Salazar’s opponent slams her in video after Florida interview debacle

MIAMI — Rep. María Elvira Salazar’s Democratic opponent attacked her in a video just days after the congresswoman couldn’t recall the House votes she cast during an interview with a South Florida TV station.

In a campaign video titled “Salazar Lied” released Thursday, Democrat Lucia Báez-Geller slammed the congresswoman for voting against an estimated $24 million in federal funding for her district — the topic of a contentious interview Salazar had with CBS News Miami's Jim DeFede earlier this week.

“What we see here in Miami-Dade County is that a lot of the advancements that are happening happened despite her and not because of her,” Báez-Geller, a school board member in Miami-Dade County, said of Salazar.

During the interview with DeFede, he challenged the congresswoman for having touted spending measures she opposed and pressed her to explain.

Salazar couldn’t recall her votes on the House bills and at one point she needed to ask her staff about them.

“Why don’t we look at the $40 million that I have brought to this community?” she asked after a back-and-forth. “Aren’t you proud of me?”

The funding Salazar highlighted and seemed to embrace — but in some cases voted against — came from several federal laws, including the bipartisan infrastructure bill, the 2023 Omnibus spending bill to fund the government as well as the CHIPS and Science Act to expand manufacturing and semiconductor research in the U.S.

The video from the Báez-Geller campaign lists a variety of projects the money funded in the district, including a mental health facility expansion, a community health center and a police department upgrade.

“We felt it very disrespectful and dishonest that she's trying to pull the wool over people's eyes,” Báez-Geller said. “And so we just actively came together to … make sure that her voters know that she's taking credit for projects that she voted against.”

The Salazar campaign brushed off the accusations in a statement provided to POLITICO. "Only in the minds of out-of-touch radical liberals is standing up to bad policies and wasteful spending viewed as a 'gotcha,'” the campaign said.

Eager to win back the U.S. House in November, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has been attacking several incumbent Republicans for a pattern of what they're calling "vote no, take the dough."

Democrats have likewise lit the fire under Republicans when they do the opposite by turning down federal funding that could benefit their constituents.

Salazar has been in Congress since 2021 and previously worked for the Spanish-language network Telemundo. Her highly competitive district is nestled in Miami-Dade County and is heavily Hispanic. She has more than $800,000 cash on hand for her reelection bid — just under 10 times the amount in Báez-Geller’s campaign coffers, according to new Federal Election Commission filings.

Gov. Ron DeSantis won the Miami-Dade County in 2022, becoming the first Republican to do so in more than two decades. But the county is a potential swing in the 2024 election because registered Democratic voters out-number Republicans in Miami-Dade County, by about 82,000.

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‘I did not handle this right’: Austin apologizes over hospital secrecy

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin apologized for the way he handled his prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment, a decision that led to confusion following a secret hospital stay that was kept from top U.S. officials, including the president.

Austin was hospitalized on Jan. 1 due to complications from a late-December surgery to treat the cancer.

“We did not handle this right. I did not handle this right.” Austin told reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday.

Top members of the national security team, including President Joe Biden, did not know Austin was in the hospital until Jan. 4, three days after he was admitted. That was when Kelly Magsamen, Austin’s chief of staff, informed Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks and national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who then told the president.

Austin said he did not direct anyone to keep his hospitalization or diagnosis from the White House.

Magsamen was not present at the briefing on Thursday, though she regularly attends. She came under scrutiny for her delay in notifying others about Austin’s hospitalization.

When asked if Magsamen has offered her resignation, Austin said she has not.

A reporter also asked about Jan. 1, the day Austin experienced pains due to his earlier cancer treatment. At the time, an aide who called 911 asked for an ambulance to come to Austin’s house, but to keep its lights and sirens off to maintain a low profile.

Austin said he did ask the aide to call the ambulance, but did not direct that it be kept quiet. “What he said and why he said it, I think, that should come out in the review,” Austin said.

It wasn’t until Jan. 9, eight days after he was hospitalized, that Biden and the American public learned that Austin had been diagnosed with cancer in December.

“I should have told the president about my cancer diagnosis. I should have also told my team and the American public, and I take full responsibility,” Austin said, adding that he has apologized to Biden personally.

The defense secretary stressed that there were “no gaps in authorities” during his treatment. Hicks assumed some of his duties while he was in the hospital and she was on vacation, though she wasn’t given an explanation for the transfer of responsibilities.

If Hicks needs to temporarily assume duties in the future, Austin said, the White House and other key officials will be immediately notified.

