Congress
Republicans clash over drone crackdown
A Capitol Hill push by GOP China hawks to impose new restrictions on Shenzhen-based aerial drone maker DJI is facing resistance from Republicans who warn the company’s products have become critical tools for U.S. farming and energy firms.
The fight is playing out after Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, a close ally of President Donald Trump, secured the crackdown in the House version of a must-pass defense policy bill. At stake for DJI are new restrictions on its ability to offer products in the U.S.
Stefanik is making the case that the company’s products expose Americans’ data to the Chinese government — an allegation that the company denies as it lobbies hard to make the case that it operates independently of Chinese officials.
But Stefanik and her allies are facing pushback in the Senate, which opted against including the provision in its version of the bill and where Republicans are raising concerns about potential negative impacts on U.S. businesses and law enforcement. The two chambers are working to resolve their differences in the sprawling defense bill so they can enact it by year’s end.
“They are the primary drone maker in the United States at a reasonable price,” Senate Agriculture Chair John Boozman, an Arkansas Republican, said of DJI in an interview. “This technology is being used more and more. … That’s the crux of the problem.”
The battle over DJI marks the latest flash point among Republicans over how to counter China without sacrificing U.S. business interests. Trump, whose election in 2016 was a boon to the party’s China hawk wing, has himself sought to ease tensions with Beijing in recent months after initiating a trade war. It’s unclear that Stefanik and her allies will prevail with their campaign against DJI.
DJI is the dominant global producer of commercial drones, which it markets to enterprise customers for uses in inspecting infrastructure, surveying land and public safety.
“There are real cost ramifications for commercial enterprises, not just farming,” Sen. John Hoeven, a North Dakota Republican, said in an interview. “You’ve got the energy industry, where they’re tracking transmission lines, rescue and recovery, all these different other uses. It’s something we’ve got to figure out.”
Boozman and Hoeven say they also have national security concerns about DJI, but Stefanik has been pushing provisions that would take an all-or-nothing approach, rejecting the notion that economic impacts should hold lawmakers back from immediately barring the sale of new DJI products in the U.S.
“It is very important for us to have U.S. drones and not have that data be turned over to the CCP,” she said in an interview. “It has been an issue we’ve worked on for a number of years with traditional bipartisan support to protect our information, whether it’s the topography of their regions or on the installations … or potential troop movements.”
The legislative language Stefanik and other China hawks are pursuing comes as DJI already faces potential restrictions on its ability to sell products in the U.S. after Dec. 23, thanks to an amendment Stefanik secured in last year’s defense authorization bill.
That earlier provision requires federal agencies to audit DJI and another Chinese drone manufacturer, Autel, for national security risks. If no such audit is performed, a ban on domestic imports will go into effect. No national security agency has indicated it plans to conduct the audit in time to meet the deadline.
The new proposal Republicans are now debating would require another federal audit of drone equipment, including software and spectrum band products, developed in countries that are “foreign adversaries.” The language once again targets DJI and Autel.
DJI has spent nearly $3 million on federal lobbying this year, according to disclosures filed with Congress, in appeals to lawmakers from states and districts that rely on its drones to support critical sectors of their local economies – particularly agricultural and law enforcement activities.
“The fundamental point is, this isn’t really about data security,” DJI global head of policy Adam Welsh said in an interview. “This is, frankly, about protectionism and trying to protect a U.S. industry.”
Representatives of DJI’s enterprise customer base acknowledge national security concerns associated with the drones. But they are also warning against the repercussions of a full-out ban.
“It would have a very significant level of repercussions, full stop,” National Sheriffs’ Association CEO Jonathan Thompson said in an interview. “It’s a little like taking cars out of a sheriff’s office and saying you can’t use any cars. These are ubiquitous.”
Even the federal government has had trouble weaning itself off the Chinese-made drones.
After the Interior Department prohibited the purchase of new DJI drones in 2020, the Government Accountability Office found in a follow-up review that the removal of foreign-made drone fleets had significantly impaired the operations of the Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service.
“BLM and NPS do not have enough drones for their operations to manage or prevent wildland fires and have shifted some operations to riskier, more costly methods, such as helicopters,” the GAO said in the report.
Sen. Rick Scott, a Florida Republican who is championing a proposal in his chamber that mirrors Stefanik’s language, said in an interview that he has run into resistance at the Senate Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over aviation and technology issues and is chaired by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
“Commerce did not oppose the inclusion of a DJI audit in the [defense bill],” said Phoebe Keller, a committee spokesperson for Cruz. “Staff provided edits to the text and engaged in good faith to clear the language. The sponsors ultimately chose not to engage further but we remain happy to work with the sponsors if and when they decide to reengage.”
