United States Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) says rioters were forced to "commit crimes" during the Jan. 6 insurrection.
The GOP congresswoman made the false claim during the latest episode of her Battleground podcast Wednesday.
Former GOP prosecutor Ron Filipkowski shared a clip of the episode via Twitter, writing, Marge has a theory on 'what really happened on J6.' She says the FBI 'set up honeypots and traps to draw people in and take part in making these people commit crimes, and then framing these people to set up a narrative against a president.'
The hard-right lawmaker said, "You see this should never happen. The federal government should never be weaponized against the people and "set up honeypots and traps to draw people in and take part in making these people commit crimes, and then framing the people to set up a narrative against a president? It's wrong. And I believe that's what happened on January 6."
On the one year anniversary of the insurrection last year, PBS News Hour reported leading up to the attack, "Trump repeated the lie that the election was stolen, urging his supporters to march to the Capitol and fight."
Twitter users erupted over the MAGA lawmaker's false claims.
Cathy Coleman: "Good grief - that was some darn big honey pot - making adults commit crimes against the United States - I think Marj just runs her mouth without thinking - likely someone gives her talking points & she just can't deliver them correctly & improvises..."
@lachevron: "Yeah, Marge might be a conspiracy theorist, but even she doesn't believe it. Because she was there and she was involved. She says this because she has no qualms about bold-faced lies."
Ron Shillman: "People are saying: Trump told them to come to DC, so they did. Trump told them to go to the Capitol, so they did. Trump told them to 'fight like hell or you're not going to have a country anymore' so they did that, too. It's all on tape."
@mikeysmom04: "Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!' Trump wrote."
@_IAmCrypto: "JFC, how is this idiot in congress?"
@Cosmic_Lion: "I guess she keeps forgetting we watched the whole thing live."
@R_JonAnderson: "Or — hear me out — a bunch of fanatical supporters of TFG got carried away and committed crimes on live tv, aided and abetted by elected officials who are — even now — trying to push the blame away from themselves."
@UROCKlive1: "She might actually be dumb enough to believe this, but it's also possible she just made it up and knows she's lying."
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Kevin McCarthy earned his stripes as Republican speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday, navigating fierce hardline opposition to pass a debt ceiling bill containing federal spending limits that President Joe Biden for months vowed to resist.
Six months after he endured 15 humiliating floor votes just to be elected speaker, McCarthy proved capable of dragging Biden into negotiations over spending and other Republican priorities, and then marshalling two-thirds of his often fractious House Republican majority to enact bipartisan legislation.
"It's not how you start, it's how you finish," McCarthy told reporters after the vote, repeating one of his comments from the January night he was finally confirmed as speaker. The House approved by a 314-117 margin the bill, which lifts the government's $31.4 trillion debt ceiling in exchange for cutting non-defense discretionary spending and stiffening work requirements in assistance programs.
Yet it was a bruising victory for McCarthy. The bill gained 165 votes from Democrats, outnumbering the 149 from members of McCarthy's own Republican party.
The bill now goes to the narrowly Democratic-controlled Senate, which must enact it and get it to Biden's desk by June 5 to avoid a crippling U.S. default.
Republican Representative Dusty Johnson, a McCarthy ally who helped craft the Republican debt-ceiling legislation that buttressed the speaker in negotiations, said the vote proved wrong Democratic predications that the 58-year-old Californian would have little chance of holding his caucus together.
"They said he would never become speaker, and of course they were wrong. They said he would never be able to manage the floor effectively and we haven't had a single bill fail," Johnson said in an interview. "They said he wouldn't be able to cut a deal with the president, and they were wrong about that."
McCarthy has so far succeeded in passing the bill without drawing direct verbal attacks from former President Donald Trump, who urged Republicans to push for a default if they were not able to extract sufficient concessions from Democrats.
Trump, who is seeking a return to the White House in 2024, had blasted top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell for agreeing to raise the debt ceiling during Biden's first year in office. McConnell largely stayed in the background during these talks, which began to move forward after Biden agreed to one-on-one negotiations on May 9.
