Congress
The Democrat who thinks she can land an AI deal with Republicans
As Democrats struggle to come up with a plan to regulate artificial intelligence, one member of Congress has a high-risk idea: talk to the opposition.
Rep. Lori Trahan of Massachusetts, a four-term lawmaker and member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has been involved in conversations around the emerging technology for some time.
In the last three weeks, however, Trahan has gotten more serious about clinching a bipartisan accord. That includes meeting privately with Rep. Jay Obernolte of California, a Republican who also serves on the committee and has long held an interest in AI policy and has deep ties to the tech industry.
Her decision to carve out this partnership without the explicit blessing of her party leaders — who are instead encouraging a small group of Democrats to pursue a separate, partisan track — is already raising eyebrows.
“There’s a big difference between putting a stake in the ground on tech, and making it clear that you’re serious on tech, and undermining the caucus’s position on AI,” said a senior congressional Democrat who was granted anonymity to speak candidly due to the sensitive nature of ongoing AI negotiations.
In an interview last week, Trahan said her engagement was a no-brainer.
“I think it’s not a mystery what I’m fighting for in these conversations,” she said. “Safety is paramount; our kids, our national security, innovation. … We think the moment requires it.”
But Trahan’s gambit is no sure bet. If she can strike a viable agreement with Obernolte, she will have proven that she has the political savvy ideal for an aspiring leader: She’s a co-chair of the House Democratic messaging arm and isn’t ruling out a bid for a promotion in the next Congress. If she can’t clinch a deal — or worse, if she signs off on something her fellow Democrats think gives too much away — she could alienate members of her own party in Washington and back home.
Democrats have been struggling to define where they stand on AI for months amid competing priorities. If they move to put more guardrails on AI companies, they could face retaliation from deep-pocketed, pro-AI super PACs. If they let these companies proceed unchecked, progressives warn it could put the party out of step with voters concerned about lost jobs, the energy consumption associated with data centers and infringements on personal privacy.
Trahan said Democrats can’t afford to wait or retreat: “Suppose there is a catastrophic event or suppose there is a disruption to an employer where people are laid off because you weren’t at the table, we weren’t having these conversations,” she said. “Like, how do I look folks back in the eye and say, ‘Oh yeah, we were just waiting until we had the gavels.’”
As she works with Obernotle, Trahan insisted she has sought input from fellow Democrats and received recommendations, but not “pushback.” She added she is approaching discussions with “humility” and considers herself a “team player” in the caucus.
Her caucus, however, is consumed with its own deliberations. Rep. Ted Lieu of California, the No. 4 Democratic leader, is helping lead a “House Democratic Commission on AI and the Innovation Economy,” convened by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
With Reps. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and Valerie Foushee of North Carolina serving as co-chairs, the commission is currently working to come up with an AI regulatory framework Democrats can own and campaign on ahead of the midterms — all but spurning conversations with Republicans and distancing themselves from Trahan’s efforts.
“I know very little about what she and Obernotle are discussing. I have not been read in,” Lieu said in an interview. “We’re focused on building a framework for Leader Jeffries before the end of the year on what Democrats should focus on after we flip the House.”
“But members can do whatever they want,” he continued. “I haven’t followed [Trahan] — I literally have no idea what language even looks like or if they’ve even talked about language.”
In a potentially awkward situation depending on what comes of Trahan’s efforts, Lieu expects to become House Democratic Caucus chair in the next Congress — and Trahan is one of a handful of members angling for the vice chair slot Lieu now holds.
Regarding her leadership ambitions, Trahan said that “if there’s an opportunity for me to continue at the leadership table, I would love to have that conversation.”
Jeffries, asked about her AI pursuits, said in a brief interview, “I haven’t talked to Lori Trahan about it.”
Trahan is also taking a gamble by entering into high-stakes policy talks with a Republican who doesn’t have a great track record of landing deals with Democrats.
Lieu ran an AI policy task force with Obernolte in the previous Congress, and they introduced legislation earlier this year that would improve standards, invest in workforce development programs and deter harmful deepfakes. That bill has gone nowhere.