A person granted anonymity to share details of the negotiations said committee staff conveyed concerns to Scott’s team about the ramifications of banning drones relied upon by first responders
Scott rejects concerns that there aren’t yet viable alternative drones being produced in the U.S.
“There’s American companies, and there will be,” said Scott, a former Florida governor and health care CEO. “I’m a business guy. If you told me there was an opportunity, I could figure it out pretty fast.”
NEW YORK — It’s no secret Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is spearheading a mid-decade redistricting drive to win control of the House. But the results of last week’s primaries in New York City add a new wrinkle to that project: How will he handle foes from within his own party?
On June 23, a trio of far-left congressional candidates routed establishment Democrats aligned with the Brooklyn lawmaker. Come 2028, when New York officials hope to redraw those three seats along with the rest of the state’s congressional boundaries, Jeffries would be one of the people influencing the process.
Any changes to districts won by an insurgent wing of the party — making them more moderate or shoring them up as progressive strongholds — will be closely watched by both establishment officials alarmed by the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America and young voters wary of Jeffries and the party machinery.
“You had people yelling ‘you’re next’ at a screen showing Hakeem,” said Basil Smikle Jr., the former head of the state Democratic Party, referring to democratic socialists calling for Jeffries’ defeat at a primary night watch party. “That tells you everything you need to know about the scrutiny that is going to come to anything he does, including his process.”
When it comes to redistricting in the Empire State, much remains undecided and undone. Midterm results in November will provide a clearer view of the electoral landscape, especially in competitive races in the Hudson Valley and on Long Island. Democratic leaders have not even won approval for their redistricting plan from voters — polling so far has been grim. And Jeffries himself has given no indication of his plans beyond a desire for New York to pledge its sword in the national redistricting wars.
But Jeffries, who is aiming to become the first Black speaker of the House, will regardless be buffeted by competing interests should the state move forward — not least the mutual animosity between himself and the democratic socialists winning races in his backyard.
A proposed redistricting map from 2022 provides a peek at how Democrats believed they could maximize gains in Congress throughout the state. In New York City, that meant dramatic changes to two districts won by leftist challengers last week.
The home turf of Brad Lander, a progressive who defeated incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman in Brooklyn and Manhattan, would have been drawn into a district encompassing deep-red Staten Island in a bid to oust GOP Rep. Nicole Malliotakis.
And the district won in a landslide by Assemblymember Claire Valdez, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, would have had the northern part of her highly educated, affluent base along the Brooklyn-Queens waterfront lopped off.
Ph.D. candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier, a fellow DSA member, beat incumbent Adriano Espaillat by the narrowest margin last week. Her district, however, currently resembles what was cooked up in Democrat’s 2022 proposal.
That map was ultimately thrown out by the courts, in large part for procedural problems. But Democrats remain focused on Malliotakis’ seat, and flipping it would require some rejiggering of the surrounding areas that could impact freshmen legislators.
“There will be new lines in 2028 and, generally speaking, the newer members are the most at risk,” said Chris Coffey, chief executive of Tusk Strategies. “But it’s hard to predict what will happen or how the new lines will shake out.”
Some political observers expect Jeffries to at least consider ways to protect his delegation while simultaneously weakening Republicans. Prominent members of the left have already expressed a desire to primary Rep. Ritchie Torres, who handily won reelection in the Bronx. And Rep. Grace Meng won her race by a smaller margin than many expected for a ten-year incumbent.
“You have an opportunity to remake the map and change the delegation in smart ways,” said one Democratic strategist. “The question is: how do you do that?”
Gustavo Gordillo, co-chair of DSA’s New York City chapter, said the organization generally supports using mid-decade redistricting to gain Democratic representation in Congress, but that tinkering with the districts freshly won by Lander and Valdez in particular would likely have unintended consequences.
“Claire Valdez is already basically a packed DSA district, so if they change that district very much, it suddenly makes any neighboring district easier terrain for us,” he said. “I think that also goes for NY-10 [where Lander is the Democratic nominee] as well. I’m curious to see how they navigate that.”
Jeffries’ office offered no indication that he’s thinking about anything beyond giving Democrats an edge nationally. The minority leader has mounted an aggressive push to redraw congressional maps in blue states to counteract Republican partisan gerrymandering elsewhere. And the results of that war will help decide control of Congress for years to come.
“Leader Jeffries is focused on passing the constitutional amendment to ensure New York has a fair and competitive congressional map that can help stop the nationwide MAGA power grab in places like Florida and Texas, and create additional opportunities to elect House Democrats in 2028 and beyond,” spokesperson Justin Chermol said in a statement.
There have also been overtures toward intra-party peace as of late.
The minority leader congratulated all of the Democratic contenders on their primary wins. Lander has embraced Jeffries’ speakership run — as has Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who was a driving force in getting all three progressives through the primary. (Valdez and Avila Chevalier have remained mum on who should lead the House.)
