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Open Source AI and the Funded Doomerism Campaign: Jim Pfaff on The Carl Jackson Show | Sep 17, 2026

Published: September 17, 2026
Network: The Carl Jackson Show (YouTube)
Analysis: Conservative Caucus President Jim Pfaff

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Carl Jackson opened the September 17 edition of The Carl Jackson Show by calling the last two weeks of AI alarm “the AI hysterics,” and said he wanted his guest’s read before doing his own deep dive. Conservative Caucus President Jim Pfaff gave him a two-part answer. The panic is a political product, funded and timed. And the business case underneath it is open source AI — models anyone can run on their own hardware, outside the big platforms, which the frontier labs would rather regulate than compete with. From there the conversation moved to the RNC Midterm Convention, the Iran war and the Thomas Massie impeachment push, and a Senate map Pfaff walked state by state.

Topics Covered

• Why Pfaff Calls AI Doomerism a Funded Effort
• Open Source AI and the Competition the Frontier Labs Face
• The Skynet They Would Actually Build
• Convention Momentum and the Message Candidates Have to Carry
• Iran, Thomas Massie, and the Forever War Argument
• The Senate Races He Is Watching
• Key Takeaways

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Why Pfaff Calls AI Doomerism a Funded Effort

Jackson framed the moment as a story that had pushed the Democratic Socialists of America, Abdul El-Sayed and Hasan Piker off the front page for a week or two. Pfaff’s first point was that the people driving it are not a spontaneous public.

“Listen, the AI doomerism, people need to understand, is a well-funded effort amongst people who, after realizing that climate change is not going anywhere and the climate doomerism is receding, and also realizing that Democrats cannot win — and these are all Democrat supporters by and large, who are pushing this doomerism — realizing that they cannot win on issues, they do not have a platform and a plan, needed to find some plan.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

And lo and behold, he said, AI is going to destroy us all, there is a ten percent chance it destroys humanity in the next ten years, so we have to do something — and we are the people who are going to stand with you, with Bernie Sanders coming out in his socialist communist way to figure out how government is going to do it. Pfaff’s answer to that is blunt and a little exasperated: you are not in the middle of a Terminator movie. It was a great series and there is a lot of interesting science fiction in it, but it is not real, and Arnold Schwarzenegger is not coming up to your doorstep with half his eye knocked out.

The timing is the part he would not let pass. Later in the segment, after Jackson raised a New York Post column about third-party investigators being funded by the very people who commissioned them, Pfaff said it is no accident that this is happening toward the midterms. He tied it directly to the convention: they threw this out right after Dallas, trying to squash the Republican midterm story with what he calls FUD — fear, uncertainty and doubt. That, in his description, is how Democrats run politics, and it was always going to happen whether the vehicle was AI or something else.

Open Source AI and the Competition the Frontier Labs Face

The second layer is commercial, and it is where the open source AI question does the work. Pfaff walked through the landscape: the frontier model companies are Claude, owned by Anthropic, and ChatGPT, owned by OpenAI, with Elon Musk’s Grok coming to the forefront and growing. They have massive models with massive compute and can quickly run what you want run. But two of them, OpenAI and Anthropic, have not had their initial public offerings yet — SpaceX, he noted, has already done that — and an IPO is a moment when competition on the horizon matters.

“Their concern, one of them, is that these open source models — and we’re doing this in our organization, by the way — which allow you to run your own AI models locally if you’re willing to put that kind of investment into it and keep it off of their platforms and private to what you’re doing, that’s going to be competition.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

He did not say the open source AI wave is fatal to the incumbents, and he was careful about that distinction.

“Now, by the way, it’s not going to destroy their companies, it’s going to make them have to compete.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

The second business problem, he said, is liability. The models can sometimes be allowed to do things they ought not to do, and that exposure is real. But his objection is to the remedy: there are already so many of those safeguards built in, and what these companies are asking for is a government that tells you what the safeguards are. Jackson picked up the same thread from the other end, describing a young developer on X offering a spread of AI platforms and a generation of self-taught builders catching up to the incumbents. The big guys, he said, want to shut the little guys out.

