From Washington: Congress Breaks for Midterms Leaving Major Issues Unanswered

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1:03Saturday, September 19th, 2026, I'm Jessica Rosenthal, college sports, crypto, Russia and Iran for all topics of congressional votes this past week on Capitol Hill. But it was AI that dominated the conversation. He said in the next few months, maybe we have a year. He called this a little journal. And before that college sports bill advanced in the Senate, we spoke with the head basketball coach at the University of Arkansas about why the bill is needed. I was having high school coaches, friends of mine who had children, say, coach, they're not offering scholarships like they used to. This is the Fox News rundown from Washington. A busy week on Capitol Hill ended with a recess into a long break ahead of midterms, meaning the Save America Act did not pass in time for these fall elections, but Congress did pass a Russia sanctions bill, another war powers resolution regarding Iran and moved a college sports law forward.

2:06And yet it was AI that dominated the conversation. Louisiana Senator John Kennedy tried to get a bill passed through a quick procedure that would require the ability to stop AI should it come to that. Well, I've got to build. And it basically says that if you're going to sell an advanced AI model in the United States of America, it's got to have a kill switch. But Kentucky Senator Rand Paul blocked it. Think for example, that your search engine that you already used today is AI. Are they going to have to read his on all the search engines immediately if this passes and put kill switches in your search engine. Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries called for decisive congressional action immediately consistent with what some of the leading AI voices now say needs to happen. As it relates to slowing things down to project the health, safety and well being of Americans. The AI safety issue is very real. The democratic plan is one that will be anchored in urgent, decisive and responsible action to protect the safety, the health, the well being of the American people in the face of threats that industry leaders themselves are now saying requires development in AI to slow down.

3:30But speaker Mike Johnson said while AI is serious, common sense is also needed. They don't need the government to tell them to slow down. He said if they want to, they should AI is serious. We do need to make sure that it's done safely, but let's again, let's apply common sense. They can self police. They can self regulate. They don't need the government to tell them to slow it down. If they want to slow it down, they should vice president Vance said that previously. If they're building Frankenstein, he said they should stop and Treasury Secretary Scott Besson said at a house during this past week, AI companies can stop anytime they want to. Members are kind of shocked by this and disturbed by this. They believe that there are some existential threats to this. There was added weight to this on the Republican side of the aisle. Fox News Chief Congressional Correspondent Chad Program. And Republicans are torn over this when the president came out and said all these concerns about what AI can do is and the threats to humanity is a hoax. Mike Johnson, the speaker of the house came up and said, you remember when Alexandria Ocasio Cortez said because a climate change were going to be dead in a short period of time, he likened it to that.

4:33Now, it was in fact subject to a vote, something didn't pass, but there were there were there was kind of one and a half related votes related to this. One was an effort by John Kennedy, the Republican from Louisiana, who is taking AI seriously and says, you know, we have to be careful about creating something that's smarter than we are. And he said, I don't want the government to have a kill switch that I want to mandate that these AI firms have a kill switch. And so he wrote a bill went to the Senate floor and asked that the Senate pass it on the spot. They do this by unanimous consent and ran Paul, the Republican Senator from Kentucky, who chairs the Homeland Security Committee. And all it takes is one objection came down and blocked it and objected and that was that. And he said, you know, we need to have hearings on this. We need to have investigations. We just can't do this on the floor. He said that he was very concerned that this would impede innovation if Congress waited too deeply into this. In fact, in his response to Kennedy on the floor, he said, I wouldn't let, you know, Congress runner McDonald's.

5:35He said, let alone AI now to be clear. Senator Kennedy was talking about having the AI firms in control of AI in this kill switch, not Congress, but nonetheless that that stumbled on the Senate floor. Now I said half the half here was there was a bill that passed the house, 417 to three. That was called the rate payer protection act. And what that did was basically say you have all these firms that are associated with AI building data centers, which are very controversial, as you know, coming in and people's water and electricity rates are going up. And so this bill would say, okay, they have to foot the bill for the infrastructure and the associated costs. So that passed the house, went over to the Senate and Republicans are really, you know, hoping that John Houston, the Republican Center for Ohio hangs on and wins this fall. He's in a very competitive race with Sherrod Brown, the Democratic Senator, former Democratic Senator who lost to Bernie Moreno two years ago.

