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A new day for Syria?: The enemy of your enemy isn’t necessarily your friend. The fall of the brutal Al-Assad regime is a measure of justice and a loss for both Iran and Russia. However, the victorious rebel group once had strong ties to Al-Qaeda. It has been indicating that those ties are severed, and signaling greater tolerance for women, Kurds, and minority groups, but the United States should seek concrete progress before offering any leaves of an olive branch.
America will also need to work with our Israeli, Arab, and Kurdish allies to prevent ISIS terrorists from gaining traction and to push back on foreign powers, including Turkey, that may want to assert suzerainty over the self-determination of the long-suffering Syrian people.png "12.08.24_Newsletter_(1).png")
Countering anti-Israel propaganda: Amnesty International released a misleading report to embolden Israel’s enemies and provide cover for the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7th. I joined 22 of my colleagues in denouncing the report and rejecting its slanderous claims.
Amnesty International, which has previously rejected the legitimacy of Israel’s founding, admittedly and nefariously created its own definition of the legal term “genocide” in its report to fit its defamatory narrative. Their allegations are in line with misinformation that has been spewed by Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah. This report should be universally rejected as defamatory and false.
Reconfiguring our Middle East objectives: As we consider the potential policy shifts of a second Trump administration, we have to look toward the Middle East. Trump's work in the region stands out as one of the few areas where I believe he achieved substantive progress, thanks to his landmark Abraham Accords. These agreements normalized relations between our key ally, Israel, and neighboring nations, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan, reshaping regional diplomacy and fostering new opportunities for cooperation.
While normalizing relations between our ally Israel and its neighbors is vital for long-term stability in the region, I urge President Trump to prioritize dismantling the Axis of Authoritarianism formed by Russia, China, and Iran. This unlikely alliance has forged a ring of terror proxies encircling Israel and U.S. forces in the Middle East. To safeguard our interests, the most critical step for regional security is to marginalize Iran’s hard-liners and drive a wedge between Iran and the Chinese Communist Party.
Chinese hacking of telecom & texts: Salt Typhoon, a cyber-assault by the Chinese Communist Party, is the most grievous telecommunications breach in American history. As new details emerge, it is evident that the hack penetrated more extensively than initially assessed by experts. This week, the White House disclosed that eight U.S. telecommunications companies operating both domestically and internationally were compromised. The attack specifically targeted senior government officials and industry leaders and indiscriminately harvested metadata from millions of Americans. Such a sweeping intrusion necessitates not only a decisive and proportionate response to the Chinese Communist Party, but also greater responsibility for U.S. corporations to fortify themselves against future cyber threats.
Modernizing our Defense Industrial Base: The China Select Committee’s hearing on the Defense Industrial Base pointed towards problems and opportunities for the Pentagon to buy better. I believe in a stronger military, but I have voted against every defense appropriation to date because I am frustrated with the Defense Department’s poor procurement practices.
To get the “most bang for our buck" on air, land, and sea, the Pentagon should pay for performance, not contractor-hours. It should focus less on exquisite, expensive systems with monopolistic vendors, and more on high-volume, modular, and commercial components with competitors bidding to assemble them. The DOD should also adopt the software-enabled design and manufacturing processes pioneered by cutting-edge companies like Hadrian, Tesla, and Anduril.
2026 World Cup: In a series of meetings, I discussed preparations for Greater Boston to host the World Cup in 2026. Executives from FIFA World Cup Boston, the MBTA, and the Greater Attleboro Taunton Regional Transit Authority discussed with me federal funding to support operations and security; transportation planning and investments for the commuter rail and buses; and coordination between Boston and other regional cities. To handle the surge of visitors, it is critical that bus lanes be established for Route 1, that the commuter rail expand its capacity, and that Gillette Stadium, in my district, be supported for security at Level 1 of Homeland Security’s Special Event Assessment Rating.
Ending non-consensual, explicit deepfakes: Nearly 100% of online deepfake videos are non-consensual, explicit content of women. My bipartisan bill, the Intimate Privacy Protection Act, would prevent social media from platforming this abusive behavior and hold Big Tech accountable by removing legal protections if they fail to address intimate privacy violations, cyberstalking, and other crimes. I held a live Instagram with filmmaker and My Image My Choice co-founder Sophie Compton to shed light on this alarming issue. The online harassment of women must stop.
Bipartisan momentum for PBM reform: Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) performed a useful function when they were formed last century. They managed formularies and payments, and they pushed back on drugmakers. Then, PBMs got greedy. Sitting in the middle of a complicated and opaque supply chain, they realized they could extract rents, profiting off higher drug prices while they passed on the costs to patients and taxpayers.
I joined Rep. Buddy Carter’s bipartisan PBM press conference to advocate for the lame-duck Congress to end rebates (a polite term for kickbacks) in Medicare and to begin demanding transparency and benchmarked pricing. My bipartisan bill, Pharmacists Fight Back, would go even further in reforms to help patients, pharmacists, and taxpayers, and has already secured more than 50 co-sponsors.
Honoring the life of Cole Schmidtknecht: In January, Cole William Schmidtknecht went to the pharmacy to refill his asthma medication, which he had taken for years. At the pharmacy, Cole found out that the Pharmacy Benefit Manager had increased the price of Cole’s steroid prescription from around $35 to over $500. He was told that no generic drug would be covered by his insurance, and Cole was forced to choose between paying for his medication, or for his rent. He chose to pay his rent. Five days later, Cole suffered a severe asthma attack that led to cardiac arrest and his untimely death.
Cole's father, Bil, joined me in Washington to honor his memory and to call on Congress to pass my Pharmacists Fight Back Act, which aims to end the price-gouging practices of PBMs and prevent tragedies like Cole’s from happening again.
Building the clean energy transition: The Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition (SEEC), which helps drive clean-energy policy in Congress, hosted a series of roundtables in Washington between Members of Congress, experts, and advocates. As a member of SEEC, I participated in the roundtable on advanced generation technologies, including fusion and hot-rock geothermal. There was broad agreement that Washington should support these clean-energy sources with milestone-based funding, permitting reform, and demand-pull mechanisms.
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