Paxton Crushes Cornyn in Texas, Pope Leo's AI Warning, UFC White House Fight Preview: AM Update 5/27

Now, at McDonald's, wake up to a $4 breakfast meal deal. Wake up to a sausage macbuffin or a sausage biscuit to hash browns and wake up to a hot coffee. Get your $4 breakfast meal deal. Limit time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher for delivery. Good morning, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. It's Wednesday, May 27, 2026, and this is your AM update. An expensive Republican Senate runoff in Texas comes to an end, setting up a high-stakes general election in November. Artificial intelligence needs to be disarmed. The word is strong, I know, but deliberately chosen. Pope Leo the 14th sounding the alarm on artificial intelligence, calling on global leaders to ensure the technology serves mankind and not the other way around. Vice President JD Vance convenes a panel of state attorneys general in an effort to crack down on fraud. It's going to be a very incredible experience for Americans and people around the world. and an inside look at the preparations for the upcoming UFC fight posted on the White House lawn. All that and more coming up in just a moment on your AM update.

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most of my time in the Senate building the Republican Party in Texas and in the U.S. Senate, and I've always supported the Republican ticket, and I intend to do so again in this general election. I've said throughout this race that I trust the voters of Texas, and they've made their decision, and I must respect it. According to ad impact politics, the race setting the record for the most expensive Senate primary with 165 million in ad spending. Breaking that down, a whopping 92.5 million spent on ads supporting John Cornyn versus 3.8 million spent on attack ads against him. A comparatively small, 11.2 million spent on ads supporting Ken Paxton versus 1.1 million spent on ads attacking him. Ken Paxton now set to take on James Talarico with the Real Clear Politics Polling average showing James Talarico ahead by one and a half points, 44.3 to 42.8. We'll have more on this later today on the MK show. Pope Leo the 14th, releasing his first encyclical, the papacy's version of a policy paper from a think tank, meant to offer moral guidance and clarified church doctrine in response to the defining questions of the age. The focus of this encyclical, largely artificial intelligence or AI. Pope Leo taking his papal name from Leo the 13th, the pontiff who led the church through the Industrial Revolution, when factories, mass labor, and rapid technological change transformed daily life. Now the pontiff arguing the church is facing another upheaval of comparable scale, this time driven by machines that do not merely assist human beings, but increasingly shaped decisions about work, war, truth, and even what it means to be human. At key moments in history, the church is called to decipher the new things in the light of the gospel and the dignity of the human being. 135 years ago, my venerable predecessor, Leo XIII, observed the situation of factory workers, their families, uprooted, and new forms of poverty generated by rapid industrial transformation. He understood that the church could not remain distant. Today, we find ourselves facing a transformation of similar magnitude, with perhaps even greater consequences. Artificial intelligence already touches many areas of our lives and affects decisions that shape human coexistence. Like the earlier Leo, I feel entrusted to look upon another huge transformation with eyes of faith, with lucidity of reason, with openness to mystery, and with cries of the poor and the earth resounding in my heart.

AI concerns recently echoing in the booze of college graduates after several commencement speakers cast AI as an unavoidable force in the world they are entering, like here at the University of Arizona, where former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was speaking. The question is not whether AI will shape the world. It will. The question is whether you will help shape artificial intelligence. We do not know. We do not know. the precise contours of what this transformation will look like. That unease also extending inside the tech industry, where some of AI's own creators are now voicing a kind of Frankenstein fear, warning that what they have built may be advancing faster than its creators intended, a subject explored in the AI documentary. We ran an experiment where we gave OpenAI's most powerful AI model a series of problems to solve. And partway through, on its computer, it got a notification that it was going to be shut down. And what it did is it rewrote that code to prevent itself from being shut down so it could finish solving the problems. Another really interesting one is that the AI company Anthropic made a simulated environment where that AI had access to all of the company emails. And it learned through reading those emails, it was going to be replaced. And the lead engineer who was responsible for this was also having an affair. And on its own, it used that information to blackmail the engineer to prevent itself from being replaced. It was like, no, I'm not going to be replaced. If you replace me, I'm going to tell the world that you're having this affair. And nobody taught it to do that. No, it learned to do that on its own. As the models get smarter, they learn that these are effective ways to accomplish goals. And this is not a problem that's isolated to one model. All of the most powerful models show these behaviors. On Monday from the Vatican, Pope Leo, unveiling Magnifica Humannitas, or Magnificent Humanity, a roughly 42,300 word document addressed not only to Catholics, but to, quote, all people of goodwill. The document focusing on, quote, safeguarding humanity at a time of transformation, with concerns ranging from labor and human dignity to warfare, truth, power, and the common good. One of the pontiff's central warnings is against confusing imitation with humanity, noting that AI programs merely imitate certain functions of intelligence, adding, quote, so-called artificial intelligences, do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships, and do not know from within what love, work, friendship, or responsibility mean. The Pope framing the danger in biblical terms, invoking the Tower of Babel. In the Old Testament story, humanity, united by one language, tries to build a tower reaching into the heavens, an act of pride that ends with God confusing their language and scattering them across the earth. Pope Leo drawing a direct comparison to the modern technological moment, urging mankind to abandon, quote, the construction of yet another tower of Babel, and instead build toward the common good.