Austin said his diagnosis was “a gut punch” and his first instinct was to keep it private.

“I don’t think it’s news that I’m a pretty private guy,” he said.

The side effects from his cancer treatment were “highly, highly unusual,” Austin said. He still experiences leg pain and remains in physical therapy.

Some Republicans in Congress demanded his ouster after the news first surfaced, and have called for hearings to learn more about what happened. Biden has stood behind Austin and has no plans to fire him.

Austin did not consider resigning at any point, he told reporters.

In the public statement announcing his diagnosis, Austin noted that 1 in 8 American men will get prostate cancer, including 1 in 6 Black men. He stressed those statistics Thursday, citing his experience as a Black man as part of the reason for keeping the matter to himself.

“Cancer, period, is very private,” he said. “Among the Black community, though, it's even more a thing that people want to keep private.”

The likelihood of developing prostate cancer increases with age, according to a study from the National Institutes of Health. There’s a 1 in 3 chance of developing it for men 60 to 69 years old, and a 46 percent chance for men over 70 years old.

Austin, 70, urged all men to check with their doctors regularly.

“I'm here with a clear message to other men, especially older men. Get screened. Get your regular checkups,” he said. “Prostate cancer has a glass jaw. If your doctor can spot it, they can treat it and beat it.”

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California dockworkers have a new target in their fight against automation

LOS ANGELES — Tech firms are pitching reduced pollution as a key benefit of self-driving vehicles and other controversial autonomous machinery.

Labor unions are trying to dismantle that argument.

In a bid to thwart tough new air quality standards, one of California's most powerful unions is warning that a shift to cleaner technology would imperil their livelihoods.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union — a major donor to Democratic lawmakers who’ve backed electrification — says the state’s proposed air quality regulations are so burdensome, they could push the sprawling ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to cut labor costs by switching to automated equipment.

It's a novel attack line against technologies that are rapidly transforming the transportation and industrial sectors — and it could slow the nation's adoption of zero-emission policies.

“Any discussion on sustainability should be, 'How do we improve air quality and protect jobs,'” said Rich Dines, a former Long Beach harbor commissioner and ILWU member who contributed to a new report on electrification at the two Southern California ports that handle nearly 40 percent of the country's imported cargo. “Electrification is an excuse for automation.”

The conflict illustrates the tensions California’s leaders face in trying to slash carbon emissions while preserving union-friendly jobs. That friction has already surfaced in other labor fights like last year’s United Auto Workers strike, which featured a dispute over wages at electric vehicle battery plants. But the ripple effect from the Golden State is likely to be widespread, as states around the country are poised to follow California’s lead into the electric future.

The report, by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, warns that Southern California regulators’ efforts to electrify the ports create “a real risk of driving terminal operators to pursue port automation under the pretense of meeting environmental standards.”

Air pollution regulators who oversee the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach argue that electrification of equipment like trucks, cranes and yard tractors is essential to cleaning up the largest emissions source in a region that routinely ranks among the most polluted in the nation.

A spokesperson for the South Coast Air Quality Management District said the agency’s goal is to push for 100 percent zero-emission operations, a target the ports have already set for themselves. Agency staff are working on rules now to get there and said they’re keeping in mind the port’s own timelines of 2030 for cargo equipment and 2035 for trucks.

“Electrification does not equal automation or less jobs,” Nahal Mogharabi, the air quality agency’s director of communications, said in a statement. “There is a varying level of automation at our ports already in the absence of air quality regulations. In fact, we have seen automation using diesel equipment.”

Both ILWU and the Teamsters — who represent truckers moving goods from the ports to inland warehouses — stress they're not against electrification and other zero-emission technologies in all cases. "We absolutely support green transportation and electric vehicles," said Peter Finn, Teamsters’ western region vice president.

But even among unions that have embraced electrification, there’s growing concern that rapid and unfettered advancements in technology are putting their members at risk.

Artificial intelligence technologies are also coming in for labor attacks on their environmental credentials.

The Teamsters are pointing to an MIT study that finds autonomous vehicles' software demands could require as much energy as the world's data centers, equivalent to the annual carbon footprint of Argentina.

It's a line of argument that they're throwing up against AV companies like Cruise and Waymo, which promise to replace human drivers, as well as reduce planet-warming emissions, with their all-electric fleets.

“The AV companies are trying to conflate the issues to, quite frankly, engage in some PR spin and imply the technology is somehow more environmentally friendly,” Finn said. “The value proposition of the technology is to eliminate people.”

