Key Iran Negotiations About to Begin

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Beat with Ari Melber"

Episode: Key Iran Negotiations About to Begin

Date: April 10, 2026
Host: Ari Melber, MS NOW
Main Guests: Max Boot, Dr. Nikki Fox, Jelani Cobb, Thomas Chatterton Williams

Overview

This episode of The Beat with Ari Melber delivers a timely and multifaceted analysis of several major stories unfolding in the U.S. and globally. Central themes include the impending high-stakes Iran ceasefire negotiations led by Vice President JD Vance, turbulent U.S. domestic effects—especially rising inflation and consumer anxiety—directly linked to foreign policy decisions, and shifting objectives in the Middle East. The show also features original reporting and in-depth conversations about the dangers and regulation of Big Tech and AI, the cultural influence of Silicon Valley elites, and the tension between technological advancement and humanistic reflection. The episode concludes with live coverage of NASA’s historic Artemis II moon mission splashdown and a brief segment on Trump’s controversial plans for new D.C. monuments.

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Key Segments & Discussion Points

State of the Middle East Conflict & Iran Negotiations

(Timestamps: [00:47]–[10:53])

Context & Political Maneuvering

• The U.S. is heading into new ceasefire talks, with Vice President JD Vance leading the delegation amid speculation about internal opposition to the ongoing war.
• Melber highlights Vance’s attempt to walk a “MAGA tightrope”—balancing his opposition to the war with loyalty to the Trump administration, and noting strategic leaks in the press to shape public perception.

Trump’s War Management and Shifting Objectives

• Trump’s erratic messaging and lack of clear military objectives are causing strategic confusion domestically and abroad.
• The closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz by Iran has hurt global oil flow; normal pre-war ship traffic of 100+ per day is now reduced to “just a couple” ([02:56]).
• Inflation has spiked, directly undermining Trump’s prior campaign promises ([05:04]).

"The President of the United States ran on this idea that he was going to lower inflation in the United States. And between the war and tariffs, we are not there." — Ari Melber ([05:04])

Expert Analysis: Max Boot

([05:01], [06:54], [09:19], [09:36], [09:51])

• Boot, noted national security analyst, critiques the administration for failing to achieve core goals:
  • Iran’s military and nuclear programs remain largely intact.
  • Despite claims, regime change has not happened.
  • The Strait of Hormuz remains functionally closed by Iran.
• Boot calls the current situation “more like a capital D defeat than a capital V victory” ([09:51]).

"President Trump has not achieved his stated war aims...He has not eliminated the missile program. They were still firing missiles and drones right up until the second of the cease fire." — Max Boot ([07:22])

• Boot observes that U.S. easing of sanctions has inadvertently allowed Iran to profit more from oil during the war—echoing and surpassing deals Trump once derided.

Memorable Exchange

"Killing and bombing is different. It's tactical. That's different than winning." — Ari Melber ([08:33])

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Domestic Economic Impact & Public Sentiment

([05:01]–[06:54])

• High energy prices and crashing consumer confidence have reached “the lowest point ever… below Covid” ([05:01]).
• The administration faces powerful public backlash, as inflation and economic instability become politically toxic.

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Tech Billionaires, AI Control, and Regulation

([12:49]–[19:53])

The Threat from Unchecked AI

• Melber highlights the rapid growth of AI firms, with a focus on the opaque power of companies like OpenAI and Sam Altman.
• Ronan Farrow’s exposé and other journalistic investigations are underscored as essential checks on Big Tech’s secretive and potentially dangerous leaders.

"There's a strong desire to please people by Altman, but an almost sociopathic lack of concern for the consequences of deception." — Melber quoting a New Yorker board member ([13:41])

• Discussion centers on whether AI poses a true existential threat, or if that rhetoric is self-serving for both AI companies and politicians.

"If there is a chance of an existential threat...then yes, our society and your Government has a very good reason to try to regulate against that." — Ari Melber ([16:08])

Need for Democratic Accountability

• Legislation attempts by Sanders and AOC to regulate AI infrastructure are referenced ([17:11]).
• Melber criticizes Big Tech for removing ads seeking legal clients harmed by social media: “The technical term for that is it's pretty messed up” ([18:13]).

---

Roundtable: Technology vs. Humanity

([20:48]–[27:13])
Guests: Jelani Cobb and Thomas Chatterton Williams

Historical and Moral Comparisons

• Cobb draws parallels between the current AI power dynamic and nuclear arms history—lamenting the lack of ethical introspection among today’s tech elites.

"When we develop a technology that could have that scale of existential threat to human existence...does this person even have that sensibility?"—Jelani Cobb ([20:48])

• Williams reflects on the “adolescent Nietzscheanism” of Silicon Valley, with tech leaders scorning reflection and empathy ([22:37]).

"They openly disdain the kind of introspection...that allows you to extend empathy. We should all be highly alarmed by the kind of adolescent Nietzscheanism that is on display here." — Thomas Chatterton Williams ([22:37])

• Cobb warns about “technological barbarism”—high capability paired with low ethical reflection—comparing it to pre-WWII German scientific achievement ([25:08]).

