Members of the House Freedom Caucus spoke out against Speaker Kevin McCarthy's (R-CA) deal with President Joe Biden to raise the nation's debt limit.
At a press conference on Tuesday, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) called the deal "fake news," and Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) argued no deal should be made to prevent default on U.S. debt.
"I want to thank all of my members behind me that have got the courage to stand up and say no to this bill," Norman said. "Folks, the two factions that are supporting this bill, China, because they're just buying more debt to control America, and the Biden administration, which, as the hearings are showing, is corrupt and compromised to China."
"Somewhere, somebody has got to stop it," he continued. "This group behind me is willing to do that."
Norman noted he would have a chance to block the bill during Rules Committee hearings.
"Folks, if we can stop it there, I will stop it," he vowed. "Let's call their bluff on it. The best deal is no deal."
Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed he could unilaterally end natural-born citizenship in the U.S. if he is re-elected president in 2024.
"As part of my plan to Secure the Border, on day one of my new term in office — I will sign an Executive Order ending automatic citizenship for the children of illegal aliens," Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform.
"Under [Joe] Biden's current policies, even though these millions of illegal border crossers have entered the country unlawfully, all of their future children will become automatic U.S. citizens," he said. "Can you imagine? They'll be eligible for welfare, taxpayer-funded health care, the right to vote, chain migration, and countless other government benefits, many of which will also profit the illegal alien parents."
"As part of my plan to secure the border on day one of my new term in office, I will sign an executive order making clear to federal agencies that under the correct interpretation of the law, going forward, the future children of illegal aliens will not receive automatic U.S. citizenship," he added.
Natural-born citizenship is a concept that is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. It was not immediately clear how Trump could ban natural-born citizenship with an executive order.
The View host Whoopi Goldberg had a warning for presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis: "We're watching you."
Speaking on Tuesday's show, Goldberg directed her comments to what is being called DeSantis' war against equality and inclusion.
"Hey, Ron, being asleep as you are, and have been for quite some time — see, many of us have been awake this whole time," she said.
"We don't have any choice. We don't have a choice as women to rest up and be asleep and see things just — we don't have time for that. So, you want to fight all of us? You're gonna be fighting your own women as well because they're not going to take this ridiculousness that you are thrusting. It's not like they're voting for this. You are making these decisions for your state. We're watching you, Ron."
The outburst followed a debate about the speaking styles of DeSantis, Donald Trump and others.
"You know, first of all, Trump is the king of word salad," Joy Behar said. "If he had the words. He has maybe a vocabulary of about 75 words. Okay, so, he's running for president. And then I was watching Ron DeSanctimonius as [Trump] calls him, and talk about not saying anything. Just watch this."
They played a clip of DeSantis speaking to Fox about why now is the time for him to run.
"Yale University will take anybody these days?" asked Behar. "He went to Yale. He will destroy leftism. Really? That's a lot of people in the country. And he will get rid of wokism? You know what, I'm woke, and I'm proud of it. Okay?"
The hosts also discussed Vice President Kamala Harris' speech making.
"If she's reading a prompter, they need to immediately fix that," said Griffin.
But Goldberg said that she has her own problems speaking, so she doesn't get bothered by others.
"But I do think that it is not a job that people have a deep respect for, no matter who the vice president is," she said.
"You're there to make everybody feel better, because really is that the person you want? Well, probably not your first choice, but you know they know the drill. You know what needs to happen. That's why as boring as Pence was, you know he knew the drill and he was going to do what the conservatives wanted. You know she's going to do what you know Democrats want. As long as people are doing their job, and they're wearing their clothes, they're not naked, I'm okay with it as long as they're not standing buck naked doing stuff, I don't care. You can dress as Bozo The Clown. I don't care. Get the work done. If you get the work done, I'm going to vote for you."
Former Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA), a close ally of Donald Trump, attacked Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) because he has called to repeal a bill that prevents the shackling of pregnant prisoners during childbirth.