Finn pointed to San Francisco, where the Teamsters have been fighting against Waymo’s efforts to build large-scale charging stations for their vehicles. Their opposition helped persuade the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to overturn a city planning commission's permit for Waymo to operate a parking lot over concerns it would become an automated delivery hub.

“Their coalition of supporters are writing letters and focusing on electrification, when in fact, what we are trying to put guardrails around is autonomous vehicles,” he said.

Waymo in a statement said the company’s goal “has always been to improve road safety and accessibility through access to safe, sustainable and equitable transportation."

Although automated port technology has existed for decades and is already employed at three terminals in Los Angeles and Long Beach, the vast majority of dock operations are still conducted using human-operated equipment. Union workers and the shipping industry say that could change if the ports are forced to adopt electric equipment.

“This rule, aimed at meeting environmental standards, has raised worries about the potential increase in automation at the ports,” said Gary Herrera, president of ILWU Local 13, in a statement. “While it is important to prioritize environmental sustainability, it is equally important to consider the impact of these measures on the local workforce and community as it pertains to jobs in the community and region.”

Dines, who’s spent decades as a marine clerk tasked with coordinating the flow of goods coming off and going onto ships, said it will cost companies billions of dollars to switch to electric equipment, forcing them to cut labor costs.

The lifelong Los Angeles County resident said he is a supporter of electrification in other sectors and has switched to electric vehicles, but worries dock workers are souring on the idea altogether.

“I think workers are being pushed to be anti-electrification,” he said. “Electrification by itself is not what we need to be sustainable, because electrification is to reduce emissions. What about protecting jobs?”

The Pacific Merchant Shipping Association, which represents terminal operators, echoed ILWU’s concerns, arguing that human-operated electric equipment is not ready to handle the bulk of port operations, forcing a switch to automation. The group, and other electrification opponents, have pointed to zero-emission alternatives like hydrogen fuel as being more promising.

“To the degree that the [rule] says 'electrified now,' there is only one choice that's on the table today,” said Thomas Jelenić, PMSA’s vice president. “We want to make sure that as an industry we don't force a specific technological pathway when there are multiple pathways available to get to zero emissions.”

Environmental groups who are pushing for stricter emissions rules at the ports say unions' fears are overblown. They point to language in 2022's Inflation Reduction Act that offers funding for low-emission cargo equipment but requires it to be human-operated.

But even among environmentalists, there's disagreement over whether automation is the best way to cut emissions from transportation and ports.

“If we have a goal of reducing [vehicle miles traveled], the most promising strategy by far is shared automated vehicles,” said Dan Sperling, director of University of California, Davis' Institute for Transportation Studies. “There is no other plausible strategy that comes even close in terms of the potential now.”

Adrian Martinez, deputy managing attorney for Earthjustice, said that while he’s wary of opposition to autonomous vehicles as an argument for the logistics industry to avoid cutting emissions, his group wants to maintain driving jobs.

“Workers have a right to demand that from regulators and electeds,” he said.

Lawmakers in Sacramento are poised to take the issue on this year, with the Teamsters backing a bill to require a human safety driver in autonomous trucks weighing more than 10,000 pounds. Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a previous version of that proposal last year.

“You've got to account for basic safety and job displacement,” said state Sen. Dave Cortese, a Democrat from San Jose. “It's going to have to be addressed as rapidly as innovation is happening. We've dealt with that around climate, but with AI, it's going to happen literally 100 times faster and more aggressively.”

Blanca Begert contributed to this report.

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NATO chief: I’m not worried that Trump will pull out of the alliance

The leader of NATO said he’s not concerned about the U.S. pulling out of the alliance even if former President Donald Trump wins reelection in November.

“I'm confident that the United States will remain a staunch ally” no matter who wins, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in an interview Wednesday during his dayslong visit to Washington.

The NATO chief is in town to make his pitch that supporting Ukraine and rearming NATO — issues that are inexorably intertwined — helps the U.S. in the Pacific and creates American jobs.

“I worked with former President Trump for the four years he was president,” Stoltenberg told POLITICO, when Trump repeatedly threatened to leave the alliance as he thundered about NATO allies failing to keep up with defense spending pledges.

The NATO chief also pointed to the traditional bipartisan support for NATO in Congress, something he said he witnessed on Tuesday while meeting with Republican and Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Stoltenberg also noted that Trump’s criticism of NATO wasn’t really aimed at the alliance, but at individual countries that have failed to live up to the 2014 pledge to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense by 2024. “It's important to listen,” he said, because the criticism from Trump “is not a criticism of NATO not investing enough in NATO.”