---

NASA Artemis II Splashdown: Scientific Achievement & Human Perspective

([29:15]–[39:47])

Historic Return

• Live updates on the Artemis II return, covering technical details and awe at the mission’s scope.
  • Capsule re-entry: 24,661 MPH to 19 MPH in minutes.
  • Key risk: testing a newly adjusted heat shield, where failure could mean life or death ([31:54]).
• NASA’s Dr. Nikki Fox describes both the technical achievement and the personal/human element of real-time observation and scientific discovery:

"Just hearing somebody say like regular words—things like it looks like a black hole...was just a really incredible opportunity." — Dr. Nikki Fox ([37:45])

---

Breaking News & Cultural Footnotes

([39:47]–[43:25])

• Melber briefly covers breaking sexual assault allegations against Congressman Eric Swalwell, including the evidentiary status and Swalwell’s denial.
• Segment closes with coverage of Trump’s proposed “Arch” for D.C.—a monumental sculpture designed to outdo famed global landmarks, symbolizing Trump’s ongoing efforts at self-celebration despite unfinished promises elsewhere.

---

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• Ari Melber, on war aims:
  “If we had objectives about the energy markets, obviously we're worse than where we started.” ([02:59])

• Max Boot, on U.S. claims of victory:
  "They're able to claim it's a victory because the goals that Trump set for the war seem to change on a daily, even hourly basis." ([09:36])

• Jelani Cobb, on the need for introspection:
  “We are paving the path for highly technological barbarism.” ([25:19])

• Thomas Chatterton Williams, on tech billionaires:
  “I think these people behave in ways that most of humanity is not aligned with, yet the architects of the collective reality that's supposed to become aligned with humanity.” ([22:37])

• Dr. Nikki Fox, on Artemis II:
  “The first time that human eyes have seen some of those areas on the Moon, even brand new craters that have formed there since the Apollo missions.” ([37:45])

---

Important Timestamps by Segment

• [00:47] – Ari Melber opens with Iran negotiations and the impact of Trump administration policy.
• [05:01] – Max Boot weighs in on the consequences for U.S. policy.
• [09:51] – Boot and Melber dissect administration’s “victory” narrative.
• [12:49] – Shift to Big Tech, AI, and their political/regulatory implications.
• [20:48] – Roundtable with Jelani Cobb and Thomas Chatterton Williams on tech, power, and humanity.
• [29:15] – Live NASA Artemis II splashdown coverage.
• [34:43] – Dr. Nikki Fox elaborates on Artemis II’s significance and risks.
• [39:47] – Breaking news: Allegations against Rep. Swalwell; Trump’s proposed D.C. arch.

---

Tone and Language

The discussion maintained Ari Melber’s signature style: incisive, skeptical, legalistic, yet accessible, combining hard news reporting with conversational analysis and expert perspectives. Guests like Max Boot and Jelani Cobb brought intellectual rigor and historical framing, while Thomas Chatterton Williams added cultural critique.

---

Conclusion

This episode offers an essential snapshot of a critical week in U.S. foreign and domestic policy with sharp analysis of how decisions reverberate from the Strait of Hormuz to the White House, through global markets and into the everyday lives of Americans. The conversations on AI and Big Tech move beyond technical issues to societal and ethical concerns about power, responsibility, and the future of democracy—complemented by moments of wonder and anxiety about mankind’s journey, both through history and into space.

Transcript

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[Ari Melber]