Additionally, the mere specter of shifting lines could create more comity between ideologically disparate officials who would want to stay on mapmakers’ good side. And laws governing the redistricting process also prevent the state from diluting minority representation in certain districts.
Jeffries will be joined in the redistricting effort by the New York State Democratic Party and the state Legislature, which must approve the maps. Both the state Senate and Assembly saw a leftward shift last week, meaning lawmakers would be sensitive to any changes that appear to negatively impact their political bedfellows.
“I don’t know about anyone else, but the Senate is not interested in using redistricting to take sides in a civil war,” said state Sen. Michael Gianaris, who spearheaded past redistricting efforts and will step down from his seat at the end of the year.
Redistricting is a fraught process in any year. Republicans and good-government groups will cry foul at any hint of gerrymandering. Various neighborhoods will balk at being shifted to a new representative. And the results can be unpredictable. In 2024, leftist Rep. Jamaal Bowman emerged a winner from the redistricting process only to go on to lose reelection.
But Tuesday’s primaries have upped the stakes for Jeffries and state Democrats even further, even as they try to focus on the national picture.
“A lot of people are going to be watching who weren’t watching before,” Smikle Jr. said.
When Rep. Tom Kean Jr. revealed Tuesday his extended absence from the House was due to inpatient treatment for depression, he ended months of speculation but also fueled a delicate conversation: Just how much privacy are elected officials entitled to?
The New Jersey Republican offered only scant details about his condition during the four months he went missing. And while colleagues of both parties expressed sympathy for his mental health challenges and gratitude that he has now returned, many hedged their comments by saying Kean could and perhaps should have said something earlier.
“Certainly everyone has a right to privacy and to health care and to the mental health care that they need,” said Rep. Maxine Dexter, an Oregon Democrat and physician, while adding that members are obligated to be “transparent and forthcoming.”
“You give up the right to privacy in a certain respect when you run for office and represent that many people,” she said. “And so I do challenge our colleagues to be more transparent when these things happen.”
Even Speaker Mike Johnson suggested Kean should have said more sooner at a news conference Tuesday: “If it were me, I would have been more specific about that, and I encouraged him to be.”
Kean appeared to anticipate that he might be criticized for saying so little as he missed more than 100 votes — no matter how sensitive his diagnosis might be. In the floor speech he gave upon returning Tuesday, he described himself as a “private person by nature” and said he “was still trying to understand what was happening” when his office first attributed his absence to a “medical issue.”
“When I said I hoped to return in a matter of weeks, I believed it,” Kean said. “Those were the best estimates the doctors could provide.”
Other parts of his approach, however, raised eyebrows. His social media accounts continued as if he was still at the Capitol, fueling more questions about his malady. Reports of an empty house back in New Jersey and an aide’s offhand comment that there were “no cameras” where Kean was only added to the speculation.
Many fellow House members spoke carefully Tuesday about Kean’s condition while also making clear that it should not excuse him from accountability for how his absence was handled.
“I think many of us have a tremendous degree of empathy and understanding for a mental health diagnosis,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said in an interview. “There’s a valid discussion here about when it comes to the volume of an absence, what is our responsibility to our constituents in communicating around that?”
Attitudes and practices surrounding mental health care in big-time politics have been transformed since 1972, when Sen. Thomas Eagleton of Missouri lost his No. 2 spot on the Democratic presidential ticket after his bouts with depression were publicized.
While the subject remains taboo among some, more lawmakers have talked openly about their mental health struggles as the disease has grown in prevalence among the general public.
When Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) was hospitalized for clinical depression three years ago, he almost immediately explained his health issues and offered routine public updates.
Fetterman’s transparency was met with plaudits and empathy from his congressional colleagues at the time, but he later said in an interview that he had regrets about opening up.
He blamed “people in the media” for having “weaponized” his illness, he told the New York Times a year ago: “It shook me that people are willing to weaponize that I got help.”
Others have been similarly candid. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) opened up in 2023 about overcoming a debilitating mix of anxiety, depression and the side effects of drugs used to treat them. Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) and Reps. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) and Becca Balint (D-Vt.) have spoken about their struggles, too.
Torres quickly responded to Kean’s announcement in a social media post, noting that while he sympathized, those in elected positions also have “a duty of transparency.”
Balint in an interview questioned whether staying silent on the issue for months served to “perpetuate the stigma” around mental health challenges.
“I’m glad that he is being open in public about it,” she said, while adding, “I wish that he had done that months ago, to even just make just a general statement.”
Rep. Lauren Boebert, who had questioned Kean’s whereabouts before his announcement, was among the small number of members who were not so understanding and called his long absence “ridiculous.”