The comments came immediately after the NATO leader made a pitch to conservatives in Washington that supporting Ukraine and re-arming Europe is good for America.

“NATO is a good deal for the United States,” Stoltenberg said at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank closely aligned with Trump.

Stoltenberg’s trip to D.C. comes at the start of a tumultuous year for the alliance, Ukraine, and American domestic politics, with major questions hanging over those relationships and their future together.

His speech at Heritage reflects the uncertainty Europe is feeling over the U.S. political scene with the unpredictable Trump potentially reoccupying the Oval Office, making this particular think tank an essential stop.

Even though support for Ukraine is strong in some Republican circles, Trump has been pushing Congress to walk away from a plan to fund Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan due to a clash over border policy.

Stoltenberg’s remarks were an effort to tie multiple issues together that concern U.S. lawmakers, making the case that no issue — China, Russia, migration — exists by itself.

“China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are increasingly aligned,” Stoltenberg said. “Together, they subvert sanctions and pressure, weaken the U.S. dollar-based international financial system, fuel Russia’s war in Europe, and exploit challenges to our societies, such as terrorism, disruptive technologies, or migration.”

In his opening remarks, Heritage President Kevin Roberts made clear that Stoltenberg had some convincing to do. “Until the [U.S.] border is at least as secure as it was a few years ago, we cannot support sending U.S. tax dollars overseas to protect” a foreign border in Ukraine.

Roberts also criticized NATO countries for not living up to spending pledge. Only 11 of the 31 member states reach the 2 percent GDP threshold, with major countries Germany, France, Turkey, Italy and Spain still falling short.

But Stoltenberg said that this year “at least half” will hit the mark, which is “a totally different world than we were in a few years ago.”

The NATO leader didn’t just come to rebut critics, however. He also arrived with a story to tell.

“NATO creates a market for defense sales,” he said, noting that member states have purchased $120 billion worth of weapons from U.S. defense companies over the past two years, including 600 F-35 fighters by 2030.

“From Arizona to Virginia, Florida to Washington state, American jobs depend on American sales to defense markets in Europe and Canada,” he said.

That line of thinking is similar to the message being touted by the White House: supporting Ukraine is good for the American economy. U.S. manufacturers build weapons that are sent to European capitals, which are looking to restock after donating their machinery to Ukraine.

Stoltenberg also noted that by share of GDP, most European countries provide more military aid to Ukraine than Washington does.

“All allies have increased defense investments” since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, adding $450 billion in domestic defense investments across the alliance.

Stoltenberg also pushed back at the notion that Europe isn’t pulling its weight in Ukraine. “Since the outbreak of the war, the United States has provided around $75 billion," he said. "Other allies and partners have provided over $100 billion, and measured as a share of GDP, most allies provide more than the United States.”

He called the war in Ukraine “a war of attrition” that will require European and American defense industries to ramp up production, since “we have seen some serious gaps” in manufacturing of munitions.

Just this week, the U.S. sent new longer-range munitions to Ukraine that will allow Kyiv to strike Russian targets dozens of miles behind the front lines.

Some Republicans have criticized U.S. aid to Ukraine as a waste of money and resources that could be funneled to the Indo-Pacific. But NATO has taken pains to signal to Washington since the Trump administration it has supported the U.S. desire to shift focus to the Indo-Pacific.

“We must organize ourselves for enduring competition with China,” Stoltenberg said, adding that since Trump began pushing shifting U.S. priorities toward the Indo-Pacific in 2017, “NATO has gone a long way in helping European allies fully appreciate the challenge posed by China.”

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GOP super PAC spends more on migrant crisis ads in NY race

A top GOP super PAC is dumping even more money into the special election to replace ex-Rep. George Santos, and once again they are doubling down on an immigration-centric attack.

The Congressional Leadership Fund, a group allied with Speaker Mike Johnson, will spend $2.6 million on TV ads to aid Republican nominee Mazi Pilip in the final two weeks before the Feb. 13 special election for New York’s 3rd Congressional District. That brings its total investment to nearly $5 million and extends a GOP ad blitz that began earlier this month in the New York City area.

The new cash will also help narrow what had become a massive spending advantage for Democrats.

Pilip, an Ethiopian-born former Israeli Defense Forces soldier, faces former Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi in the race for the district, which includes parts of Long Island and Queens.

