On this week's episode of Lever Time, David Sirota sits down with New York Assemblymember Alex Bores to find out exactly what he did to land on the AI industry's most-wanted list.

LISTEN:

A full transcript of today’s episode is available below.

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Our new podcast series Master Plan: The Kingmakers uncovers the decades-long plot to build an all-powerful American presidency.

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TRANSCRIPT

Following is an automated, unedited transcription of this episode. The text may contain grammatical or spelling errors, especially for proper nouns, or attribute text to the wrong speaker. If you plan to quote any part of this transcript, please first confirm that it is correct by listening to the audio.

[00:00:00] David Sirota: From The Lever's reader, supported newsroom, it's Lever Time. I'm David Sirota.

One of the biggest forces in American politics right now is the tech industry, and more specifically, the titans getting rich off of artificial intelligence. So far, about $150 million has already flooded into the 2026 elections from donors in the AI industry, which have one big policy priority: avoiding any kind of regulation or limits on artificial intelligence.

This week I sat down with one Democratic candidate that the AI industry really does not want elected to Congress — New York State assemblyman Alex Bores.

How does it feel to be public enemy number one of one of the most powerful industries in American politics?

[00:00:49] Alex Bores: Well, um, it's not fun.

🐪 You made it! We avoided the end of the world yesterday. Don’t worry, somebody was thinking of the investors.

🔥 ICYMI in The Lever: The FBI can purchase your location data without a warrant.

In a hurry? These are the top stories in the country today. 

🤝 The U.S. and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire just hours before President Donald Trump’s threat to destroy a “whole civilization” was set to materialize. Iran has agreed to allow passage through the Strait of Hormuz — with potential tolls — as long as strikes stop.

☀️ Scientists are preparing for the strongest El Niño weather event in 140 years, which may bring above-average heat waves and humidity to the U.S. this summer.

🍑 Yesterday’s special election for the Georgia Congressional seat formerly held by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) went narrowly to the Republican candidate — even though Trump decidedly won the district in 2024.

Freedom to addict. A legal showdown between sports betting technology firms has led one to admit that one of gambling’s most addictive features is “the most important, and most lucrative, business for sportsbooks,” The Lever’s Freddy Brewster reports. Health research indicates that “in-play” or “live action” betting, which takes place after an event has started, is closely linked to gambling addiction because its continuous nature leads to “more bets, longer gambling sessions, loss-chasing, and impaired self-control” in bettors.

📂 In an antitrust lawsuit filed against league data provider Sportradar, sportsbook software firm Altenar Technologies accused its former business partner of illegally cornering the sports betting market by not fairly selling its live sports data, which is necessary to facilitate in-play betting.  

⚾ Sportradar is threatening Altenar’s very business model because “sportsbooks must offer ‘in-play’ betting to remain competitive,” Altenar argues in filings.

“The scale of these potential violations is unprecedented,” warned the nonpartisan watchdog Campaign Legal Center in its complaint to the U.S. Attorney for D.C., alleging that at least 35 firms helped bankroll President Donald Trump’s pet projects without properly disclosing such lobbying. 

Those legacy projects are Trump’s $400 million White House Ballroom Project, the Freedom 250 group leading the president’s 250th United States birthday celebrations, the renamed Trump Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and the future Trump Presidential Library.

The Lobbying Disclosure Act — passed under President Bill Clinton and amended under President George W. Bush — requires individual lobbyists and their employers to disclose donations to entities “established, financed, maintained, or controlled” by covered executive branch officials, which includes the president. The law specifically outlines presidential library foundations as entities to which lobbyists and their employers must report donations.

🕊️ Peace be with you. Nine years ago, a retired general reminded lawmakers that the military can refuse a president’s nuclear attack order if it is illegal — and a bill proposed in Congress right now would outlaw the Commander-in-Chief from making first-strike nuclear assaults without legislative approval. Consider calling your lawmakers and urging them to support this common sense limit on Trump.

🔥 New in The Lever: After the imperial Nixon presidency, conservatives faced a backlash that even Naderites couldn’t predict.

In a hurry? These are the top stories in the country today. 

💢 Fire and fury. President Trump says he will begin destroying Iranian civilian infrastructure at midnight, warning that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”

🌕 Welcome to the dark side. Photographs from Artemis II captured the entire far side of the moon for the first time.

📹 Cameras don’t lie. New footage out of Minneapolis undermines ICE’s account of a nonfatal shooting in January.