Meanwhile, Rep. Sam Liccardo (D-Calif.) engaged in his own series of talks with Obernolte earlier this year that likewise failed to bear fruit.
“We’re all interested in trying to find a framework that makes sense,” Liccardo said in an interview. “Jay is open-minded, but he has constraints on his side of the aisle, and it makes it very difficult to find openness.”
Trahan and Obernolte have declined to publicly discuss specific policies that are under consideration in their discussions, with Obernolte not even wanting to divulge he was working with Trahan on anything related to AI: “I am neither confirming or denying that I am talking to her,” he said in an interview.
Trahan, in contrast, said, “I’ve been very happy to work with Jay. … I like the way the conversations are progressing, and, you know, I’m hopeful that we can share something soon.”
They could run into problems. Obernolte has consistently pushed for replacing existing state laws on AI with an overarching federal framework. That’s a more moderate approach than banning states from making their own AI rules without any federal guardrails — which is favored by GOP leadership — but it remains anathema to many Democrats.
Earlier this month, people familiar with Trahan and Obernolte’s talks said a potential deal would involve preempting AI safety laws like those in California and New York that require top AI developers to disclose information about new models to identify security risks.
That potential trajectory prompted alarm from blue state legislators, including in Trahan’s home state, where a data center boom has rattled locals worried about job losses, higher energy prices and environmental impacts.
Last month, Massachusetts State Sen. Michael Moore and State Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier wrote to Trahan that while they aren’t opposed to a federal framework, they don’t want to undermine existing state laws, such as on data privacy.
Trahan declined to rule out that state preemption is on the table in her talks with Obernolte but she said her subsequent conversation with Moore and Farley-Bouvier was “productive,” with the three of them “aligned on our values in terms of making sure we hold the line on safety.”
Moore, in an interview, echoed Trahan’s characterization of their phone call, but added he hadn’t yet seen a draft of her proposal and warned that he didn’t necessarily trust the Trump administration to implement it responsibly.
This isn’t Trahan’s first politically fraught policy fight. She recently said she tried to negotiate with Republicans on the so-called SCORE Act, which would among other things preempt a patchwork of state laws governing how student athletes are paid.
She wanted to help land a bipartisan bill that would level the playing field for everyone — what she calls her guiding principle in AI talks. But Trahan eventually walked away when GOP leaders decided to pursue a partisan path, culminating in a canceled floor vote on the measure last week.
As for why she thinks bipartisan AI negotiations might be different, Trahan suggested it could, if nothing else, come down to stamina.
“The stakes are too high for us to rush it,” she said, “and they’re too high for us to get it wrong.”
Gabby Miller and Brendan Bordelon contributed to this report.
Democrats are readying a long list of investigations they want to launch into Donald Trump.
Reps. Robert Garcia and Jamie Raskin, who would lead the Oversight and Judiciary committees, respectively, if the party takes back the House, said they’re wasting no time in preparing an all-out oversight campaign targeting Trump, his family, and his administration.
Both know that House Dems’ efforts now could provide a backbone for the accountability message the party intends to continue into the 2028 presidential election season.
“We are going to be looking at systems of bribery, kickback and financial corruption and opportunities for disgorgement and restitution to the American people,” Raskin said. “That would be No. 1.”
Topping their long list of controversies they want to probe: Trump’s acceptance of a Qatari jet for use as his new Air Force One, and his family’s massively profitable cryptocurrency investments.
Raskin also said he intends to probe what he deems “fraudulent and vindictive prosecutions,” including those of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Leticia James. Garcia, meanwhile, said he is determined to fill in gaps he sees in the GOP-led investigation into the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
White House spokesperson Olivia Wales responded to Democrats’ plans by stating the president “will continue to draw a sharp contrast with his commonsense agenda and radical Democrats who want to massively raise taxes, defund the police, and are soft on crime.”
Garcia and Raskin’s preparations in some ways resemble how their predecessors planned ahead of the 2018 midterms. But that year, Democrats tiptoed around the prospect of impeachment for fear of alienating voters, then launched a flurry of investigations aimed at Trump once they were in power.
Now, after two impeachments that failed to remove Trump from office and with a party base intent on pulling no punches, House Democrats are reluctant to take anything off the table — while also recognizing the limitations of impeachment as a check on Trump’s power.
