Congress
Vance talks midterms, not AI, in House GOP visit
Vice President JD Vance rallied House Republicans in a pre-midterm Capitol Hill visit Tuesday, encouraging members to support each other on the campaign trail and through fundraising.
He did not address the topic that has dominated conversations in Congress in recent days: the risk posed by artificial intelligence and what, if anything, lawmakers ought to do about it.
Instead, according to five people in the room granted anonymity to comment on the private meeting, the vice president urged Republicans in safe seats to help their vulnerable colleague and encouraged members to focus on the “choice” voters face with Democrats.
“I was kind of hoping there would be some conversation” on AI, one House Republican in the room said. “That did not come up at all.”
Another member present called it a “pretty typical rah-rah political speech,” while adding that Vance “projected perhaps a little bit more sunny optimism than is probably generally found within members’ hearts.”
“Very encouraging,” said Rep. John Rutherford (R-Fla.), describing the speech as he left the meeting. Vance, he said, told the room that Republicans are “on a good path, in a good spot right now from the messaging and the financing.”
Another member described it as a “great locker room speech.” Vance in particular attacked James Talarico, the Democratic nominee in the Texas Senate race, according to two of the people.
The conference meeting was also an opportunity for GOP members to play up their individual fundraising. Speaker Mike Johnson said at a news conference afterward that the NRCC yielded more than $20 million in transfers announced Monday morning, including $13 million from Johnson himself — bringing his total for the cycle over $100 million.
Several other members pledged money in the room, according to four people present — including $1 million from Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, who is being closely watched for a possible future leadership run.
Johnson described the meeting as “a raucous party,” with members “crammed” in the room.
“The vice president got them all riled up this morning,” he said. “I did my best to do the same.”
Majority Leader John Thune all but extinguished the already dwindling chances Senate Republicans might act on a new party-line budget reconciliation bill before the election.
He told reporters Tuesday that he does not expect a budget resolution, needed to kickstart the reconciliation process, to get a vote before the election. The House adopted their own version of the fiscal blueprint in July that doesn’t have the votes in the Senate.
“That’ll probably be post-election question,” Thune said.
FBI Director Kash Patel defended the use of Flock cameras as a crucial tool that helped the agency locate the Brown University shooter and recover victims of child exploitation.
He was responding to a question from Sen. John Cornyn during an FBI oversight hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, with the Texas Republican raising concerns about privacy violations with regard to the cameras that can help fight crime by reading license plates.
But Cornyn was also giving voice to broader anxieties about the proliferation of Flock cameras that could lead to mass unchecked surveillance on everyday citizens in neighborhoods around the country.
Patel said Tuesday that private companies and towns put up Flock cameras to collect information where there is “no reasonable expectation of privacy” and that the FBI partners with those companies and towns “on a case by case basis and not a rolling access basis.”
In the case of the Brown University shooter who killed two students earlier this year, Patel said the FBI was able to use a Flock camera to identify him by his license plate.
“The cameras weren’t great up there in Brown University. We weren’t able to get any facial recognition on the individual,” Patel explained. “But what we were able to get, based on a Flock camera, was a license plate. We were able to then trace that license plate to the individual and his scheme and ultimately find that individual who died of a self inflicted gunshot wound in New Hampshire.”
Patel gave as other examples of Flock cameras’ benefits the technology’s ability to help “[chase] down child predators,” adding that the FBI has used them “when people have kidnapped children and crossed state lines.”
Congress
Kash Patel: Trump administration working with Congress on legislation curbing ‘birth tourism’
FBI Director Kash Patel told senators Tuesday the Trump administration is working with Congress to draft new legislation that would crack down on women who come to the U.S. to give birth so their children will automatically become citizens.
“We are following the federal statutes that we have on the books right now, and we’re working with our partners in Congress to draft new legislation to give us new authorities to make sure that we can combat the threat,” Patel said during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s oversight hearing.
“We want the United States of America to be open for legal immigration, not for illegal immigration, and we’re going to continue to work to that end and work with our partners in Congress,” he continued. “We’ve asked them for more resources and legislation, and we need some bolstering in that capacity.”
Patel’s remarks were in response to a question from Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who is among the Republican lawmakers who have introduced legislation in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling in June that struck down President Donald Trump’s bid to end automatic citizenship for all children born in the United States.
Her bill and others are unlikely to pass in the current Congress given the narrow GOP majority margins in both chambers and the constraints of Senate filibuster rules. But the collaboration between the administration and lawmakers on this issue is notable, showing the White House is continuing to explore opportunities to circumvent the Supreme Court’s verdict.
In the months since the decision, the president’s aides and allies have zeroed in on policy options for targeting “birth tourism,” including efforts to prosecute organizations and individuals involved in “birth tourism schemes” or women already in the country for fraud. Trump signed two executive orders on birthright citizenship last month, which included provisions targeting the practice.
Estimates of how many women might engage in “birth tourism” annually are uncertain, but U.S. Census data shows vastly fewer instances — 26,000 babies a year — than the administration’s estimate of more than 3.5 million yearly, according to the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute.
Trump allies have pushed to keep efforts to target birthright citizenship at the forefront in Republican legal and policy circles and have pressed lawmakers to introduce bills ranging from constitutional amendments to narrower measures — such as Blackburn’s — targeting “birth tourism.”
Conservative lawyers and immigration hawks argue that legislation is crucial as the Trump administration faces legal challenges: A federal judge in Maryland has blocked enforcement of Trump’s August order restricting birthright citizenship while litigation proceeds.
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