Avoiding Trump's ire appears to have protected McCarthy's standing with Republican voters nationally, some 44% of whom told a Reuters/Ipsos poll in May that they approve of his job performance, notably higher than McConnell's 29% approval rate.
The bill approved by the House on Wednesday would suspend the debt limit - essentially meaning that it no longer applies - through Jan. 1, 2025. That sets the stage for another showdown in the weeks following the 2024 presidential election.
APRIL GAMBIT
Republican lawmakers and analysts say McCarthy's masterstroke in getting Biden to the negotiating table was his decision to bring a debt ceiling bill to the floor and pass it in April with only the support of his own party members.
Up to that point, Biden had refused McCarthy's requests to negotiate over the debt ceiling, insisting that House Republicans enact their own budget for fiscal 2024 as a prerequisite for spending talks.
But in getting the April measure passed, House Republicans became the only body in Washington that had acted to raise the debt ceiling.
"Once the House passed a bill, 'no negotiations' was a clearly unsustainable place to be," said Rohit Kumar, a former top aide to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell who is now co-leader of PwC's national tax office in Washington.
The White House, for its part, contends that the talks between Biden and McCarthy were not a negotiation on the debt ceiling.
"The debt ceiling had to be lifted, and it had to be lifted for a long period of time," White House budget director Shalanda Young told a Tuesday press conference. "You see this bill lift the debt ceiling until 2025. You can call it a negotiation; I call it a declarative statement."
House Republicans say McCarthy has succeeded as speaker, because of an inclusive leadership style, cultivating support from a majority of caucus members by working through major party caucuses, known as the "Five Families," a reference to the warring organized crime clans of "The Godfather" movie.
"Speaker McCarthy's done an incredible job," said Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a member of the hardline Republican House Freedom Caucus. "And I think he's proved over and over again that he defies the odds, and he also defies people's expectations."
McCarthy also expanded his influence through trusted friends and longtime associates such as Representatives Patrick McHenry and Garret Graves, who became his lead negotiators with the White House.
POSSIBLE THREAT
But McCarthy is not quite out of the woods. After stirring the ire of hardline conservatives who decried the compromise bill as a sellout, he could face the prospect of ouster at the hands of any single member.
One of the conditions he agreed to in January to win the speakership was allowing for any one member to call for a "motion to vacate the chair," in essence a vote on whether to depose the speaker.
Senior members of the Freedom Caucus have said they would consider next steps in coming weeks.
One of their number, Ralph Norman, said McCarthy should have forced Democrats to accept the House-passed bill.
"I think it weakens him. Whether it's permanent or temporary, I don't know," Norman said.
But Norman said he would not support an immediate effort to oust McCarthy as speaker, adding "To threaten to kick him out now, that's not right."
A similar threat triggered the resignation of former House Speaker John Boehner in 2015.
"This is where the honeymoon can definitely end," said Republican strategist Ron Bonjean, a one-time aide to former House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
Asked this week whether he expects to keep his speakership, McCarthy told a reporter: "What do you think? You guys ask me all the time, and I'm still standing."
His allies say they will defend him against any potential threat to his position.
"We'll have to deal with the internal politics of a hard-fought fight. Tempers are short and emotions are raw right now. But we'll deal with it," Representative Kelly Armstrong, a McCarthy adviser, told Reuters.
(Reporting by David Morgan, additional reporting by Steve Holland and Jason Lange; Editing by Scott Malone and Suzanne Goldenberg)
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) on Wednesday declared Democrats the winners in the debt ceiling fight.
The far-right congressman who made headlines last week by saying his Republican colleagues “don’t feel like we should negotiate with our hostage,” on Wednesday said his party would have been better off allowing the clean debt limit increase that Democrats and some moderate Republicans sought.
Gaetz during an appearance on Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt Tonight said the debt limit deal will promote renewal energy at the expense of fossil fuels, a policy he and other members of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus oppose.