welcome to the Beat. I'm Ari Melber. We encourage you to keep it locked on msnow. Obviously for this program, you're here with me already. Why not just keep it going? But also for our coverage tonight that Nicole was just talking about, it really is something extraordinary. We also have several things planned for you tonight. A report coming up on what you need to know about AI, about the tech billionaires cozying up to Trump and what we can do about it. I've got some great guests here, including Jelani Cobb on the rules for the big tech. As for looking at the sky, well, as you heard, Artemis 2 will splash down tonight and that will make history. History that, as Nicole was just saying, we can share together. That's the good news. We also have to face what's happening on this earth, which remains divided and at war in the Middle east because of choices made by President Donald Trump without consulting the Congress. The American public in a war that he increasingly is trying to wind down or get out of. The United States is preparing for new ceasefire talks here this weekend in Pakistan. Vice President Gantz will lead a delegation. He is on a kind of a MAGA tightrope. He's been voicing opposition to the war for weeks, according to to leaks in the New York Times and other outlets that make you wonder in that tight, usually national security protected circle, who is it that keeps wanting everyone to know that if this war doesn't work out so well or is already unpopular, JD Vance was against it? Well, the Times doesn't reveal its sources. You'd have to just be an expert at politics to ask the question, cui bono? But there are people clearly pushing the message that JD Vance will help get us peace and didn't like this war to begin with. Some articles say it's the highest stakes assignment of his career. And you saw he was just boarding there. Here's what he said before getting on Air Force Two. We're looking forward to the negotiation. I think it's going to be positive. We'll of course see. As the President of the United States said, if the Iranians are willing to negotiate in good faith, we're certainly willing to extend the open hand. If they're going to try to play us, then they're going to find that the negotiating team is not that receptive. So we're trying to have a positive negotiation. The President has gave us some pretty clear guidelines. That's pretty standard talk, really. If you're a diplomat or a senior government official, nobody's going to say they want to be played. Of course you have to go out and do these meetings. For the United States, the problem really is advances. It's been President Trump. The buck stops with him waging this war without clear objectives. Indeed, if we had objectives that were clearly stated, such as completely disarming Iran, we haven't achieved them. If we had objectives about the energy markets, obviously we're worse than where we started. And so without knowing what the United States actually needs or wants to get out of this war, in order to leave the war on a policy level does put everybody in a tough spot. Trump's saying there's a reset, but he's also loading up ships with the best ammo, the best weapons ever made, better than what we did previously. He goes on to say, if we don't have a deal, we'll be using those weapons. Trump also told the New York Post that they will ramp up attacks as needed. This continues what has been widely derided as a kind of erratic set of messages from the President. When you look at the oil market and the choke point at the Strait of Hormuz, it's mostly closed under Iran's leadership. This week we have a time lapse, the last day, which gives you a quick summary of how few ships are making it through. In normal times, before Trump started this war, you'd see up to 100 a day. Here you have just a couple there dotting around. That's courtesy of a traffic site that monitors the energy markets. Oil prices are high. There was a dip over the ceasefire, you can see, but still much higher than where we were. And that is raising prices on Americans. We're now at a two year inflation High. Remember, that was the very issue Trump campaigned on against Biden, who had his own inflation problems. But now we've got wars of choice. Policies the president could do or not do that are stoking the high prices. We also seen consumer confidence crash to its lowest point ever. This is actually below Covid. Buckle up. These are some weak numbers.

[Max Boot]

Consumers are being stressed by higher energy prices.

[Ari Melber]

The President of the United States ran on this idea that he was going to lower inflation in the United States. And between the war and tariffs, we are not there. Another very extremely low level on expectations.

[Dr. Nikki Fox]

First true picture of what the conflict has done to the inflation story here in the United States.

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Inflation rose to 3.3% in March, the hottest reading in two years.

[Ari Melber]

Gas prices are up. All prices are up under inflation. The oil markets are roiled. You don't have to be a Mideast expert to see that, broadly speaking, the American consumer, with this crashing confidence, is in a worse place than before the war began. That doesn't mean nothing has been achieved. There are folks who think that Iran got away with too much for too long. It is considered a kind of a pariah among many of its Gulf state neighbors. If you had a popularity contest, Iran would be one of the least popular countries and regimes. It's the same regime. Trump hasn't changed that in the modern world that we live in. But that doesn't mean that this war, the way that Trump has waged it, is helping the United States interests, the United States public, or even our regional allies. I want to bring in Max Boot, senior fellow for National Security Studies, Council on Foreign Relations, Washington Post columnist, a veteran of so many of these debates. And you're not pure dove, at least over the course of your decades. Right. You're not a pacifist. And I think you. You're not known as a pacifist. And you and others would speak clearly about what is wrong with, with Iran. I want to be careful to give that nuance. There's a lot wrong with that government. The policy question always comes back to how is this policy working? Your view of that today as we go into the talks this weekend under Trump?

[Max Boot]

Well, I mean, you're right, Ari. I mean, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that it's an evil, awful regime in Iran that slaughtered tens of thousands of its own protesters earlier this year. So, you know, this is a regime that we want. We want to see him lose this war. But unfortunately, I don't see them losing the war right now. They have no doubt suffered major Damage, no question about that. They've lost a lot of military resources. They've lost a lot of economic resources.

[Josh Einaggar]

We.

[Max Boot]

But President Trump has not achieved his stated war aims. He has not eliminated the missile program. They were still firing missiles and drones right up until the second of the cease fire. He has not eliminated the nuclear program. They still have nearly 1,000 pounds of enriched uranium, which the US has not gotten out of the country. He has not ended the regime, in spite of his ludicrous attempts to claim that regime change has already occurred, when in fact what's happened is there have been some personnel changes at the top, but it's the same regime. And now what's really calling and upsetting is that as a result of this war, Iran has basically closed down the Strait of Hormuz. The Strait of Hormuz, which is the waterway through which 20% of the world's oil passes. It was wide open when this war began, and now it's basically closed, except the ships that the Iranians want to see passing through there. And President Trump is remarkably cavalier about something which is a disaster for the global economy. He's basically saying, oh, well, it'll open up naturally. You know, he's not perturbed that he said that the ceasefire which they announced this week was predicated on Iran allowing free and full passage of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Clearly, that hasn't happened. And yet

[Ari Melber]

he was shown up. He was either lying then because he just wants to sell a vision, or he was shown up. Both are just different types of problems. And I'm just curious what you think of the way the Pentagon in the United States under Trump has as officials claiming things that clearly are not the case, because, yes, our military is effective, but killing and bombing is different. It's tactical. That's different than winning. And yet they're claiming that we've already won, which would be news to the public. I just showed all of the problems. Here's those claims. Operation Epic Fury was a historic and overwhelming victory on the battlefield. A Capital V military victory.

