“Ready to Deal”: Sen. Elissa Slotkin on the DHS Shutdown and Social Media’s Legal Reckoning

The Department of Homeland Security is now in its sixth week of a partial shutdown. Is a deal even possible, or is the deadlock the new status quo? Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat, joins the pod to discuss what it could take to end the shutdown, whether she would support supplemental funding for the Iran war, and her proposal to rein in the Pentagon’s use of AI. Plus, juries in Los Angeles and New Mexico have returned landmark verdicts against social media giants Meta and Google’s YouTube, finding the platforms liable for harming children. The jury decided on $2.1 million in punitive damages for Meta and $900,000 for YouTube, totaling $3 million in total. It's a small fraction of the $1 billion in punitive damages sought by the plaintiff's counsel. NBC News Legal Analyst Misty Marris dives into how these verdicts could set a precedent for thousands of other legal cases over platform safety waiting in the wings. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.