“Donald Trump and Senate Republicans are not taking artificial intelligence risks seriously. Republicans want data center rules to be optional, but we need real, mandatory limits. Republicans are also offering a weak bill on congressional stock trading. It lets members keep trading, and it includes strict voter ID rules designed to make sure it fails. I also want the White House to explain why at least $1.5 million in taxpayer money was used for Donald Trump's political ads. Finally, I want Republicans to vote with us to stop a Trump rule that ends health coverage for 2 million people and raises costs for many more.”
“Mr. President, well, Donald Trump is asleep at the wheel when it comes to reining in unchecked AI. Right after news came out over the weekend about rogue AI agents infiltrating government websites in the United States, Australia, and at the U.N., do you know what Trump told FOX News? ``I don’t worry about it.’’ Well, he is about the only one. Trump doesn’t worry about rogue AI, but the American people certainly do, so do cyber security experts and even many of the people who are building this technology. Everybody who knows anything about it worries about rogue AI--not Donald Trump. He keeps his head in the sand like an ostrich. He doesn’t pay any attention to the facts and just says whatever pops into his head, no matter how harmful it is. When Trump meets with various AI industry leaders at the White House today, he ought to stop resisting the growing consensus that we need real guardrails to mitigate AI’s risk. Trump’s meeting at the White House will be a flop, a failure, an utter failure if they don’t propose and start talking about and start to come to an agreement about some real guardrails that need to be done. And, of course, he should consult with those of us in Congress who believe we need stronger guardrails. Dismissing the potential dangers of AI as a hoax, as Trump has done over and over and over again, won’t protect the American people. The Senate GOP’s response to AI risk has been almost as meek as Trump’s. Americans are demanding real guardrails on AI and data centers, but all the Republicans offer is a toothless messaging bill. The bill is a fraud. I can sum up the shortcomings of the Republican data center bill with one word: optional. The bill is optional. America, do you hear that? Here, we need some real action on data centers. And what does the Republican Senator from Ohio come up with? Something that is optional. It is up to the companies to decide. Well, they are the ones that need the guardrails: optional--optional requirements in his bill on data center development, optional standards for safety against catastrophic risks, optional enforcement to protect the American people. A guardrail that is optional isn’t a guardrail at all. At a time when Americans are calling out for real guardrails on AI, Senate Republicans are trying to secure an ineffectual participation trophy before they skip town. Instead of trying to score cheap political points with hollow proposals, Senate Republicans need to work with us to take meaningful action that will actually contain these existential risks. They are not doing that, and the American people are in real danger because of their failure to act. Mr. President, on stock trading and voter ID, Senate Republicans continue to show the country they care more about playing partisan political games than stopping corruption. The Senate GOP has bucked a longstanding bipartisan effort to ban stock trading in Congress, which is what Congress should do. Last July--July--the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee advanced a strong, commonsense, bipartisan bill to ban congressional stock trading, but Senate Republicans abandoned this effort. Too many of their Members didn’t want to do it. If Senate Republicans truly cared about banning stock trading in Congress, they wouldn’t have let the House Republicans water down the ban. The bill Republicans are offering today is Swiss cheese legislating, creating loophole after loophole after loophole, and it is a step backward to solving this critical problem. The bill even lets Members continue to own and sell stocks. The Republican bill even lets Members continue to own and sell stocks. This is the Republican MO. The public is mad about a problem. The public wants something done. And what they do is put in a bill that does virtually nothing because they want to try to assuage the public but not solve the problem because it affects them. The Republican bill also explicitly allows Members to trade stocks in privately held companies to profit off their insider knowledge. So the bill makes things worse than present law because it would simply hide insider trading. It would not stop it. And if Senate Republicans cared about reining in stock trading, they would advance a bill that prohibits the President from trading stocks. We know that Trump has traded more stocks than all of Congress combined, but this bill does no such thing. The worst part of this bill is that Republicans know it will never pass. They designed it that way. They don’t want this bill to become law. So they put a poison pill in that they knew would tank it. It is really trickery. It is skulduggery. If Republican Senators really cared about stopping stock trading by Members, they wouldn’t have loaded it up with a poison pill voter ID bill, which Senate Democrats have defeated already twice. Republicans know that no one in their right mind would ever go along with the draconian voting restrictions that they attach to their stock trading bill. The voting restriction provisions in this bill are more severe than any law in any State--do you hear that?