Congress

MAGA world is thrilled with Hegseth pick. Republican senators have questions.

Published

2 years ago

November 19, 2024

After a weekend of brutal headlines disclosing sexual assault allegations against Pete Hegseth, Senate Republicans are offering a tepid defense of Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon.

Republicans have downplayed and deflected when asked about Hegseth — arguing Trump picked an outsider to shake up the Pentagon bureaucracy or that the confirmation process should play out.

“Let me say this: I have asked to read the allegations and I honestly have not had time to look at it, so I just can’t comment,” Senate Armed Services ranking Republican Roger Wicker said on Monday. “I am looking to be very supportive of his nomination.”

By Tuesday, Wicker, who will preside over Hegseth’s confirmation process when Republicans take control of the Senate in January, wasn’t taking reporters’ questions. Other Republicans also said they’ll wait and see.

Four Republicans would need to defect to sink Hegseth’s nomination, and all senators are facing immense pressure from Trump and his camp to approve his Cabinet picks. The campaign will kick into higher gear this week, as Vice President-elect JD Vance accompanies Hegseth and former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), the embattled pick for attorney general, to meetings with Republican senators on Capitol Hill.

The selection of Hegseth, a weekend Fox & Friends host and Army veteran, has been dogged by a series of controversies, the most serious of which revolve around allegations of sexual assault. Hegseth’s lawyer said that Hegseth in 2017 paid a woman who accused him of the crime to settle a threatened lawsuit, calling the episode “successful extortion.” Hegseth denies the allegations, asserting the encounter was consensual, while police investigated and Hegseth was never charged.

Meanwhile, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), a combat veteran, has said Hegseth needs to explain his opposition to women serving in combat roles. The newly surfaced assault allegations, she said Tuesday, would also merit a “discussion.”

“Any time there are allegations, you want to make sure they are properly vetted, so we’ll have that discussion,” Ernst said.

When asked for their views, some panel Republicans who will have a say in Hegseth’s coming confirmation process quickly changed the subject to Hegseth’s unconventional background, which they framed as a strength.

Another Armed Services Republican, Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.), pointed to an eventual confirmation hearing for Hegseth, arguing “There’s a constitutional process, and we’ll go through that.”

“Let’s remember, Donald Trump was elected to shake up Washington as is, and I think that’s one of the reasons why he chose Pete Hegseth,” Budd said.

Though Hegseth’s confirmation is ultimately in the hands of Republicans, who will hold a 53-seat majority next year, Democrats on Tuesday were still mulling their options for handling the allegations and the nomination overall.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a senior member of the Senate Armed Services and Judiciary committees, questioned whether the transition team had performed the normal FBI background check for a Defense secretary nominee and expected SASC would institute its own. Each committee, he noted, can do its own inquiry and has subpoena power.

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), who publicly asks all nominees for Pentagon jobs about whether they’ve engaged in sexual misconduct, said the allegations “are disqualifying,” if true.

“There are just so many aspects to this nominee’s behavior and positions he’s taken that should give us pause, huge pause,” Hirono said. “I don’t know how my colleagues are [approaching the nomination], but we’re all going to need to figure out what we’re going to do with this nominee.”

Anthony Adragna contributed to this report.

Congress

How Talarico is countering Trump’s midterms convention

Published

3 days ago

September 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

James Talarico is planning to counterprogram President Donald Trump’s GOP midterms convention in Dallas with a focus on affordability.

The idea from the Texas Democratic Senate candidate and seminarian: host a statewide “Love Thy Neighbor” food drive to offer a contrast with Republicans coming to town and highlight the high cost of groceries, according to plans shared first with Blue Light News.

“Next week, billionaire mega-donors and their puppet politicians will gather at a convention in Dallas to clink champagne glasses and toast their own corruption. They’re paying $20,000 for entry to a Billionaire Ball celebrating corrupt tariffs, billionaire tax breaks, and a new forever war that are all driving grocery costs through the roof,” Talarico said in a statement to Blue Light News. “We’ll be doing something different. We’re bringing Republicans, Democrats, and Independents together to collect groceries for our neighbors who have been screwed over by corrupt politicians.”

The campaign said it will “mobilize volunteers to collect, sort, and donate groceries for middle class Texans struggling with the high price of groceries.” The event will last from Sunday, Sept. 6 through Wednesday, Sept. 9 — the same day the GOP convention kicks off.

Talarico is also expected to field media interviews in a large warehouse near the convention.

“Texans across the political spectrum will come together to build community, show up for their neighbors, and take power back for working people,” the campaign said in a statement.

A recent poll conducted by Texas Public Opinion Research poll released last week showed Talarico leading ,his opponent Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, 48 percent to 42 percent.

