The

United States of America is the leader in AI, and our administration plans to keep it

that way. We invite your countries to work with us and to follow that model if it makes sense for your nations. However, the Trump administration is troubled by reports that some foreign governments are considering tightening the screws on U.S. tech companies with international footprints. Now, America cannot and will not accept that. Now,

you heard him there saying the United States is open to cooperation, but that it will be on American terms when it comes to regulation. Interestingly, Mika, he did not name China in his address, but China has been very much hanging over this summit. Silicon Valley, Washington, capitals throughout Europe, very rattled by the success of that Chinese startup DeepSeek, which appears to produce a pretty sophisticated AI model at a fraction of the cost of Western companies. He did warn European nations about yoking their technology to what he called authoritarian regimes becoming dependent on supply chains from those countries. NBC's

Raf Sanchez, live from Paris. Thank you very much. Let's bring in President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haas. He's the author of the weekly newsletter, Home and Away, available on Substack. Poll is a prize winning columnist and associate editor of The Washington Post. Eugene Robinson joins us as well. Richard, we'll start with that. We do want to talk about Gaza. But what do you make of the stance that the vice president was putting out there, especially about the regulation of AI? I

think he's on to something. I simply don't think AI lends itself to regulation. Let me give you one image would be nuclear weapons. United States and the Soviet Union had them. We had arms control because nuclear weapons were basically in two hands, very large, concentrated efforts to build them. AI is so different. It's distributed, decentralized, dozens of companies in the United States and around the world. So the idea that we're- Doesn't it seem like the

one thing that really needs to be regulated, given the potential? Well,

the problem is, first of all, how do you regulate the bad sides and not the good sides? Who decides? How do you somehow discriminate? China and others aren't going to want to do it. There's too much economic upside here, Mika, potentially too much strategic and military upside. You can't regulate things when they're in a stage of fast development. They have to reach plateaus. AI is not going to reach a plateau. It's going to keep moving. I simply don't think the nature of the beast lends itself to regulation.

So is it just the Wild West then? How do you have some control over AI? Or do you not? I

simply don't think you do. I mean, there's two ways to think about it. One is nationally. What do we as the United States do? Maybe we can do some things again. I think it's very hard. But internationally, Willie, I think it is sort of the Wild West. And countries are going to be looking for ways to exploit it for economic advantage, intelligent advantage, military advantage. Now, we may reach a point where it reaches levels of maturity that in select areas, you can get some select regulation or limits. But we're not we're not even close to that yet all

right that's what the vice president's doing in paris meanwhile more news out of gaza hamas is postponing the release of any more hostages accusing israel of violating the terms of the ceasefire agreement the terrorist group was supposed to hand over hostages on saturday but now is delaying the move over claims is is slow to allow displaced Palestinians to return to northern Gaza and that it's not been letting aid enter the enclave. In response, Israel has put its military on high alert, telling troops to prepare for any scenario in Gaza. President Trump also weighed in on the conflict yesterday, issuing an ultimatum to Hamas.

As far as I'm concerned, if all of the hostages aren't returned by Saturday at 12 o'clock, I think it's an appropriate time. I would say cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out. Let

hell break out Saturday at noon, he says. Meanwhile, the president says Palestinians would not be allowed to return to Gaza under his plan to take over and redevelop the region. The president made the comment during the pre-taped Super Bowl interview with Fox News host Brett Baer. We'll

build beautiful communities for the 1.9 million people. We'll build beautiful communities, safe communities. Could be five, six, could be two. But we'll build safe communities a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is. In the meantime, I would own this. Think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land. Would the Palestinians have the right to return? No big money spent. No, they wouldn't, because they're going to have much better housing, much better. In other words, I'm talking about building a permanent place for them, because if they have to return now, it'll be years before you could ever. It's not habitable. It will be years before it could happen. The

president reiterating Palestinians would not be allowed to return to Gaza. At the White House yesterday, he doubled down on an idea and suggested cutting aid to Jordan and Egypt if they refuse to take in Palestinians. Both countries have made clear they don't want to do that and voiced opposition to the president's plan. President Trump is set to meet with the king of Jordan at the White House today. So, so much in there, Richard. We can start with all hell breaking loose at noon on Saturday if all the hostages are not returned. That's what the president said yesterday. What do you take that to mean? Look,

I think at some point, Israel might be tempted to restart military operations. Getting from phase one to phase two of this agreement is really tough because phase two is really demanding. It means that Israel has to completely withdraw from all of Gaza and you have an open-ended ceasefire. I find that hard to believe As much as many Israelis want to do that to get the hostages back, Hamas is out there out of the tunnels. I simply am skeptical that we're at a point where we're going to get phase two of this agreement in place. So I think you could see renewed violence.

Ali Vitale, I'm curious on the reporting front, has there been any follow up? I know initially the White House didn't respond specifically. Is there any follow up to Donald Trump saying I am going to own Gaza and it's going to think of it as basically a real estate development of any any follow up on whether he was talking about himself personally or whether he was talking about the United States, quote, owning Gaza?

