Americans are panicked over AI and affordability. Don’t worry, the Senate is tackling college football
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The Senate has only one more week before it breaks so that incumbents can hit the campaign trail. Polling shows that Americans are worried about AI running amok and rising gas prices amid President Donald Trump’s unilaterally waged war in Iran.
Republicans seem to know the Iran war is politically toxic and could lose them control of not just the House, but also the Senate. But are they doing anything to stop it? Heavens, no. Is the Senate doing anything on AI? Nope. Not after Trump decreed he should be the only guardrail.
So what is the Senate focused on? The Protecting College Sports Act, legislation co-sponsored by Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), which would create regulations on athletes’ share of revenue from sports; create an antitrust exemption to allow colleges and conferences to share media rights; limits players to one transfer without penalty and prevents college football personnel from leaving mid-season to become a head coach at another institution.
And that has some Republicans skeptical fuming with one week left before the Senate breaks for midterm campaigning back home.
“We’ve been spending all week trying to make the football coaches happy,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told a gaggle of reporters Thursday. “I can assure you that moms and dads out there across America, when they lie down to sleep at night — they’re not worried about football.”
Anyone who watches ESPN is familiar with how much coaches and sports television wants this bill to pass. ESPN even allowed Cruz to appear on College Gameday earlier this month without offering the opposing viewpoint, which featured University of Texas Longhorns fans booing Cruz.
Kennedy might be biased considering Lane Kiffin left the University of Mississippi to become head coach of Louisiana State University only for Ole Miss to beat LSU, but he’s not wrong. A CNN/SRSS poll shows that only 29 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s foreign policy. Combine that with the way Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has caused gas prices to skyrocket and Republicans have every reason to panic.
And it’s not just Republicans going along with it; it’s split the Democratic caucus in half, as 25 Democrats voted for bill. The NAACP has come out against the bill, saying it puts athletes, many of whom are Black, at a disadvantage. The normally jovial Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), a former tight end at Stanford University, railed against his colleagues.
“The fact that Democrats would participate in this being the last thing of consideration is shameful to me,” he told The Independent.
Meanwhile, the Senate spent much of last week focused on the CLARITY Act, which would have provided a regulatory framework for digital assets like cryptocurrency. Democrats ultimately blocked the legislation, with some arguing it would allow Trump to continue to profit off of cryptocurrency.
“I mean, the Senate only works on things that are a personal priority to President Trump,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told The Independent. “So he told the Senate to to give the crypto industry what it wants because he makes money off the crypto industry and he told the Senate to fix college sports because he's got a lot of buddies that are boosters.”
Even Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who voted to allow the bill to proceed, cast doubt on the focus on college sports.
“Republicans set the calendar, and there's a reason why they're going to lose this election,” he told The Independent.
All of this comes as many Americans continue to fear AI running out of control. This week, OpenAI admitted that one of the company’s systems broke into the Australian government’s website.
But Trump has insisted that “The only control or 'guardrails' that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades.” He’s also attempted to rebrand AI as “super intelligence” amid anxieties around artificial intelligence.
Meanwhile, amid the debate around college sports, the Senate held a vote on the War Powers Act to rein in Trump’s war in Iran, that summarily went down. While Sen. Collins (R-Maine), the most endangered incumbent voted for it, the other endangered Republicans like Sens. Roger Marshall of Kansas and Dan Sullivan in Alaska voted against the resolution, even as the price of gas and diesel has turned these blood-red states competitive.
Regardless, there will likely be little action to address the concerns Americans have. As has been the case throughout this Congress, the Senate has deferred to Trump wholesale. The only new Republican to vote with the War Powers Act resolution was Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who is retiring.
And as votes wrapped on Thursday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a former college basketball player at Biola University, seemed almost resigned to his fate that Democrats will win when he spoke in a gaggle about staving off a midterm loss.
“I think midterms when both parties have had the presidency–there have been a number of them–the time I've been in office that have been tough environments for the incumbent party,” he said. “Yeah, there were some parallels, but I don't don't want to get into specifics.”
Republicans are essentially in the fourth quarter. But Trump, who is supposed to be quarterback, is not even benched; he is on the field not even interested in throwing passes that could connect. And Republicans could pay a price ultimately.