The Skynet They Would Actually Build

Pfaff summarized the doomer argument fairly before taking it apart: Skynet is coming, the machines are going to take over and control your life, and we need to guard against it. His objection is that they make that claim as though it happens all by itself, and it does not. What worries him is the cure.

“But what they want to do instead is actually create Skynet with some either government bureaucracy here in the United States, or as they’re advocating for, an international government bureaucracy.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

Remember, he said, how well our nation did with the World Health Organization during COVID. They want to duplicate that crappy model in an internationalist way, and that is when they will create Skynet, because the AI will have the power of government behind it to do what they want to do. He allowed that censorship may not be precisely their hope, but he believes they do hope to censor people because they believe in the censorship regime — and if you think what happened under Biden was bad, this would be ten or a hundred times worse. That, he said, is his fear. He does not trust these people at all.

Convention Momentum and the Message Candidates Have to Carry

Jackson asked whether the RNC Midterm Convention would have a real impact on the competitive House and Senate races it was built to platform. Pfaff said it got everyone in the crowd energized, and described TCC’s own footing there: a full media booth on the same level as CBS, NBC and Real America’s Voice, a lot of traffic, a lot of conversations, and energy he called very strong. TCC’s own convention coverage, including our conversation with John Gizzi on the 60 open seats and an unpredictable House, came out of that booth.

The challenge, as he put it, is whether that momentum translates through the weeks remaining until November. President Trump was headed to a North Carolina rally and says he will be on the road constantly between now and the election — and, Pfaff said, he is effectively running for president again, because a Democrat Congress would make governing at all a challenge. Republican candidates need to take that message, he added, minus the $5,000 giveaway, which he thinks Trump is largely throwing out to show he can promise what Democrats promise.

“So as I’ve said, the weak part of the Trump agenda is Republicans in Congress. There are 60 new open seats, and every one of those Republicans that’ll win those seats needs to come in and say, we’re going to do what Donald Trump was trying to do. We’re going to finish the job.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

Not parroting Trump, he stressed — saying instead, that is what I am going to do too, and I am going to help him fulfill it. Jackson agreed and went further, arguing that the GOP has a messaging problem that starts at the top and that the convention was slated to impose some message discipline.

Iran, Thomas Massie, and the Forever War Argument

Jackson said he is in total agreement with President Trump on Iran, wishes the economic pressure had started earlier, and would rather unleash Israel to do the work on the ground. Pfaff did not follow him all the way there, and led with a disagreement inside his own coalition.

“Well, listen, I just flatly rebuked Thomas Massie, my former boss — I was his chief of staff — his attempt to impeach Pete Hegseth. I don’t go quite as far maybe as you on how much we should expand the Iran war, but I’m going to tell you this: Donald Trump has got the right beat on this.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

Where he and Jackson agree fundamentally: Iran has been at war with the United States for 47 years and has literally killed thousands of American soldiers — the Khobar Towers bombing, the Lebanon barracks bombing, and what Iran did to facilitate the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Pfaff said he is for a really solid military that we just do not use very often, and he is in the stop-the-forever-wars camp. He just does not go as far as Tucker Carlson and Massie, who want to impeach the president over this, which he called absurd. Presidents have to make these judgments, and in this case Iran has been a bad actor.

He also declined to make Israel the answer. He does not think Israel is the key to finishing this war; the key is economic pressure plus what Trump has been doing militarily. The only way to move faster, he said, is boots on the ground, and he is not sure the president should take that political calculation. The critics, in his reading, are missing the obvious: Trump is actually not doing the forever war, which is exactly where they should be praising him. The end result he sees is removing a potential radical nuclear power and potentially freeing a people who have been under the thumb of radicals for 47 years.

Asked how Trump should message that to voters at the gas pump, Pfaff said the pump will change with the reality on the ground, and that when the MOU came out prices went down precipitously — point to that. But the real work is being very clear and honest and thoroughgoing about what we are actually doing, which he credited Scott Bessent with doing. He noted Trump had pointed out the day before that some of the diesel price problem has nothing to do with Iran and everything to do with Ukraine striking Russian refining facilities, which moves the market even though America does not buy Russian diesel. Getting the Ukraine deal done, in his opinion, would have a bigger impact than disengaging with Iran.