During a Tuesday panel discussion on Newsmax, Collins argued DeSantis does not know how to differentiate himself from Trump.
Collins pointed to the FIRST STEP Act, a criminal justice reform law signed by Trump. But DeSantis has promised to repeal the bill if he is elected president.
"I know a little bit about [the law] because it was my bill in Congress that President Trump signed that was actually the first piece of true criminal justice reform that has actually lowered recidivism rates, gave our criminal justice system a boost, and made it something that is safer for our communities," Collins claimed.
"And [DeSantis] doesn't even seem to know it because he voted for it while he was in Congress," he added. "And it even had a provision it actually had where we were shackling women while they were giving birth in federal prison. I guess Ron DeSantis still thinks they need to be handcuffed while they're giving birth."
Gary Leffler, an Iowa Republican whose "Patriotic Tractor" has long been a staple of the Iowa Caucus scene, says he's now open for business when it comes to his 2024 presidential endorsement.
However, there is only one factor that will determine which candidate gets the coveted backing of him and his "Patriotic Tractor": Whoever hands over more cold, hard cash.
The Post reports that Leffler has gone to both the Trump campaign and that of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to ask them about the possibility of paying for his endorsement, but so far he hasn't reached a deal with either one.
"We don’t really look at it as a bidding war as much as my wife and I are praying and want to make sure we would feel comfortable in the direction,” Leffler told the Post. “We want to retire... We’ve been very upfront with both campaigns: we’re not doing it for free.”
The Iowa caucuses are a crucial early battle for Republican candidates, although winning them is not predictive of winning the nomination overall, as past winners of the caucuses have included Mike Huckabee and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), neither of whom went on to be nominated for the presidency.
Right-wing radio host John Fredericks lashed out at Republicans on Tuesday for agreeing to a debt ceiling deal that he said gives them "nothing."
"You have to digest the con that was played on us, the lies that were given to us, the gaslighting that was shoved down our throat," Fredericks said on his radio program. "How many times are we going to be lied to?"
According to the host, GOP leadership failed to negotiate for the issues important to MAGA Republicans.
"McCarthy is still out there lying now," he said. "It's despicable. Biden and the communists got everything they wanted. We got nothing!"
Fredericks recalled that Republicans said they would "claw back" Covid-19 relief money.
"They clawed nothing!" he exclaimed. "They are laughing at us. This is how stupid we are!"
"This is the biggest, most despicable, most dishonorable, most lying, cheating sellout and cave by Republicans since they started the party," the host opined.
Leaving aside Donald Trump's main legal troubles, the former president starts the 2024 campaign in an enviable position as the front-runner with a commanding 30.8 percent lead over Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) in the most recent Real Clear Politics polling average.
But if, for some reason, the former president doesn’t win the nomination, Democrats won’t have to change their playbook much.
That’s according to new reporting from Politico that describes behind-the-scenes efforts Democrats are making to prepare to face a candidate other than Trump in the general election.
Jonathan Lemire writes, "While not all Republicans can be directly tied to some of Trump’s record, or his role in inspiring the Jan. 6 riot, Biden aides still believe they can be lashed to the former president. DNC staffers have begun branding all Republican hopefuls as enablers of MAGA policies, making their support of Trump a throughline.”
Democratic strategist Basil Smikle told Politico that his party would try to depict anyone other than Trump who wins the nomination as “Trump Lite.”
“Nearly all of them have supported him before. The White House can also make the large umbrella case that the GOP are threats to democracy itself and the protection of personal liberties.”
Politico reports that DNC aides are conducting background research on all declared candidates and some potential candidates, such as Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
Lemire writes, "Democrats believe that while a moderate Republican might prove a more serious general election opponent, others who may enter the race — like— stand little chance of surviving a GOP primary electorate that has moved decisively to the right.”
The Biden campaign believes that regardless of who wins the Republican nomination, the GOP is likely to roll out the same attacks on the president, including his age, the controversy surrounding his son Hunter Biden and attempts to brand Democrats as socialists – the same attacks that didn’t work in 2020.
