Congress

Graham Platner has a growing Senate fan club

Published

12 months ago

October 9, 2025

Senate Democrats are warming up to an upstart oyster farmer in the crucial Maine Senate race. Now they’ll have to decide if they are willing to snub their party’s dream recruit to support him.

So far, Graham Platner only has one public endorsement from a sitting senator, Vermont independent Bernie Sanders. But more than a half-dozen Democratic senators sang his praises in interviews this week, even as Minority Leader Chuck Schumer grows closer to landing his top recruiting target to run against Sen. Susan Collins — not Platner, but Gov. Janet Mills.

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), who praised Platner in a recent X post, said in an interview that he has written Platner’s campaign a check. He’s also showing Platner’s viral social media videos to colleagues.

“I really appreciate people who are good communicators,” Heinrich said. “Graham is somebody who can go anywhere in Maine and genuinely connect with people. We need more candidates like that.”

Other Senate Democrats, including Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, have privately spoken to Platner.

“He’s off to a really strong start and has a wonderfully appealing local background and story,” said Whitehouse.

The question many of them are avoiding for the time being is whether Platner, a 41-year-old Marine Corps and Army veteran who has built undeniable grassroots buzz, is the better choice to take on Collins than Mills, the 77-year-old two-term governor who was in elected office when Platner was born.

Mills has said she is “seriously considering” a run and has interviewed potential campaign managers. She expects to make a formal announcement by next month, with Democrats widely expecting her to jump in.

Whitehouse, for instance, called Platner a “qualified candidate” but demurred when asked if Platner was more formidable than Mills, saying he would not “step into that conversation.”

The Maine race is at the heart of Democrats’ uphill path back to the Senate majority, needing to flip a net of four seats in next year’s midterms. Democrats have perennially tried to oust Collins, the only blue-state Senate Republican left, and fallen short, including in a contentious 2020 race where they were confident they had her beat.

But the 2026 contest is also set to be another high-profile test of where the power lies within Democrats’ competing factions, with the popular, establishment-aligned Mills facing off with Platner, who has earned fans on the left with his populist message, and a host of other contenders.

Early indications are that Platner is a legitimate contender. He has drawn large crowds and an enthusiastic online response that has helped fuel his campaign, which announced Wednesday that it has raised $4 million since its launch, with nearly $1 million raised in the past week.

Sanders, who has split with Schumer in a number of primaries, said he believed Platner “stands an excellent chance to beat Senator Collins.”

“There is a growing understanding that we need candidates from the working class who understand what working families are going through, who are prepared to stand up to the billionaire class and fight for an agenda that works for all, not just the people on top,” he said.

Mills has plenty of fans inside the Senate Democratic Caucus, who view her entrance into the Senate race as a game-changing recruiting coup on the same level as netting Sherrod Brown’s entry in Ohio or Roy Cooper in North Carolina. National Democrats believe Mills is the strongest candidate, given her history of winning statewide. But unlike Brown or Cooper, Mills’ expected candidacy isn’t clearing the primary field at this point.

Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, hasn’t endorsed in the race but said in a brief interview Wednesday that he believes Mills will be a strong candidate. And Schumer has made no secret that he wants Mills to run against Collins.

He and other top party leaders believe Mills’ name recognition and popularity in Maine would give her a better chance against Collins, who has proven difficult to beat despite being a prime target for Democrats for years. Mills won her last race by roughly 13 percentage points.

Neither Schumer nor Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), the Senate Democratic campaign chair, has reached out to Platner, according to a person granted anonymity to describe private conversations. Platner, for his part, has said he won’t support Schumer for party leader if he wins the election.

Maine hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1988, the last time former Majority Leader George Mitchell ran. The state’s other sitting senator, Angus King, is an independent who, like Sanders, caucuses with Democrats.

King said Wednesday that his general practice is not to campaign against colleagues, and he expects to stick with that next year — including not endorsing in the primary.

Platner has caught the attention, though, of two key groups within the Senate Democratic Caucus — younger members and progressives. Still, several in those cadres say that while his message has put him on their radar, they’re stopping short of backing him over a potential Mills candidacy for the time being.

“I’ve seen a bunch of his stuff, and it’s killer,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), adding that Platner “seems pretty impressive.”

But asked if Platner was being overlooked by party leaders, Murphy said only that he looks forward to meeting the candidate and learning more about him.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) declined to discuss private discussions about the Maine race but offered support for candidates like Platner jumping into the fray.