“I would suggest that this legislation might actually be worse than a clean debt limit increase, because if you lash the permitting reform that establishment Republicans are championing to the Green New Deal tax credits that now Joe Biden gets to cement in and extend for years, that actually what you're going to be accelerating, permitting on more wind farms, more solar, and that is going to distort the energy market more and make the problems worse that people sent us here to solve,” Gaetz said.
Gaetz explained that his break with congressional allies such as Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who supported the debt ceiling deal, involved a dispute over tactics.
“Well, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massie, and I share the same goals, but we have very different views regarding the tactics. Taking a 99 percent continuing resolution off of current spending levels, is giving the Democrats a massive win, Rob, that would be like me gaining 50 pounds and saying that's okay, because I'm going to take a walk to the ice cream store on the following day,” Gaetz said.
“That's how the Democrats have iced in the terrible policy choices of Joe Biden and the two principal dynamics happening right now around this bill, Democrats are moving toward it, and Republicans are moving away from it. That's because so many of the claims are illusions, like the work requirements claim. We just got an analysis fact from the Congressional Budget Office that after this bill passes, an additional 74,000 people every month will be eligible and enrolling in the SNAP program."
“That is a huge expansion of the very programs that we're trying to constrain and make more effective.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Wednesday teased the release of security camera footage from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol to several news agencies.
The right--wing congresswoman in a tweet confirmed that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Ca.) had provided conservative commentators John Solomon and Julie Kelly, along with an unnamed third outlet, “unfettered” access to the tapes.
“I’m excited to share the good news that, just as I promised, the J6 tapes are being released!” Greene tweeted.
“@SpeakerMcCarthy has given @jsolomonReports, @Julie_kelly2 , and a third outlet unfettered access to the J6 tapes, and their reporting on it starts tomorrow.
“This is the transparency the American people deserve and I look forward to their reporting!”
Greene earlier this month called for the public release of the video footage.
“Well I’m wondering the very same thing and waiting too. The American people paid for the video cameras that are installed all over the Capitol building that they also pay for.
“And most of all the riot scenes have been shown repeatedly a gazillion times in loop for over two years anyways.
“It won’t give the Democrats anything new, but it might give us all something new.”
Greene in the May 11 tweet suggested that publicly releasing the video footage would prevent Democrats from using the insurrection to their political advantage.
“January 6, 2021 is the most politicized day in American history and Democrats are going to base their entire 2024 campaigns attacking Republicans and President Trump about J6 because their party and their policies are SO BAD and America Last that they have no record to brag about, only tremendous failure,” she wrote.
“Over 1,000 people have been arrested, charged, served time, and are still awaiting trial AND the Democrat weaponized DOJ says they are arresting 1,000 more.”
Greene claimed that the footage shows that U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick’s death was not related to the insurrection “like ALL the Democrats and the media told you.”
“Yes well the rest of the video footage needs to be released to THE PEOPLE because it’s hard to lie to people all the time when they can go look at it and form their own opinion,” Greene wrote.
“AOC and the well funded anarchist communist groups that support her are still organizing riots against police because she’s big mad at another white guy for bravely defending people from a dangerous known criminal who died later, instead of the innocent law abiding tax paying citizens who suffer from her horrible America Last Criminal First Democrat policies, and none of her Antifa ground troops are rotting in jail.”
Greene added: “We need to release the J6 tapes to a public on line source so that everyone knows what did and didn’t happen, we need to restore fair justice, and America can move on.”
Greene’s announcement that the tapes will be released to three outlets drew rebuke from a far-right Twitter user with 1.7 million followers, who suggested the announcement was a way of mitigating political fallout among conservatives over the debt ceiling compromise.
“Releasing it to 3 members of the press is a million miles away from that…and this is being released today to soften the blow of McCarthy caving and screwing us again” on the debt ceiling deal.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) announced Wednesday he was launching a commission tasked with looking at budget cuts – and he suggested Social Security and Medicare could come under his scalpel.