6:36He's coming back trying to win this particular seat. John Houston, much like John Kennedy tried to pass this by unanimous consent. This will be a feather in his cap going into the midterm election. And you had Martin Heinrich, the Democratic Senator from New Mexico, blocking. Now Republicans actually think, and I'm shocked that there's politics infused with this. Republicans think that actually helps Houston because then they can, they can portray, you know, Democrats as not being forward trying to cut off, you know, limit these, these rates. But I'll close with this thing on AI. One of the most amazing things that I heard all week was from Jeffrey Hinton. He is a somebody who studied AI is considered to be the Godfather of AI. And he was one of several AI experts who came and talked to, to bipartisan lawmakers this week. And I asked him after the briefing, I said, how long do we have? Because everybody says we got to do something soon. He said, we'll soon. I said, but what is soon? He said in the next few months, maybe we have a year. He called this Jessica a little Chernobyl.

7:38Wow. Okay. Well, I'm sure that caught some ears. Chad, we did have the passage of some bills and acts, but I want to focus for a moment on the one that did not. The clarity act. What was the big concern here? This would have set some standards for regulating crypto. Yeah. And this would, you know, kind of develop this framework of how digital currencies are traded. It's something that the United States doesn't have other countries have. And it's something that was really backed by the Trump administration by President Trump himself. And because he has made so much money, a staggering $1.4 billion in crypto investments in the past year, according to his financial disclosure report, I think a lot of Democrats were afraid of seeding too much territory to the president here. So they went back and started to put in a lot of these ethics provisions. And in fact, there was a last minute move over last weekend where they even stiffen up some of these rules, even more so in the president is seated to that. And the Democrats would still not, you know, come in line. I think it's absolutely, absolutely amazing that you have a deep pocketed industry like the crypto industry that had the president on their side.

8:47And they could not get this past. They spent millions of dollars in lobbying efforts and in, you know, you know, telling different people that they would support them. Or not support them depending on which side of the aisle they were going to be on or which side of the ball in this issue. And they did not get that past. The doom sayers on crypto say we might be able to do this in the lame duck, but some don't think that they can, you know, kind of resuscitate this until maybe about midway through the next presidential administration. In other words, 2030 is what they're really talking about here. Right. And think about how that's going to develop between now and then. Here's the important thing to know about crypto. Crypto generally picked aside. They went and spent, and this is shared brown again. They spent 40 million dollars to defeat the then chairman of the banking committee shared brown from Ohio. You knocked off a committee chairman because he was opposed to what they were doing in crypto. And so guess what? Some of this was the empire strikes back.

9:47The Democrats were saying, you know, we're not going to, you guys got to help us out too. You just can't be one sided in this. And I think that even though they spent, you know, just gobs of money and could not get this across the finish line, that some Democrats are saying, Hey, yes, what we need to, you know, you know, you know, there's certain things that you're going to have to work with us on. We're interested in crypto, Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic Senator from Massachusetts said, absolutely, I think we need to have a crypto regulation bill, but not this one. So you have some of that in there with the concerns by the Democrats about the president and ethics and all that. And then other concerns about who side really is the cryptocurrency industry on. And I think the Democrats definitely picked aside this week. And that's an extension of what happened to share brown a couple of years ago. Tell me about the mood as members left for this long recess ahead of these midterms. I know you caught up with some people and asked them about sort of how they plan to spend their time, their hopes, their dreams, and maybe their doubts about what's coming in November.

10:50And what they may return to after midterms when Congress goes back. Yeah, well, Democrats are pretty confident, frankly. They think that all the historical trends are on their side. Okay, that that that's true in terms of in the house, you pick up about on an average 25 seats in the first midterm of a president. And just for the sake of argument, we'll call this a first midterm here. You look at how bad the presidents pull numbers are even in other midterm years. If you look at Biden or Obama or Trump in his first term, you looked at where Trump was in that first midterm in 2018. He was at about 44%. Not a great number, but you know, he still lost 40 seats. He's now down in the mid 30s. And so that's where Democrats are like, we're going to flip some seats. Here's the problem though. There's only about 20 or 30 seats in play. The way they've gone through all of this redistricting is that some people say we know the general mood of the electric, but does that translate to that. Some of that's because Republicans might have built themselves a bit of a firewall, but do they,

