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00:00That's where we start our conversation with Congressman Jake Auchincloss.
00:03He'll be there for that vote. The Democrat from Massachusetts joins us now from Capitol Hill.
00:08Is that what you expect, Congressman, a 4 p.m. vote and it will pass this time?
00:14That's what I expect, yes.
00:18So obviously you've been spoken for on this and the question is what happens now?
00:23Even if it passed the Senate, the president wouldn't sign it. Is this a symbolic move?
00:26How important is that symbol?
00:30It's important because it crystallizes the American public's opinion about what has been a disastrous war against Iran.
00:39This president started this war of choice without authorization, without consulting allies, without consulting Congress, without planning for contingencies.
00:47And the result has been a massive increase in the prices of food, of fuel, of travel upcoming this summer.
00:54And no material progress against his purported war aims, nuclear enrichment, missile capabilities, funding of proxy terror forces.
01:04And so while it's true that this president would veto a war powers resolution, what this also exemplifies is that
01:12Congress is starting to wake up from its constitutional slumber and is going to take back the steering wheel of
01:19foreign policy before he starts a third quagmire in the Middle East.
01:24Well, when we consider the president's veto authority, that's not the only route he could take.
01:30There's also the question as to whether or not the administration could challenge the very constitutionality of the War Powers
01:37Act in court.
01:38Is it possible that in pursuing a war powers resolution, if it is indeed something that could end up in
01:45court and potentially be ruled against, that actually Congress will lose a great deal of its privileges when it comes
01:49to weighing in on armed conflict?
01:51I think there's two tracks here.
01:53There's a political track and a constitutional track.
01:55The political track operates in tight feedback loops of a commander in chief getting feedback about his actions both from
02:04Congress and from the American body politic.
02:05And that does matter. It mattered with ICE in Minnesota. It mattered with NIH funding.
02:11It matters with the slush fund that they're now shutting down.
02:13When those feedback loops take out the legs of an out-of-control executive, there is political pushback in the
02:20framing that the founders intended, right, where ambition counteracts ambition and there are checks and balances.
02:24Then there's the constitutional track.
02:26And the constitutional track is really actually, to me, more simple even than a legal fight over the war powers.
02:33The war powers resolution, the War Powers Act, I should say, is broken.
02:37It has been a session since the 1970s of congressional power to executives of both parties.
02:43And I think a first order of business for future Congresses, future administrations, needs to be fixing the War Powers
02:50Act so that when the United States goes to war, it goes to war with Congress, Article 1, declaring it.
02:58Well, of course, Congressman, if you ask the White House, they would tell you that we are not at war
03:03and that we're, in fact, in a cease-fire right now.
03:06And I'd like to ask you, as both a lawmaker and a combat Marine Corps veteran, is it disingenuous to
03:12be telling the families of people serving in harm's way that we're in a cease-fire when, in fact, we're
03:18shooting at each other every day?
03:20It's a lie. The United States is at war. And I find it so shameful, not just the administration's lies,
03:27but the complicity of congressional Republicans.
03:30And you hear them torture the logic. It's really quite something.
03:33They'll say, oh, well, they have 60 days, but then because there was a cease-fire, the clock actually restarts
03:39after there was a cease-fire.
03:40It's complete nonsense. This war was illegal on day one, not day 61, on day one. And here's why.
03:46The president can declare, can launch hostilities in one of two circumstances.
03:51One is Congress says you can, and the second is an imminent threat to the security of the United States
03:56homeland.
03:56Neither of those contingencies existed when this president launched this war on day one. It was illegal on day one.
04:04Well, when we consider the threat assessment you allude to, Congressman, obviously that is informed by the nation's intelligence gathering
04:12through our 18 intelligence agencies,
04:15all of which will now be overseen, at least on an acting basis, by Bill Pulte, the FHFA chief who
04:21is now acting DNI.
04:23We're seeing murmurs already in the Senate that this potentially could be disruptive to an extension of FISA Section 702.
04:31Where do you come down on this issue? What's more important, extending FISA for the sake of national security
04:37or using leverage to make sure Bill Pulte cannot serve in this role even on an acting basis?
04:42Well, I'm not going to vote to extend FISA on a long-term basis without significant reforms.
04:48There's absolutely no interest in granting this administration more power when it's already abused the power it has so grotesquely.
04:55I don't know Pulte. My committee of jurisdiction doesn't cover HUD.
05:02Doesn't seem to have any credentials for the role he's taking on.
05:05But, you know, actually my bigger concern is not just the personnel.
05:09It's whether intelligence is being incorporated into decision-making for national security in general.
05:14You know, for example, there is 20 years' worth of intelligence that indicates that Iran's response to kinetic attacks against
05:22it
05:22would be to close the Strait of Hormuz.
05:24There's more recent intelligence about Iran's drone and counter-drone capabilities in that strait
05:28and its use of its mosquito fleet.
05:31None of that was incorporated into planning for this war at the highest levels.
05:36I think the president had his comms director and his deputy comms director in the national security room
05:40when he made his final decision. Like, regardless of who's in charge of intelligence,
05:44there is no intelligence being incorporated into war-making powers at the commander-in-chief level right now.
