Congress
Lutnick sought to clean up Epstein revelations in closed testimony to House committee
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in closed-door testimony to Congress refuted accusations that he maintained a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein years after he claimed he had cut ties.
Lutnick, who has faced harsh criticism for his ties with the convicted sex offender as part of a global reckoning sparked by the release of long-sealed documents, told the House Oversight Committee that his conflicting statements weren’t intentional, according to a transcript released Wednesday.
The commerce secretary, who previously was CEO of financial services company Cantor Fitzgerald, had said in a podcast interview that he cut ties with Epstein in 2005 — a fact contradicted in the documents released by the Justice Department under a law passed by Congress.
“I was describing 20 years later a conversation I had with my wife. It was informal. It wasn’t trying to be literal,” Lutnick said of his comments on the New York Post podcast last year.
Documents within the files released by the Justice Department showed that Lutnick and his family visited the sex offender’s island in 2012 — about four years after Epstein’s conviction in Florida on charges that included soliciting prostitution from a minor.
That contradicted his podcast interview in which he said he had known for years that Epstein was a “disgusting person” and he would “never be in the room” under any circumstances.
But he told the House Oversight Committee, which is investigating the Epstein case, that he wasn’t being literal, according to the transcript.
“It was trying to tell a story and be descriptive, which I thought was an accurate description, which was that I would avoid establishing a professional and personal relationship with him,” he said.
The Commerce secretary’s interview with Congress was unusual, in part, because he was questioned by a panel led by his own party. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) had threatened to force a subpoena vote for his testimony, before the Oversight Committee announced that he would appear voluntarily.
The politics of Lutnick’s interview are also complicated by the fact that the Trump administration has been repeatedly attacked for ties between the president and Epstein, who died in jail in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
During the interview, Lutnick declined to discuss whether he had spoken with President Donald Trump about Epstein.
Lutnick claimed that he had “virtually nonexistent interactions” with Epstein, who became his next-door neighbor when he moved into a renovated New York City home in 2005. That year, he and his wife had been invited to Epstein’s home for coffee.
“During this brief interaction that included my wife, me, and this individual, he made a crude and gross remark in my wife’s presence, which caused us to cut the visit short and leave,” he recalled.
Epstein led Lutnick and his wife on a tour of his home, showing them a table where he told them he would get the “right kind of massage,” the Commerce secretary told the committee.
At that point, Lutnick and his wife vowed not to “establish a personal or professional relationship” with Epstein, he said.
Lutnick later met with Epstein in 2011 at the request of Epstein’s office to discuss, from what he could recall, scaffolding. About 18 months later, Epstein’s staff sent an invitation to the Caribbean island.
“My family of six and another family of six, had a brief, meaningless, and inconsequential lunch and then left,” Lutnick said. “To the best of my recollection, those were the only three occasions in which I interacted with Epstein in person. Each and every one was meaningless and inconsequential.”
The committee also released a transcript of its recent interview with Ted Waitt, the businessman and philanthropist who once dated Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s convicted co-conspirator. Waitt told investigators he met Maxwell and Epstein in November 2003 in Hong Kong and later developed a yearslong romantic relationship with her.
He described Epstein as “off-putting” and said he hesitated to spend time with him, in part, because of Epstein’s previous relationship with Maxwell. And he recalled that in 2010 he brought Maxwell to Chelsea Clinton’s wedding. Neither Bill Clinton nor Hillary Clinton has been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.
“I can say unequivocally that if I knew then what I know now about Ms. Maxwell, I never would’ve befriended her or allowed her to be around my four children, three of whom are girls and who, at that point, ranged in age from 8 to 14,” Waitt said. “I never would’ve spent 6 years in a romantic relationship with her.”
The Senate Commerce Committee could take up artificial intelligence regulation after the chamber returns to Washington next week, Sen. Ted Cruz said.
“We need substantially more regulation when it comes to AI,” the Texas Republican, who chairs the committee overseeing the fast-evolving technology, said in a Tuesday night interview for Blue Light News’s “The Conversation” with Dasha Burns.
Cruz’s remarks come as catastrophic risks from AI are in the spotlight this week following a viral social media post from a former Anthropic researcher. The post — which Cruz said he read and called “scary as hell” — cautioned that the leading AI companies have been “gambling with our lives,” prompting fresh calls to action from lawmakers in Washington.
Cruz, citing a conversation he had with Elon Musk in which the trillionaire entrepreneur predicted the chance that AI could “destroy humanity” was in 10-20% in the next 10 years, said he’s taking the risk of AI seriously. “It’s deeply concerning.”
The senator said the measures his committee would consider include a fresh bill from him, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to address AI uses that create biological and nuclear threats.
The bill could be introduced as soon as next week, according to reporting from Semafor.
Still, he warned that any government regulation of AI should not thwart America’s lead in the AI race against China.
“The Chinese are putting no guardrails. They’re going full speed ahead,” said Cruz. “We could have government step in and just shut down the AI industry in America, and you know what would happen? China would catch up in six months and soar ahead, and we wouldn’t have the tools to defend ourselves.”