“I think there’s this dose of depression that comes with every congressional pin that’s issued,” the Colorado Republican said. “Life is depressing. Life is hard. Get to work.”
While few Americans can afford to miss months of work for mental health treatment like Kean, depression-related work absences have become a major issue as the prevalence of the disease in the U.S. has only grown. Depressed workers are many times more likely to miss work because of the condition but are also less likely to self-disclose depression issues.
Several Democrats and Republicans were supportive of Kean immediately after his announcement and applauded him for coming forward with the diagnosis.
“It’s helpful to the American people and to others with depression to be able to acknowledge that this is what’s happening and it’s not a sin, he’s not a bad person, he’s not a weak person,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), a co-chair of the Congressional Mental Health Caucus, said in an interview. “It’s a brain disease, and I want him to be well.”
Beyer also said he was “disappointed” that Kean “felt he couldn’t disclose it,” though said he does not know the fellow congressman well and did not wish to criticize him.
Beyer, who has been open about his son’s schizophrenia diagnosis, said mental health issues should not be a “secret thing tucked away in the closet.”
Kean, for his part, let very few fellow politicians into his confidence. The two other Republicans in the New Jersey delegation, Reps. Jeff Van Drew and Chris Smith, said they had not heard from Kean in months despite calling and texting him out of concern.
Despite what Van Drew described as “radio silence,” the two other New Jersey Republicans defended Kean’s decision to not reveal his diagnosis.
“I was just concerned for him,” Van Drew said. “When you go through something like that, you … choose how you’re going to reveal it. So he decided to do it this way, and that’s fine. It’s his decision.”
Smith said he was optimistic Kean’s public disclosure even now could help reduce the stigma surrounding mental health issues. Asked about how much privacy members of Congress are entitled to on personal matters, he said, “There’s a balance.”
“He thought this is probably the best way to do it, and so I respected it,” Smith said.
Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.), a Navy veteran who has been open about having post-traumatic stress disorder, said in an interview he was among a select few who knew months in advance about Kean’s diagnosis. He defended Kean’s decision to keep mum.
“If you’ve got a medical condition, that’s up to you to disclose,” he said. “Anybody that’s saying they should have done this or that — really, they need to get a life.”
Congress
House votes to disclose which members settled sexual misconduct allegations with taxpayer funds
The House approved a measure Tuesday compelling the public release of records showing which House members have used taxpayer dollars to settle sexual misconduct charges levied against them and how much money was spent.
The resolution, offered by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), directs the House Ethics Committee and the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights — which also handles claims of misconduct — to produce such information within 60 days. It passed nearly unanimously, 420-0, with only Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) — an outspoken advocate for victims of sexual harassment and assault — voting present.
“We need to know what’s been going on here in the House of Representatives in order to convince the people and assure the people that we are conducting the people’s business with the utmost integrity and treating the officers and employees of this institution with the respect that they deserve,” said Massie, in remarks on the chamber floor imploring his colleagues to support the measure.
Massie’s effort comes after Reps. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) were, earlier this year, forced to resign under the cloud of serious sexual misconduct allegations. The incidents forced a reckoning in the House, where members have historically struggled to show they take sexual assault allegations within their ranks seriously and to show they are prepared to root out bad behavior when necessary.
Facing such renewed public pressure, the House Ethics panel publicly reiterated its commitment to investigating claims of sexual misconduct among lawmakers. But in a statement in April, the committee also noted that it “does not handle sexual harassment lawsuits or have any involvement in settlements of such claims.”
In March, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted to subpoena the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights for related settlements, and those materials revealed that the federal government paid more than $300,000 to settle claims against House lawmakers or their offices.
Congress ended the practice of the government footing the bill on members’ behalf in 2018, and the Ethics Committee has said it has, since that time, “not been notified of any awards or settlements relating to allegations of sexual harassment by a Member.”
In an interview during the vote Tuesday, Ethics chair Michael Guest (R-Miss.) said he believed the information compelled by the resolution had already been shared. But he would still support the measure, he added, because there was “nothing problematic” about Massie’s proposal.
“Anything we can do to make sure that that information is readily available, we want to make that happen,” Guest said.
The House previously rejected a related measure from Mace that would have forced the Ethics Committee to release information on its investigations of lawmakers who have been accused of sexual misconduct. The top Republican and Democrat on the Ethics panel — Guest and Mark DeSaulnier (D.Calif.) at the time released a rare public statement to condemn the resolution, arguing it would have a chilling effect on victims.
In a video posted on X Tuesday afternoon, Mace questioned why the House was voting on Massie’s resolution, when the Oversight subpoena she championed had already compelled materials about the settlements to be shared with Congress.
“I guess it’s just political theater,” she said.
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