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A judge on the inside. In the months after Maine voters approved a landmark measure to reduce corporations and billionaires’ election influence, Maine’s U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R) helped a lawyer who fought to kill the law score a judgeship on the federal appeals court deciding its fate. Maine’s new law, backed by 74 percent of voters, caps annual contributions to super PACs at $5,000, and advocates hope the legal fight could reach the Supreme Court.

🫩 Conservative groups went to court to block the measure, with Josh Dunlap leading the case… until Sen. Collins — who accepted $2.9 million in PAC cash in the two years leading up to her last election — advocated for Dunlap’s nomination to the appeals court hearing the challenge.

🎙️ When asked by The Lever’s Katya Schwenk whether Judge Dunlap planned to recuse himself from the super PAC case, the First Circuit Court of Appeals declined to comment. Under federal judicial code, judges are disqualified from ruling on cases they litigated while serving in private practice.  

👨🏻‍⚖️ Dunlap, a “longtime ally of right-wing legal causes,” serves on the left-leaning First Circuit as one of only two judges appointed by a Republican president. That means Dunlap could oversee cases involving campaign finance statutes in other blue states in the court's jurisdiction, including Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island.

The Lever exclusively reports that philanthropist Simone Coxe — whose multibillion-dollar fortune largely comes from her venture capitalist husband’s investments in Nvidia — sits on the board of the Searchlight Institute, a new center-left D.C. think tank. Nvidia is heavily invested in data center expansion.

👋 Happy Monday. Last year, members of Elon Musk’s “enormous” private security detail were reportedly deputized as federal agents, despite not having the necessary training or experience. Talk about young guns for hire.

🔥 ICYMI in The Lever: Deep-pocketed conservative interest groups have been pushing America to go to war with Iran for years.

In a hurry? These are the top stories in the country today.

☢️ Close call. Recent U.S.-Israeli strikes landed just meters from Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant (again), prompting the United Nations to warn that a direct hit would likely break humanitarian law. 

📺 A bittersweet homecoming. Today, Savannah Guthrie returned to The Today Show two months after her mother went missing during a kidnapping from her Tucson home.

🏛️ Of course it did. At the Trump administration’s request, the Supreme Court just ruled in favor of rolling back Steve Bannon’s conviction; Bannon refused to appear for a Congressional subpoena over the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol attack.

The plan to save democracy lives on. Amid a tsunami of political spending by businesses and the ultrawealthy, the Montana Supreme Court has dismissed an attempt by Big Business to crush a proposed ballot initiative banning corporations from financially influencing the state’s elections. “The Montana Plan,” as we reported on Lever Time, attempts to circumvent the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling — which effectively eliminated campaign spending restrictions and paved the way for the super PAC era — by establishing that corporations do not have the same free speech rights as Montanans.

✍️ Organizers are now officially collecting signatures to put the issue on the ballot this November, with roughly 75 percent of Montana’s citizens indicating their support. 

💯 If passed, the measure would apply to all corporations looking to influence politics in Montana, not just businesses based in the state.

Here’s what The Lever published this week:

The Philosopher And The Pedophile. Jeffrey Epstein’s associates insisted they were ignorant. An extraordinary email suggests a more complicated — and troubling — reality.

How ICE Could Buy Its Way Out Of State Oversight. Trump’s immigration enforcers are considering buying private detention centers — a move that could shield facilities from state oversight and lawsuits over abuse.

How OpenAI Hacked The Military-Industrial Complex. The company behind ChatGPT recruited Washington’s war insiders — then turned their connections into Pentagon contracts.

The Clickbait Candidate Who Forgot To Vote. Mallory McMorrow assumes voters will never look to see how — or whether — she actually used her influence.

Inside Apollo’s Labor Problem. Workers say Apollo-owned firms spied on organizing efforts, fired union supporters, and targeted immigrant employees.

Your Tax Return Got DOGE’d. The IRS is letting megacorporations fly under the radar while staffing cuts threaten to bury your tax season.

The Quiet Fortune Of NYC’s Top Anti-Tax Democrat. A New York City lawmaker standing in the way of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s proposed wealth tax is exploiting a disclosure loophole to obscure her family’s multimillion-dollar fortune.

Klarna Sued For Buy Now, Pay Later Racket. The lending app is accused of targeting vulnerable borrowers with non-underwritten loans and predatory autopay.

“Affordable” Care Gets Pricier Under Trump. After Republicans sunsetted extended federal subsidies, Obamacare enrollees owe 57 percent more for their monthly premiums.

THE KINGMAKERS, Ep. 3: President Rambo. Before Trump’s war in Iran and invasion of Venezuela, there was Reagan’s Iran-Contra scheme.

