei will attend the lunch with Trump on Tuesday, as will Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and OpenAI’s Greg Brockman, said company and White House sources who weren’t authorized to speak publicly. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., will also be there.