Congress

Trump names 4 top campaign advisers to senior White House roles

Published

2 years ago

November 13, 2024

President-elect Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that a handful of loyalists from his campaign will join him in the White House as senior aides.

Dan Scavino will serve as deputy chief of staff; Stephen Miller will serve as deputy chief of staff for policy and Homeland Security adviser; James Blair will serve as deputy chief of staff for legislative, political and public affairs; and Taylor Budowich will serve as deputy chief of staff for communications and personnel. All four will also carry the title assistant to the president.

The figures are familiar in Trump world and come as the president-elect is quickly naming his closest stalwarts to top roles in his second administration.

“Dan, Stephen, James, and Taylor were ‘best in class’ advisors on my winning campaign, and I know they will honorably serve the American people in the White House,” Trump said in a statement. “They will continue to work hard to Make America Great Again in their respective new roles.”

Scavino was a top communications aide in Trump’s White House and a senior adviser on his reelection campaign. He met Trump as a 16-year-old golf caddie.

Blair, a Florida-based GOP strategist who previously was deputy chief of staff to Gov. Ron DeSantis, served as political director for the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee.

Miller — an immigration hard-liner who took a role in Trump’s family separation policies during his first administration — previously served in Trump’s White House as his top speechwriter and senior adviser to the president for Policy, and was a senior adviser for his campaign.

Budowich was chief of staff to Donald Trump Jr. during his father’s 2020 presidential campaign and worked as a spokesperson for Trump after he left the White House. The Jan. 6 select committee interviewed him under subpoena, pressing for information about his work helping organize the Trump rally at the Ellipse that preceded the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Budowich told the committee he did not expect the day to turn violent.

He also helmed the pro-Trump super PACs MAGA Inc. and Save America PAC. The latter spent more than $100 million during the 2024 campaign, including millions on legal bills for Trump and his allies.

Congress

Cruz says guardrails needed after dire AI warning

Published

42 minutes ago

September 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Ted Cruz said bipartisan legislation is needed to protect the world from the “catastrophic risks” of artificial intelligence.

The Texas Republican’s Wednesday comments on ABC’s “The View” come as lawmakers in both parties call for more urgent attention to AI safety regulations after a researcher who quit Anthropic on Tuesday said tech giants are “gambling with our lives.”

“I read that whole tweet thread that that developer put out. It was highly concerning,” Cruz said in the interview.

He added, “It reminded me, last year I had Elon Musk on my podcast … and one of the questions I asked him, I said, ‘OK, what are the odds that AI destroys humanity?’ And he looked at me and said, ‘10-20%,’ and I’m like, ‘holy crap.’”

As the chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, Cruz holds significant influence over the fate of AI legislation.

Cruz worked with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) last year to pass the bipartisan Take it Down Act, which criminalized nonconsensual intimate imagery, including deepfakes and revenge porn created by AI. Cruz called for more legislation on Wednesday to guard against the “catastrophic risks” of artificial intelligence.

Those risks, which he said include biological and nuclear threats, should require government supervision and approval before they can be implemented. Cruz said he is currently working with Klobuchar and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to begin to address those dangers through bipartisan legislation.

“This is scary stuff, but we’re also not going to be able to stick our head in the sand and pretend technology isn’t happening. So we’ve got to put some guardrails on it,” he said.

Cruz said the likelihood of such legislation becoming law was “not clear.”

“Amy and John are negotiating right now. It is possible to move bipartisan legislation … but it ain’t easy.”

Despite his concerns about the risks of AI, he said the U.S. needs to lead the world in the technology’s development.

“One of the real challenges is [that] China is going full speed ahead, and whatever we do here, China is not going to stop,” Cruz said. “If there are going to be killer robots, I would rather they be American killer robots, rather than Chinese killer robots.”

In a social media post highlighting his remarks on the show, Cruz added: “If China leads the world in AI, the whole world is in trouble.”

Congress

Lawmakers urge Congress to act after AI researcher’s dire warning

Published

5 hours ago

September 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Lawmakers in both parties are escalating pleas for legislative action after an artificial intelligence researcher claimed late Tuesday that unchecked AI models could feasibly destroy the world by the decade’s end — and AI developers know it.

While it’s not the first time experts have warned of the existential threats posed by an unregulated industry that is rapidly advancing, it comes at a moment of heightened awareness on Capitol Hill about the need to reach consensus on AI safety legislation before it’s too late.

“The call is coming from inside the house,” Rep. Lori Trahan of Massachusetts, a House Democrat seeking to lead her party on AI policy, posted on X Wednesday. “Safety researchers are resigning, powerful AI models are breaking out of their labs, and companies are racing ahead anyway.”

She was responding to social media posts from former Anthropic AI researcher Jason Coxon, whose warnings were first reported in the Wall Street Journal.

“I resigned from Anthropic today. I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic,” said Coxon, who specialized in training models. “Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.”

He added: “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt.”

Adding to the alarm, Evan Hubinger, a top Anthropic scientist charged with ensuring AI aligns with human values and ethics, agreed with Coxon’s characterization of the situation.