But the Biden campaign’s focus remains on the former president.
“The White House likes its chances in a rematch,” Lemire writes.
“Aides believe Trump’s behavior is disqualifying for voters and that many Americans would not like a return to the chaos that dominated his administration. Moreover, Biden’s political brain trust is fixated on the independent, swing voters — in many cases, suburban women — who went for Trump in 2016 but broke hard away from him four years later.”
CNN's data analyst dived into some polling for Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) to closely examine why the GOP presidential candidate isn't connecting well with voters.
DeSantis spent over a month traveling the early primary states claiming to promote his new book. At the beginning of March, DeSantis was just 15 points down from Trump, according to FiveThirtyEight. After the tour, DeSantis is 30 points down.
Meanwhile, Trump was shoring up endorsements from Florida members of the U.S. Congress and local legislature under DeSantis' feet. He was also poking DeSantis both personally and using his past votes to cut Social Security and Medicare.
"DeSantis has a bit of a 'lovability' problem among Republican voters," the analysis explains.
Questions about "strongly favorable" or "very favorable" essentially chart candidates' support among their most hardnosed Republican supporters. Donald Trump has a lot of those (50 percent), an April Fox News poll said. In Dec. 2022, the same poll showed DeSantis had 40 percent. Last month, he was at just 33 percent. Trump jumped seven points during that time.
"Republicans falling out of love with DeSantis could prove to be his downfall," the analysis explained. It goes back to those overwhelmingly dedicated MAGA fans that cannot be persuaded to abandon him. While the Trump favorability numbers are low overall, the "very favorable" is higher than most other Republican challengers.
Another way to measure the enthusiasm gap is by looking at how satisfied voters would be with one nominee over the other.
The May ABC News/Washington Post poll shows 68 percent of Republicans would be satisfied if DeSantis were the nominee. Only 22 percent would be dissatisfied. They're high numbers, but Trump's are 76 percent satisfaction with 21 percent dissatisfied.
As mentioned above, those numbers aren't going up for DeSantis the more he campaigns. They're going down. The analysis cited the Dec. 2022 Monmouth University poll showing DeSantis at 79 percent satisfaction and 10 percent dissatisfied.
The numbers show that the Trump supporters have already chosen their side. He has 80 percent satisfaction support among Republican college graduates, but his non-college grad satisfaction rate dropped by 20 percent. Former Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD) noticed the drop too, and said it could indicate DeSantis can be beaten.
His campaign slogan appears to be about what a "fighter" he is, but as his campaign kicked off, DeSantis said he wouldn't respond to everything Trump said to insult him. However, the analyst explained that by the end of the week, DeSantis had started fighting back. The problem, the analyst suggested, is that attacking the party's favorite guy might not be the best way to win them over.
"He's got dementia," claims radio host Joe Rogan about President Joe Biden.
Donald Trump joined in the attacks, crafting a whole new conspiracy theory: "Joe Biden's second bout of Covid, sometimes referred to as the China Virus, was sadly misdiagnosed by his doctors. He instead has Dementia, but is happily recovering well," Trump wrote. "Joe is thinking of moving, part time, to one of those beautiful Wisconsin Nursing Homes, where almost 100% of the residents miraculously, and for the first time in history, had the strength and energy to vote — even if those votes were cast illegally."
For years, Trump called Biden "sleepy Joe."
Stephen Miller said Biden should be in “assisted living” and “is not cognitively present.”
But it seems Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) isn't on message.
Asked about Biden, McCarthy said: "I thought his team was very professional, very smart, very tough, at the same time, so ..." The fact that McCarthy said "team" threw reporters off. They asked again, specifically about Biden. "What I was referring to was the president. I was talking about President Biden, yes."
