Archives for September 2026

Former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is sharing new details about what happened behind the scenes on the night shots were fired at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in April — and the picture she paints of President Trump is one of barely contained defiance.

Speaking on the “Hang Out with Sean Hannity” podcast, Leavitt revealed that after the Secret Service swept Trump out of the Washington Hilton ballroom, he immediately began pushing to go back. “He was like a caged lion backstage, like just roaring to get out, like, ‘We gotta go back out there,'” she said. “And I’m sitting there like, ‘I don’t know if I want to go back out there.'” According to Leavitt, Trump pressed his detail hard — telling them he would wait until 3 a.m. if that’s what it took for the event to resume.

The dinner had descended into chaos when Cole Allen, a 31-year-old from Torrance, California, allegedly stormed the hotel armed with multiple weapons just minutes into the program. A Secret Service officer was struck but survived. Allen’s manifesto reportedly identified Trump administration officials — with the exception of FBI Director Kash Patel — as his targets. He was apprehended outside the ballroom and has since pleaded not guilty to charges including attempted assassination of the president.

When it became clear the dinner would not resume that night, Trump channeled his energy into a late-night press briefing at the White House. “He wanted to say something and the best way to say it was in the briefing room. And we did,” Leavitt said. The dinner was ultimately rescheduled for July 24 at the Waldorf Astoria, where Trump attended and spoke. The shooting also reignited his push to build a dedicated ballroom at the White House — an idea that has gained new traction on Capitol Hill in the months since.

The week’s biggest press freedom story started with a Friday Truth Social post and escalated all the way to the floor of the United Nations General Assembly as the president addressed world leaders on Tuesday.

On September 18th, President Trump announced he was banning CNN, Politico, and MS NOW from the White House, citing what he called their “constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!” Reporters from all three outlets were denied entry to the White House complex over the weekend and had their press credentials physically confiscated by the Secret Service. The announcement caught a number of senior White House aides off guard — chief of staff Susie Wiles was reportedly not in the West Wing when the ban was posted.

The move triggered an unusually unified response from the broader press community, with Fox News, ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN issuing a rare joint statement: “No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.” Television networks also refused to provide pool coverage of the president’s activities on Monday in solidarity with the banned outlets. The White House Correspondents’ Association condemned the ban, as did right-leaning voices — CNBC host Joe Kernen pressed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on the move, saying, “I just don’t think this is something we do in this country.”

CNN, Politico, and MS NOW filed a lawsuit on First Amendment grounds Monday, and a federal judge ordered the Department of Justice to respond to an injunction request by Tuesday, with a hearing scheduled for Wednesday.

The confrontation then followed Trump to New York, where he was attending the UN General Assembly. When CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins asked him a question outside the General Assembly, Trump gestured at her and told reporters, “I’m surprised that CNN is here covering me. You should not be here covering me.” Collins replied on air: “The United Nations allowed us in here, sir.” Trump acknowledged he expected the presiding judge — who ordered the White House to restore CNN correspondent Jim Acosta’s credentials in 2018 — to rule against him, but gave no indication he would reverse course voluntarily.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a Washington AI Network podcast interview with host Tammy Haddad, cybersecurity veteran and author of “Dark Side of the Boom: How Scammers Hijack the AI Revolution” Patrick Coughlin examines how artificial intelligence has turned digital fraud into America’s fastest-growing — and now largest — economic crime and urges federal leadership, international cooperation, and know-your-customer rules for AI model access. 

Coughlin co-founded Savi Security with his brother, Ryan, after their mother, Beth Coughlin, then 73 and living alone in Prairie Village, Kansas, was targeted by an AI-generated voice-cloning “kidnapping” scam. Scammers used a cloned voice that convincingly mimicked Coughlin’s sister to tell their mother she had been kidnapped, then demanded $1,200 for her release. Although Beth Coughlin ended the call and confirmed her daughter was safe before sending any money, the experience left her badly shaken — and sent Patrick Coughlin, a two-decade veteran of cybersecurity, intelligence, and emerging technology, into what became years of research into global scam syndicates.

That research became the basis for “Dark Side of the Boom,” and ultimately for Savi Security, which Coughlin and his brother founded to build consumer-focused protection against AI-enabled fraud. The company raised $7 million this year and launched a consumer app designed to help everyday people identify scams before they become victims.

A Crime Growing Faster Than Any Regulatory Response

Citing data from the FTC and FBI, Coughlin told Haddad that Americans lost an estimated $200 billion to digital fraud over the past 12 months, with losses growing 25–30% year over year — a pace he compared to the revenue growth of top AI chip companies. Digital fraud, he said, is now both the fastest-growing and the largest economic crime in the United States.

Coughlin argued that the public conversation about AI has focused disproportionately on enterprise and national-security use cases, leaving everyday consumers out of the debate. “If you go to Middle America today, AI is a bad word,” he said. “Their experience with AI is in the fearmongering headlines and in the increase in scam and spam calls, messages, and emails they’re all getting.”

A Policy Agenda for Washington

Coughlin outlined several concrete steps he believes federal policymakers should take, including federal leadership over the current patchwork of roughly 1,200 state-level AI bills, which he said creates gaps and loopholes that scammers can exploit as they move across state lines.

Coughlin also made the case for international cooperation, since the majority of scam operations that target American consumers originate overseas, including in Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, and West Africa. He also advocated for a know-your-customer approach for access to sensitive components of AI models, such as bulk API access, similar to existing controls on bulk fertilizer or pharmacy purchases. Coughlin argued for enforcement of existing anti-fraud and anti-money-laundering laws against platforms that knowingly profit from fraudulent activity. He pointed to Pulitzer Prize-winning Reuters reporting that found roughly 10% of Meta’s ad revenue comes from fraudulent advertisers — activity he said the company manages as a revenue stream rather than eliminates. “If it was covered by the existing mandates, then you’d see enforcement actions against the companies who we know are violating them,” he said.

Coughlin pushed back on the argument that AI regulation would put the United States at a disadvantage against China, noting that China has implemented far more extensive AI governance, including mandatory watermarking. “If these models are half as dangerous as the people creating them are constantly telling us they are,” he said, “then don’t you think that we should create some more regulation around who gets to access them?”

About the Book

“Dark Side of the Boom: How Scammers Hijack the AI Revolution,” by Patrick Coughlin, examines how AI has industrialized scams and fraud against everyday consumers and calls for a renewed focus on mitigating the real, present-day harms of AI alongside its benefits.

Watch the episode on YouTube, and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or the platform of your choice.