It's an excellent distinction and one that I've not yet heard the White House make, but that is also predicated on the way that Trump explained it, which is he says Israel will give the land to the United States, and that's not Israel's land to give. And so there are still a lot of questions about this idea that Trump has. However much he's thinking about it, not as an executive or the leader of the greatest country in the world, but thinking about it as a real estate developer, it doesn't matter the mindset. It matters that there are a lot of clear roadblocks to the way that he's talking about trying to achieve this. But certainly those are key questions that the White House has had to and will have to explain. The one that they made a clear point of explaining was when Trump weighed the possibility of U.S. troops being used towards this effort. That's something that they quite quickly knocked down. But just because they're knocking down one thing doesn't mean that the rest of the questions have been answered, at least not in a way that allows us to have a fuller sense of what the president's talking about here. And

Richard, back to you, what are the consequences for our allies, our Sunni Arab allies like Jordan, like Egypt? The Saudis have already spoken out against this. Of course, the rest of the region has as well. What are the ramifications, not only for our allies, but also for our enemies there who wish to do us harm if the White House moves forward with this plan for Donald Trump to take over Gaza in the name of the United States or in the name of his own development? I mean, I can't even it's hard to hard to hard to even imagine that this question is being asked, but he has said it. He has doubled down on it and he has tripled down on it. What are the consequences if he continues down this path for

U.S. alliances and the region? Well, let's just be stark about it, because the president, as you said, has doubled and tripled down about it. Let me start by saying it will not resolve the Palestinian issue. The idea that Gazans are going to be placated with, quote unquote, beautiful or better homes in Alexandria or somewhere in Jordan, and are going to give up their aspirations for a national home of their own is simply not going to happen. That simply, I think, misunderstands the nature of nationalisms. Second of all, Jordan is already, as you know, Joe, more than 50 percent Palestinian. It's interesting. The king is here. I actually think the king sits on a very uneasy throne and he's in an impossible situation. If the Palestinians were to enter Jordan, I think that could tip the domestic balance and stability. If the United States cuts off aid, Jordan, I believe, is the second largest recipient of American aid to that part of the world. And unlike Egypt, its aid was not protected in the freeze at AID. So I think Jordan is very, very vulnerable, as potentially is Egypt. So we can end up with the worst of all worlds, not satisfying anything the Palestinian wants, if anything, supporting Hamas's radicalism. They could say, we told you you need us. The only alternative now is we have to resist, rather, or we're going to be deported. And we could destabilize what's Egypt and Jordan. Don't forget, those are the two first countries in the Arab world to make peace with Israel. They are the foundation of Israel's acceptance in the region of the Abraham Accords and all else. So I simply don't understand what is motivating the president to continue to push an idea that I simply think can succeed? And if it's actually implemented, potentially would make the Middle East much more unstable than it currently is. At a time, there's enormous opportunity to do something with Iran, to do something given what Israel has accomplished militarily. I don't understand why the president would introduce elements of instability when there's real progress potentially to be made.

I mean, that's the right question, right, Eugene? Why would the president be pushing this kind of a plan, given the landscape that Richard so frankly lays out? No,

I think there's no good answer to that question, because it is a crazy thing to do at this time. It's a crazy thing, crazy idea at any time, to tell you the truth. But particularly now, you know, the Saudis keep putting out statements saying, no, no, this will not happen. This cannot happen. My question, I have a question for Richard Hogg, which is, do the Saudis have any leverage here? I mean, they have clearly said there is no normalization of relations with Israel. If any part of this plan goes forward, there's no normalization until we're on a path to a two-state solution. Is that real leverage still, or is there other leverage that the Saudis have? I

don't think it's that much leverage because the Israeli government has in some ways discounted the importance of normalization with Saudi Arabia. If they valued it more, it would have happened sometime earlier, Gene, and it would have interfered with their goals in Gaza. I think the principal Saudi leverage right now is to produce more oil because that would basically create downward pressures on oil pricing, which would help offset renewed inflationary pressures here. And even more would hurt Russia. And if President Trump is committed to getting a ceasefire in Ukraine, one way to do it is to put more economic pressure. And that might be the greatest Saudi leverage, not in the Middle East, but in Europe.

Jen, we're getting a reminder, too, of the Trump playbook, even when it comes to allies, whether it's threatening those tariffs against Canada and Mexico, our closest trading partners, to extract some concessions from them. In the case of Mexico, those concessions had already been in place, and they just reminded him, sure, we'll go through with those. And in this case, in the Middle East, our closest partners, threatening to cut off aid to our closest allies who we need desperately in the Middle East if they don't get on board with the program. This is how he does business. How

he also does business is he has a special liking, penchant for, friendship with, whatever you want to call it, Prime Minister Netanyahu. He also has an affection for Vladimir Putin. And I think the Netanyahu relationship is, to me, one of the clear reasons or one of the explanations for what we're seeing here. Obviously, people from the Trump administration, the incoming Trump administration played a role, per the Biden administration, on getting this ceasefire across the line. To Richard Haas's point, the first stage of this was actually the much easier stage. Trump, we don't know what Trump, how he thought about it, what he was deciding, but that may have been in his mind. We know that Netanyahu wanted him to be president. We know that President Trump respects Netanyahu. And I think that's not a non-factor here. That's how I would look at

it.