Listening to a few Biden speeches, namely his big Warsaw speech in Feb. 2023, Desere News columnist Jacob Hess, said that there's evidence of Biden's stutter and some slurred words. Folks are forgetting Biden's decades of gaffes. It became an ongoing joke during Barack Obama's administration, where Biden would tell a crowd "The problem isn't I mean what I say, it's that sometimes I say what I mean." It's a joke about politicians holding back their thoughts or being calculated. Biden, he explained, could never be that guy.
"Often catches himself and turns it into a joke, like when he said 'saloon' instead of salon, or offered $100K for citizens to get vaccinated. You might have also missed how the president handled hecklers with notable grace and patience at the recent State of the Union," Hess said.
According to former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade, a letter from two of Donald Trump's lawyers to Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding an audience to discuss special counsel Jack Smith should not be taken seriously by anyone, and is a ploy that will not help them if and when DOJ indictments come down.
In a column for MSNBC, the attorney claimed the letter — and the way it was shared on social media — is a sign of desperation and fear as Smith reportedly is coming to the conclusion of one of his many investigations into the former president.
Getting right to the point, McQuade wrote that after Garland's refusal, "Trump will wail that this rejection proves once again that he is a victim of witch hunts and hoaxes. The predictability of Trump’s game would be tiresome if it were not so harmful to public trust in government institutions."
The ex-U.S. attorney also noted a reference to President Joe Biden and an investigation into his son Hunter's business activities which she described as a sad Trump attempt to make the case to his followers that, "...everyone is corrupt, so support the leader who shares your values."
Writing, "Trump’s guilt or innocence has nothing to do with these other investigations, but drawing the false equivalency provides a talking point for Trump’s supporters," she explained, If Trump’s lawyers really wanted a meeting to discuss the investigation, they would not post the letter on a public website — a phone call to a member of the trial team would do."
"The final tell in the letter is its motive — fear. Sources familiar with the case told The Wall Street Journal that a charging decision in the case may be near," she elaborated. "This letter is a pre-emptive strike that Trump can use if he is indicted. He will cite the letter to show that even before he was charged, his lawyers were on record complaining of unfairness."
"Those complaints may score points in the court of public opinion, but they are irrelevant in a court of law," she predicted.
When it came to mental soundness, 56% said that Trump should not be president. As for Biden, 60% of those Fox News polled agreed he did not have the mental soundness to do the job.
Fox News noted that the difference between the two candidates was within the survey's margin of error.
The national poll gathered information from 1,001 registered voters between May 19 and 22.
WASHINGTON — America’s in the midst of its first AI-fueled election. Duping voters in 2024 — a year where “deepfakes” are expected to supplant our current meme-driven political unreality — will be easier than ever.
Bogus but hyper-realistic videos of Donald Trump secretly plotting with Russian President Vladimir Putin or President Joe Biden in a secret White House confab with antifa activists? Entirely fake speeches delivered by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) or Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN)?
All possible now. Just watch the wouldn’t-have-been-possible-in-2020 deepfake video starring a computer generated Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who’s depicted as desperately trying to convince his colleagues in “The Office” that he’s not wearing women’s clothes. Donald Trump Jr. is among the people who've shared it on social media in recent days.
Among the most unprepared for AI-infused election shenanigans: members of Congress themselves.
“I haven't heard it talked about here,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) told Raw Story when asked about deepfakes and AI impacting Election 2024.
It’s not that the the Capitol isn’t buzzing with AI regulatory chatter since OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testified before lawmakerslast Tuesday — including telling Hawley that even he is “nervous” about large language learning platforms, such as his company’s ChatGPT, being used to manipulate voters. The problem: this was news to many at the Capitol.
That’s why experts are nervous, too, especially since AI technology is evolving at warp speed.
“Congress should have been proactive yesterday — decades ago,” Woodrow Hartzog, professor of Law at Boston University, told Raw Story.
Congress has a ton of catching up to do, mainly because U.S. policymakers — at the behest of Silicon Valley’steams of Washington lobbyists — have dithered for years in writing rules for the digital road, more or less allowing tech companies to police themselves.