[Max Boot]

Over the course of 38 days of major combat operation, the Joint Force achieved the military objectives as defined by the President.

[Dr. Nikki Fox]

This is a victory for the United States of America that the president, in our incredible military made happen.

[Ari Melber]

Max.

[Max Boot]

I guess they're able to claim it's a victory because the goals that Trump set for the war seem to change on a daily, even hourly basis. So almost anything that happens can be marketed as a victory. But, you know, when you have Iran shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, and it's still shut.

[Dr. Nikki Fox]

All right.

[Max Boot]

I want to emphasize that that looks more like a capital D defeat than a capital V victory to me. They're going to have a very hard time spending this unless the Strait of Hormuz opens up again, because you're going to see the impact. You've already seen the impact on oil prices, but you're not going to see oil prices come down if the current condition remains in effect. And now there are suggestions that the Iran basically want to get paid for opening up the strait, whether they're going to be paid by ship owners or whether they're going to be paid by getting billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets back. Either way, this is a very bad look for an administration that was castigating, you know, people like President Trump were castigating President Obama for, you know, giving 1.6 billion or whatever the figure was in cash back to the Iranians. And they're giving far more. They've already given more because they've relaxed sanctions on Iran. So Iran is, is actually making money out of this war. I mean, they're suffering a lot of damage, but just in terms of oil sales, they're making more money from oil sales now than they were when this war began. I mean, how is this an American victory?

[Ari Melber]

Yeah, when you lay it out, it is. It's nonsensical. And it all comes, it's all coming downhill from wanting to claim things. So he posts about the ceasefire. That's how we started the week, essentially. And it doesn't matter the days later. We don't have the opening, as you mentioned, and we're all paying the high prices for it. Max moot. Thank you. Good. Good to have you kick off the program. And as we look at the negotiations this weekend, I'll tell folks that Nicole and I started the hour discussing the splashdown by Artemis. You're going to see that on the news tonight. Still ahead, scrutiny on Trump's plans for a massive arch, more efforts to celebrate himself. But next, we turn to one of our special reports. I'm very excited to present this to you as we look at what Democrats are doing to fight back against Big Tech. If you feel like AI is coming for your jobs and the phones are coming for your kids, we put something together to present this to you with two very special guests. When I'm back in 90 seconds.

[Josh Einaggar]

Why have I asked my electrician I found on Angie.com to bury my pet hamster?

[Ari Melber]

I was so moved by how carefully

[Josh Einaggar]

he buried my electrical wires. I knew I could trust him to

[Ari Melber]

bury my sweet nibbles after his untimely end. This is very strange.

[Jelani Cobb]

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[Ari Melber]

we're living through intense times. We have an accelerating pace of change and people have grown accustomed, it seems, to this life of the instant Internet information world that we have, the constant phone usage and remarkable but also clearly dangerous technology that's coming at us and coming at our jobs. We know tech billionaires increasingly run the stock market and our economy. They partner with the Trump White House, and many of them dictate everything from how AI will remake the job market to deploying lethal missions at the Pentagon. We mention this site because there's more and more information about what's going on in what our largely secretive, still often privately held AI companies. They might be more important than a lot of the companies on the stock market, but they're not transparent and governed that way. Take this new investigative report about one of the biggest AI companies backed by Microsoft. You've probably heard about ChatGPT. It's from OpenAI and journalist Ronan Farrow, who's at the New Yorker and at one point used to work here, draws on more than 100 interviews, including several with Altman and Private Notes and other internal messaging systems, to look at how this increasingly powerful person operates. A board member telling the New Yorker that there's a strong desire to please people by Altman, but an almost sociopathic lock of concern for the consequences of deception. They say he's basically unconstrained by truth. There are internal memos that allege he was deceiving executives about safety protocols, which is a big deal when you think about how sweeping these companies are and their impact on the rest of us. Now Alton's company is pushing back a bit. They told one outlet that the piece is basically rehashing previously reported material sourced from people with agendas. And that's just some of the investigative pressure on what at least some evidence suggests is a liar running a very important company. Meanwhile, Altman's also in the news because police arrested a suspect reportedly throwing a Molotov cocktail at a gate near his home. So you can see there's a lot of different pressures and different scrutiny on the people in charge. I mentioned that the markets are largely cut out of this because AI might be one of the fastest changes to how we get information, which affects, of course, news media, democracy, but also how we all work and live. You might look up in a couple years and find these companies haven't even gone public, but they've wiped out millions of jobs. And the question becomes, do we get a say about this in this democracy before it is too late, before all those jobs are gone, or these billionaires are even more powerful, with a stranglehold over our information and our phones and what our kids watch? And I'm not trying to be alarmist. I'm just saying this is all happening now. It might be too late by the time everyone wakes up, which is a point that some Democrats are now making. We need to develop a sense of urgency here. If we are not careful, this is a type of technology that will overpower

[Josh Einaggar]

us and the people will never forgive us for that.