Trump this week said he would campaign for Paxton soon.

Congress

‘I don’t think anyone is really comfortable’: Democrat leading on AI raises alarms at Trump, Zuckerberg call

Published

3 days ago

September 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

A House Democrat trying to lead her party on artificial intelligence policy sent a warning shot Friday to tech CEOs trying to undermine efforts to regulate the fast-growing technology.

In an interview, Rep. Lori Trahan raised alarm bells over a POLITICO report detailing attempts by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to personally discourage President Donald Trump from moving ahead with plans to establish an independent AI regulator modeled after the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or FINRA.

“I don’t think anyone is really comfortable when they see tech executives who are sitting on the stage at the president’s inauguration, and have had to pay millions of dollars to this fund and that fund, calling the shots,” said the Massachusetts Democrat.

Allowing Zuckerberg to call the shots on the proposed AI commission would be tantamount to “a complete abdication of Congress,” Trahan continued. She also suggested would use her perch on the House Energy and Commerce Committee to work with other Democrats to haul in industry executives like Zuckerberg to testify, should Democrats win back the House majority in the midterms.

“Congress’ job is to do oversight and to have those hearings,” she said. “And I think we would learn a lot from those hearings so that we can put pen to paper on thoughtful proposals. So yes, there have been a number of people, myself included, who have called for those hearings, and I think we’re going to continue to do that.”

Trahan is poised to be a major player in the coming weeks and months when it comes to AI, especially if Democrats prevail in the November elections and are forced to solidify a position on the subject; the party is currently all over the map.

Unlike other Democrats who have retreated to their corners to work on partisan proposals, Trahan has gone out on a limb by crossing the aisle to broker a deal on a bipartisan AI safety bill with Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) — a package that was originally met with disdain by members of both parties.

She announced this week she would opt out of a run for a place in House Democratic leadership after being widely expected to make a play in the next Congress — in part, she said, to continue working on AI issues.

But Trahan’s comments Friday illustrate the deep distrust among Democrats, herself included, over the GOP approach to AI regulation — from Republicans waffling on whether they support the proliferation of data centers to Trump’s recent call with Zuckerberg.

Her calls are consistent with left-leaning members like Rep. Greg Casar, a Texas Democrat and chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who has been at the forefront of the most aggressive proposals to crack down on top tech companies.

“The CEOs of Anthropic and OpenAI say that cutting edge AI could be as dangerous as nuclear weapons,” Casar said Thursday on X in response to the Blue Light News report. “But Trump is conspiring with billionaires for this technology to be regulated like … Hollywood movies.”

Trahan said Friday that “reasonable people can disagree on what regulatory construct we come up with” governing development and use of AI.

But, she added, “what I don’t think the American people agree with is that Mark Zuckerberg and President Trump are going to figure that out on a phone call.”

Congress

House Dem election leader’s message to states: Count faster

Published

3 days ago

September 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Democrats’ top election leader has a message for states ahead of the midterms: count faster.

“We are, I think, nicely trying to encourage people to do their balloting as quickly as possible, and that means hiring additional staff so that it doesn’t call into question results,” Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, said in a Thursday interview with Blue Light News.

The advice is just one part of Morelle’s efforts to secure the midterm elections. He said Democrats have wargamed over 150 scenarios of how the Trump administration could attempt to interfere or complicate the November elections and its certification. He is encouraging states to have a “degree of urgency” when counting ballots to stave off Republican-led conspiracy theories about the reasons for delays.

Morelle said he is leaning on states to staff up on election officials to facilitate speedy ballot counting while emphasizing the process should still be “done properly,” “fairly” and that “we don’t want people with cast ballots not to have their ballots counted.” He is going to Los Angeles next week to deliver that message and meet with election security experts and election administrators — though he did not specify whom he is meeting with or where.

“We are trying to gently encourage people to staff up,” he said. Morelle added that if Democrats take the House majority, they’d “push for more resources for local and state administrators so they can hire additional capacity.”

Morelle has other big plans in the majority, including cracking down on dark money in politics, protecting voting rights and most notably, working on a bipartisan voter identification bill.

Asked whether he could accept some form of voter identification as part of a larger bipartisan elections package, Morelle said, “I’m personally not opposed to some form of voter ID,” adding that he has opposed multiple Republican-led proposals to tighten up identification requirements.

“I don’t know where my colleagues on the Democrat side will be, but I think voters think, ‘Okay, you show your ID for just tons of things. Is it really that much of a burden?’” he said. “And if it is, we’ll get state issued IDs or federally issued IDs to people who can’t afford it. So I do think that there’s hope for a bipartisan way forward, and I’ll be anxious to work with colleagues to do it.”