Congress
Cory Mills hopes Trump boost will overcome Ethics headlines in Florida primary
TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Rep. Cory Mills, under investigation by the House and shunned by some of his GOP colleagues in Congress, heads into a primary next week hoping a months-old endorsement from President Donald Trump will outweigh negative headlines and weak fundraising
Mills has remained adamant that he has done nothing wrong amid a long line of incidents — including a restraining order placed on him at the request of a former girlfriend — and has defied calls from other Republicans to step down from his central Florida congressional seat. He has compared his own legal woes to Trump’s, even as some media outlets have reported he has come under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.
“I’m the only person who sits on this stage today who has been endorsed three times by President Donald J. Trump,” Mills said last week at a primary debate in New Smyrna Beach. “I’m going to continue to fight for the American people, and that’s not what the swamp wants. But I can tell you right now, I’ve never cared about what the swamp wants or what the swamp needs.”
Mills’ bid to hang onto the state’s 7th District is just the latest race in a summer replete with members’ Ethics concerns hanging over their campaigns. The House Ethics panel derailed GOP Rep. Chuck Edwards’ reelection campaign last week after recommending censure for inappropriate behavior with female staffers. And Rep. Max Miller, an Ohio Republican, is officially on the ballot this fall after pressure campaigns failed to push him out amid domestic abuse allegations that he denies.
But if Mills fends off his three Republican primary challengers, his seat will likely become the top target for Florida Democrats. He has seen his fundraising efforts stagger, and his latest federal campaign reports show that he has less than $70,000 in his campaign account.
Republicans are trying to pick up as many as four seats in the state following a mid-decade redistricting push by Gov. Ron DeSantis that reshaped districts held by Democratic incumbents. Mills’ district did not change under that new map; Trump carried it by more than 12 points in 2024, but only won it by about 5.5 points four years earlier.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has already targeted the seat and has lined up behind Bale Dalton, a military veteran who also worked as chief of staff for Bill Nelson when Nelson led NASA.
Mills, who is seeking a third term in Congress, is currently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee into whether he benefited from contracts from the federal government. In February, Washington police investigated whether he assaulted a former girlfriend. Lindsey Langston, a former Miss United States and Republican state committee member from north Florida, accused him of threatening to release sexually explicit videos when asked for a restraining order. There have been calls to censure or even expel Mills from other members of Congress.
Trump gave Mills his “complete and total endorsement” last February, and Mills has leaned into that endorsement in his campaign messaging to voters, including a new television ad the campaign has cut. (It’s not clear when that ad will air. Mills does not have any pending ad buys, according to ad tracking firm AdImpact.)
Trump last week and on Tuesday evening posted repeated endorsements on his Truth Social account in several other Florida contests including governor. But he did not include one for Mills.
The three GOP challengers seeking to oust Mills have contended that he has lost trust among Republican voters and other GOP elected officials.
Ryan Elijah, a former local television anchor who has led primary opponents in fundraising, has warned GOP voters that backing Mills will result in Democrats flipping the seat in November.
“We have a member of Congress who is on the verge of getting kicked out, and that’s what you need to understand,” Elijah said at last week’s debate. “We’re all conservatives here. But if you look the other way, we are going to get a huge surprise in November.”
Elijah, who waved a copy of the since-expired restraining order at Mills during last week’s debate, told Blue Light News that he got into the race because of Mills and his “reputation” that has alienated other Republicans.
“We’re not running against the president, we’re not running against the party,” he said this week.
Elijah’s bid to knock off Mills has picked up support from central Florida sheriffs as well as GOP Reps. Anna Paulina Luna and Mike Haridopolos. Luna previously told POLITICO she thought Mills should have resigned from Congress.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, a law enforcement officer well-known in the region who routinely gets statewide attention, ripped into Mills this past week as a “liar” even though Florida’s 7th does not include that county. Judd was upset Mills listed him as a supporter on his website because the sheriff endorsed him in a previous run.
Others challenging Mills have leaned into other allegations against him as well. Michael Don Johnson, an Army veteran who also worked for the Pentagon and ran against Mills two years ago, has criticized Mills over his personal life as well as reports alleging inconsistencies regarding his military record. Mills has sharply denied that he has misrepresented his service in order to receive awards he didn’t deserve.
At last week’s debate, Johnson pushed back against Republicans upset with his criticisms of Mills and said they had “warped minds.”
“I’m sorry that you folks like lies and falsehoods, you need to go to talk to your preacher,” Johnson said. “I’m telling the truth, and I’ve been doing it all my life. And defending this man for all the things he’s lied about over his years in Congress is despicable. It’s disgusting.”
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
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.”
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.”
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