His pledge came just months after vowing such cuts to mandatory spending programs were off the table.
In February, President Joe Biden spoke before a joint session of Congress, telling Americans the GOP wanted to cut the programs they had paid into their whole lives. "Instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset every five years," he said.
"That means those programs will go away if Congress doesn’t vote to keep them. Other Republicans say if we don’t cut Social Security and Medicare, they’ll let America default on its debt for the first time in our history."
His comments got a chorus of boos from the audience of Republicans. Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) shook his head.
As he repeated the claim at his State of the Union address, Biden incensed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) so much she leaped her feet yelling “liar!", while Republicans committed on television to never making such cuts.
McCarthy even told CBS's Face the Nation he was taking Social Security and Medicare “off the table” in debt ceiling negotiations.
And then, on Wednesday, the speaker announced he's starting a commission to look at how to make cuts.
Appearing on the Fox network, McCarthy explained, "And now we're cutting, and you know what? It's gonna make some people uncomfortable by doing that, but I'm not going to give up on the American people."
"I'm going to announce a commission coming forward from the speaker — from bipartisan, both sides of the aisle," he added. "...The majority driver of the budget is mandatory spending; it's Medicare; it's Social Security, interest on the debt."
McCarthy told Fox host Harris Faulkner that only 11 percent of the budget could be negotiated during the debt ceiling talks because Biden had "walled off" parts of it – including the part that included discretionary spending programs.
Now, he said, "We have to look at the entire budget."
See a clip of the interview below or at the link here.
McCarthy pledges a commission to examine cuts to Social Security and Medicare
youtu.be
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on Tuesday pushed back against critics of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's (R-CA) debt ceiling deal.
In a 19-tweet rant, Greene said that she stood with Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Jim Jordan (R-OH) to back the debt ceiling bill because it would give the Republicans a "tool" to curb spending in the future.
"For me, along with other strong conservatives like @Jim_Jordan, @WarrenDavidson, @RepThomasMassie, and many others, we see this as an opportunity to make real changes when we are fighting with practically both hands tied behind our backs," she wrote.
Greene has been at odds with other members of the Freedom Caucus who do not support a deal to raise the debt limit.
"And I have to inform you these tools are being given to our entire conference by @SpeakerMcCarthy and the leadership team," she continued. "I completely understand the skepticism because I had it too, but things are different."
"I know what every hard-working American knows. Rome was not built in a day, and problems don’t get solved overnight. It takes tenacious hard work and a commitment to never give up," Greene added. "This is a game of inches, and I intend for all of us to win."
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) took a shot at Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) because she supports House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's (R-CA) deal to raise the nation's debt ceiling.
In a tweet on Wednesday, Gaetz mocked Greene after she was seen defending the debt deal along with Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Thomas Massie (R-KY).
"Blink twice if under duress," Gaetz wrote.
Greene supported McCarthy for speaker but has been uncharacteristically quiet about the debt ceiling deal.
Republican lawmakers are distancing themselves from a former Trump White House staffer who has ties to a prominent white nationalist influencer.
Garrett Ziegler has been boasting that he's met with congressional investigators to discuss Hunter Biden's laptop and his overseas business dealings, and he spoke at length to HuffPo about those meetings and his promotion of online posts by Nick Fuentes and other right-wing extremists.
“There are some things that I agree with Nick Fuentes on, and some that I don’t,” Ziegler said, adding that he enjoys sharing provocative material online. "Sometimes you just do it because you think it’s a very, very good thing for the conversation.”
Ziegler is best known for helping to usher Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell and ex-Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne into the White House for an infamously unhinged meeting in December 2020 where they reportedly urged Donald Trump to seize voting machines, and he continues to insist that President Joe Biden stole the election in "multiple ways" as part of a "soft coup."
“I don’t think they could have stolen the election without COVID-19,” he said.