11:50but if you only have about 20, 30 seats in play, guess what? You're not going to have this wave of 40 seats that the Democrats had in 2018. It's probably going to be even if they have the majority, maybe on a good night, a really good night, the Democrats might have a 10 seat majority in the house. That's not a lot. And so you know, I think we're past these wave elections and there are so many unknowns. And this is a big, this is a big unknown. A manual cleaver is a Democrat from Kansas City. There have been multiple court rulings in just the past two weeks as to whether or not he has a district or not. They blew him out of a district in Missouri, first of all, when they did the redistricting. Then a court said, no, you got to use the old maps. Then another court said you got a new newsman. You see this, this is bounced back and forth three times and I asked him in the hall, do you have a district? He's, I have no idea. Now you could see a scenario. Let's say that we're down to about three or four seats determining control the house because of the reasons I just stated about the limited universe here as to how many seats are actually in play. And you have people showing up and saying and that some of this is based off, you know, well, legal people are voting or they're not voting in the right places or there's questions about the mail in balloting or even the districts.

13:01Because this stuff is still being litigated and you have 435 people in the house and 445 people show up demanding to be sworn in on January 3rd. But no, in the beginning of the new Congress, you see the problem and therefore we do and it's and so who's the arbiter in that? Well, guess what? The first thing you have to do is you have to have the clerk who's the existing clerk from the old Congress called the role. Now I can point to two scenarios in the 1860s where the clerk of the house only called the name to constitute the house of the people who they wanted to see. Because you were had this thing between the north and the south and we're in the middle of the civil war. And there is precedent in the house for only calling certain people's names. You take you record them is saying that you're there and then they're supposed to elect a speaker and the Constitution says Article one section three that the house and Senate are the judges of who they seat. So if you have trouble determining who you're even seating, you see where I'm going with this.

14:05Now I want to be very careful and say and the margins are already so tight. Yes. And guess what? It's about the math. Absolutely. It's always about the math. And so here we are. Now I bring this up. I want to be very careful that we don't know that's going to happen. But it's in the back of my mind because Jessica the past, you know, some years now in politics, we've been in news of the weird. We've had things happen in politics that have never happened before. We had a riot at the Capitol. We had a president impeached twice. And when we don't impeach presence twice in the history of the Republic. And then this guy came back and won. We just don't know. And if you have question as to who controls the house because of the limited universe that I talked about, that could create some real mischief in late November, December, maybe even on January 3rd. I will say most people are not thinking about this. I'm talking about a new playbook here. If it's the old playbook, Jessica, guess what?

15:05The Democrats are probably on track to win and win significantly. But we don't know which playbook we're using right now. I'm Chad before you go. I just briefly, you're take on the Russia sanctions bill passing the Lindsey O Graham sanctioning Russia and Iran act. This has been such an effort. It seems like the passing of Senator Graham sort of what was going to push it through. And then it stalled again. This is now official. It is done. Those the president's desk had passed the Senate overwhelmingly in early August. Came to the house. There was some consternation there because and this was very interesting, Jessica, because you had some Democrats, suddenly who are always Ukraine's best friend pushing back on this. They so we don't want to give unilateral tariff and sanctions authority to the president. We think that this gives too much power to him, especially what we've seen with his conduct related to Canada and imposing tariffs on the Canadians.

16:10So that coalition kind of morphed a little bit. Now you had, you know, you had this weird coalition that passed with, you know, 260 votes. But guess what? It was a combination of Democrats and Republicans voting in favor of this. It wasn't this big, you know, layup that it was eventually in the Senate. And it was Lindsey Graham, right before he passed away. You know, he had been in Ukraine meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky and indicated that he thought if he used properly that this could in fact, it was passed, it could actually in the war in Ukraine. So we'll see. Now again, we're waiting for the president to sign it. But this was kind of an homage to Lindsey Graham. And there was a lot of bipartisan support in spite of what I just talked about with some of the consternation by the Democrats. Fox News Chief Congressional correspondent Chad Pregum. Thank you. Thank you, Jessica. The right window treatments change everything. Your sleep, your privacy, the way every room looks and feels at Blinds.com. We've spent 30 years making it surprisingly simple to get exactly what your home needs. We've covered over 25 million windows and have 50,000 five star reviews to prove we deliver.