New York City has been struggling with a surge of more than 160,000 migrants over the past year, making the issue a flashpoint in the special election. The migrant crisis has taken center stage in television messaging, and CLF’s new ad buy will continue airing its initial spot, which accused Suozzi of “rolling out the red carpet for illegal immigrants” and uses audio of the former congressman bragging that he “kicked ICE out of Nassau County.”

The ad will air on broadcast in the pricy New York City media market, backed by a $2.2 million buy. The other $400,000 will go toward airing the ad on digital streaming services.

Democrats have sought to neutralize the attacks. In response to the earlier spot, Suozzi released a TV ad warning voters that they had “been hearing a lot of nonsense blaming Suozzi for the migrant problem” and praising ICE.

National Republicans didn’t start spending in earnest to help Pilip until weeks into the special election, giving Democrats a noticeable early edge. Democrats have booked a collective $9.6 million through Feb. 13, including $4 million on TV and digital ads from House Majority PAC; $3.8 million from Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and $1.6 million from the Suozzi campaign.

Before the new buy, Pilip, the House GOP campaign arm and the Congressional Leadership Fund were at a collective $3.6 million, according to AdImpact, a media tracking firm. But CLF’s initial buy ended Wednesday. On the GOP side, the NRCC spent $929,000; Pilip dropped $253,000 on her own — as well as $734,000 in a coordinated spend with the NRCC.

CLF has been airing both 15- and 30-second spots in an attempt to reach more viewers at a lower price point.

The stakes are high for both parties.

Democrats are eager for redemption after losing a slew of seats in New York in 2022, while Republicans want to prove their victories there are enduring. The GOP is also hoping to pad Johnson’s already miniscule House minority in the first special election of his speakership.

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‘They’ve pretty much struck out’ — how Congress punted on kids’ online safety

The CEOs of five top social media platforms, including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and X’s Linda Yaccarino, are being hauled in front of the Senate on Wednesday for a hearing to highlight the continuing risk of child sexual abuse material on their sites.

Pointing the finger at them will be members of Congress — who have spent years highlighting this issue without ever agreeing on a way to fix it.

Despite numerous bills, headline-grabbing hearings and a push from President Joe Biden in his last two State of the Union addresses, Congress has only passed one kids’ safety law in the last decade, a narrow measure dealing with online child sex trafficking. Since then, both the House and the Senate have been stymied by disagreement over specific security and privacy provisions, and by nearly unanimous opposition from the tech industry itself.

“I’ve had hope for the last decade that Congress would do something, but they’ve pretty much struck out,” Jim Steyer, CEO of the nation’s largest kids’ advocacy group Common Sense Media, told POLITICO.

Wednesday’s hearing will be Zuckerberg’s eighth time in the hot seat and will feature the return of TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew, who endured a marathon grilling last year over his platform’s ties to China. It marks the Capitol Hill debuts of Yaccarino, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel and Discord CEO Jason Citron, all of whom had to be subpoenaed to appear.

All five run platforms are widely used by teenagers. The goal is to build momentum for a package of bills supported by Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), which includes his STOP CSAM Act — that lifts tech companies’ legal protections to allow victims of child exploitation to sue them.

A former trial lawyer, Durbin said he still has hopes that a high-profile Senate hearing can make a difference. “I can tell you that there's nothing like the prospect of being called into court to testify about decisions you've made,” he said in an interview.

Despite the publicity, however, the legislative efforts tied to past tech hearings have consistently crashed and burned.

Some of the five bills in Durbin’s package were originally authored years ago. One of those, the EARN IT Act from ranking member Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), has floundered without a floor vote the past three Congresses. (Like Durbin’s bill, it would curtail companies’ liability shield if they host child sexual abuse material.) Another high-profile bill, the Kids Online Safety Act, has been introduced twice and moved out of the Senate Commerce Committee but has never gotten a floor vote. Co-sponsors Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) are expected to use Wednesday’s hearing to push that bill as well.

Since Wednesday’s hearing was announced in November, there have been some signs of a dam cracking in the industry’s staunch opposition.

One of the five companies in the hearing, Snap, just came out in support of KOSA, which aims to stop platforms from recommending harmful material — the first company to publicly support it. It will likely lead to lawmakers pressuring the other companies to line up behind it.

So far, none of the other platforms testifying has joined Snap in publicly supporting the bill. X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, is in active conversations with staff on KOSA, according to a person familiar with those conversations, but has not endorsed it. X’s Yaccarino met with senators last week, including Blackburn, and they spoke about AI, copyright and KOSA, a Blackburn spokesperson said. Yaccarino is continuing to meet with Senate Judiciary members this week, the person said.

