Slate’s guide to the most important figures in politics this week.

We wrote last week about the scandal surrounding Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales, who had been accused of having an affair with a staffer who later took her own life by self-immolation, after her husband discovered the texts and the staffer was allegedly ostracized at work. It got worse this week (apparently possible). Extracted texts between Gonzales and the former staffer, Regina Santos-Aviles, were published showing him repeatedly sending her explicit sexual texts and her rebuffing him.

This is the stuff that usually ends in short order with a resignation, either of the member’s own volition or at the speaker’s insistence. That’s not the case now. While some individual Republicans have called on Gonzales to resign, Gonzales has said he won’t, and Speaker Mike Johnson is saying he’ll allow House investigations into the matter to run their course. Johnson also observed that Gonzales is facing a primary on Tuesday and “these things will play out.” Well sure, but that’s for a term that wouldn’t start for another 11 months. Can we be clear about what’s going on here? Mike Johnson’s majority is 218–214, and he doesn’t want to lose another vote. That’s the bottom line. And it gives all other House members the green light to be as sinister as they’d like for the rest of the year.

The Pentagon has been in a dispute with Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company behind Claude, about what it can and cannot use its A.I. tech for. Claude is already the only A.I. model that the military uses for its most delicate systems, but the Pentagon wants more. Anthropic is resisting the Pentagon’s requests to use its tech in ways that violate two company ground rules: That it won’t be used for mass surveillance of Americans or to power fully autonomous weapons. After months of negotiations hit a wall, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said in a statement Thursday night that “we cannot in good conscience accede to their request.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has warned that if Anthropic doesn’t agree, the Pentagon could label the company a “supply chain risk” and crush its government business, or move to use the Defense Production Act to commandeer Anthropic’s systems for its uses, whether Anthropic likes it or not. And late on Friday afternoon, Trump posted that he was directing the government to cease using Anthropic’s tech. It’s important to remind readers whenever Hegseth starts throwing his weight around on matters of civilizational importance that his previous job was co-hosting a weekend chat show on cable news. And now we’re all going to die (potentially) because this guy wants to turn military networks over to robots. It’s just one of those things that the robots will be chuckling about to themselves for the next millennium.

As the might of the U.S. military coalesces in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean awaiting orders to bomb Iran, there were some stories this week about a little-known element of such a decision: War could involve trade-offs. Huh. The central figure making this case, according to several accounts, is Gen. Dan Caine, the Trump-appointed chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff. He has warned that a prolonged campaign could deplete American munitions stockpiles and affect deterrence efforts against China, as well as endanger regional partners, given that Iran would go all-out to defend itself if the U.S. goal is regime change. That Caine’s concerns were leaked to every major newspaper suggests he is not the only figure in the White House who feels this way.

Trump responded to the stories, calling them “100% incorrect” and noting that “General Caine, like all of us, would like not to see War but, if a decision is made on going against Iran at a Military level, it is his opinion that it will be something easily won.” Uh-huh. Common sense says this potential war would be more difficult than bombing some nuclear facilities or kidnapping one measly South American head of state. Given all of this, we’re wondering—probably just hoping, though—if Trump declares victory and announces that instead of war, Iran has agreed to the Greatest Deal in History, regardless of what such a deal entails. 

The Surge has negative interest in getting involved in cultural debates about the politics of the U.S. men’s hockey team. Congrats to them on winning the hockey game! More within our bounds, though, is the scrutinized travel itinerary of Kash Patel, who was caught on camera pounding beers with the victorious team in their locker room. This came after Patel’s team assured the press that he was principally in Milan for a variety of very important national security meetings.

This would be like the Surge telling our editors that we need to visit Augusta, Georgia, during Masters week for a series of writer’s workshops, and that we need to travel there on Slate Force One. The man loves hockey! He loves having government transportation and government tickets to the big hockey games. And while Patel’s regular use of FBI transport for personal trips is an issue worth more probing, we still think the bigger problem with his FBI tenure is how he’s always been unqualified to hold the position and is using the bureau to do the president’s whimsical bidding.

We have in our notes for the week here “something re: SOTU,” and have been staring at it blankly for a while. The Surge supports banning the State of the Union and, like America, mostly forgets what happened during it even though it was just a few days ago. But let’s check the box and look at how Trump addressed a matter that is in the Surge’s wheelhouse: Go-nowhere legislation in the Senate. On Tuesday night, Trump reiterated his call for the Senate to pass the SAVE America Act, a House-passed bill that requires proof of citizenship to register to vote and voter ID at the polls. There’s been serious pressure on Senate Majority Leader John Thune the past couple of weeks—from Trump, from the House, and from some Senate Republicans—to find a way to muscle it through the Senate despite it coming nowhere close to the 60 votes needed to end a filibuster. And in his speech, Trump directly addressed “John” and said it needed to be done.

Well, “John” is getting sick of this talk about forcing Democrats to wage a “talking filibuster” that could last months. He attempted to put the idea to rest this week in warning that there just aren’t 50 Republicans willing to undertake such an endeavor. For the past decade, the Surge has watched efforts from both Democrats and Republicans to squeeze party-line voting bills through the Senate sputter out amid false hope about secret Senate tricks. If people actually want to pass federal voting reforms that will last, they’re going to need a comprehensive bill with input from both parties.

You may recall when President Trump nominated Casey Means, a medical school graduate with an inactive license who’s pivoted to an influencer career in wellness and alternative medicine, to be the U.S. surgeon general, aka “the nation’s doctor.” She is very much a member of RFK World, as her twin brother has been one of RFK Jr.’s top advisers. She finally had her confirmation hearing in the Senate HELP committee this week, and it went about as you’d expect, with Means refusing to say outright that vaccines don’t cause autism and tap-dancing around previous comments she’d made against other vaccines.

We’ve seen this before. Kennedy, in his confirmation hearing for Health and Human Services, made assurances and offered platitudes about how he wouldn’t mess with much, commitments which he’s ignored as he’s worked to invert American public health. The HELP Committee features three Republican senators—Chairman Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski—who have to feel pretty stung by the way Kennedy disregarded them after collecting their votes. They now have a chance to show that they won’t let it happen again. We’ll see.

There’s been so much material out of Texas that one competitive primary has flown under the radar—until this week. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, representing suburbs north of Houston, is up against Texas state legislator, pastor, and businessman (the Texas GOP employment trifecta) Steve Toth. Crenshaw, while quite conservative, has broken some purity tests with the right over the years. He’s feuded with the far-right House Freedom Caucus and called out “grifters” on the right, didn’t object to the 2020 election results and chastised election deniers, and supported aid to Ukraine. Perhaps you can guess which apostasy in particular has led to Crenshaw being the only incumbent Texas House Republican whom Trump hasn’t endorsed.

The most head-turning news of the week, though, came when Sen. Ted Cruz endorsed Toth and cut an ad for a super PAC supporting him. This seemed rather unsporting among incumbents of the same party and delegation, which is often indicative of a backstory. Per CNN’s reporting, the bad juju traces to Crenshaw not endorsing Cruz in 2024. More recently, Crenshaw criticized a Toth donor who also happens to be a major Cruz donor and ally. And then, hours before Cruz released his endorsement, Crenshaw voted against the ROTOR Act, a bipartisan aviation safety bill co-authored by Cruz. We still think there’s got to be more of a backstory here, given how Cruz is so deliberately and publicly trying to end Crenshaw’s career. We’ll see if he’s successful.