The Senate is itching to act on AI

Hello, readers. Welcome back to On Politics. Zach Schermele here, USA TODAY's congressional correspondent. It's Thursday, and Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley turned 93 today. When my colleague Emily Condon asked the nonagenarian this morning about it, he said, "Take a look at me. Don't I look pretty good?"

In other news...

The Senate's kill switch push

Fears about the future of advanced AI haven't calmed down — and members of Congress seem to be loosely coalescing around at least one action item: kill switches. Yesterday, Sen. John Kennedy, R-Louisiana, tried and failed to unanimously pass legislation that, as he described it, would simply say AI companies "have to have a fire extinguisher," which they'd have full discretion to deploy, for models going rogue.

Despite some of the dismissive AI regulation rhetoric coming from President Trump and Speaker Johnson, Kennedy isn't the only Republican who supports such an idea. Sen. Jim Justice, R-West Virginia, told me this morning "there has to be something like that." "We don't want to cross a line," he said. And the fact that Johnson sent the House of Representatives home early, he added, "doesn't help right now."

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, who talks frequently with the big tech CEOs leading the AI frontier, laid out his view of the stakes pretty starkly: "I don't think we're talking about human extinction. I think we are talking about the potential to take over a bank or take over a hospital or a water system. And if something like that happened and we didn't heed the warnings? We didn't even put a basic safety removal in place?"

I dove deeper on the AI debate in Congress in today's episode of our podcast, The Excerpt. Listen here.

A politics rundown

• Trump withdraws nomination of Lance Schroyer for ICE director
• Drag queen Alyssa Edwards weighs in on Paxton-Talarico exchange
• This intense exchange with Trump's surgeon general pick is going viral

Daily photo gallery: Inside the Kennedy Center amid Trump's push to have his name inscribed

A Republican congresswoman rebuffs Trump

Florida Rep. María Elvira Salazar, a Republican and former TV anchor representing parts of the Miami-Dade area, released a remarkable campaign ad today breaking with President Trump on his hardline immigration agenda. "Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far," she said, standing in a video shot in front of the White House. "The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today." Her decision to so publicly criticize him was a rare instance of GOP defiance, especially in her district, which Trump carried by more than a dozen points two years ago. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report still rates her race as "likely Republican," but notes that the president's "sinking approval rating among Hispanic voters in South Florida will be an anchor on the congresswoman."

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A quiet Kennedy Center, a looming protest and an uncertain future

An eerie quiet hung over the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts today, broken only by the steady beeping of a forklift backing up. My colleague Mike Stunson, who covers DC, was there. The forklift was hauling barriers into place outside the center, which closed its doors this week after its board of directors voted to temporarily shut down the iconic Washington venue. Read here what some onlookers told Mike.

That's all from me for this week, folks. Until Monday...

Questions? Comments? Tips? Reach me, as always, at [email protected] or on Signal @zachschermele.02.