“At the very least, it needs to think about the fact that this is not just a technology and deepfakes problem, that the problem of deepfakes in our democracy is rooted in significantly broader structural concerns around tech accountability, generally, mixed with our laws surrounding privacy, surveillance, free expression, copyright law, equality and anti-discrimination,” Hartzog continued. “All of those seemingly disparate areas — and the cracks that have been growing in our protections around them — are part of this story.”
How dangerous, really?
Artificial intelligence offers great promise of taking humanity to new technological heights.
But the ability to create increasingly realistic fake media is getting easier by the nanosecond, too. What formerly required specialized expertise — not to mention days and weeks worth of time; thus dedication — only to concoct clunky deepfakes is now available to all. The democratization of fakes has many experts freaked out.
It’s easy to see how AI-based deceptions, propaganda and scams could damage an election’s status as truly free and fair, even if just a small fraction of voters are affected.
Consider that the 2016 election was decided by some 80,000 votes across three states. Countless bots and Russian intelligence officers involved themselves (if Senate Republicans are to be believed). Campaign operatives — domestic and foreign, and as bad as they can be — have nothing on AI’s powers (if its creators are to be believed). Especially when combined with today’s always-improving deepfake technology, the ability to dupe is almost easy.
“Think about this as nuclear technology,” Siwei Lyu, a SUNY Empire Innovation Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University at Buffalo, told Raw Story. “Right now, instead of just the U.S. government and a few governments in the world knowing the techniques for making atomic bombs, like everybody now can have a toolkit off of Amazon to make their own atomic bombs. How dangerous that could be, right?”
Lyu continued: “Of course, somebody may use that as a generator to power up my house and then I don't need to be on the electricity grid anymore, but there are people for sure who will misuse it — and those are the things we have very little control over. So that's really where the problem is.”
The fear for Election 2024 isn’t, necessarily, one big, earth-altering digital atomic explosion; the fear is dozens, hundreds or even thousands of personal smart bombs — polished, powered and propelled by generative AI — being quietly dropped on susceptible-to-vulnerable populations in swing states.
They might originate from domestic sources: say, unscrupulous super PACs or lone-wolf political agitators unconcerned about the nation’s largely antiquated election laws and regulations that, in some cases, haven’t been updated since the dawn of the World Wide Web. If that.
Worse, they could come from foreign actors — think Russia, or perhaps Iran and North Korea — who’ve already demonstrated an insatiable appetite for sowing chaos in U.S. elections.
“The makers of deepfakes will create those fake media to reinforce, strengthen your belief, and then the recommendation algorithm will actually push that to you as a user so you will start to see more of this stuff,” Lyu said.
This will all be guided by the private data of millions of Americans, which Silicon Valley firms already have access to because of congressional inaction. When fed into generative AI platforms like ChatGPT the algorithmic loop of fear-drenched, truthy sounding falsehoods and fakes could prove infinite.
'Got to move fast'
Back on Capitol Hill, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is now a part of bipartisan negotiations – along with Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Todd Young (R-IN) and Mike Rounds (R-SD) – focused on legislating artificial intelligence.
“We can’t move so fast that we do flawed legislation, but there is no time for waste, or delay, or sitting back,” Schumer told his colleagues on the Senate floor after Altman testified. “We've got to move fast."
There’s only a short window to act, because generative AI is becoming more ubiquitous – more than 100 million people have already signed up for ChatGPT alone.
“And so while it is important for Congress to act, I hope that they realize that they can't just pass one anti-deepfake law of 2023 and dust their hands and call it a day, because this problem is one that is significantly larger than just a few algorithmic tools,” Hartzog, the BU law professor and co-author of Breached: Why Data Security Law Fails and How to Improve It, told Raw Story. “It's fundamental to our whole sort of media information distribution networks and free expression and consumer protection laws.”
Other lawmakers don’t feel the same pressure. Many assume America’s safer than other nations when it comes to AI-powered deepfakes.
