Transcript: Rep. Ro Khanna on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," Sept. 20, 2026

The following is the transcript of the interview with Rep. Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on Sept. 20, 2026.MARGARET BRENNAN: We begin today with California Congressman Ro Khanna, who is the top Democrat on the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and he joins us from Fremont. Good morning to you, Congressman.REPRESENTATIVE RO KHANNA: Good morning, Margaret.MARGARET BRENNAN: So China and the U.S. are in an arms race. You've proposed this idea that Chinese AI firms should cooperate with American companies. You sent letters to DeepSeek, Alibaba, other firms, urging them to follow the lead of the American firms like OpenAI and Anthropic to slow the rate of AI advancement until society develops guardrails, as you put it. Have any of these Chinese firms responded to your proposal?REP. RO KHANNA: They have not. Winning an AI war is like winning a nuclear war. It is catastrophic for civilization. And what we have asked is that they agree to some basic terms. Look, there are two dangers to AI: either the loss of control or misuse, and the Chinese firms have taken no actions on either of them.MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, I'm l...