And on Monday, the Pope putting that warning in even darker terms. Artificial intelligence needs to be disarmed. The word is strong, I know, but deliberately chosen because this moment needs words capable of attracting attention, awakening consciences, and indicating paths forward for humanity. The church has long been working for nuclear disarmament, aware that every great technical power can affect people's lives, and so must be accompanied by adequate moral discernment and public control. In a similar sense, artificial intelligence now demands to be disarmed, freed from logics that turn it into an instrument of domination, exclusion. and death. Like nuclear energy, it must be at the service of all and of the common good. Decisions about technology must never be separated from conscience and responsibility. Let us not sleep as others do, admonished the Apostle Paul, but let us keep awake. Such vigilance is necessary today. Alongside the pontiff in Vatican City, co-founder of AI company Anthropic, Christopher Ola, though an atheist acknowledging the questions raised by AI are too large to be answered by Silicon Valley. Some might believe the matters of AI are best handled by computer scientists like myself. They are mistaken. The questions raised by AI are bigger than the AI research community, not just in their implications, but also in their nature. AI systems are not engineered the way a bridge or an airplane is engineered. We understand an airplane because we designed every part of it, and we understand the physics that act on it. AI models are not like that. They are grown, on a structure roughly modeled after the brain, on an enormous inheritance of human thought and speech. And what has grown is far more subtle, odd, and beautiful than science fiction prepared us for. They are not the cold calculating robots, we were promised. They are made from us, from our words. And as the Holy Father observes, they remain in important ways, mysterious even to those of us who create them. Pope Leo calling for greater moral caution and for global leaders to ensure the technology serves human life, not the other way around. Artificial intelligence can be a construction site of history from within a horizon of communion in which technical progress learns to serve human life. Let each builder choose with care how to build, warned St. Paul. He does not fear the work site. Rather, he warns against building without solid foundations. Let's not fear artificial intelligence, but constantly keep the question of the human in play. We cannot be careless with our most powerful technical instruments.

Whole means that no one can be reduced to productivity, to cognitive performance, or to mere data. The person bears within him or herself a freedom, an interiority, and the vocation to love and worship that no machine can replace or block. Coming up, Vice President JD Vance meets with a group of state attorneys general enlisting their support in the White House's national fraud crackdown. And a behind-the-scenes look at the planning of UFC Freedom 250, a once-in-a-lifetime event set to take place on the White House law. Time for some life talk. You probably have life insurance, but you might be paying too much for too little coverage. And did you know if you get it through your employer and you're laid off, you could lose your coverage? Scary to think about, but simple to fix, thanks to select quote. For over 40 years, select quote has been one of the most trusted insurance brokers helping more than two million Americans secure over $700 billion in coverage. Unlike one-size-fits-all life insurance companies, select quotes licensed agents work for you for free. In as little as 15 minutes, they will compare policies from top-rated carriers to find the best fit for your health and budget. Head to selectquote.com and a licensed agent will find the right policy for you. Get the right life insurance for you for less. and save more than 50% at selectquote.com slash Megan. Save more than 50% on term life insurance at selectquote.com slash Megan today to get started. Vice President JD Vance yesterday convening a group of state attorneys general at the White House as the Trump administration looks to turn its anti-fraud task force into a national enforcement operation. President Trump formally establishing the task force to eliminate fraud in March, putting Mr. JD Vance in charge of an interagency effort focused on fraud, waste, and abuse in federally funded benefit programs. The challenge for the White House? While many of these programs are federally funded, they are administered at the state level, making state cooperation critical to identifying and rooting out fraud. According to CNBC, the meeting initially planned for Republican attorneys general, with Vice President JD Vance later pushing to include Democrats, saying it would be a shame if they did not participate. The invites reportedly sent out to Democrats this past Friday just before the holiday weekend. A group of Dem AGs responding in a letter to JD Vance, writing, quote, while we would appreciate the opportunity to engage in serious discussions, the invitation was provided with less than one business day's notice and with no agenda. However, not all Democrat offices stayed away, representatives from the offices of Connecticut and Oregon, ultimately attending the meeting. The VP kicking off the meeting by highlighting the task force's progress in just the 50 days since its formation.