The full interview with Cruz — where he also talked about the midterms, a potential 2028 bid and more — will be published on an upcoming episode of “The Conversation.”
President Donald Trump dropped a hot mess of a half-baked midterm promise in lawmakers’ laps Wednesday night.
Trump at the GOP’s convention pledged to send $5,000 to every adult in the U.S. if Republicans retain control of Congress in the midterms. And while the crowd of thousands of his supporters gathered at Dallas’ American Airlines Center cheered the announcement, GOP fiscal hawks were balking at the effort before Trump even left the stage.
“I would like to know how they would plan to pay for … back of envelope … well over $1 trillion,” Rep. Chip Roy, who won’t be returning to Congress next year, said in response to Trump’s offer.
The payout, which would need to be approved by Congress, would dwarf the amount distributed during the Covid pandemic and likely explode the deficit. Trump did not detail how the checks would be financed — only that the money would be limited to citizens and required to be spent in the U.S.
A GOP operative, granted anonymity to discuss the idea, expressed skepticism, calling it “a desperate attempt to change the political mood.”
If the president followed through on such a plan, it would likely worsen inflation by further boosting consumer spending and supporting higher prices, which are already elevated due to the war in Iran. The dividend could also exacerbate a rise in longer-term borrowing costs for the U.S. government, which have been going up in part on fears the federal debt is growing unsustainable.
The move comes after months of Republicans pleading with Trump to focus his messaging — and fundraising war chest — on helping the party retain control of Capitol Hill come November.
Some House Republicans following the speech told Blue Light News the effort showed how desperate the president was in the last weeks of midterm campaigning.
“It’s a little late,” one House Republican, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said.
Others may have been relieved that the president was touting a message aimed at affordability concerns at the top of voters’ minds.
“We got to talk about the issues that people are dealing with. Families can’t afford their house, they can’t afford the food, they can’t afford health care, they can’t afford child care,” Sen. Rick Scott said in an interview in the convention hall before Trump’s announcement.
Sen. Ted Cruz in an exclusive interview with Blue Light News after Trump’s speech, said he’d prefer to tie work requirements to the dividends, but added specifics would need to be worked through.
“$1.3 trillion dollars is a massive amount,” Cruz said, referring to his estimate for the plan. But, he said it’s less than if Democrats won back power and spent like “drunken sailors.”
Read also: ‘A communist caucus’: Trump gives Republicans their midterms enemy
What else we’re watching:
— CONGRESS IN DISARRAY OVER AI SAFETY: Congress is confronting a grim reality: Members may be ill-equipped and far from ready to rein in advanced new AI that one expert warned could “kill us all.” More than a dozen lawmakers and aides from both parties on Wednesday told Blue Light News they were hopeful Congress would start taking the issue seriously after a viral social media post this week from an ex-Anthropic researcher outlined dire risks. But it’s far from certain the desire to make progress will translate into meaningful legislative activity before the end of the year.
— SENATE DEMS HOLD THEIR FIRE ON FETTERMAN: Sen. John Fetterman has faced a tide of public criticism from fellow Democrats as he stakes out lonely ground as a critic of the far-left wing of his party. So far, however, his Senate colleagues haven’t joined the pile-on. Another wave of intraparty criticism rolled in Wednesday after he made a surprise video appearance at the Republican midterm convention. But Democratic senators are staying above the fray as they work to flip the majority in November amid constant speculation that the 57-year-old Pennsylvanian could trigger a nightmare scenario by leaving the party and caucusing with the GOP.
Ashley Ahn, Dasha Burns, Meredith Lee Hill, Kelsey Brugger, Riley Rogerson and Jordain Carney contributed to this report.
Democrat Bob Harvie’s first general-election ad in his campaign against Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick is calling for a data center moratorium, the latest sign artificial intelligence is emerging as a key midterm campaign issue.
“I’m Bob Harvie, I approve this message because I don’t want more data centers, I want a moratorium,” the Bucks County commissioner says in the 30-second ad. “Big Tech owns enough, they shouldn’t own our congressman, too.”
While Democrats have routinely attacked Republicans in recent months for encouraging the buildout of AI infrastructure, few frontline candidates have gone as far as Harvie in calling for an outright halt.
A spokesperson for Harvie said he supports a moratorium for one year or until Congress can pass federal regulations protecting affected communities. Pennsylvania is a hot spot for proposed data center construction, and Harvie is proposing to go beyond Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s recent executive order tightening restrictions on data center projects.
Fitzpatrick, a five-term moderate incumbent, is one of three House Republicans who won a seat that Vice President Kamala Harris carried in the 2024 presidential election, making him a top target for Democrats this cycle.
Fitzpatrick has tried to strike a middle path on AI, saying in a post on X last month that he would work to ensure America “can innovate without compromising our communities.” He supports the Ratepayer Protection Act, a bipartisan bill that seeks to address rising electricity costs associated with data centers.
Harvie hits Fitzpatrick in the ad for taking money from tech industry players and voting for “billions in data center tax breaks” — a reference to tax provision in Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Fitzpatrick did not vote for its final passage but did vote to advance the measure at key junctures.
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