The hearing has already had one result, however: As the date approaches, several of the platforms have announced internal changes to create more protections around children.

Meta said earlier this month it plans to start blocking suicide and eating disorder content from appearing in the feeds of teens on Facebook and Instagram — changes that mimicked language in the KOSA bill text. The company also issued its own version of a legislative “framework” for kids' safety this month. (Its proposal would put the onus on app stores, not platforms, to obtain parental consent.)

Snap announced the expansion of in-app parental controls in mid-January, and X said this past weekend it’s launching a new trust and safety center in Austin with 100 content moderators focused on removing violative content, like child sexual abuse material.

But when it comes to new regulation, observers warn there’s still very little room in an election-year schedule to get any of the bills to a floor vote. And the industry’s main lobbying group, NetChoice, remains firmly opposed to the key bills under discussion: KOSA, EARN IT and the STOP CSAM Act.

Durbin acknowledged the headwinds, saying that the Senate would need to act before the end of July if it wants to pass the bills, which he wants to move as a package.

“I don’t want to say it’s a long shot,” Durbin said, “but it’ll take some good luck for us to push it forward in the hopes that the House will take it up too.”

A spokesperson for Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said children’s online safety is a priority, but he’s waiting for more backing for the bills before acting to move them to the floor.

“While we work to pass the supplemental and keep the government funded in the coming weeks, the sponsors on the online safety bills will work to lock in the necessary support,” the spokesperson said.

The most substantive kids’ safety legislation Congress passed was before any of these apps even existed. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 set online privacy protections for kids under age 13 but notably doesn’t provide protections for teens ages 13 through 18 — the youngest group allowed by platforms’ policies.

Another kids’ safety bill, known as COPPA 2.0, would extend these online privacy protections up to age 16. But despite versions of it being introduced three times and advancing out of the Senate Commerce Committee, it has also never seen a floor vote.

With Congress stuck, the momentum for regulating social media has largely shifted to states — and to Europe and the U.K., which have passed a suite of laws since 2019 governing online safety, with provisions for children. Another leader has been Australia, which in 2015 created a national digital safety regulator dedicated to addressing online harms for kids and adults.

“California has led the nation and Europe has led the world,” said Steyer, “because Congress has dithered.”

U.S. state legislators passed 23 kids’ online safety laws in 2023. And more state legislation is coming this year. In a parallel wave of legal action, last fall more than 30 state attorneys general jointly filed a lawsuit against Meta, and several other attorneys general have filed similar suits against TikTok, claiming their products are addictive to kids.

But tech companies are fighting back. NetChoice, whose members include Meta, Snap, TikTok and X, has filed four lawsuits against state laws saying they violate the First Amendment. It has scored early wins in several of them — with a temporary block on a parental consent law in Arkansas, as well as an injunction against California’s age-appropriate design code.

In Washington, much of the legislation has gotten stuck on disagreements about specific provisions — fracturing party support for what can be highly technical laws.

The EARN IT Act, for example, has largely failed due to strong opposition by tech and privacy groups over concerns it will break encryption services on apps in order to give law enforcement access to review harmful content. A number of lawmakers from both parties, including Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), have also raised concerns about its cybersecurity and encryption provisions.

KOSA’s support among Democrats has been tempered by pushback from both tech and progressive LGBTQ+ groups — the latter concerned it gives too much power to conservative state attorneys general who could censor content for vulnerable youth.

Following the pushback, Blumenthal told POLITICO earlier in January that he’s open to removing state attorney general enforcement from KOSA. Separately, he and Blackburn said they’re “redoubling their efforts” to pass KOSA.

With those bills all stalled, advocates and politicians have come to put their hopes in the power of the bully pulpit — which in the past has led companies to change their practices unilaterally.

Though the companies have been responding, Meta raised concerns among child-safety advocates when it announced last December that it’s deploying end-to-end encryption on Facebook Messenger and has plans to encrypt Instagram messaging as well. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a nonprofit where platforms like Meta are required to report child sexual abuse content, condemned the move because it will prevent the company from being able to proactively scan messages for violative material. (NCMEC has said that message encryption could cut the reporting of such material by 80 percent.)

One grim fact that the hearing is expected to highlight: The amount of child sexual abuse material reported by platforms continues to increase. NCMEC told POLITICO it received 36.2 million reports of child sexual and exploitative material in 2023 from platforms, a major jump from 21 million reports it received in 2020.

