Congress
Cruz kills Blackburn effort to pass AI deepfakes bill
Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz blocked an effort from Sen. Marsha Blackburn to pass her bill on the chamber floor Wednesday afternoon that would allow people to sue over artificial intelligence “deepfakes” — the latest episode in a long-running public rift between the two Republicans over AI legislation.
Blackburn of Tennessee argued the measure, the NO FAKES Act, would guarantee protections against the “proliferation harmful AI-created deepfakes” while ensuring artists and creative work are not impeded.
“Our bill would establish clear guardrails that protect our creators in Tennessee and across the entire country, in addition to establishing a federal intellectual property right in every American’s voice and visual likeness,” she said in a floor speech.
Blackburn sought to advance the bill by unanimous consent, a process that does not require a roll call vote but does permit any single senator to show up in person to object. That person Wednesday was Cruz, who argued the bill was not ready for primetime.
The Texas lawmaker said he had free speech concerns about the legislation as currently written — for example, would the AI-generated photos and videos like the ones frequently promoted on President Donald Trump’s social media accounts be deemed out of compliance? The same could end up being true for news parody websites like The Onion, Cruz added.
Blackburn said that free speech would not be jeopardized by her proposal, and that the bill instead targets online scamming activities that would certainly be illegal if conducted offline. Cruz was not convinced.
“I am happy to work with you,” Cruz ultimately told Blackburn. “But at least as of now, I object.”
Cruz and Blackburn have been at odds on the issue for some time, dating back to when a five-year deal to block states from enacting their own AI rules and regulations collapsed during One Big Beautiful Bill Act negotiations in 2025.
While Cruz voted for the NO FAKES Act in the Senate Judiciary Committee over the summer, he was unable to help broker a larger agreement with Blackburn and the White House to include it as part of a package of bills addressing preemption of state AI regulations and kids online safety issues.
Cruz also undercut Blackburn’s efforts during an Oval Office meeting over the summer, where he told Trump the package had no chance of moving in the Senate. The president ultimately held off on an endorsement.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), a NO FAKES co-sponsor, emphasized the broad support from the creative industry that lawmakers have worked to build.
“This is the most baked, ready-to-go AI-related bill there is,” Coons said as he walked onto the Senate floor Wednesday. “We’ve done hearings, we’ve done technical assistance, we’ve done markups. It’s broadly bipartisan.”
Cruz, who objected Tuesday to an attempt to pass an AI safety bill by unanimous consent, countered that his bill making it a crime to knowingly publish sexually explicit images on the internet without the subjects’ consent — real or AI-generated — is the only major AI bill to become law in the 119th Congress.
Sen. Ron Johnson is sending a letter Monday requesting a conference meeting to discuss the midterm results and a delay in the leadership election.
Johnson has gathered enough signatures to force the meeting under the Senate GOP’s rules and is proposing the gathering for 9 a.m. Tuesday.
“Tuesday’s result was a stunning defeat,” Johnson and his backers write in the letter to Conference Chair Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO. “Holding leadership elections without engaging in a robust discussion and evaluation of how those running for leadership intend to lead would be political malpractice”
Republicans still expect their leadership election to be held Tuesday, where Majority Leader John Thune is so far unopposed to lead the party next year in the minority.
Sen. Chris Murphy announced Friday that he has been released from the hospital after suffering a stroke last week, but will miss “several weeks” of Senate votes while he continues to recover.
“The doctors are very encouraged by the progress I’ve made so far,” the Connecticut Democrat said in a statement. “In order to take my recovery seriously and get back to work on the quickest timeline possible, I will be spending several weeks at a rehabilitation center after being discharged from the hospital today.”
He added that he remains in touch remotely with his staff and colleagues.
Murphy, who was hospitalized last weekend, said Friday that he was “diagnosed with a small bleed in the thalamus region of my brain.” Jose Suarez, the Chief of Neurosciences Critical Care at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, said in a separate statement released by Murphy’s office that the senator “experienced a small hemorrhagic stroke.”
“He has shown tremendous progress, and at the current rate of improvement, we expect that he will make a full recovery following rehabilitation,” Suarez added.
Murphy is the latest senator to suffer a stroke in recent years. Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.) were both hospitalized for strokes in 2022. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), at that time a Senate candidate, also had a stroke in 2022 that he later described as near fatal.
The head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus said his group will still be power brokers in a massive Democratic majority in a strategy memo previewing plans for next term.
“While some in the press have speculated that a majority of this size undermines our influence within the caucus, they have it exactly backwards,” Rep. Greg Casar of Texas said in the Friday memo obtained by Blue Light News. “Big majorities are good for getting big things done. Our goal is not to win a battle against other Democratic caucuses. It is to pass longstanding progressive priorities that bring down costs, root out corruption, and boost wages.”
The CPC will have at least 105 members next term, according to the memo. If Democrats had a narrow majority, progressives — and any other faction in the caucus — could have used their votes as leverage. Now that presumptive speaker Hakeem Jeffries will have as many 30 votes to spare, Democrats broadly are recalibrating their approach next term.
Casar laid out a “three-pronged” strategy for the CPC to “wield our power” in the three-page memo — tackling legislation, oversight and “holding Donald Trump to his word on populist economic policies.”
“Small majorities give corporate special interest groups the ability to block popular populist policies by recruiting a small number of opponents; a big majority gives us the advantage,” he said.
Casar previewed how the CPC can engage with Trump, noting that “one of the few bright spots for bipartisan lawmaking” was a housing bill that banned private equity firms from buying homes. He noted the caucus should push Trump to cap credit card interest rates, lower credit card fees for small businesses and lower prescription drug costs.
“While we oppose [Trump] strongly on the vast majority of fronts, we should send bills to his desk that would lower prices and raise paychecks. If he signs them, good. If he vetoes those bills, that will propel us to a continued Democratic majority and a trifecta where a Democratic president can sign these proposals into law,” he said.
Casar also outlined oversight targets beyond the administration, urging Democrats to specifically investigate corporations that use customer data for “surveillance pricing,” health care companies that are “taking advantage of seniors” through the Medicare Advantage program and artificial intelligence labs who are “putting jobs and lives at risk.”
“By focusing not just on the Trump administration but also on big corporations and billionaires, we will show the American people we are not just anti-Trump but also pro-worker and pro-consumer,” he said.
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