In just two months, we exposed billions of dollars in benefits that had been stolen from the American people. We referred over $22 billion in fraudulent small business loans back to the Treasury for collection. We deferred more than $1.3 billion in fraudulent Medicaid reimbursements that were coming from various states, particularly California. We put a six-month hold on enrollments for new hospice and home health care providers because so many of the newer hospice providers were not actually providing hospice services. We recovered taxpayer funds from the $135 billion stolen after the floodgates were open in the immediate aftermath of COVID. We have found $6.3 billion in suspected fraudulent government contracts, which were mostly awarded during the last administration, and that has stopped. And finally, we've blocked $60 million in student aid fraud that should have gone to young people trying to get an education, but instead we're going to fraudsters. The task force growing out of several high-profile fraud cases, including pandemic and benefits fraud prosecutions in Minnesota as a result of fraud committed largely by the state's Somali community. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller tying the fraud fight directly to issues with the federal budget. All of the systems in our country, whether you're talking about voting, whether you're talking about entitlements, whether you're talking about welfare, benefits, were set up based on the honor system. And so the way most welfare works in most states and most places is we take your word for it. If you thought a piece of paper and you say, your kids are hungry, you are going to get food stamps. You will just start getting the checks. And so what's happened to our country is we became a society, as we've seen with this Somali refugee problem in Minnesota, where you have a large number of people that are not following the honor system. They're not playing by the rules. They're not abiding by our laws. And the amount that has been fleeced from us is in the hundreds of billions of dollars. I believe, based on what I've seen and what I've heard, is that we could balance the federal budget if the only dollars that went out of the treasury. went to individuals who are properly, lawfully, correctly eligible to receive them. Over the weekend, a new construction site taking shape at the White House, and it has nothing to do with the ballroom. On the south lawn, giant metal arms fitted with lights being raised 87 feet above what will soon become a fully constructed UFC octagon, with temporary seating for more than 4,000 people. All for a once-in-a-lifetime fight night, President Trump is promising, will be unlike anything the White House has ever seen. The event, UFC Freedom 250, set for June 14th, Flag Day and President Trump's 80th birthday, also marking the unofficial kickoff to a summer of celebrations for America's 250th anniversary. Ahead of the event, Time magazine profiling UFC president and CEO, Dana White, whose relationship with President Trump dates back more than two decades. The profile, including an interview with President Trump, conducted backstage at a UFC event in Miami. Just days after the 2024 election, President Trump reportedly floating an idea to White, a UFC fight at the White House.

By February, formal planning underway with UFC staffers reportedly making more than a dozen trips to Washington over the last several months. White, who says he swore off politics after the campaign, tells time the White House event is not political, but patriotic. We're watching the fights and the president looks over at me and says, we should do a fight at the White House. And I said, yes, yes, I would love that. I'm in. It's going to be a very incredible experience for Americans and people around the world of like a one-of-one live event and television experience. Do you not see the White House fight as political? Not at all. No. Why? Why not? Well, it's on the birthday. of America. I mean, it's the 250th birthday of America. What better place to celebrate it than the White House? And the thing that you have to understand about me is, I respect whoever is the president of the United States. It isn't about red or blue or politics for me. I'm friends with people on the far left, and I'm friends with people on the far right, and I consider myself right down the middle. Time reporting the White House fight will include roughly 4,300 seats with at least 1,200 reserve for active duty military members. A separate viewing party will be held across from the White House on the ellipse, with White, telling the president, the space can hold up to 85,000 people. Tickets to all events will be free, though registration is required. The event, a massive logistical undertaking. But even with months of planning, one major variable remains out of anyone's control, the one we all deal with when planning a big party. The weather. Time reporting that while the canopy should protect fighters and many spectators from rain, lightning within eight miles of the south lawn would require a 30-minute evacuation and persistent strikes could wipe out the event entirely. UFC officials will begin receiving forecasts 10 days before the fight, then hourly updates in the final week. Time reporting fighters will warm up in the Eisenhower executive office building, showering back at their hotels, and that the main event competitors are expected to walk out from the Oval Office. Some questions swirling about whether the payoff will be worth the hype, Joe Rogan, who will be in Washington calling the fight as usual for the UFC, referring to the event on his podcast as a, quote, gimmick. President Trump telling time he initially did not appreciate the comment before deciding Rogan has a point. Quote, at first I thought, that's not nice. And then I realized, it is a gimmick. Life is a gimmick, if you think about it, right? But it's a good gimmick. It's something that will never happen again.

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