Ziegler's research group Marco Polo published a 644-page report analyzing the contents of Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop, which he said he got from Rudy Giuliani, and accused the president's son of money laundering, violations of foreign lobbying laws and other misdeeds involving sex and drugs, and he claims to have briefed GOP House staffers on his findings.
“I corresponded with [chief of staff] Kevin Eichinger about our report, I never said I spoke to Jim Jordan about it,” Ziegler said. “[Eichinger] said he’d have his team look over it.”
However, Jordan's communications director and counsel for the Judiciary committee said that neither the Ohio Republican nor his chief of staff have met with Ziegler.
“Members of the public call, email and mail our office things all the time,” said Jordan communications director Russell Dye.
At least two members of Congress -- Rep. James Comer (R-KY) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) -- have praised his work, saying it showed evidence of crimes, and Ziegler claims he personally met with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) at her office and claims to have spoken to others.
“Congresswoman Greene’s meetings are none of your damn business,” the lawmaker's spokesperson Nick Dyer told HuffPost.
Ziegler was a bit more forthcoming about his relationship with Fuentes, a Holocaust denier who visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago with rapper Ye, and seemed to express support for his anti-Semitic views.
“I support an honest conversation about the power of the [Anti-Defamation League] and organized Jewry,” Ziegler told HuffPost. “I don’t sit at home every day thinking about how to go after organized Jewry.”
Ziegler wants the ADL "dismantled" due to its cooperation with the FBI and compared himself to "paleocon" Pat Buchanan.
“I don’t think I am part of the mainstream,” Ziegler said. "Both [Fuentes] and I have strong objections to the Republican Party, just like Pat Buchanan did, and just like Donald Trump did.”
In addition to his white nationalist views, Fuentes is also known as an "incel," or involuntary celibate.
“I think he needs to get married, I think he needs to settle down,” Ziegler said. “I think he’s immature in some respects, but everything he says is not wrong. That said, I disagree with some of what he says.”
U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) said on Tuesday that "Democrats are smiling and whipping 'yes' votes" to secure passage of the newly announced debt ceiling compromise.
Boebert, who has been vocal in her opposition to the deal reached between President Joe Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy, said last week that the Biden administration's vow to "fight hate" and antisemitism equated to a promise that they are "going after" conservatives. On Tuesday, she said Democrats who were previously upset about a potential deal are now invigorated by details before them.
"Last week Democrats threatened to 'take to the streets' if Republicans secured spending cuts for American Families," Boebert said in a tweet. "This week, those same Democrats are smiling and whipping more 'yes' votes from their colleagues.
Boebert's opposition to the deal comes as U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has described it as a "sh-t sandwich" that she is likely going to vote for. Greene added that she cares more about the "dessert," which is impeachment.
Donald Trump on Tuesday took aim at former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, accusing the spokeswoman of intentionally reporting inaccurate poll numbers.
McEnany served as Trump’s top spokesperson for most of the former president’s last year in office and by all accounts was among his most loyal aides before becoming a Fox News contributor.
“Kayleigh ‘Milktoast’ McEnany just gave out the wrong poll numbers on FoxNews,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social website.
“I am 34 points up on DeSanctimonious, not 25 up. While 25 is great, it’s not 34. She knew the number was corrected upwards by the group that did the poll. The RINOS & Globalists can have her. FoxNews should only use REAL Stars!!!”
McEnany supported Trump during his 2016 campaign when she was a paid CNN commentator while attending law school.
She was initially critical of Trump, describing his comments about Mexican immigrants as “racist,” and saying it was “unfortunate” and “inauthentic” to call him a Republican during appearances on CNN and Fox Business.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) appointed McEnany as its national spokesperson in August of 2017.
In her role at Fox, McEnany has sung Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ praises and earlier this year encouraged him to run.
“I think it was very smart of [Nikki Haley] to declare right now because being the only person in the race against President Trump at this moment, she got a lot of media attention, we'll be talking about this now and for days to come, versus the stream of others who will come in after her, likely Pompeo, Pence, all of the others as we await for potentially the biggest name to come in, which is Ron DeSantis,” McEnany said during a Feb. 15 appearance on the Fox News show “Outnumbered.”