17:13Whether you DIY it or want to pro to handle everything from measure to install, we have you covered real design professionals, free samples, zero pressure. Right now, get up to 45% off with minimum purchase. Plus get a free professional measure at Blinds.com rules and restrictions apply. This week we spoke with the University of Arkansas head basketball coach John Colapari about the Protect College Sports Act. It's meant to address name, image and likeness issues for student athletes among other things. Colapari and others were pushing for its passage, noting it creates a cap of money for universities to pay student athletes, but it also limits eligibility and creates new transfer rules. Not everyone's on board. Some Democrats like Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy said it unfairly puts limits on student athletes while putting no additional burdens on staff, coaches or colleges. But the Senate voted to advance the bill ahead of final passage and we spoke to coach Calapari before that vote.

18:14Well, I got engaged in this bill because I was having high school coaches, friends of mine who had children say, coach, they're not offering scholarships like they used to University of Arkansas head basketball coach John Colapari. And what was happening was coaches were waiting for transfers. They were looking at older players 25, 26. They were taking European players and then they say, okay, now you got four years. They'd be 27. They were treating European players better than we were treating American kids. And I'm looking at this like, wait a minute, this is not right. What are we going to do to make this sport the way it was? And here's another thing. So I recruit a 17 or 18 year old. Is it fair for him to play against the 26 or 27 year old? So I'm like, what are we doing in this bill? Five years, the latest year age could be his 19 could be 18. It could be 17 when you enroll yet five years.

19:14The oldest you could be is 24 now. And most kids are going to graduate and be 23 or 22. That'll be the average age one time transfers. Well, they could still go without having to sit out one time or if the coach leaves you get fired. But what it will do is keep kids at a school three years so they can graduate. How are you going to graduate transfer in four times in four years? The other side of it is all the players 17, 18, 19, American high school kids and European kids that are that age are all considered amateurs. So they're not going through a process that puts them on different foot. Those three things probably solve 75, 80% of the issues we have to do our jobs as coaches. This is what we need right now to settle the waters so we can do our job and then go forward with other changes that we need. One of the voices that's emerged here is former Auburn football coach Senator Tommy Taberville.

20:19I know you know, and he's not totally sold on this piece of legislation. He thinks several provisions go too far and that this is basically federal government overreach into college sports. What do you say to that? Not a perfect bill, not perfect. There's things that I would want in the bill that's not in there. There are other things I look at like that. We really need that. But the things we absolutely need are in this bill. Let me give you another one. I started my career at the University of Massachusetts. What we did to elevate that program in this environment I could have never done. The University of Memphis, the same. We elevated that program in this environment. No way. This is good for the non power four or five schools probably more important for them. Then the schools I work at. Let me say this. I'm recruiting a level of player that this bill doesn't really affect those kids.

21:22This is all the other kids that aren't getting scholarships. So that's what I look at and I say, if you're in this business, feed on the ground, you're inside this. You want this bill. Some people looking on the outside in have other ideas of what we need to do. One of them is let them go on their own. We've proven we can't do that. This is a bill we need to settle the waters. And then there's other adjustments going forward. We're going to have to make because it's not a perfect bill coach Tupperville. And I talked in Florida about it. He had a skinny bill. I need to tell you I had my skinny bill. We look back important. Let me say this coach knows. He knows this isn't perfect. And I agree with him. But it needs to be done now. This bill has been in the work three years. If something happens, we're going to wait what three more years. You're going to have schools bankrupted. They want to have the money.

22:22And it's what we can do now to get this thing right. Tell me more about your fears about schools going bankrupt because I am reading. That is a concern with the cap within this bill that this will affect smaller schools. This cap, what is your read on it without this bill actually? There's a monetary harm. The smaller schools, it is what it is. They just won't be able to compete like you mass like I did in the 90s. Won't happen. The same thing with Memphis, they won't be able to compete or you go in debt. So now you're a bigger school trying to stay up. That is debt. However you want to say we're going to take a loan. We're going to have an advance. It's debt. What about private equity? It's still debt. What about an LLC and we get all this money and kind of scoop it together? It's still debt. And you can only dig so far in a hole and try to get out.