05:51The president said in a podcast interview, Congressman, that the Strait of Hormuz could be closed,
05:56well, he said unlikely, could be closed through Labor Day,
06:01implying to many that he does not plan to use military action to reopen the strait,
06:05that he's girding for a longer set of negotiations.
06:08And I wonder, with that said, if we need to start relieving some of the service members
06:14and some of the material that has been overextended in deployment in that area,
06:19do we need to start sending some boats home for refurbishment,
06:22send sailors and airmen home to their families?
06:26Well, I think it's certainly the case that Iran is going to have chokepoint control over the Strait of Hormuz
06:31either expressly or by implication for months or even years to come.
06:37That's the strategic disaster of this war, is that we played our card of air dominance,
06:41which had been established with the 12-day war last year,
06:44and Iran matched that air dominance by picking up the card of sea denial
06:49through a strait through which 20 percent of the world's oil transits.
06:52It was just a massive strategic blunder, despite the operational excellence of the U.S. military.
06:57Of course, we've got to take care of our troops and ensure that there's readiness,
07:00not just in the Middle East, but also readiness in the Indo-Pacific,
07:03where I do worry about a depletion of our ability to operate in the South China Sea
07:10and the Taiwan Strait and elsewhere.
07:11But the most important way that we can ensure that readiness in the Indo-Pacific
07:15and that theater is to prevent a third forever war in the Middle East.
07:19The American public does not want to get bogged down yet again in that region of the world.
07:26Well, as you allude to another region of the world, the Indo-Pacific,
07:29and of course another adversary there in China,
07:33concern over ceding the lead we have on artificial intelligence to China
07:39is why we saw President Trump scale back an executive order on AI
07:43and coordination between government and AI companies on cybersecurity risks.
07:49Specifically, the government will now have a voluntary 30-day window to review models
07:53before they become public rather than 90 days.
07:55And we just saw on Capitol Hill, according to our colleagues who report on Congress for us,
08:00Sam Alton and the CEO of OpenAI walk into the speaker's office for meetings today.
08:05And I just wonder if you think from a policy perspective,
08:07if the U.S. government, both legislative and executive,
08:11is doing enough to address the threat of artificial intelligence,
08:15where the line is on making sure that we can innovate here in the United States
08:19and not cede ground to China, but also make sure there are guardrails.
08:26Americans are pioneers and builders.
08:28We've always embraced science and technology.
08:29We shouldn't stop doing that.
08:31But what we should not allow is for the tech lobby to claim that
08:35if we're going to compete against China,
08:37they have to have free reign to operate as they see fit.
08:39And I think the actual most pointed example of that
08:42is in how they exploit our children.
08:45These social media corporations, Meta, TikTok,
08:49they are attention-tracking our kids,
08:51and they are going to double down on that nefarious business strategy
08:55by creating these companion bots
08:57that are going to further keep our kids scrolling
09:00and are going to further distort mental health
09:02and our kids' sense of self and society.
09:05And we need to just say,
09:06you're not going to use our kids as a natural resource to mine
09:09out of some claim that how we're going to out-compete China.
09:13Absolutely not.
09:13We're going to protect our kids' cognitive development and mental health
09:17from what I think are the tobacco companies of the 21st century.
09:21So I have got no patience for that argument.
09:23I would also just say, though, we're talking about AI here.
09:26The other big sector where we're really competing on science and technology
09:29with China is biotechnology.
09:31That is not being discussed as much.
09:33To me, it is just as important.
09:35And just recently, this administration,
09:38in addition to the complete incompetence of the Food and Drug Administration,
09:41in addition to freezing grants at the National Institutes of Health,
09:44has put forward a new executive order rule
09:47that would allow the NIH to freeze grants based on political considerations.
09:52This kind of behavior is undercutting U.S. biotech and science competitiveness
09:56at a time when China is investing hundreds of billions of dollars.
09:59And I really hope we have bipartisan pushback against it.
10:03Well, Congressman, as I mentioned, Sam Altman is on the Hill today.
10:08We saw a main Democratic Senate candidate, Graham Plattner, on the Hill yesterday.
10:12He was meeting with senators.
10:14But, of course, you have personally said that you find his Nazi tattoo disqualifying,
10:19even though you would not like to see Susan Collins, the Republican, re-elected.
10:23Did he reach out to you while he was in town to try to mend fences at all?
10:31As you said, I've made my opinions on that race clear.
10:35What I'm thinking about today when it comes to the United States Senate
10:38is not maintenance, what just happened in Iowa.
10:41You look at Josh Turek and the campaign that he has run
10:44and the campaign he is going to win in November.
10:47He is a kind of Democrat that I can be proud of.
10:52Really interesting.
10:53Are you going to be traveling the next couple of months,
10:55Congressman, to help other Democratic candidates on the primary trail?
10:59Yes.
11:00And as the chair of Majority Democrats,
11:02which is a group of 40 elected officials committing to reinventing the Democratic Party,
11:07I am in support of those elected officials, mayors, governors, members of Congress,
11:12and also our sister organization, The Bench,
11:14has invested in about two dozen terrific candidates,
11:16Josh Turek being one of them,
11:17and I'll be in support of that full bench of candidates
11:21because ultimately, personnel, candidates, people,
11:24is what reinvigorates a party,
11:26and I'm so excited about the young talent that we're seeing across this country.
11:29I'm so excited about the young talent that we're seeing across this country.
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