--more severe than any law in any State. They are designed to kill the bill. So this bill is just another desperate Republican attempt to pretend they are fighting corruption, when all they really want is to score political points before they head home to campaign. Mr. President, on Trump propaganda, Donald Trump continues to cram his taxpayer-funded propaganda down the throats of the American people. In less than a single week, Trump has aired three campaign ads, costing at least $1.5 million, all paid for by--guess who--the American taxpayer. Trump is getting you, American taxpayer, to use your dollars to pay for his political ads. Have you ever heard anything so egregious in terms of how our system is supposed to work? I am calling on the White House to explain this great, blatantly corrupt, and egregious abuse of taxpayer dollars immediately. The Trump administration has a lot of questions it needs to answer: Who is responsible for these ads? Which Agency? Where were the funds diverted to pay for Trump’s propaganda? Was Trump involved personally? There has already been some reporting from anonymous sources that Trump was personally involved in pushing these campaign ads on the taxpayers’ dime. Let’s be clear, these ads were anything but public service announcements. They were pure propaganda. After fawning over foreign authoritarians like Putin and Kim Jong Un for so long, Trump must have gotten jealous of their control over state TV. Trump needs to answer for this corruption and for all of his other efforts to rob the American people to fund his extravagant vanity projects. It is time for Republicans to either call the President out for this corruption or to call it quits in November. Mr. President, finally, on the Affordable Care Act CRA, well, today Senate Democrats will force consideration of a resolution to stop Trump from further sabotaging the ACA. Trump’s recent rule terminates coverage for 2 million Americans. It jacks up healthcare costs for millions more and gives big insurers carte blanche to force the American people to pay more for less. As if Americans weren’t drowning enough in Trump’s failed economy, this callous rule comes on the heels of Trump and Republicans ransacking over $1 trillion--$1 trillion--from the healthcare system, all to bankroll tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations. Now rural hospitals are shuttering, millions are losing lifesaving coverage, and tens of millions of working Americans are watching their premiums double, triple, even quadruple. For years, Trump has tried to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act with no idea of what replacement will look like whatsoever. As Trump’s economy bleeds the American people dry, Trump isn’t trying to lower costs but, rather, kill the Affordable Care Act with a death by a thousand cuts. So my Republican colleagues ought to join us on this resolution to protect the care their constituents rely on or they will continue to own every lost healthcare policy, every closed hospital, and every skyrocketing premium that follows. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Graham). The Senator from Virginia.”
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Speech in the House
Respect 96 of 100
This statement targeted a person rather than their actions or views: “Trump must have gotten jealous of their control over state TV”.
See full analysis
Mr. President, well, Donald Trump is asleep at the wheel when it comes to reining in unchecked AI. Right after news came out over the weekend about rogue AI agents infiltrating government websites in the United States, Australia, and at the U.N., do you know what Trump told FOX News? ``I don’t worry about it.’’ Well, he is about the only one. Trump doesn’t worry about rogue AI, but the American people certainly do, so do cyber security experts and even many of the people who are building this technology. Everybody who knows anything about it worries about rogue AI--not Donald Trump. He keeps his head in the sand like an ostrich. He doesn’t pay any attention to the facts and just says whatever pops into his head, no matter how harmful it is. When Trump meets with various AI industry leaders at the White House today, he ought to stop resisting the growing consensus that we need real guardrails to mitigate AI’s risk. Trump’s meeting at the White House will be a flop, a failure, an utter failure if they don’t propose and start talking about and start to come to an agreement about some real guardrails that need to be done. And, of course, he should consult with those of us in Congress who believe we need stronger guardrails. Dismissing the potential dangers of AI as a hoax, as Trump has done over and over and over again, won’t protect the American people. The Senate GOP’s response to AI risk has been almost as meek as Trump’s. Americans are demanding real guardrails on AI and data centers, but all the Republicans offer is a toothless messaging bill. The bill is a fraud. I can sum up the shortcomings of the Republican data center bill with one word: optional. The bill is optional. America, do you hear that? Here, we need some real action on data centers. And what does the Republican Senator from Ohio come up with? Something that is optional. It is up to the companies to decide. Well, they are the ones that need the guardrails: optional--optional requirements in his bill on data center development, optional standards for safety against catastrophic risks, optional enforcement to protect the American people. A guardrail that is optional isn’t a guardrail at all. At a time when Americans are calling out for real guardrails on AI, Senate Republicans are trying to secure an ineffectual participation trophy before they skip town. Instead of trying to score cheap political points with hollow proposals, Senate Republicans need to work with