Evening Edition: Why Some Republicans Still Won't Back the ‘Big, Beautiful Bill'…Yet
The House Budget Committee cleared the 'One Big Beautiful Bill' late Sunday night after the four Republicans who voted NO on Friday switched their vote to present. Those holdouts must get on board for the bill to pass the full House before Memorial Day.
Republican North Carolina Congressman Mark Harris joins to explain why he hasn't committed to supporting the bill yet, but remains confident the GOP will eventually unify and pass the Trump agenda.
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AI Can't Replace Education
Credit - Tingting Ji—Getty Images As commencement ceremonies celebrate the promise of a new generation of graduates, one question looms: will AI make their education pointless? Many CEOs think so. They describe a future where AI will replace engineers, doctors, and teachers. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently predicted AI will replace mid-level engineers who write the company's computer code. NVIDIA's Jensen Huang has even declared coding itself obsolete. While Bill Gates admits the breakneck pace of AI development is 'profound and even a little bit scary,' he celebrates how it could make elite knowledge universally accessible. He, too, foresees a world where AI replaces coders, doctors, and teachers, offering free high-quality medical advice and tutoring. Despite the hype, AI cannot 'think' for itself or act without humans—for now. Indeed, whether AI enhances learning or undermines understanding hinges on a crucial decision: Will we allow AI to just predict patterns? Or will we require it to explain, justify, and stay grounded in the laws of our world? AI needs human judgment, not just to supervise its output but also to embed scientific guardrails that give it direction, grounding, and interpretability. Physicist Alan Sokal recently compared AI chatbots to a moderately good student taking an oral exam. 'When they know the answer, they'll tell it to you, and when they don't know the answer they're really good at bullsh*tting,' he said at an event at the University of Pennsylvania. So, unless a user knows a lot about a given subject, according to Sokal, one might not catch a 'bullsh*tting' chatbot. That, to me, perfectly captures AI's so-called 'knowledge.' It mimics understanding by predicting word sequences but lacks the conceptual grounding. That's why 'creative' AI systems struggle to distinguish real from fake, and debates have emerged about whether large language models truly grasp cultural nuance. When teachers worry that AI tutors may hinder students' critical thinking, or doctors fear algorithmic misdiagnosis, they identify the same flaw: machine learning is brilliant at pattern recognition, but lacks the deep knowledge born of systematic, cumulative human experience and the scientific method. That is where a growing movement in AI offers a path forward. It focuses on embedding human knowledge directly into how machines learn. PINNs (Physics-Informed Neural Networks) and MINNs (Mechanistically Informed Neural Networks) are examples. The names might sound technical, but the idea is simple: AI gets better when it follows the rules, whether they are laws of physics, biological systems, or social dynamics. That means we still need humans not just to use knowledge, but to create it. AI works best when it learns from us. I see this in my own work with MINNs. Instead of letting an algorithm guess what works based on past data, we program it to follow established scientific principles. Take a local family lavender farm in Indiana. For this kind of business, blooming time is everything. Harvesting too early or late reduces essential oil potency, hurting quality and profits. An AI may waste time combing through irrelevant patterns. However, a MINN starts with plant biology. It uses equations linking heat, light, frost, and water to blooming to make timely and financially meaningful predictions. But it only works when it knows how the physical, chemical, and biological world works. That knowledge comes from science, which humans develop. Imagine applying this approach to cancer detection: breast tumors emit heat from increased blood flow and metabolism, and predictive AI could analyze thousands of thermal images to identify tumors based solely on data patterns. 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28 minutes ago
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Flags will fly at half-staff in honor of former Oneida Nation Chairman Gerald Danforth
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28 minutes ago
Could Musk-Trump feud stoke GOP divisions ahead of midterms? ANALYSIS
Even by the standards of President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk's relationship -- an unprecedented alliance punctuated by a meme-inspired reshaping of the government, numerous rocket launches, assassination attempts, a quarter-billion-dollar political gamble and electric car photo-ops -- it's been an unusual week. For months, Musk had been the closest of Trump's advisers -- even living at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and spending time with the president's family. More recently, Trump gave Musk a congratulatory Oval Office sendoff from his work leading cost-cutting efforts in his administration, giving him a golden key with a White House insignia. But the billionaire's muted criticisms of Trump's "big, beautiful bill" grew louder and more pointed, culminating in posts Thursday on his social media platform taking credit for Trump's November win and Republicans' takeover of the Senate. "Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate," Musk posted. "Such ingratitude." Some lawmakers and Republicans worry Musk's apparent acrimonious departure from Trump's orbit could create new uncertainties for the party -- and stoke GOP divisions that would not serve Republicans well heading into a critical legislative stretch before the midterm elections. The back-and-forth attacks, which continued into the weekend and took a sharply personal turn, reverberated across a capital they have both reshaped. Trump on Friday told several reporters over the phone that he was not thinking about Musk and told ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl that Musk had "lost his mind." In the near term, Trump and the GOP are trying to muscle their signature tax and domestic policy megabill through the House and Senate, with the slimmest of margins and no shortage of disagreements. Any shift on the key issues could topple the high-wire act needed to please House and Senate Republicans. A nonstop torrent of criticism from Musk's social media megaphone could collapse negotiations, harden the position of the bill's critics and even undermine other pieces of Trump's first-term agenda. "You hate seeing division and chaos," Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who represents a swing district, told ABC News about the Trump-Musk fracas. "It's not helpful." Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, called Musk a "credible voice" on "debt and spending" issues. "It's never helpful when he says those things. He's a believable person and he has a broad reach, but I think he's frustrated and people understand the context," Arrington said, predicting that both men will eventually resolve their dispute. Republican operatives watching the spat unfold this week told ABC News it is too early to say how the feud between Trump and Musk could affect the next election. The billionaire spent more than anyone else on the last election, pouring $270 million into groups boosting Trump and other Republicans up and down the ballot, according to Federal Election Commission filings. He already suggested he would cut back on his political donations next cycle, more than a year out from the midterm elections. In the final stretch of the 2024 race, he relocated to Pennsylvania, hosting town halls and bankrolling his own get-out-the-vote effort in the critical swing state. Since his foray into Washington, Musk has become a deeply polarizing and unpopular figure, while the president's approval rating has ticked up in some recent surveys. Groups affiliated with Musk spent $20 million this spring on the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, only for the liberal candidate to win -- signaling to some Republicans the limits of Musk's political pull. While his support may be missed by Republicans next cycle, Trump has continued to raise millions of dollars to support his future political plans, a remarkable sum for a term-limited president that underscores his central role in the party and undisputed kingmaker status. Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., who is mulling a gubernatorial bid in 2026, downplayed the tensions or political implications, suggesting that reporters "spend way more time worrying about these things than most average people." "I'm sure they will make peace," Lawler told ABC News on Friday. There were some signs of a détente. While Musk continued to hurl insults at Trump ally and critic Steve Bannon, his social media activity appeared to cool off on Friday, and the billionaire said one supporter was "not wrong" for saying Trump and Musk are "much stronger together than apart." Through nearly a decade in politics and three campaigns for the White House, Trump has demonstrated a remarkable ability to move past disputes or disagreements with many intraparty rivals and onetime critics, including some who now serve in his Cabinet. Now, some Republicans left Washington this week asking themselves if Musk is willing to do the same.