[Dr. Nikki Fox]

All of this harm has occurred not in spite of, but because of the

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absence of federal legislation to regulate AI.

[Ari Melber]

There is literally an existential threat to the existence of the human race. We need to make sure the AI revolution works for all of us, not just the tech billionaires. Sounds fair. Some of that sounds pretty sensible. And there is plenty of big talk. The AI companies almost seem to like stoking the idea that what they have is existentially threatening because it makes it sound more important and makes them more money. If people think it's really that big a deal, and some politicians from Trump to Sanders, exaggerate or oversell, we're familiar with that. And they talk about the existential threat as a reason to get more support for their agenda, including regulating these companies. Now, here's the way I'm going to put it, because I'm going to try not to have an agenda like either of those forces, the billionaires and the politicians. I'm just going to tell you, as someone who follows the news and law, that if there is a chance of an existential threat, let's call it a 10% chance, then yes, our society and your Government has a very good reason to try to regulate against that. If this is a existential nuclear level threat, and now let's say one rung down, let's say it's not an existential threat to everything. Let's just say that it risks 10 or 20 million jobs in America. Again, if there's a non zero chance of that, don't you want your government looking into this? Sanders and AOC have introduced a bill to at least try to regulate the proliferation of these data centers for AI. So there's better regulation, and that's going fast. And there's billions literally pouring into that. Meanwhile, there are other levers. It's not just Congress, especially when you look at how few things Congress gets done. We do have civil courts in this country and we've reported on this program about how Facebook's parent company and Google had to pay millions when they lost this a case over how their products are hawked to young people and how addicting they make them. Axios has found that Meta, the Facebook company, is deliberately removing ads for attorneys who seek clients harmed by social media on Meta. The technical term for that is it's pretty messed up, but all is not lost. Journalists like those I mentioned are reporting on this, and we have to do some heavy thinking about this much concentrated power. There's a longtime writer in this space, Elizabeth Spires, who also points out the anti intellectualism of some of these tech billionaire elites, that they target knowledge from elites below that would include writers and the media and the free press. A bedrock conviction among the oligarchs, she argues, that they've mastered everything and have nothing left to learn. Or take the Atlantic writer Thomas Chatterton, who says there's a problem with what he calls powerful men who think any introspection is dumb. America's tech oligarchs are, he argues, pathologically unreflective. They see it as a waste of time to look inward and consider what makes a life worth living. Humanity, equality, diversity. The things that many people think are important in a society, he notes. The people who seem least interested in introspection are those whose work is most profoundly shaping our reality. Mr. Williams, who I just quoted, and our friend Jelani Cobb are here for a special conversation on this next. We need to develop a sense of urgency here. If we are not careful, this is a type of technology that will overpower

[Josh Einaggar]

us and the people will never forgive us for that.

[Dr. Nikki Fox]

All of this harm has occurred not in spite of, but because of the

[Prolon Advertiser]

absence of federal legislation to regulate AI.

[Ari Melber]

There is Literally an existential threat to the existence of the human race. We need to make sure the AI revolution works for all of us, not just the tech billionaires confronting big tech and AI before it's too late. That's what some liberals there, you saw, are calling for. And we have a special conversation on this tonight. I invited two people who've thought about a lot of these issues. Thomas Chatterton Williams is an Atlantic staff writer, quoted his piece. And Jelani Cobb is dean of the Columbian School of Journalism, a staff writer for the New Yorker. Welcome to both of you. One of the problems with talking about tech is sometimes you only end up with the techies. And while they know the tech part, which is cool, and I've had some of them on here, I wonder if the human part is as or more important to humans. And so I'm curious what you think of this massive power and how tech billionaires, or AOC calls them oligarchs, increasingly have control of our economy, our labor markets, our sources of information and journalism.

[Jelani Cobb]

There are a couple things here, right? One, when people start talking about existential threats, the first thing that you reasonably go to is nuclear arms. You know, these are controlled by governments. These are not just kind of random corporate entities that all have control of nukes. But when we develop a technology that could have that scale of existential threat to human existence, we see people have seen the film Oppenheimer. We see that he is wracked by guilt and torn up by the implications of what he's done, even as he's done it in the midst of a war that posed its own series of threats. And so on the part that we don't talk about, we think, something we thought about during the Cold War, we don't think about very much since then is that Oppenheimer's Soviet counterpart, Andrei Sakharov, had a similar experience, engineered the Soviet atomic bomb, and then said, this is the weapon that we should never use, and spent the rest of his life fighting for human rights and arguing against nuclear proliferation. And so that is the kind of character, the kind of person that you want to at least have some sort of moral concern about what the implications of this kind of weaponry or technology can be on the other side. Which is why I thought Ronan, of course, is like, you know, my colleague at the New Yorker. So maybe I'm not an unbiased source, but I thought Ronan's piece on Sam Altman was really interested. Interesting in exactly that regard, because they're asking, does this person even have that sensibility? Does this person have that kind of consciousness about the powers of the technology that he's in charge of?