This is both due to a growth in the amount of such content on platforms, and companies deploying more systems to proactively search for it.

One of the few child-protection bills to pass either chamber in recent years is the REPORT Act, one of five Judiciary bills advanced last year to require companies to report instances of sextortion — a quickly growing crime where kids are financially extorted over illicit sexual images or videos. It passed the Senate in December, but has yet to move in the House.

Despite their different approaches, each of the CEOs will make the case that their voluntary measures to detect and remove child sexual abuse material are working. They’re all members of the Tech Coalition, an organization aimed at fighting child abuse online proactively search and report cyber tips to the NCMEC. However, companies face few ramifications if they fail to report.

Several of the companies represented at the hearing are starting to also work together to detect material that depicts sexual abuse of children, which is regularly spread from one platform to another. Meta, Snap and Discord helped form an industry group called Lantern last year that aims to share known hashtags and signals of exploitative content. A spokesperson for TikTok said it’s applied to join Lantern and an X spokesperson said it’s in the process of applying.

But Steyer stressed no matter what happens at the hearing, the industry is still likely to dominate the conversation until Congress “breaks through the walls of tech lobbyists.”

“The bottom line is clear — we need Congress to act. This issue is very popular on both sides of the aisle. It’s not that there isn't political will. What you have is extremely wealthy companies paying off Congress to do nothing,” he said.

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Progressives to Biden: Reverse Palestine relief funding pause

Progressive lawmakers and humanitarian aid groups are pressuring the Biden administration to resume funding for a United Nations aid group, which saw a dozen of its members accused of participating in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israeli soil.

Earlier this week, Israel accused a dozen U.N. Relief and Works Agency employees — which provides a wide range of aid and services to Palestinian families — of taking part in abductions and killings during the attack. Soon after, top donors including the U.S. and Germany halted funding for the group pending the outcome of an investigation.

The pause has alarmed progressives and those worried about humanitarian conditions in Gaza. Proponents of resuming aid say that a sustained pause could be catastrophic for millions of people who rely on the assistance provided by UNRWA. Washington has provided nearly $1 billion to the agency in the past three years, including $296 million in 2023 alone.

The latest to join the chorus of those calling on President Joe Biden to reconsider is Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who blasted the administration for pausing funding.

“Obviously, it’s not acceptable for any of the 13,000 UNRWA employees in Gaza to be involved with Hamas, and allegations against the 12 people charged must be investigated,” Sanders said in a statement. "However, we cannot allow millions to suffer because of the actions of 12 people. The U.S. and other countries must restore funding to stave off this humanitarian catastrophe.”

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the first Palestinian American woman to serve in Congress and the most outspoken lawmaker in support of Palestinians since Israel began its military operation in the Gaza Strip, echoed Sanders’ position.

“To take concerning allegations as fact without any investigation, especially in light of the Israeli government’s well-documented history of using torture and obtaining forced confessions, as a means to suspend life-saving aid demonstrates the emptiness of the Biden administration’s claims to care about Palestinian lives,” Tlaib told POLITICO in a statement.

In a tweet Monday night, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) called cutting off support to UNWRA — which is the primary source of humanitarian aid to the 2.3 million people in the Gaza Strip — “unacceptable.”

“The U.S. should restore aid immediately,” she wrote.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby on Monday urged an investigation into allegations that UNRWA employees participated in the Oct. 7 attacks to take place soon. He also said UNRWA shouldn’t be entirely blamed for the actions of a few even as he reaffirmed that U.S. contributions would be suspended pending the investigation's results.

"Let's not impugn the good work of a whole agency, because of the potential bad actions here by a small number,” he told reporters.

The National Security Council and the U.S. office to the U.N. did not respond to POLITICO’s request for comment on the matter.

Humanitarian aid organizations have been sounding the alarm to the administration and lawmakers about the impact that the funding pause could have on the situation in Gaza, said Leslie Archambeault, managing director of humanitarian policy for Save the Children U.S.

Twenty groups signed a letter on Monday urging countries to reverse the funding suspensions, including Save the Children, ActionAid and Oxfam.

“Everyone recognizes the gravity of this situation and the real life impacts that this has on people in desperate need in Gaza,” Archambeault said.

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House GOP infighting threatens to derail vote on bipartisan tax package

Speaker Mike Johnson's plans to get a bipartisan tax deal through the House this week are teetering on the verge of collapse after an unlikely coalition of House Republicans aired last-minute concerns during a private GOP meeting on Tuesday.

