Can you talk us through what that is, why it matters, and how it's becoming more relevant than ever?

Yeah, I sure can.

And first, I want to give a shout out to Ted Liu from California.

He was really the lead designer of this bill.

And Ted and I maybe come from very different states and very different perspectives in a lot of areas, but we agree on this, certainly, that there needs to be a break when necessary.

And the analogy that I've given to folks as I talked about this AI kill switch bill is, Look, when you put a brake in a car, that enabled the car, frankly, for you to drive it faster because without a brake and a braking system in a car, it can't go near as fast.

So if you want to innovate, if you want to propel innovation and artificial intelligence, you have to have a built-in brake that can slow the car down or stop it altogether when necessary.

Can you kind of talk a little bit about the concerns that average Americans are feeling as it relates to the uncertainty of AI?

Do you think he needs to be sounding the alarm more about the potential threats here?

I think he's identified the priority threat, and that is, uh, losing, uh, this technology innovation battle to China.

Uh, whatever the risks are with AI, the risks get a whole lot worse if China gets ahead of us.

When we talk about that race to recursive self-improvement, uh, we have got to always stay ahead of China.

Right now we have the leverage.

We have the ability to, to influence, uh, China's, uh, AI stack.

We hold the technology advantage.

Who would be in charge of alerting the, uh, government of that catastrophic harm, threat or risk, as you call it? Uh, would it be on the AI companies to raise the flag?

A guy who was offered power, but he turned it down.

Yeah.

And he did that over and over again, as you know.

And I love that scene, too.

That's one of those great paintings that we have there in the rotunda.

But, you know, you see the apotheosis of Washington painted on the ceiling.

He wouldn't have liked that because that that phrase apotheosis means to make God like.

Tell me what you're hearing back home when you go to Texas.

Yeah

...

in Europe and oth- other places.

Uh, I was just in Europe, uh, recently, and, uh, and they understand the threat of China, um, some more than others, and some are doing more than others.

It's tough.

It's really tough to pull away.

And so we, you know, we all kind of have to look at ourselves in the, in the mirror and say, "Well, we gotta, we gotta work towards that.

Yeah.

Tell us your best legal analysis of the power, the president's powers and what he did this weekend.

Yeah.

And let's break it down, because this is nothing new.

What happened this last weekend, the 1989 Bush invasion of Panama to get Noriega to bring him back on that limited strike basis is a great example of And even more so to the point, this was just in and out in a matter of hours.

Back in 1989, that took several weeks before they got to Noriega, as you remember.

But let's break down the legal authority.

Article 2 of the Constitution says, look, the president's the commander in chief.

But let's address the political and the practical notion of the fact that.

Now the question is, how do we get some of that Biden hangover inflation and bring prices down further, not just slow the rate of inflation, which we succeeded in doing, but making America more affordable? What are some of the big ideas that you and your colleagues in ways and means are thinking about?

Let me give you three.

One is we've got to actually reduce health care costs in a policy, a meaningful policy way.

And what do I mean by that? I mean, we can't just accept the easy surface level solution that Democrats are pushing.

When we talked the last couple of months about the ACA enhanced tax subsidies.

Well, they're not the solution to the premium problem.

They're actually part of the problem itself.

Tell us a little bit about what a Republican alternative to Obamacare, if you fix Obamacare, what might that look like in December as Congress gets its hands on it?

Mm-hmm.

... really been the focus of discussion, uh, that I've seen in the last week.

Uh, but these local officials, uh, particularly in Central Texas, I know are deeply, uh, involved in those discussions with, uh, their representatives locally, Chip Roy in particular being the one that was most affected by this, and then up through the, uh, FEMA chain of command.

I was a county judge here in Smith County, which is Northeast Texas, about six and a half hours northeast of where this, uh, flooding occurred, and I was a county judge here for six years and the head of emergency management here.

And I understand once you're in this process, right in the middle of this, there's a time, uh, later to, uh, do more analysis and evaluation, but right now, it's the time for recovery and to, uh, restore what's been lost.

Do you think had your bill passed a year ago, that lives may have been saved?

No, I, I don't think it, uh, my bill, uh, again, my bill is about monitoring systems, and I know you guys, uh, interviewed Erik Sorenson earlier, who's the co-sponsor of this bill, and, and the question was posed to him, and the answer was correct in that the question was posed, "Uh, could there have been more done by the National Weather Service to, to warn of the, the coming, uh, storms?" And he answered correctly that the, the staffing levels were, uh, appropriate and the warnings went out.

Just was horrible circumstances in the middle of the night on a, uh, on a 4th of July week here in the, in the middle of, uh, middle of the night.