Congress
Scott on the verge of losing House Agriculture Democratic leadership
House Democrats are poised to oust another senior panel leader after ailing Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.), 79, lost a vote in the influential Steering panel Monday.
Scott lost the steering committee vote in the first round of voting Monday, according to three people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly. Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) won the vote outright on the first ballot. The result all but ensures Scott will lose his bid to stay on as the top Democrat on the Agriculture panel next year.
Craig, 52, is in a strong position to take the top Democratic spot on on the Agriculture Committee after receiving 34 votes from the steering panel. Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.), 72, who was also in the running for the ranking member position, came in second with 22 votes. Scott received 5 votes.
The full Democratic House caucus will vote Tuesday. Scott failed to garner the support of every Black Caucus member on the steering committee, according to two other people.
The formal move against Scott comes after years of pressure from rank-and-file Democrats, who complain he has not been an effective committee leader. It also reflects the larger effort among House Democrats to force out senior panel leaders ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s return to power with a GOP trifecta next year.
Since 2021, Scott has defied private calls from fellow Democrats to step down from his committee role amid concerns about his health, lack of leadership and struggle to negotiate the $1.5 trillion farm bill. Those calls have built since the election, especially after Costa and Craig launched their own bids for the ranking member job.
Scott, who became the first Black chair of the Agriculture Committee in 2021, has long been protected by Democratic leaders and the powerful Congressional Black Caucus. But those alliances have crumbled, especially in the last few weeks.
As recently as last Wednesday, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries declined to support Scott when asked in a brief hallway interview about the Georgia Democrats’ health and whether he should be reelected to the role for the next Congress.
Scott has also been hemorrhaging support among the Black Caucus. Younger CBC members have long been more open to replacing Scott. But in a stunning shift, even some senior CBC members have recently and openly mulled the potential of backing one of Scott’s challengers.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the top Democrat on the Homeland Security panel, said in a recent interview that he hadn’t made up his mind whether to stick behind Scott.
“But I do want someone who … can carry the Democratic message far and wide,” Thompson said. “We need the strongest voice.”
Jay Clayton is on the verge of becoming President Donald Trump’s next director of national intelligence — though Democrats won’t be helping him get there.
The news: The Senate on Monday voted 51-43 in a party line vote to move forward with Clayton’s nomination, teeing up a final vote as soon as Tuesday to confirm him as the next head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. No Democrats joined their GOP counterparts in support of Clayton.
Clayton, the top prosecutor in the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office and a former SEC chair, will take over from acting spy czar Bill Pulte and join Trump’s Cabinet when he’s confirmed by the full Senate.
Why it matters: At some level, that’s a win for Democrats, who have been eager to replace Pulte, a Trump loyalist with no background in national security, since the president named him to the post last month. But after an up-and-down confirmation process for Clayton, Democrats have new reservations about the incoming intel adviser, as Monday’s vote underscored.
During his Senate confirmation hearing two weeks ago, Clayton refused to say that Joe Biden fairly won the 2020 vote, leading Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Panel to vote against his nomination. That marked a reversal from June, when Senate Democrats worked with their GOP counterparts to fast-track Clayton’s confirmation in exchange for renewing a powerful spy law. That deal fell apart after Trump intervened, alleging on social media that Democrats weren’t delivering on their end of the deal.
Open question: Though Clayton’s confirmation now looks imminent, Senate action on the spy statute that was supposed to be part of the deal — Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — is not.
With the House already gone for the August recess, the Senate appears unlikely to vote on Section 702 until September.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will meet with lawmakers in Washington to discuss American leadership on artificial intelligence, the company said Monday.
A spokesperson for the chipmaker said Huang would hold talks with both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill to talk about latest developments with the technology.
“Jensen is in DC to meet with leaders on both sides of the aisle to discuss American leadership in AI, including leading in open source,” the spokesperson said.
Huang is scheduled to sit down Tuesday with Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee who has expressed serious concern about security threats following last week’s OpenAI autonomous cyberattack.
The senator’s office confirmed the meeting. Senate Intelligence Chair Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It comes as Huang defended open-source AI on X, writing that such models “strengthen safety and cybersecurity, accelerate innovation and diffusion, and enable sovereignty.”
Huang’s visit comes as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is also expected to meet with Warner, although a spokesperson for the senator said the talks were separate. Earlier Monday, Open AI announced it was in talks with Nvidia, a technology company that makes chips to use artificial intelligence, for a data center project.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The House Ethics Committee said in a statement Monday it is investigating Rep. Lance Gooden, a four-term Texas Republican.
It’s unclear what the committee is probing, but the Office of Congressional Conduct, an independent investigative branch of the House, sent over findings regarding Gooden to the committee June 10.
The Ethics panel plans to release an update on its investigation by Nov. 9. Committee representatives declined to comment beyond the statement.
In 2021, the Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint asking for an investigation into Gooden’s apparent failure to report his stock trades in a timely manner, which is a requirement under a federal law known as the STOCK Act. The complaint was sent to the OCC.
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