“I’m excited to see new people enter the race for the Senate,” she said, “particularly those who have a strong voice they’re willing to use on behalf of people who are often ignored in the U.S. Senate.”

Congress

Lummis blocks resolution denouncing Trump’s ‘public service announcements’

Published

3 hours ago

September 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

A Republican senator blocked a resolution Tuesday that would have denounced President Donald Trump’s recent campaign-style ads funded with taxpayer dollars.

Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming objected to Sen. Maggie Hassan’s nonbinding resolution, which said it was the sense of the Senate that the ads “should not be paid for by the United States government.” Because Hassan (D-N.H.) was trying to pass the resolution without a formal vote, any one senator could block it.

“It just tells the president that he is wrong — that these ads need to be pulled down and that they should not be paid for with taxpayer dollars,” Hassan said on the floor.

Lummis however countered that Hassan’s concerns about the ads say “more about her side of the aisle” and compared Trump’s ads to President Bill Clinton’s antidrug campaign, among others. One of the ads Trump is running at taxpayer expense is virtually identical to a 2024 campaign ad.

“When a Democratic president tells Americans what to do, it’s a public service,” Lummis said. “When this president tells Americans that liberty is worth defending, it’s a problem.”

Congress

Republicans wanted Jack Smith to give them a smoking gun. They got a gaffe instead.

Published

4 hours ago

September 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

It started with a pledge to expose a Biden-era conspiracy to take down President Donald Trump. It ended with a botched attack over basketball tickets.

Armed with subpoena power in Congress and a friendly Justice Department on their side, Republican lawmakers have spent two years promising to expose former special counsel Jack Smith as the leader of an anti-Trump witch hunt that morphed into a full-blown attempt to take down the Republican establishment.

Smith’s appearance Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee — his third time testifying under oath on Capitol Hill, the second time in public — was supposed to be a watershed moment for the GOP intent on extracting a smoking gun ahead of the midterm elections. Instead, the hearing was most memorable for the fusillade of insults hurled by the panel’s Republicans.

Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri unsuccessfully sought to implicate Smith in a plot to attend a sporting event as a cover for investigating Trump election interference claims, then called him a “dirtbag.” Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana said the former prosecutor made him “want to throw up in my mouth.” And Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, comparing him to “Javert from ‘Les Mis,’” said Smith’s probe was “the most egregious abuse of power in the history of the Department of Justice.”

Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley insisted the hearing was “not the end” of his investigative work, but the four-hour grilling had the feeling of finality. The Republican-led probe into Smith’s efforts to bring criminal charges against the president has already stretched for two years, and Democrats stand a chance of retaking control of Congress in the midterms.

And at least one Republican member of the panel, Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, said he believed the investigation into Smith had run its course in Congress.

“At this point, I think we kind of know what we know,” Hawley said in an interview following the hearing. “I think at this point, it’s up to the DOJ to either prosecute him for perjury for lying under oath, which I think the House has formally referred him for … or try to have him disbarred.”

Judiciary Committee Republicans did little Tuesday to challenge the substance of Smith’s criminal case against Trump for seeking to subvert the 2020 presidential election. Smith reinforced his contention that Trump mounted an unprecedented criminal assault on the transfer of power, seeking to derail Joe Biden’s victory and then capitalizing on the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol — unleashed by a mob of his supporters — to further that goal.

Smith also defended the work of his staff and decried the Trump-led Justice Department’s decision to fire them as “illegal.” And he made his most forceful case yet that the probe he led was actually fueled by Republican witnesses who broke from Trump over his handling of the 2020 election.

”It’s very hard to understand how our investigation can be viewed as partisan when the strongest witnesses, the people who were the difference between the rule of law and not, were Republicans,” Smith said.

When Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.) ripped into Smith for secretly obtaining her late brother Lindsey Graham’s phone records as part of his inquiry, Smith hailed him as a “patriotic public servant” and who likely would have been a featured witness in Trump’s trial — because he eventually concluded Trump’s election fraud claims were false.

Smith similarly hailed Former Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers and former Vice President Mike Pence as heroic figures who were crucial witnesses against the president. Smith ultimately dropped his case after Trump prevailed in the 2024 election. Though he said he remained confident in his ability to secure a conviction at trial, Smith emphasized that Justice Department policy forbids criminal prosecution of a sitting president.