Then gut it out and talk about the economic numbers, which he called largely very good — real risks, but very real wins that have to be shown, not asserted. Jackson’s summary of the same point: shift the messaging to what matters, not constantly to the Iran war, and not only to how horrible the DSA is. Pfaff’s amendment was that the DSA still belongs in it, because that is essentially the Democrat Party now. That argument has run through TCC’s coverage since the convention, including our analysis of the midterm curse and the money behind it.

The Senate Races He Is Watching

Jackson ran the board: Thom Tillis leaving North Carolina with Michael Whatley running for the seat and not looking too hot, Ohio perplexing because of Sherrod Brown’s name recognition, and Texas, where he does not want to believe James Talarico stands a chance but says everything he reads makes him glad Trump platformed Ken Paxton in Dallas. Paxton was great as an attorney general, Jackson said, but as a candidate, in his words, the guy sucks.

Pfaff’s North Carolina read was direct: he does not see how Whatley wins, because he is a RINO who ran the Republican Party and angered the conservative MAGA base in western North Carolina by not doing anything to help them or bring them into the fold. He called that a local situation — and pointed to another one that cuts the other way.

“Another local situation that people need to keep their eye on with another RINO, but still a guy who can win, is John Sununu in New Hampshire. Watch that race, because I think he can actually pull this thing out.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

Maine he feels comfortable about: Susan Collins wins ultimately, because Troy Jackson is showing himself not to be the greatest of candidates and keeps reacting to negative ads instead of responding confidently. Texas he expects Paxton to pull out — the money will be there, and whatever Paxton is like as a candidate, he has a record that commercials will remind people of. Pfaff said he could be very wrong, but he does not yet see a state with that evangelical and Catholic population handing the seat to Talarico.

Ohio he thinks could easily get pulled out, with the caveat that Brown knows how to run campaigns and has won in years he should not have. Minnesota is the state he called genuinely emerging; Jackson supplied the name — Michele Tafoya, who he said is doing an excellent job — and Pfaff put her two points back in the polls. Michigan he gives to Mike Rogers. His closing frame was neither triumph nor gloom.

“But again, these are within thin margins, so we don’t know precisely where they’re going, but I don’t think there’s any reason to lose hope.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

He finished on the polling argument both sides are now running. Harry Enten, the pollster everyone online seems to like, has made the statistical point on CNN that if the current polls are off by three to four points, Republicans sweep. Pfaff would not bank on it, and noted Mark Mitchell of Honest Pollster saying it may not be so. His conclusion was the same one he applies to the open source AI fight and to the convention: there is hope, and you just have to work it.

Key Takeaways

1. The AI panic is a funded political project – Pfaff says the doomerism is a well-funded effort by people who watched climate doomerism recede and who cannot win on issues because they have no platform and no plan.
2. Open source AI is the commercial motive – Models you can run locally, off the frontier platforms and private to your own work, are competition. In Pfaff’s words it will not destroy those companies, it will make them have to compete — and TCC already runs models this way.
3. The Skynet risk runs through government – The danger he names is not a runaway machine but AI handed the power of a domestic or international bureaucracy, modeled on the WHO, with censorship attached.
4. The convention gave energy; candidates have to convert it – Full TCC media booth alongside CBS, NBC and Real America’s Voice, very strong energy, and a message candidates must take up themselves: 60 new open seats, and winners who say they will finish the job.
5. He rebuked Massie over Hegseth – Pfaff, once Thomas Massie’s chief of staff, called the impeachment attempt absurd, said presidents have to make these judgments, and argued critics miss that Trump is not doing the forever war.
6. The Senate map is thin margins, not despair – Whatley a hard hold, Sununu a live pickup, Collins comfortable, Paxton favored on money and record, Ohio winnable, Minnesota emerging with Michele Tafoya inside two points.

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About The Conservative Caucus:
The Conservative Caucus is a grassroots public policy action organization, formed in 1974. Headed by President Jim Pfaff, the Caucus is committed to advancing free enterprise, limited government, and traditional values.

Originally broadcast Sep 17, 2026 on The Carl Jackson Show.