00:00Normally, I would thank him for holding this very important hearing, very timely hearing, but this is far afield from
00:11what the American people want us to be talking about.
00:17You know, they're concerned with paying the bills, groceries, gas, diesel, rent. They're concerned about living in America and being
00:30able to make ends meet.
00:31They can't do it, but yet they look up and they see a few trillionaires and billionaires corruptly soaking their
00:44profits, soaking money directly out of the pockets and pocketbooks of regular working people in the country.
00:52And they don't like what they see and they don't like what they're hearing when they see us addressing issues
00:59like the International Criminal Court, which has nothing to do with their costs.
01:05America's commitment to the rule of law should not end at our borders.
01:11If we believe accountability is the foundation of justice at home, then we should not undermine or ignore it when
01:19crimes are committed abroad.
01:21But for some reason, that is exactly what we are doing here today.
01:26On its face, this hearing serves to benefit Donald Trump and his friends like Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, and
01:35Bukele.
01:37And this all while he leaves the American people to suffer under the consequences of his failed policies.
01:44Because while we are allegedly here today to discuss how the International Criminal Court, quote, threatens, in, end quote, our
01:53sovereignty and that of our allies, much like the Trump administration's other manufactured crises.
02:00It's a farce, a smokescreen, a pathetic excuse to mask the true nature behind this hearing, to distract from the
02:12corruption and greed and cruelty of Donald Trump and his cronies here in Congress.
02:19While Trump and his MAGA Republican minions are here talking about sovereignty, American families are worried about how they are
02:27going to pay for gas and groceries and everything else that inevitably gets more expensive when war sends energy prices
02:36soaring.
02:37Over the weekend, the cost of diesel fuel hit an all-time record high, while Trump is encouraging big tech
02:45to continue building enormous data centers in our backyards, putting unprecedented demands on our already strained energy grid.
02:56That is the reality for millions of Americans, not an abstract debate about international law.
03:04This hearing will not put gas in the tank or food on the table.
03:08It will help my colleagues across the aisle talk about anything other than the consequences of Trump's self-serving policies
03:18and their mindless support for.
03:22This administration is asking Americans to look abroad and fear an international court that we don't even belong to when
03:32the American people don't need another distraction.
03:35They need a government focused on making their lives more affordable, not one manufacturing new enemies abroad to distract from
03:45the fact that President Trump is increasing the economic pressures facing American families every single day.
03:53My colleagues on the other side of the aisle can talk about sovereignty all they want, but I believe the
04:00American people deserve a government that understands their actual problems, not one that is only concerned with the President's ego
04:08and helping him get richer on the backs of American workers.
04:12This manufactured attack on international cooperation comes at a crucial time when the world faces threats no one could solve
04:22alone, no country can solve alone.
04:25Nuclear weapons proliferation.
04:28Donald Trump has instructed our military to recommence testing of nuclear bombs.
04:37We're dealing with nuclear proliferation.
04:40We're dealing with climate change.
04:43And the increasingly unchecked development of artificial intelligence.
04:49We got the head of an artificial intelligence company telling us that mankind may be no longer in 10 years
05:01or less.
05:02Some say by the end of the decade, that's only four years away.
05:09We're facing, and he's calling for a slowdown of development of artificial intelligence.
05:16And what do we do in Congress?
05:19We go back on vacation after being on vacation for four weeks, five weeks.
05:26Now we're going back on a six-week vacation, all so that my colleagues on the other side of the
05:31aisle can get reelected.
05:33And all of this while the country is facing existential danger.
05:40In July, an open AI test became uncontrollable when agents hacked into the servers of an AI company, Hugging Face,
05:49which just got sold for $12 billion, by the way.
05:54Just a drop in the bucket, however.
05:57$12 billion, that's nothing to those up at the top with gazillions of money, the first trillionaire in the country's
06:07history.
06:08Just last week, Anthropic disclosed another instance of one of their models hacking an external system during testing.
06:17Nobody instructed the AI to take these actions.
06:21This is the AI thinking for itself, being programmed to think for itself, escaping the guardrails that human beings in
06:31their wisdom and intelligence set.
06:35But it was not enough.
06:38It's ominous, you know, where we're headed.
06:43Now each of these incidents is concerning on its own.
06:47And they raise real questions about the soundness of the evaluation setups.
06:52But the larger question is what happens when these same capabilities are in the hands of someone who intends harm
07:00or when it's the machines themselves that are dictating what they do and speaking in language that human beings can't
07:13even decipher or understand.
07:23The reason we have not is because Donald Trump has told his cronies in Congress that they cannot regulate AI.
07:32That is why this very subcommittee had a hearing last year to try to preempt all state laws that try
07:40to regulate AI.
07:42We have a narrow window, ladies and gentlemen, to get this right.
07:45And while we should be collaborating with our allies to address AI, augmented cybersecurity, and autonomous weaponry concerns, my colleagues
07:56across the aisle are instead busy trying to take the ICC apart brick by brick.
08:02Instead of dismantling international cooperative organizations, we need to be strengthening them all on Donald Trump's orders.
08:15Working together with our allies, we should not be embarked on another Cold War where we spend billions upon billions
08:25and indeed trillions of dollars trying to build the biggest nuclear bomb or trying to build the most powerful AI
08:34capacity, another nuclear arms race that puts us all on the brink of extinction.
08:41We should be, as human beings, working together, not just America first, but America, China, and other nations in the
08:51world working to address this threat, not just to Americans, but to humanity.
09:03Yet it has become clear that Trump and MAGA Republicans are incapable of moving in that direction.
09:10Instead, they confuse sovereignty with isolation and strength with intimidation.
09:17They confuse putting America first with putting America alone.
09:21History has shown that America is strongest when we lead, when we stand with our allies and our enemies,
09:30and understand that the choice before us is not between sovereignty and international cooperation.
09:35We can either choose to confront these challenges together, or we can confront their consequences,
09:43either alone or with everyone else.
09:46We're all going to the same brave.
09:49It is my sincere hope that we choose to work together to solve these existential threats to humanity.
09:56Thank you to our witnesses for being here today.
10:01Maybe you can enlighten us on your ideas on how we can lower costs for you and your family,
10:09and for me and mine.
10:11I don't know if you're prepared to discuss that today,
10:14but I would gladly yield my time to anyone who has a prescription.
10:18I would gladly yield my time to anyone who has a prescription.
