Congress
Speaker Johnson doubles down on ‘No Kings’ criticism following demonstrations nationwide
House Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday doubled down on his criticisms of millions of protesters who joined Saturday’s “No Kings” rallies across the nation, decrying the widely peaceful demonstrations as evidence of “a rise of Marxism in the Democratic Party.”
In an interview with ABC’s Jonathan Karl on “This Week,” the Louisiana Republican said the protests were “political cover” for Democrats as the government shutdown continues.
“They needed a stunt,” Johnson said. “They needed a show. Chuck Schumer has — needs cover right now. He’s closed the government down because he needs political cover, and this was a part of it.”
Demonstrators gathered across the country in an estimated 2,700 separate “No Kings” rallies Saturday to protest what they call President Donald Trump’s authoritarianism. It was the third mass mobilization against the Trump administration since he returned to the White House in January.
Reports of the protests show demonstrators dressed in costumes of inflatable animals, dancing in the streets and holding signs criticizing Trump and his administration. Organizers estimated that almost 7 million people took part.
Though he congratulated protesters on a “violent-free, free speech exercise,” Johnson on Sunday condemned what he said were “hateful messages” of the demonstrations.
“We have video and photos of pretty violent rhetoric, calling out the president, saying fascists must die and all the rest. I mean, I don’t think that’s loving speech. I don’t think that’s friendly speech. And I don’t think it’s pro-American to say those kinds of things,” Johnson said.
Johnson had been a vocal critic of the rallies leading up to the weekend. He and other allies of the president called the demonstrations “Hate America rallies” and sought to tie the protests to Hamas and antifa.
“The irony of the message is pretty clear for everyone. If President Trump was a king, the government would be open right now,” Johnson said. “If President Trump was a king, they would not have been able to engage in that free speech exercise out on The Mall, by the way, which was open because President Trump hasn’t closed it.”
Leading up to Saturday’s nationwide protests, Trump told Fox News that people are “referring to me as a king. I’m not a king.” But shortly before a Washington rally began Saturday, the Trump War Room account posted an image of a smirking Trump wearing a crown.
Still, Johnson on Sunday said the message of the protests pushed an “un-American” Marxist ideology.
“It’s not about the people, it’s about the message. It’s about the ideology,” said Johnson. “It is a dangerous ideology, and it is anti-American. It goes against everything that we stand for.”
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.
Sen. Darline Graham sought to take up her brother’s mantle Tuesday, going after former special counsel Jack Smith for obtaining the late-Sen. Lindsey Graham’s phone data.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” the South Carolina Republican told Smith as he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, adding that the anguish the prosecutor caused her brother “makes me sick.”
Lindsey Graham, until his unexpected death in July, was among the most vocal in his outrage over revelations that Smith secretly collected electronic data from GOP lawmakers as part of the Biden-era investigation into President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
The late senator was also unapologetic in his support for a provision tucked into a government funding package, which was later repealed, allowing senators to sue the federal government for $500,000 or more if they discover their electronic records were seized without notification — language specifically designed to compensate Smith’s targets.
But Smith replied that Lindsey Graham was not a target of his investigation and was not suspected of wrongdoing — in fact, he considered Darline Graham’s brother “a patriotic public servant” who likely would have been a “witness” in his case against Trump for attempted election subversion.
“Your brother investigated the claims that Donald Trump was making,” Smith told Darline Graham. “He found them to be false.”
The federal government’s internal watchdog told Congress Tuesday that it has concluded President Donald Trump acted unlawfully in unilaterally canceling $810 million in federal funding.
In a letter to congressional leaders obtained by Blue Light News, the Government Accountability Office’s top lawyer panned Trump’s declaration Friday that he is nixing money Congress appropriated through a controversial budget maneuver called a “pocket rescission.”
“The Constitution vests in Congress the power of the purse,” GAO General Counsel Edda Emmanuelli Perez wrote,
adding that “Congress did not cede this important power” by enacting the 1970s impoundment law intended to stop presidents from withholding money Congress approves.
“Any withholding of appropriated funds beyond their date of expiration, regardless of size, subverts both the constitutional process for enacting federal law and Congress’s constitutional power of the purse,” Perez added. “The President may not force the expiration of budget authority Congress has already enacted and did not rescind.”
It is unclear what practical effect, if any, the letter will have on the interbranch funding fight. Outside groups sued the administration last year over a prior pocket rescission, but the Supreme Court issued a preliminary ruling that they did not have standing to challenge the matter. The Trump administration has argued that only the head of the GAO is able to sue under the 52-year-old law governing rescissions.
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