“I do think when you look at Nikki Haley's polling – she was at about 1%, now she's at 3% – she was the hottest name in Republican politics in 2011 to like 2015, I would say. This is the case, what you're watching right now polling at 3%, for Governor Ron DeSantis to get in now. People say, ‘Will he get in? Will he wait?’ How can you wait when you are currently the hottest governor in Republican politics, seeing how hard it is to regenerate that attention almost a decade later?”
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is angry about the debt ceiling agreement's concessions to Democrats — but, in colorful language, explained why she is likely to vote for it regardless, reported Axios' Juliegrace Brufke on Tuesday.
"Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene likens raising the debt ceiling to a 's--t sandwich' but is a lean yes," reported Brufke on Twitter, saying that Greene added, “I'm a dessert girl. Everyone loves dessert and that's impeachment, someone needs to be impeached.”
The debt ceiling bill, brokered after weeks of negotiation between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), would suspend the debt ceiling for two years, claw back unspent COVID relief and a small portion of new IRS funding, impose new limits on discretionary spending, modify work requirements for food stamps, and reduce regulations for new energy projects.
Greene, a far-right lawmaker who first became notorious for her promotion of QAnon conspiracy theory content online, has emerged as a close ally of McCarthy, helping secure the votes to elect McCarthy Speaker after a series of failed ballots, and has often played the role of bridgebuilder between the far-right Freedom Caucus and GOP House leadership.
Despite her support, several other far-right House Republicans are staking out their opposition to the bill, with a handful of members, like Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), even suggesting McCarthy could face a vote to remove him from office over it.
However, House GOP leaders are confident that most Republicans will back the deal. Some Democrats are expected to vote in favor of it as well, although members of the Progressive Caucus appear divided over the issue, with caucus whip Rep. Greg Gasar (D-TX) expressing skepticism.
In Arizona, far-right Rep. Paul Gosar is a polarizing figure even among fellow Republicans. Traditional McCain and Reagan conservatives have been highly critical of him, but MAGA Republicans who admire far-right figures like Kari Lake, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) tend to be Gosar admirers as well.
In an article published by Talking Points Memo on May 30, journalist Haley Orion stresses that Gosar is so far to the right that some white nationalists and Neo-Nazis look up to him.
Orion notes that in an earlier article, TPM reported that Wade Searle, Gosar's digital director, appeared to be "involved with an interlinked group of social media profiles that were deeply enmeshed with white nationalist Nicholas Fuentes' viciously antisemitic Groyper movement."
Orion explains, "While the revelations in the story were significant, they weren't necessarily surprising. The Groypers are deeply hateful and grotesque, but Gosar has never been shy in his flirtation with various factions of the fascist far-right, including the Groypers' leader, Fuentes. Or, as Gosar himself has bragged in the past: 'I’m considered the most dangerous man in Congress.' A large swath of the far-right has, in turn, taken notice, with Gosar becoming a sort of hero in some corners."
In 2021, Gosar set off a major controversy when he posted a video that depicted violence against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York). Gosar's defenders claimed she was overreaching, but his critics responding that depicting violence against a member of Congress is never acceptable.
Orion stresses that Gosar isn't afraid to associate with extremists.
"Gosar has lent his support to a broad coalition of far-right bigots and Christian supremacists: from the s***posting Groyper neo-Nazis to the camo-clad LARPers and hate groups to the suit-wearing, ultranationalist political elites at home and abroad," Orion notes. "He'll rile up the Arizona chapter of the Oath Keepers, telling them that the United States is already in a Civil War, 'we just haven't started shooting yet,' then repeat the same line in an interview with a well-documented neo-Nazi. He'll even associate with the conspiratorial, and often ridiculous, QAnon movement, tweeting out references to Q-drops — Gosar later said the tweet was sarcastic, though the tweet remains up to this day — and appearing at Q-friendly rallies."
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.”