[Thomas Chatterton Williams]

Well, it gets at one of the main problems with this era when you contrast it with the type of stewards of nuclear weapons and nuclear technology. You have a class of people that have amassed more power and wealth in individual hands than have ever been in such small possession. And they don't just. Just ignore this kind of stewardship, but they openly disdain the kind of introspection and self awareness and reflectiveness that allows you to have a kind of theory of mind for others and extend empathy. And I think we should all be highly alarmed by the kind of, the kind of adolescent Nietzscheanism that is on display here, where it's just act and then forget a strong man does. A weak man sits around and stews and thinks and worries and apologizes. I think these people behave in ways that most of humanity is not aligned with, yet the architects of the collective reality that's supposed to become aligned with humanity. It's a strange paradox.

[Ari Melber]

It really is. And I feel as someone who's living in the news every day and we're obviously covering all these big things, and yet this is one of the big things that's just outside of you, but it's really big. And you inspire, as I quoted in this setup, because you're both looking at what you mentioned, which is, what's the framework for these people? She goes on to write that many of these Silicon Valley elites believe deep intellectual work has no value. They disdain for it, and it's fueled their attacks on higher ed humanities learning for its own sake, which they believe has no purpose beyond digitization and monetization.

[Thomas Chatterton Williams]

One of the things that really struck me in this week that we've been talking about the New Yorker profile of Sam Altman, is a 2018 piece in the New York Post where it was reported that he had joined a wait list to digitize his brain. The catch is that the process kills you. So he's willing to part with his biological life to make himself a PDF filer to become a living chatbot. It's terrifying, but this is the person that's actually the architect of the reality we're all going to be stuck in and they're making decisions. There's no democratic process where we get to weigh in and say that. I mean, most of us, I would venture to say, would not be comfortable having physician assisted suicide to become a machine.

[Ari Melber]

Yeah, well. And Jelani, this goes back to what I showed from the Congress. We have more rules in federal law for trains than for AI.

[Jelani Cobb]

Yeah, that doesn't surprise me because also we have this kind of ethos that is so severely anti regulation, especially around technologies like this. But I want to go back for a second to something you said. When you're talking about the disdain of. For anything that smacks of self reflection or it is seen, you can see that manifesting itself in the way that we laud STEM now in disdain the humanities. And I'm all for stem. I believe that these things are important. But also, if we don't understand who we are and we don't understand humanity, what we are paving the path for is highly technological barbarism in which that's the hallmark of the Nazis. What we saw people who were technologically sophisticated but anchored to ancient bigotries that they never could bother to analyze to understand what they were and the ways in which they corrupted humanity. And so this is not to say, like, there's no one who has countenanced this, but. But at the same token, where do you think James Madison got these ideas that are in the Federalist Papers when they're talking about the nature of humanity and how you build a democracy such that you counterbalance the things that have corrupted human beings for time immemorial that comes from that sense of understanding or self reflection or pondering these kinds of philosophical questions they seem to have no interest in.

[Ari Melber]

Yeah. And it is interesting to discuss on a week where we are following the splashdown and the, the prospect and the payoff of technology when you can go all the way out to space and go around the moon. But what is it for? Right? It's not for clickbait. It's not for monetizing. It's not that you go around the moon to come back and say, can we make more money off of this? That's a public private partnership that we might advance our sense of purpose. Right. Our understanding of our galaxy. And so there's something very limiting I think both of you are gesturing at, which is why we want to have this convo. Thomas. And thanks to both of you.

[Thomas Chatterton Williams]

Thanks, Ari.

[Ari Melber]

Appreciate it. We have a look at Donald Trump's desire to keep building even as he loses in the courts. Get a load of this beauty. And we are now, I can say, officially 90 minutes away from the splashdown of Artemis 2. We've got all those stories for you on the beat and Ms. Now through the evening. Stay with us.

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[Ari Melber]

A final Wake up song there for the Artemis 2 crew. They're making their journey home. We are a little over an hour away now from that return to Earth. The capsule and crew will Splash down around 8:07pm Eastern Time right into the Pacific off the coast of San Diego. We have the live pictures from inside the Orion capsule. Everything looks to be proceeding as planned. You can see the crew, you can see the flight suits on. It is really remarkable. Now. The mission has been historic. They left it up. They left. I should say they did lift off 10 days ago from Florida. They went to the farthest distance humans have ever traveled away from Earth and without incident. They went around the dark side of the moon. The Pink Floyd anthem coming to life. They came back home. The round trip distance all in is over 600,000 miles as I mentioned at the top of the hour. These are the kind of statistics and photos and realities that are really hard to comprehend or put into words. You think about your flight across the country. If you go New York, Louisiana, 5,000 miles. What does it mean to go 600,000? Well, to help us we have Josh Einegar Ms. Now senior reporter live at the Johnson Space center in Houston, Texas. Tell us what we're watching here, what you're keeping an eye on. The concern about the heat shield and how they're going to get down safely tonight.