“Nobody on the Democratic side is afraid of impeachment,” Raskin said this week, adding that he considers it a “tool in the toolbox.”
What else we’re watching:
— SCANDAL-PLAGUED CANDIDATES TEST PARTIES’ LIMITS: Democrats and Republicans this election cycle keep playing whack-a-mole as candidate after candidate becomes embroiled in controversies ranging from domestic violence to sexual misconduct. Neither party has developed a clear playbook yet for when to step in or what counts as disqualifying. But identifying that line could become a key effort in determining who controls the next Congress, as several races with problematic candidates have been or could become battlegrounds.
— LAWMAKERS BRISTLE OVER POCKET RECISSION SEASON: With less than 45 days left in the fiscal year, the time is right for pocket rescissions — the controversial tactic Trump used last year to cancel billions of dollars in foreign aid without Congress’ consent. If the White House takes that tack again, it will not be well received on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers in both parties continue to bristle over Trump’s ongoing assault on their funding power.
Chris Marquette, Riley Rogerson, Erin Doherty, Andrew Howard, Alec Hernandez and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
Democrats haven’t yet won the House majority. But top party leaders are wasting no time in preparing an all-out oversight campaign targeting President Donald Trump, his family and administration should they flip the chamber in November.
At the center of the effort are California Rep. Robert Garcia, who is poised to lead the Oversight Committee under a Democratic takeover, and Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, who is in line to lead the Judiciary Committee. They are each already planning to use their potential gavels to investigate key Trump controversies — such as his acceptance of a Qatari jet for use as his new Air Force One and his family’s massively profitable cryptocurrency investments.
Garcia and Raskin both said in interviews they have a long list of administration officials that they plan to probe and possibly bring before their committees. But each said they intend to focus intently on Trump himself.
“Ideally, it’s the president’s sons and the president and the family,” Garcia said, adding a litany of other members of the Trump inner sanctum he wants to hear from. They include chief of staff Susie Wiles, deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and son-in-law and foreign envoy Jared Kushner, as well as former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Cory Lewandowski, who served as her chief of staff.
In addition to the crypto profits and the much-criticized Qatari 747, Garcia said he planned to probe federal contracts awarded to members of Trump’s family and the series of pardons Trump has granted early in his second term.
Raskin, a veteran of the investigative onslaught that took place in the second half of Trump’s first term, said he planned to focus on allegations of self-enrichment by Trump and his family — as well as illicit foreign influence on American institutions and rising authoritarianism in government.
“We are going to be looking at systems of bribery, kickback and financial corruption and opportunities for disgorgement and restitution to the American people,” Raskin said. “That would be No. 1.”
Asked to comment on Democrats’ oversight plans, White House spokesperson Olivia Wales responded with a statement outlining Trump’s legislative achievements.
“The President will continue to draw a sharp contrast with his commonsense agenda and radical Democrats who want to massively raise taxes, defund the police, and are soft on crime,” she said. “The choice has never been more clear: doubling down on President Trump’s winning agenda or far-left liberal policies and partisan gridlock.”
Raskin and Garcia are forging ahead even as voters reject some Democrats who were at the forefront of the Trump accountability effort that unfolded eight years ago. And while the preparations Garcia, Raskin and others are making now in many ways resemble how their predecessors planned ahead of the 2018 midterms, there are differences.
Democrats in the leadup to the elections that year warily tiptoed around the prospect of impeachment in fear of alienating voters, and they laid out some investigative targets that did not implicate Trump personally.
Once in power, though, they launched a flurry of investigations aimed at Trump — including the president’s tax returns, his acceptance of foreign “emoluments” and later his effort to leverage aid to Ukraine for political favors. In virtually every case, the administration stonewalled Democratic investigators.
Now, after two impeachments that failed to remove Trump from office and with a party base intent on pulling no punches, House Democrats are reluctant to take anything off the table — while also recognizing the limitations of impeachment as a check on Trump’s power.
“Nobody on the Democratic side is afraid of impeachment,” Raskin said this week, adding that he considers it a “tool in the toolbox.”