“We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade,” he posted. “I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to.”

Spokespeople for OpenAI and Anthropic did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but leaders of both companies have engaged with Congress in the not so distant past on the issue. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei made a direct plea to lawmakers to impose limits on AI development in a New York Times op-ed last year, while OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has repeatedly visited congressional offices this year.

Trahan was not the only member of Congress Wednesday to join the calls for guardrails now.

Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California — a member of leadership and co-chair of an AI commission that Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries charged with formulating AI policy recommendations — called Coxon’s post “exhibit number 739 for why we need to pass the bipartisan AI Kill Switch Bill asap.”

Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida urged Congress to convene a special session on AI, asserting “not enough of Congress is focusing on this.”

“We MUST be ready,” she wrote. “This is happening whether or not we want it to.”

But lawmakers remain far apart on agreeing to any plan. Trahan continues to push for Congress to pass her bipartisan AI safety bill with Republican Rep. Jay Obernolte of California as members of both parties say it falls short.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who has often been ahead of the pack in calling for strict standards — including his latest proposal that would ban AI superintelligence — declared on social media that 81 percent of Americans believe the government is not doing enough to regulate AI.

“AI threatens our economy, privacy, democracy and the well-being of our kids,” he said. “Congress must stand up to the Big Tech oligarchs and protect the American people.

Sanders’ proposal with House Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) to ban AI superintelligence, however, was widely panned by colleagues who said barring innovation was not the answer.

Congress

Capitol agenda: Will Schumer go long for college sports?

Published

7 hours ago

September 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is about to step into a political minefield as the Senate takes up a college sports bill as soon as next week — with perhaps as many reasons for his caucus to oppose it as support it.

Senators return to Washington Monday to a three-week window for legislating before they depart until November — and internal splits on both sides of the aisle are threatening passage of legislation to impose new federal rules on an industry worth tens of billions of dollars.

Schumer must decide if he wants to steer his members toward helping Republicans reach the 60-vote threshold on what could be the sweepiest bill the chamber passes before the midterms.

Backing it would mean supporting top Commerce Democrat Maria Cantwell’s efforts in crafting the bipartisan legislation that has taken months of painstaking negotiations with her counterpart, Chair Ted Cruz. But there are also plenty of downsides to promoting the bill — which has President Donald Trump’s endorsement.

One Democratic Senate aide with knowledge of the negotiations believes there’s enough opposition within the party to tank the measure on the floor as a coalition of labor rights groups and the Congressional Black Caucus warn the bill is exploitative.

“A good number of Democratic offices aren’t eager to tick off the AFL-CIO and NAACP, screw over college athletes and deliver Trump and Senate Republicans a major political win weeks before midterms,” another Democratic Senate aide with knowledge of the negotiations said.

“Bad policy. Terrible politics,” the aide added.

An aide for Schumer Tuesday did not say whether he supports the legislation. The spokesperson said Schumer “knows Congress should act to bring clarity and certainty” to the issues addressed in the measure, and that he’s “continuing to talk to members as the bill moves toward the floor.”

But continued pushback from Democratic members like Sen. Chris Murphy and the CBC — plus several labor, civil rights and athletes organizations — have thrown into question Democrats’ support.

Murphy, who has objected to the bill’s silence on college athletes’ employee status, has led the charge against the bill, refuting several posts from Cruz on social media this week.

Still, a lobbyist working on the bill, granted anonymity to discuss the dynamics, said they “could see Schumer letting [defectors] go their own way.”

“I also suspect that [Dems’] own tallies are probably showing that they can afford votes like that,” the lobbyist said of Schumer.

Meanwhile, Republicans are still working through their own divide on the bill: concerns over whether the legislation would pre-empt states’ authority to block trans athletes from competing on women’s sports teams.

Trump last month encouraged Republicans not to stand in the way of the measure over the issue after senators like Josh Hawley and Tommy Tuberville expressed hesitation.

But even if the bill were to eke by in the Senate, a hefty amount of opposition in both parties is bound to create an uphill battle in the House, where Majority Leader Steve Scalise has been less than enthusiastic about the package.

What else we’re watching:

— GOP HOPES DALLAS ENERGIZES TRUMP FANS: Republicans are hoping the Trump-centric midterm convention kicking off in Dallas Wednesday reminds their base why they fell in love with the president in the first place. The next 48 hours are geared in part toward turning out low-propensity voters who are loyal to Trump but tend to skip midterm elections. If they turn out, it won’t be because these voters like a particular congressman but because of their affinity for the president.

— COLLINS DINGS WHITE HOUSE ON TARIFFS: Sen. Susan Collins says the White House doesn’t understand how its trade war with Canada is affecting Maine. The border-state senator facing a tough re-election bid told Blue Light News she has spoken with Vice President JD Vance and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer about the escalating tariffs between the two countries and encouraged them to re-open negotiations. Collins late Tuesday applauded the Trump administration’s tariff exemptions on road salt and cement, stating they were “two products crucial to Maine that would be severely affected.”

Jacob Wendler, Alex Gangitano, Jessica Piper and Megan Messerly contributed to this report.