[Josh Einaggar]

Well, first of all, Ari, it's good to be with you. I want to just give you another head scratcher. When you talked about, if you think about a trip across the country, how long it takes when it starts to penetrate the Earth's atmosphere, it'll be about 1700 miles away from the west coast of the U.S. kind of close to Hawaii, and it'll cover almost all of that distance in six minutes. So there's one for you. We're looking at the heat shield and that's. It's pretty fast.

[Ari Melber]

I don't want to put you on the spot, but do we know, do we know how many miles. How does that, how does that count it. Do you know roughly how you count that miles per hour or whatnot?

[Josh Einaggar]

Well, so what they're doing is. Yeah, I actually have that here. They're going to be at the beginning of that process, traveling an estimated 24, 661.21 miles per hour. That's Mach 33. And they're going to be eventually going 19 miles per hour when they actually hit the surface of the Pacific. And that all happens in, you know, a matter of minutes, which is just in and of itself hard to wrap your head around.

[Ari Melber]

Yeah, it's extraordinary. So what are we going to see? I mean, a lot of folks have been interested. What are we going to see over the course of these 70 minutes?

[Josh Einaggar]

Yeah, so what we're going to see a whole process of very technical things. But that right there, that animation from NASA, that's what everyone is so concerned about. That's the phase as they reenter the atmosphere. It's about six minutes when. And they're going to hit their peak velocity at that point and there's all that friction. They'll be riding a fireball down to Earth basically at temperatures somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Another thing to think about that's kind of amazing just to ponder. And the issue there has to do with what they call the heat shield, which is, of course, what lines that surface of the Orion spacecraft and is supposed to protect the astronauts inside. And if there's any compromise in that heat shield, it really could mean the difference between life and death. That is that serious. And in the first Artemis mission, which was not crewed in November of 2022, when they inspected the heat shield, there were problems with it is a model, forgive me, this is Apollo 11. They were out of Orion models when we looked. But it's relevant because the heat Shield actually was first used this particular technology in the Apollo missions. And it looks more or less similar to the way the Orion capsule looks. And this is the surface, and it had all these little pockmarks and damage to it. And it sparked several years of debate and controversy among NASA scientists. Should they redesign the heat shield or should they do other things to make it safe? And they determined that they were going to change the trajectory of the way Orion, the space capsule, was going to hit the atmosphere. Because the problem the last time was that they kind of were skipping along the Earth's atmosphere in an attempt to bleed off that energy. And the determination in the end was that that put too much stress cumulatively on the heat shield. And so now what they're doing is they're just going to just directly attack the atmosphere, which will potentially expose it to higher individual temperatures, but for a much shorter period of time. And NASA scientists do think that will make the difference and will protect the integrity of this heat shield, which ultimately they are going to redesign. But it's a process that would take so long, it would have significantly delayed this particular mission. And they are confident that this is a fix, at least for now. So we will see in the next hour as this process gets underway. We should see them splashing down at 8o, 7 and 7 seconds Eastern Time.

[Ari Melber]

All right, awesome, Josh, thank you. I want to turn now as we, as we look at this, to Dr. Nikki Fox, Associate Administrator from NASA Science Mission Directorate. She's one of the administrators who gave that go ahead for the original Artemis II mission to move forward. Her team also helped train astronauts to be a kind of flying geologist, including conducting tests out there. Welcome.

[Dr. Nikki Fox]

Thank you so much.

[Ari Melber]

Pretty exciting night. I have plenty of questions, but just. I'll hand you the floor. Having been so involved, your thoughts and feelings right now.

[Dr. Nikki Fox]

Oh, my goodness. Every time I see. I can't believe we're actually looking inside the, you know, in real time into the capsule. It's incredible. I really enjoyed your segment, just watching them and seeing what they were doing. It's such a historic day. You know, we can't wait to have our astronauts back. I, you know, obviously, selfishly, I can't wait to hear more about what they saw on the moon when they did their observing campaign. And we have our science experiment in the capsule with them that we'll be unloading on Saturday. So very, very exciting, all the work that we have ahead of us, as well as welcoming them back.

[Ari Melber]

NASA has this video. We want to show a little bit of it. It's basically about what the splashdown should look like. Let's take a look at that. There were problems with the capsule. Their biggest concern, the heat shield. Its epoxy resin tiles were meant to melt and vaporize. Taking heat away from the Orion and

[Dr. Nikki Fox]

the crew enter Earth's atmosphere at a speed of nearly 25,000 miles per hour. Orion's heat shield protects the spacecraft from temperatures of about 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. 3 forward bay cover parachutes first separate the protective thermal cover that sits over the chutes. Two drogues slow and steady. Stabilize the crew module, then cut free. Three pilot chutes lift the three main parachutes deployed at an altitude of 9,000ft. After traveling more than 595,000 nautical miles, Orion splashes down in the Pacific Ocean.

[Ari Melber]

Tell us about this. And what is the scientific and logistic difficulty of this phase as compared to what we've all been awed by, which is hundreds of thousands of miles of space travel?

