The Archive

IN THIS EDITION

I want to know what tech wants to know

Senate Republicans’ warm welcome for Trump

The changing politics of immigration

Committees take flight, look different, go big

THE TOP

I want to know what tech wants to know

Welcome to The Readback, our weekend digest featuring the best of Punchbowl News this week. Here, we share a quick roundup of all our scoops, analysis and Capitol Hill insight you won’t find anywhere else. We’ve also included a few of our favorite outside reads or views from the week.

Ahead of Punchbowl News Tech going weekly, it only seemed fitting that as a tech reporter, I flew to Las Vegas for CES. The first weekly edition of the Tech newsletter lands in inboxes tomorrow and you can sign up for it here. In the meantime, here’s my dispatch from my time at the annual tech megaconference.

The coolest thing I saw at CES was the next-generation TVs.

The hardest question I heard was what lawmakers plan to do on agentic artificial intelligence.

Honestly, that gap between what the future looks like and how the lawmakers I cover every day are thinking about it is why I’m excited to be taking the Tech newsletter weekly.

On those TVs: I had kind of thought that screens had gotten about as crisp and dynamic as they’re going to get. Nope. Through artificial intelligence, they’re about to get even more brilliant than what we see with our actual human eyes. Truly, it’s hyper-real, beyond what I could even imagine before I saw it.

Frankly, and thankfully, I don’t think they present particularly thorny policy questions.

Then there’s agentic AI — algorithms that can take actions like buying you a flight at your preferred times. It’s the next semi-frontier in AI that we’ll be starting to break through this year.

During the audience Q&A at the end of one of the panels I appeared on, I got asked how Congress will decide who takes legal responsibility for the actions that agentic systems take.

That is, to put it mildly, a tough issue. And I had to admit that most lawmakers here on Capitol Hill have probably never even heard of agentic AI. It’s going to take years for the full answer to become clear.

It’s no secret that tech moves faster than policy, or that the worlds of tech and politics don’t tend to “get” each other that well.

If we can bring those worlds together via the Tech newsletter, I’d be thrilled. And I do think our readers on either side of the divide will be more ready to talk to the other now that we’re going weekly.

More modestly, I’m extremely hopeful Tech can answer questions on issues that the industry didn’t even know were occupying lawmakers’ minds. We can ask, too, about innovations that members of Congress didn’t know were already out of the realm of sci-fi and into the real world.

Of course, we’ll be doing that all in the Punchbowl News way of breaking as much news as we possibly can. And maybe occasionally, we’ll be getting distracted by the new TVs too.

What I’m listening to: Downtime in an airport is when I like to catch up on the “Normal Gossip” podcast. I think of it as a treat for the other travelers because I can’t help making the “omg, he said that?!” face even though no one else can hear about the drama I’m listening to.

– Ben Brody

You can find The Readback in your inbox every Saturday at 8 a.m. And don’t hesitate to reach out to readback@punchbowl.news with feedback. Enjoy The Readback.

Senate Republicans’ warm welcome for Trump

Eight years ago, President-elect Donald Trump entered office with a GOP trifecta that was, at best, skeptical of him and, at worst, dreading the idea of working with him.

It should go without saying that things are very different today. And Trump’s meeting with Senate Republicans earlier this week marked a clean break from that era. That’s especially so for a Senate GOP Conference that has become more Trump-friendly — albeit a slower evolution than the House — with the retirements of the more traditional brand of Republican.

Yet the warm welcome Trump received from GOP senators on Wednesday night belies the fact that there are still a handful of powerful Trump skeptics among that group who could have a major influence on Trump’s second term.

This group includes Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Todd Young (R-Ind.), all of whom said they wouldn’t vote for Trump last year. There’s also Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial.

And don’t forget about Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who’s newly liberated from leadership and wants to play a major role in foreign policy and defense.

Don’t count on them to undermine elements of Trump’s agenda out of spite. On nearly every legislative priority, they’re in alignment. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be any tension — especially on nominations and national security decisions over which Congress has leverage.