“I think in a more advanced ecosystem, like our new system, it's probably easier for campaigns to jump on it pretty quickly and knock it down. I think in the developing world it could start riots and civil wars,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, recently told Raw Story.
Others in Congress – including party leaders – think the government is largely helpless when it comes to preventing the deepfake-ification of American elections.
“All we can do is tell the truth and appeal to the public not to believe everything they hear and see,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), the Senate majority whip, told Raw Story.
While 2020 was the "alternative fact” election, 2024 is primed to be the alternative reality election. “Fake news” isn’t just a bumper sticker anymore; it’s now reality.
“We’re in it,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) told Raw Story, “and AI is making it exponentially easier to create a false narrative, to project that false narrative worldwide, to make the false narrative believable by creating much more detailed and thorough content and it will be very hard to take something that’s disseminated worldwide and knock it down as false.”
Gillibrand has been calling for the creation of a new federal Data Protection Agency for years now, arguing the Federal Trade Commission is toothless when it comes to regulating big tech. The Federal Election Commission, meanwhile, often takes years to reach any agreement on even the most modest updates to its political advertising regulations.
“I think we have to keep focusing on the truth and making sure we have levers of government and a legal system to create accountability and oversight to make sure the truth is protected,” Gillibrand said.
Legislating "truth" in a post-truth political universe may prove impossible, but we really won’t know until the dust settles after Election 2024. That’s why many lawmakers, experts and privacy advocates are bracing for an election like no other in U.S. history.
“Every anti-democratic trick in the book will be played in 2024. No doubt,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) – a Trump impeachment manager and member of the select Jan. 6 committee – recently told Raw Story. “The guy dines with racists and anti-Semites, Trump seems determined to prove that he can do anything he wants, including shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue, and his cult following will not budge. So this is where we are in the 21st century.”
After news broke on Saturday that President Joe Biden and United States House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) struck an agreement to avert an unprecedented default, Democratic strategist Kurt Bardella explained how Biden outmaneuvered McCarthy.
Biden said in a statement late Saturday night that "the agreement represents a compromise, which means not everyone gets what they want. That's the responsibility of governing. And, this agreement is good news for the American people, because it prevents what could have been a catastrophic default and would have led to an economic recession, retirement accounts devastated, and millions of jobs lost."
Likewise, CNN noted that "the agreement – which would raise the debt ceiling for two years, freeze spending on domestic programs, increase spending on defense and veterans issues, impose some new work requirements on federal food assistance programs and change some rules around energy permitting – was meant to include provisions that could sway members of both parties to vote for it. Yet even ahead of the deal's announcement, House members on both the left and right were already balking at some of the details said to be included in the package. Republicans who had demanded larger spending cuts threatened to withhold their support, while Democrats voiced concern that new rules on social safety net programs would send more Americans into poverty."
Appearing on MSNBC, Bardella pointed out that whether the US defaults now entirely depends upon McCarthy's ability to wrangle the "extremists" within his caucus.
"You know, I think actually because of this deal coming right now, the expectation game has been well managed now because the ball's really in Kevin McCarthy's court now. The pressure is on Kevin McCarthy to deliver the votes. If this thing falls apart now, it's going to be because of House Republicans — because of MAGA extremists — successfully holding McCarthy hostage once again, and that they are the ones who will get the blame. We will be done with this both sides narrative that each side has something to lose, that this could blow back on the president. No, no, no, no," Bardella said.
"The president made a deal. The president did what he was elected to do — deliver deals for the American people that protects the most vulnerable among us," Barella continued. "If this falls apart, if we default, if the economy craters, Kevin McCarthy is now the face of this deal. There's a reason why he was the one that was on camera tonight and not the president. So if this goes down because Matt Gaetz or Marjorie Taylor Greene or Lauren Boebert or any of those crazy cuckoo MAGA people decide to tank the US economy, it is one hundred percent going to be at the feet of the Republican Party and not the president."