[Dr. Nikki Fox]

I mean, I think you just heard it. It's a challenging piece of the mission. This is all of the calculations, all of the things all of our engineers have been working on to ensure that the crew have a safe entry and splashdown into the Pacific. I mean, certainly we've talked a lot about the heat shield, the change in the trajectory to actually bring them in at a steeper angle so that they come through that region much quicker. For me, I think it's going to be the loss of contact with them when they're in that region. And so that's when everybody has their heart in their mouth as you're waiting for them to come out and reestablish contact. But these astronauts are the best of the best. They have trained for this. They have trained so hard for this. And I know there could not be four better humans to actually do this final part of the mission.

[Ari Melber]

And in conclusion, what have we learned and what are the things NASA and the United States hopes to get out of this mission?

[Dr. Nikki Fox]

So there's many things. One, of course, we've done a full test of the Orion capsule. This is the first time we've sent astronauts inside this. So it is a new spacecraft for them. It is the first time in over 50 years we've sent astronauts to that far side of the moon, indeed anywhere near the Moon. The observing campaign was just spectacular. The first time that human eyes have seen some of those areas on the Moon, even brand new craters that have formed there since the Apollo missions. We know that the far side of the Moon is peppered with micrometeorites. And so with these new bright craters appearing, of course, one of them being named for Reid Wiseman's late wife, which was beautiful and bright shining crater for her. But, you know, just actually hearing them describing in real time what they were seeing, it sounds silly, but just hearing somebody say like regular words, you know, not describing them in a scientific way, but things like it looks like a black hole. It looks like if you felt if you stepped in it, you'd go right through the moon. You know, the description, Victor talking about how jagged the line was between where there's sunlight and no light and how we were able to see some incredible features there that I'm not, you know, yes, you can analyze images, yes, you can look at data. And that's what scientists do. But having that real time track and listening to them say, hey, that over there is really interesting, was just a really incredible opportunity. I will say selfishly, as a solar scientist, I was particularly excited about the total solar eclipse because that's very, very unusual for them to be able to see that. And that was really spectacular.

[Ari Melber]

Well, wonderful. I mean, I think people are just so interested in all this. But to get again, some of the expertise from, from your work and your link to this, I appreciate you joining us, being part of our special coverage night, which as I've told folks will continue all the way through the splashdown. Our thanks to Nikki, Dr. Nikki Fox, of course.

[Thomas Chatterton Williams]

Thank you.

[Ari Melber]

We're going to finish a break and when we come back, we'll try to explain that. We have breaking news about a serious set of allegations against Congressman Eric Swalwell. A female former staffer of his has told the San Francisco Chronicle that Congressman Swalwell sexually assaulted her. She asserts this occurred twice, including when she was too intoxicated to consent. The Chronicle says it has been able to corroborate the allegations by reviewing evidence, texts and speaking to a friend of hers and a boyfriend whom she told contemporaneously. This is a major set of allegations against a major figure, a Democrat and candidate. We can note that Swalwell is denying the allegations and he had a lawyer for his team. Also send the woman a cease and desist letter. This comes at a critical time for his candidacy because he is not only in Congress but also running as a Democrat for governor of California. Big story. And we wanted to get on record with that report. We'll be right back. There's a lot going on, but we did want to show you this. I mentioned it earlier in the hour, a first look at A supposed rendering of Donald Trump's arch. This is from Harrison Design. You can see. Probably get this out of one of those AI tools. But this is the US government's plan under Trump. 250ft. The image is filed Friday by the Interior Department for the Commission of Fine Arts. That's a group that has to deal with Washington, DC's architectural matters. But Trump has stocked it with allies. Again, he hasn't brought down prices or fulfilled some of the other promises. But apparently more than other presidents, he figured out that if you want to put up weird, big, golden things in dc, you better stalk the commission with your buddies. According to the Washington Post, the proposed arch would actually be bigger than the one that it might remind you of, the Paris Arc de Triomphe, something that Trump touts because he's constantly comparing the size of buildings. That's one thing he's consistently done his whole career. The designs show the arch would say one nation under God in gold, and then have that kind of extra Lady Liberty statue. You can decide for yourself whether you find that to be a nice touch or a bit of Trumpian overkill. But this would stay in the city in a major way. If you've ever been near Washington or watched those inaugurals and other parades, you know that there aren't a lot of high rises. So if you put in a giant, tall arch that's bigger than the one in Paris, we're all going to live with it for a long time. He wants to put it between the Lincoln Memorial and the Arlington Cemetery. It would be twice the size of the Lincoln Memorial, and it would, of course, be associated in all of its gold glory with him. A kind of a way to put something out there that would make people think of Trump. The White House also asking a court if they can resume construction on the $400 million ballroom project at the White House, even claiming that it is a national security necessity after they lost an earlier round in court. The White House will be using foreign steel to build the ballroom because, well, it's not an America First Ballroom. Apparently, that is the lighter architectural note we end on. But as promised, Ms. Now has you covered on the splashdown. Keep it locked.

[Dr. Nikki Fox]

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[Ari Melber]

Find a pro for your [e-mail].