The larger project for Democrats if they win power in November is to use subpoena power and public hearings to provide a backbone for the accountability message they intend to continue into the 2028 presidential election season.
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries emphasized the wide-reaching scope of oversight inquiries during his campaign kickoff speech last month, in which he unveiled House Democratic midterm messaging that included a pledge to “hold the crooks accountable.”
“Anyone,” Jeffries said, “who is stealing from the American people, screwing over the American people, or shortchanging the American people is going to be held accountable beginning on Day 1.”
While the Oversight and Judiciary panels would be the leaders of the investigatory push in a Democratic House, other committees are set to target Trump as well in a bid to deliver the bold action Democratic primary votes have demanded.
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), a member of the Ways and Means Committee, said he expected the oversight subpanel would be a highly sought-after assignment should Democrats win gavels — with a potential “big” emphasis, he said, on probing Trump family corruption.
He added he was “very concerned” about how the Trump administration has managed the IRS and Social Security, particularly after the Department of Government Efficiency upended federal agencies last year.
“We certainly will exercise our oversight responsibility,” said Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts, who is expected to return as Ways and Means chair in a Democratic majority.
Garcia and Raskin, meanwhile, have other pet priorities beyond the personal benefits Trump and his family have allegedly garnered in office.
Raskin said he intends to probe what he deems “fraudulent and vindictive prosecutions” including those of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Leticia James.
“The prosecution function has been utterly tainted and the Judiciary Committee obviously can’t let that go,” he said.
He has also set his sights on Paramount Skydance’s proposed $110 billion buyout of Warner Bros. Discovery, a deal Democrats have blasted not only as an antitrust violation but also a threat to national security and free speech.
Previewing his intentions for the majority, Raskin requested a transcribed interview with Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison in a letter last week. While he cannot haul Ellison, a close Trump ally, before the committee now as a member of the minority party, Raskin said his inquiry into Paramount would be a “priority” if Democrats win subpoena power.
Garcia, meanwhile, said he is determined to fill in gaps he sees in the GOP-led investigation into the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He said he wants to bring key witnesses back to testify under oath, potentially in public hearings “because most of them were not called under oath and most of them were not called under subpoena.”
That could include big names in the world of finance, such as Leon Black, the co-founder of Apollo Global Management, and Jes Staley, a former top executive at JPMorgan Chase — both of whom had substantial communications with Epstein and met with the committee privately.
“I think we’re going to have, in the majority, public Epstein hearings,” Garcia said.
The Epstein investigation is similar to the Trump corruption probe in that it would potentially span multiple committees, and Garcia and Raskin both praised each other and said they are planning to work in concert on both issues.
Raskin said he doesn’t envision any issues with coordination between two panels
“There’s enough Trump family corruption to go around,” he said. “I don’t think we have to worry about that. We will just be dividing it up.”
Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.
Republican lawmakers are still locked in a power struggle with the White House over control of federal cash, long since President Donald Trump swept back into office with unprecedented orders undermining Congress’ power of the purse.
Earlier this month, GOP senators overwhelmingly agreed to a bipartisan government funding bill that would temporarily block the Trump administration from finalizing a federal rule to let political appointees steer money toward grants “aligned with the president’s agenda.” The House could clear that bill next month, and Trump is expected to sign it to avert a shutdown before the midterms.
And while the days of widespread funding freezes might be over, the Trump administration continues to create new rules for federal grants and then deny funding based on them — only to be repeatedly shot down in court this summer.
Lawmakers in both parties have also blasted White House budget director Russ Vought this year for delaying the release of cash for congressionally backed programs for antipoverty services, foreign assistance, banking in underserved areas and more.
“Congress has appropriated money, and you don’t have the authority to impound it,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) chastised Vought this spring over the withholding of hundreds of millions of dollars the Trump administration is supposed to send quarterly to states.
Now Republicans are watching for clues about whether Vought, between now and Sept. 30, will claim the authority to nix appropriations in the final weeks of the fiscal year through what’s known as a pocket recession. He used the move last year to unilaterally cancel $4.9 billion in foreign aid through the legally dubious maneuver.