23:25That's where we are. We're using retention money, which again, I've talked about in the past. Let's pay the kids that are in your school. Let's worry about that more than trying to get a transfer in our older kid or European kid. And so we're doing some of the right stuff. But this is going to be a heavy lift for a lot of schools if we don't pass this bill. Let's go back to what you were saying about scholarships. Can you quantify in even an anecdotal way as coach what you've seen as far as as scholarship offerings, how much they've declined, how much opportunities been limited to some of these younger up and coming players? Well, it's you have coaches coaching college basketball saying I am not recruiting freshman. What I have high school coaches for me like what is going on? My guess is about 800 to 1000 players are not getting scholarships

24:27as high school American players. They're just not there. People waiting. And so now a kid waits. I'm even saying it probably affects division two to say what they're waiting on transfers. Why would I take a freshman if I can get a 24 year old transfer from an other school would be his fourth school and fourth year four years. But I don't care. It's going to help me win more games. We've got to get back to what we do. When we talk about money in college sports, I'm sure you've heard it all. I've heard a lot of competing arguments as well about how some of these players really should be compensated or that too much money is will ruin the game, will ruin the vibe of college sports. How do you feel about this debate now in light of this bill and have you shifted it all on player compensation? I'm not. I don't care what they pay the players. Just tell us what we have and how we're going to have to fill a roster out.

25:30So whatever they come up with, whatever number, but they've got to get the NIL and check that's the next piece after this bill passes. My suggestion, which no one listens to is the chance was and the A.D.s. should sign off on every legitimate NIL deal to make sure they're legitimate that there's no one filtering money to a company to give to a kid. And it's on the desk of the chancellor and the A.D. You know what? It'll get cleaned up real fast. That is another piece of this, but what they decide to pay the kids. I've been saying for 20 years, the players should own their rights. They should be able to sign autographs and make money when they're in school. They shouldn't be able to sell their jersey with their name on the back. They should be able to sell their likeness. I've been saying that for 15 years. So those things should be done this now because here's what we have.

26:35Every player is a free agent on your team. Every year, there is no amount that we're told we can spend or not spend. And there are no rules in a really competitive business like everybody. And it's like, come on now. And would I like the government not to be involved? Yes, but we're here because we need this to settle the waters. Where it goes, four to five years from now, I don't know. I'm hearing it should go this way. It should be this. They should be that I'm fine with wherever it goes. But we need this now so that we can settle the waters and do what we're doing. It is never going to be the kids aren't being paid. That's out of the bag that's done. It's how do we put some guard rails, some gold posts that we got to stay within our profession?

27:38The men in my life have had some pretty strong reactions to coach Lane Kiffin leaving Ole Miss mid season to go to LSU. And now this college sports act has something called the Lane Kiffin rule in it to prevent that. Do you think this is needed? I don't know. I don't have the background of all of it. But what I would tell you is what he did. He did. He went to another school that he thought was a better situation for himself. I think kids should know if they got lied to or made a bad choice. They should be able to leave, but you can't do it one year after another. You can't do four now, five years. Like we go to five and five, five years with no waivers, no exemptions. Kids are getting paid in next year year. They can transfer once. The coach leaves and gets fired. Lane Kiffin leaves that whole team of Mississippi could do what they want. They can stay. They can go to another school. They do what they want.

28:39That's fair. Coaches. I don't know exactly what the Lane Kiffin rule, what it is or what you're talking about. But many times in our contracts, we have you, Kelly. If you do leave, you have to give this amount of money back. University of Arkansas, head basketball coach John Calipari. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. The right window treatments change everything. You're sleep, your privacy. The way every room looks and feels at Blinds.com. We've spent 30 years making it surprisingly simple to get exactly what your home needs. We've covered over 25 million windows and have 50,000 five-star reviews to prove we deliver. Whether you DIY it or want to pro to handle everything from measure to install, we have you covered real design professionals, free samples, zero pressure. Right now, get up to 45% off with minimum purchase. Plus get a free professional measure at Blinds.com. Rules and restrictions apply. That'll do it for this edition of the Fox News rundown from Washington. Tomorrow, Jared Halpern previews the Chinese President,

29:41Xi Jinping's expected visit to the White House next week, as the UN General Assembly begins in New York. I'm Jessica Rosenthal, and thanks for listening to the Fox News rundown from Washington. The right window treatments change everything. You're sleep, your privacy. The way every room looks and feels. At Blinds.com, we've spent 30 years making it surprisingly simple to get exactly what your home needs. We've covered over 25 million windows and have 50,000 five-star reviews to prove we deliver. Whether you DIY it or want to pro to handle everything from measure to install, we have you covered real design professionals, free samples, zero pressure. Right now, get up to 45% off with minimum purchase. Plus get a free professional measure at Blinds.com.

30:43Rules and restrictions apply.