According to members who attended the meeting, Republican leaders are staring down a messy litany of complaints from both incumbents in vulnerable districts demanding state and local tax relief and conservative Freedom Caucus members who are intent on bringing border politics into the tax debate.

Then there are the lawmakers with a third type of complaint: anger that Johnson is relying on Democratic votes to pass a major piece of tax legislation in an election year.

“It’s a problem that we continue to do things under suspension of the rules,” said House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good (R-Va.), referring to a House maneuver that allows Johnson to pass the tax deal with a two-thirds majority rather than steer it through the conservative-dominated Rules Committee.

“I’m not going to support something that expands the Child Tax Credit, which is expanding the welfare state massively," Good added. "And I’m not going to support tax credits, Child Tax Credits, going to illegals. I think that’s incentivizing this illegal invasion.”

Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.), one of several blue-state Republicans adamantly opposed to any tax package that wouldn't boost the state and local tax deduction, told reporters that party leaders have not yet committed to a floor vote on the deal “in its current form." And leadership also indicated, according to LaLota, that the deal is still open to potential changes.

The state and local tax changes sought by LaLota and other so-called SALT Caucus Republicans are otherwise unpalatable to a wide swath of the Republican conference.

The grievances from those blue-state incumbents and Freedom Caucus members complicate Johnson's path to a floor vote. The speaker indicated on Monday that he wants to take up the bipartisan tax package on the floor under the expedited process that suspension of the House rules would afford him.

“I expect that [the vote] will be this week. I expect that it will be in the next couple days,” House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.), who brokered the deal with Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), said on NBC Tuesday morning.

But Johnson declined to commit to any concrete timing at a press conference later in the morning. One senior House Republican, granted anonymity to speak candidly, told POLITICO that a decision on when a tax vote would occur is truly up in the air.

“There’s no decision, so we’re going to wait and see right now,” the senior Republican said.

Despite the complaints from ultra-right conservatives and Republicans seeking SALT changes, plenty of moderates also praised Smith, who outlined the bill for members at the Tuesday meeting. The tax chief has shepherded the GOP through bipartisan talks that ended with an agreement to restore three popular business tax breaks, including those that would give larger research and development deductions.

“We can’t get anything that we consider perfect through this slim majority that we have and a Democrat-run Senate and a Biden White House, but it’s strong. It brings back the Trump tax cuts,” said Rep. Daniel Meuser (R-Pa.). “It’s very, very important for small business and families.”

“As far as I’m concerned, as a small business owner and chair of the Small Business Committee, we vote on it. Business needs it,” said Small Business Chair Roger Williams (R-Texas).

With Ways and Means Republicans unanimously behind Smith in their support of the tax package — plus nods of approval from both Johnson and powerful members, such as Rules Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) — the bill could still sail through the House with Democratic backing. However, some of LaLota's allies in the SALT cause have suggested they might oppose their own leaders on unrelated rules for other legislation if they don’t get their way.

With the GOP’s slim majority, two Republicans (or less, in the event of absences) could effectively block a piece of legislation considered under a rule for debate by joining Democrats in voting against that rule.

Such a move would have been unthinkable as recently as last Congress, but conservatives have made it a more standard practice recently.

“I haven’t talked to the SALT caucus people, but I think there’s some merit to possibly raising the SALT limit,” Good said of LaLota's concerns. “And I would be willing to consider that in exchange for not expanding the Child Tax Credit, not making it eligible for illegals to receive.”

Rep. Mike Garcia, a California representative in the SALT Caucus who would like to see some form of tax relief included in the package, dismissed the notion of tanking unrelated rules to force changes to the tax deal: “I don’t personally like that tactic. I think that’s a tactic of the Freedom Caucus.”

“As a team we should be passing rules, letting things come to the floor for a vote,” Garcia said.

Undocumented immigrants with U.S.-born children have long been able to get the credit, but other members like Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) have joined Good in calling on Republicans to further restrict eligibility.

Even if Johnson can placate his frustrated members, delay of the legislation is bound to make things more complicated for the IRS as it starts receiving tax returns for the 2024 filing season. Wyden had originally wanted to enact the tax package by Monday, which was the beginning of the filing season, but now lawmakers are aiming to pass something in the next few weeks.

The sense of urgency surrounding the tax package has grown particularly acute because low-income families tend to file their returns early. That increases the prospect that the agency itself will have to make changes to those returns so that parents can claim a second refund under an expanded version of the child credit.

Jordain Carney and Anthony Adragna contributed to this report.

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