When they weren’t lobbing personal attacks at Smith, Republicans homed in on what they described as procedural flaws of Smith’s investigation. They criticized him for subpoenaing phone records of members of Congress, like Lindsey Graham, who communicated with Trump and his administration during the post-2020 election timeframe.

They hit Smith for securing court orders that prevented telecom companies from alerting lawmakers to those subpoenas, and challenged his respect for the constitutional protections members of Congress are afforded to avoid scrutiny from federal prosecutors. That line of questioning produced one of the only bipartisan moments of the hearing: a pitch by Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) for legislation that would limit the ability of prosecutors to obtain secrecy orders when they issue subpoenas in sensitive probes.

Lee is poised to be the next chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the next Congress if Republicans maintain control of the chamber.

Smith used his appearance, as well as friendly questions from the panel’s Democrats, to parry GOP criticism of his tactics. He followed all Justice Department policies and laws, he insisted, and said he had respect for the separation of powers — including Congress’ constitutional protection from executive branch scrutiny.

Smith said he never targeted GOP lawmakers but pursued critical evidence of Trump’s actions and state of mind that would have been necessary to prove his case in court, and he repeatedly returned to an overarching contention: that he had enough evidence to convict Trump of “one of the most serious crimes that’s ever happened in our nation’s history.”

He also reminded lawmakers what he couldn’t say: anything at all about his charges against Trump for hoarding classified information at Mar-a-Lago. Smith’s findings in that probe remain sealed from public view by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who has ordered the Justice Department to keep it secret.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said subpoenaing that report would be one of Democrats’ first actions should they have the majority in the next Congress.

Ultimately, Smith’s hearing Tuesday may end up being best remembered for a high-profile gaffe by Schmitt, who accused Smith of secretly traveling to Atlanta at the very moment local prosecutor Fani Willis — who had also charged Trump over the 2020 election scheme — was facing damaging questions about her conduct. As proof, displayed on an elaborate poster, Schmitt offered text messages suggesting that Smith attended a basketball game on Feb. 3, 2024 — the same day the Atlanta Hawks played the Golden State Warriors.

Schmitt revelled as a clearly flummoxed Smith struggled to discern what Schmitt was talking about.

“I don’t think you know that we have this stuff,” Schmitt said. “So I’ll give you a second to process it so you don’t perjure yourself.”

After a few moments, Smith did recall having attended a basketball game — but not in Atlanta. It wasn’t the Hawks his colleagues were discussing in a series of texts, Smith explained, but the Hawkeyes, whose star Caitlin Clark was playing in Maryland that day.

“It was because Caitlin Clark was coming to Maryland to play, and so we went to the game,” Smith said.

Immediately after the exchange, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) fact-checked Schmitt in real-time, confirming the date of the Iowa-Maryland game and suggested that her colleagues’ reliance on “false information based on confusion about the name of a team” warranted an apology.

“You don’t call someone a dirtbag when you haven’t done your own research and you don’t have your facts straight,” Klobuchar said after the hearing. “And it just shows how completely out of control this whole thing was.”

Schmitt did not immediately respond to a request for comment on his allegations.

Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.

Congress

Cruz blocks Senate Democrats’ bid to pass AI safety bill

Published

6 hours ago

September 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

A Democratic trio attempted to pass an artificial intelligence bill via a unanimous consent request on Tuesday but were blocked on the Senate floor.

Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Andy Kim (D-N.J.) sought to pass their Artificial Intelligence Risk Management and Security Act using the procedural mechanism, which allows expedited consideration of legislation but fails if one senator opposes it.

“The whole world has recognized that we’ve got to do something,” Warner said in a speech on the floor. “We should not miss the moment to put a safety protocol in place now.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) objected to the bill, preventing any chance of passage.

“Congress must not legislate on the issue of artificial intelligence hastily or in a closed manner,” he said on the floor, adding that it gave some in the government too much power to dictate the technology that could be permitted to be released.

As some lawmakers grow concerned over dire warnings from AI labs’ top executives about the technology’s risk to humanity, Congress’ attempts to legislate AI guardrails have largely stalled.

In the past few weeks, two other AI-related bills, the Ratepayer Protection Act and AI Emergency Button Act, were also nixed in an attempt to pass them unanimously.

Warner, Schatz and Kim’s new bill would have established a new safety board within the Commerce Department to vet models before they are deployed and set safety standards for the industry. It would also have created a reporting process for safety and security incidents.