Collins will chair the ever-powerful Appropriations Committee. McConnell will chair the Appropriations subcommittee for defense. Cassidy will chair the HELP Committee. Young, meanwhile, was just given a coveted seat on the Intelligence Committee.

What I’m reading: McConnell wrote a lengthy op-ed for Foreign Affairs that’s getting a lot of play in D.C. national security circles. In his post-leadership era, McConnell has said his top priority will be to push back against what he sees as a growing “isolationist” streak in his party, driven primarily by Trump and his allies.

McConnell’s Foreign Affairs piece lays out his case in detail — but what’s less certain is how exactly McConnell will wield his influence on this subject now that he’s out of leadership.

— Andrew Desiderio

The changing politics of immigration

The Senate’s first order of business in the 119th Congress was to move forward with an immigration bill that didn’t see the light of day last year.

In a major sign of how the political tides are shifting, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer voted with all Republicans on an initial procedural vote. Only nine Democrats voted no.

The bill, named the Laken Riley Act — after a University of Georgia student murdered by an undocumented immigrant — seeks to give federal law enforcement more authority to detain undocumented immigrants accused of crimes.

The same bill passed the House in March 2024. But Schumer never scheduled a vote on the measure when he was majority leader.

But after the GOP sweep in November, Democrats are suddenly singing a different tune on the matter.

Many Democrats acknowledge that Republican attacks on immigration hurt their party at the ballot box in November. So it’s not surprising that in 2025, dozens of Democrats voted to advance the bill.

Not everyone was happy. Left-leaning Democratic outside groups, like Voto Latino, condemned the Laken Riley Act as an unconstitutional package that could allow state attorneys general to abuse their power.

However, these groups aren’t as powerful as they once were in Democratic circles.

We’ll see how the bill ends up faring, as Democrats want to offer amendments that will likely be shot down. But the initial vote is a marker that engaging with Republicans on immigration is no longer toxic.

What I’m reading: One of the best books on Congress ever written: “The Ambition and the Power” by John Barry, which chronicles the rise and fall of former Speaker Jim Wright.

– Max Cohen

Committees take flight, look different, go big

I love being a policy reporter. I love the issues, I love the specificity, the wonkery, the micro-politics and the industry influence games.

This week, the real treat has been watching the committees I cover change in big ways. Change can be scary! Sources often need to change. New offices have different ways of doing business. Growing pains are to be expected.

But where there’s change, there’s news, and I’ve had a lot of fun this week tracking it down.

Both financial services committees are in the midst of rapid leadership transformation, at least on one side of their dais. Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) is chair of the House Financial Services Committee, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is the new ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee.

Hill and Warren are similar in profile and miles apart in politics. They each represent peak financial policy expertise for their parties: Warren, the former bankruptcy law professor who helped create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and Hill, a former Arkansas banker who’s covered the gamut of D.C. regulatory roles in the White House and Treasury Department. Both their surnames refer to topography, which is sort of funny.

The two lawmakers have also spent much of their congressional careers building for this moment of committee leadership. It shows in their early steps. Both Warren and Hill are bringing on almost entirely new senior staff teams.

Several hires are returning to these committees after spending the last few years away from Congress. Minority banking staff director Jon Donenberg was one of the most prominent progressive voices in the Biden White House after serving as Warren’s chief of staff. Incoming HFSC comms director Dan Schneider is coming from the Business Roundtable after being Hill’s personal office comms director in 2022.

Why return to Congress? You know why. This is where the action is going to be in financial policy for the next few years. Policymaking among federal regulators will be hamstrung thanks to the collapse of Chevron deference. Congress, Congress, Congress. Get ready.

What I’m reading: I am also reading “The Ambition and the Power” by John Barry. My last attempt was during former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s ouster, when I was stuck at home with Covid-19. But now Max is keeping me accountable. Join our accidental book club to talk about the Congress of yore! And by yore, we mean pre-internet.

— Brendan Pedersen