us to take meaningful action that will actually contain these existential risks. They are not doing that, and the American people are in real danger because of their failure to act. Mr. President, on stock trading and voter ID, Senate Republicans continue to show the country they care more about playing partisan political games than stopping corruption. The Senate GOP has bucked a longstanding bipartisan effort to ban stock trading in Congress, which is what Congress should do. Last July--July--the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee advanced a strong, commonsense, bipartisan bill to ban congressional stock trading, but Senate Republicans abandoned this effort. Too many of their Members didn’t want to do it. If Senate Republicans truly cared about banning stock trading in Congress, they wouldn’t have let the House Republicans water down the ban. The bill Republicans are offering today is Swiss cheese legislating, creating loophole after loophole after loophole, and it is a step backward to solving this critical problem. The bill even lets Members continue to own and sell stocks. The Republican bill even lets Members continue to own and sell stocks. This is the Republican MO. The public is mad about a problem. The public wants something done. And what they do is put in a bill that does virtually nothing because they want to try to assuage the public but not solve the problem because it affects them. The Republican bill also explicitly allows Members to trade stocks in privately held companies to profit off their insider knowledge. So the bill makes things worse than present law because it would simply hide insider trading. It would not stop it. And if Senate Republicans cared about reining in stock trading, they would advance a bill that prohibits the President from trading stocks. We know that Trump has traded more stocks than all of Congress combined, but this bill does no such thing. The worst part of this bill is that Republicans know it will never pass. They designed it that way. They don’t want this bill to become law. So they put a poison pill in that they knew would tank it. It is really trickery. It is skulduggery. If Republican Senators really cared about stopping stock trading by Members, they wouldn’t have loaded it up with a poison pill voter ID bill, which Senate Democrats have defeated already twice. Republicans know that no one in their right mind would ever go along with the draconian voting restrictions that they attach to their stock trading bill. The voting restriction provisions in this bill are more severe than any law in any State--do you hear that?--more severe than any law in any State. They are designed to kill the bill. So this bill is just another desperate Republican attempt to pretend they are fighting corruption, when all they really want is to score political points before they head home to campaign. Mr. President, on Trump propaganda, Donald Trump continues to cram his taxpayer-funded propaganda down the throats of the American people. In less than a single week, Trump has aired three campaign ads, costing at least $1.5 million, all paid for by--guess who--the American taxpayer. Trump is getting you, American taxpayer, to use your dollars to pay for his political ads. Have you ever heard anything so egregious in terms of how our system is supposed to work? I am calling on the White House to explain this great, blatantly corrupt, and egregious abuse of taxpayer dollars immediately. The Trump administration has a lot of questions it needs to answer: Who is responsible for these ads? Which Agency? Where were the funds diverted to pay for Trump’s propaganda? Was Trump involved personally? There has already been some reporting from anonymous sources that Trump was personally involved in pushing these campaign ads on the taxpayers’ dime. Let’s be clear, these ads were anything but public service announcements. They were pure propaganda. After fawning over foreign authoritarians like Putin and Kim Jong Un for so long, Trump must have gotten jealous of their control over state TV. Trump needs to answer for this corruption and for all of his other efforts to rob the American people to fund his extravagant vanity projects. It is time for Republicans to either call the President out for this corruption or to call it quits in November. Mr. President, finally, on the Affordable Care Act CRA, well, today Senate Democrats will force consideration of a resolution to stop Trump from further sabotaging the ACA. Trump’s recent rule terminates coverage for 2 million Americans. It jacks up healthcare costs for millions more and gives big insurers carte blanche to force the American people to pay more for less. As if Americans weren’t drowning enough in Trump’s failed economy, this callous rule comes on the heels of Trump and Republicans ransacking over $1 trillion--$1 trillion--from the healthcare system, all to bankroll tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations. Now rural hospitals are shuttering, millions are losing lifesaving coverage, and tens of millions of working Americans are watching their premiums double, triple, even quadruple. For years, Trump has tried to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act with no idea of what replacement will look like whatsoever. As Trump’s economy bleeds the American people dry, Trump isn’t trying to lower costs but, rather, kill the Affordable Care Act with a death by a thousand cuts. So my Republican colleagues ought to join us on this resolution to protect the care their constituents rely on or they will continue to own every lost healthcare policy, every closed hospital, and every skyrocketing premium that follows. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Graham). The Senator from Virginia.