“Pocket rescissions would be a very interesting way to curry favor with the legislative branch — especially the one part of the legislative branch which has delivered on all of the administration’s shit,” Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada, a senior Republican appropriator, said in a recent interview.
Indeed, the White House needs the support of GOP appropriators in both chambers to advance Trump administration priorities.
Those top lawmakers have already taken some modest steps to stop the White House from shirking Congress’ intent on spending by inserting stricter language into bipartisan funding bills Trump signed into law for the current fiscal year. That included new rules for shifting money between accounts and more explicit instructions for how dollars should be spent.
Some Republican lawmakers have also been resisting the administration’s push this summer to enact billions of dollars for the military and agriculture programs through another party-line budget reconciliation package. Top House Republican appropriators slammed the White House in June for pursuing a “risky and uncoordinated” strategy to enact funding for the Iran war through a party-line bill that’s not guaranteed to pass.
Relying on the reconciliation process to skirt the Senate filibuster is a key step to achieve the “paradigm shift” Vought has touted throughout Trump’s second term, designed to make funding negotiations “less bipartisan” so Republicans don’t have to agree to nondefense increases in order to get enough votes to boost military budgets.
“At what point did we stop legislating?” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), another senior appropriator, said last month after Vought privately pitched Senate Republicans on the latest party-line plan, which would inherently take funding power away from the appropriations committees.
Murkowski was also among the Senate Republicans who chided the White House for not seeking input from lawmakers before forging ahead with its plan to put political appointees in charge of approving federal grants and minimize the role of the objective peer-review process for selecting recipients of those dollars.
“There was no consultation at all,” she said. “When you start issuing grants based on political connections, that’s not good for the system here.”
Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) publicly called on Vought to extend the public comment period for the plan last month, to no avail.
She also continues to pan the pocket rescission gambit, saying in a recent interview that the administration should “go through the proper process with the Appropriations Committee” if it wants to rescind money intended for a specific program.
Under a decades-old law, the White House is allowed to send Congress a request to revoke funding, then withhold the cash for 45 days while lawmakers consider whether to approve, reject or ignore the proposal. Republicans last summer voted to approve Trump’s request to rescind $9 billion for public media and foreign assistance.
Then Trump used that same law weeks later to send Congress a request to rescind $4.9 billion in foreign aid — this time with less than 45 days left before the end of the fiscal year. Vought immediately declared the funding canceled, arguing that the administration had to withhold the funding until it expired at the end of September, regardless of congressional action.
The Office of Management and Budget did not respond to requests for comment on whether the White House plans to execute new pocket rescissions in the coming weeks. But Trump’s new pick for deputy director at the agency, Hal Duncan, told lawmakers this summer that the agency isn’t ruling out any “fiscal tools.”
House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole said White House officials have given him no assurances that they won’t deploy the tactic again this year and that his reaction would hinge on the type of funding eliminated.
“It would depend on what it is — it really would,” the Oklahoma Republican said last month.
In courtrooms throughout the country, federal judges continue to weigh in on whether Trump is illegally encroaching on Congress’ funding power.
Last month a federal judge declared that the administration can’t cancel grants based on new rules or goals established after the fact. The Trump administration later admitted in a different case that it canceled $7.6 billion “based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state.” Then a federal judge halted changes to teen-pregnancy prevention grants, concluding that it’s unlawful “to impose conditions … that Congress did not intend or that are unreasonable or unexplained.”
The Supreme Court has yet to conclusively rule on the president’s spending tactics, and many Democrats on Capitol Hill argue Republicans shouldn’t rely on the courts to defend Congress’ authority. GOP leaders have repeatedly bucked Democratic calls for action, including to reverse the cancellation of specific grants, nullify Trump’s pocket rescission last fall and head off a future end-run around Congress by barring rescissions requests in the last months of the fiscal year.
“When are our Republican colleagues going to assert our legislative authority?” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, a top appropriator, said in an interview. “I mean, why in the hell did they run for Congress?”
Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, a senior appropriator in line to be the No. 2 Democrat in the next Congress, was more charitable.
“I just think there’s a bipartisan desire to get back to the way the Constitution is supposed to operate,” he said in an interview, “where we decide how the money is spent.”
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