Why Congress Won't Stop Hijacking Air Travel. America's aviation crisis didn't happen by accident. Bill McGee, one of the country's leading aviation watchdogs, explains who broke the system — and why nobody's fixed it.

LIVE EVENT REPLAY: Pam Bondi Fired — Ro Khanna On The Ongoing Epstein Coverup. David Sirota and Rep. Ro Khanna discuss Pam Bondi’s firing and why this story isn’t over.

Does President Donald Trump know why he’s at war? Why are Democrats dragging their feet? And what can Congress vote for?

The answers to these questions and many more can be found in LeverMind, our weekly news quiz testing your knowledge of the developments that really matter — and who needs to be held accountable.

Find out if you’re a true LeverMind:

Every week, our paid subscribers receive a newsletter full of policy wins, environmental victories, and social initiatives improving their lives. 

A taste of this week’s good news:

• Congress defunds Trump’s immigration crackdown
• Colorado gives corporate surveillance the boot
• ICE data finally sees the light of day
• Legal protections extended for Haitian refugees.

Lever Leaders provide us with our highest level of support and score additional perks in return, including a yearly gift subscription for friends and family, access to an exclusive Lever staff meeting for a sneak peek at our future plans, and an annual gift of limited-edition Lever merchandise.

Join readers like Paul R., who had this to say about becoming a Lever Leader:

“A subscriber since the inception of The Daily Poster, I'm glad to be able to support the growth of real investigative reporting.”

Drugwatch — The legal website featured our recent story on how bad medicine makes it to market, which was also the subject of its recent podcast episode: Big Pharma Behind The Scenes.

The Time Of Monsters With Jeet Heer — David Sirota appeared on The Nation’s podcast to discuss Master Plan Season 2.

• Sirota also discussed the new season of the investigative audio series on Matt Lewis Can't Lose and My History Can Beat Up Your Politics.

Streetsblog USA — The outlet covering the movement to end car dependency referenced our reporting on Uber’s campaign to curb crash lawsuits.

Inside Philanthropy — The outlet focused on nonprofits and philanthropy highlighted our coverage of an $11 million pledged AIPAC donation from OnlyFans founder Leonid Radvinsky, who passed away last month.

The answers to these questions and many more can be found in LeverMind, our weekly news quiz testing your knowledge of the developments that really matter — and who needs to be held accountable.

Find out below if you’re a true LeverMind for the week of March 30, 2026 — or just a LeverLurker.

👋 Hi there. Holy Gilded Age: New plans for President Trump’s future presidential library include a hotel, a golden escalator, and a Boeing 747 parked in the lobby. The building will sit on 2.6 acres of waterfront land in Miami, transferred to the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation Inc. for just $10 by the state of Florida. I wonder what the flood insurance will cost. 

🔥 New in The Lever: Introducing the roster of Pentagon insiders helping to run ChatGPT.

Well then. Last night President Trump claimed strikes in the Middle East would end “shortly” — but did not offer a fixed timeline — while pledging to send Iran "back to the Stone Ages." 

Phew. The new Homeland Security chief rescinded a Kristi Noem-era policy requiring his office to approve all agency expenditures over $100,000, including FEMA disaster relief.

Liftoff. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has quietly filed for an IPO that could take the company public at a valuation as high as $1.75 trillion.

Tax season faces a DOGE squeeze. Within the first seven months of the Trump administration, officials canceled more than 75 percent of taxpayer-facing contracts held by the IRS. That threatens the agency’s “core operations,” a recent Treasury watchdog report warns, including return processing, customer service, compliance enforcement, and telephone interpreter services. The IRS also lost 17 percent of its staff in 2025, creating work backlogs and skill gaps that could lead to headaches for filers this season.

💸 Meanwhile the IRS has only been auditing a tiny fraction of businesses with assets of at least $10 million, even as the number of these filings increased by nearly 140 percent between 2011 and 2023. During that same period, the audit rate fell from 2.7 percent of returns to less than 0.1 percent.

Today on Lever Time, David Sirota sits down with Bill McGee, senior fellow for aviation and travel at the American Economic Liberties Project, to answer the question everyone is asking: Is it still safe to fly?

LISTEN:

A full transcript of today’s episode is available below.

LIsten TO Master Plan Now

Our new podcast series Master Plan: The Kingmakers uncovers the decades-long plot to build an all-powerful American presidency. From Richard Nixon’s downfall to Ronald Reagan’s legal revolution, Dick Cheney’s post-9/11 power grab to the the radical blueprint of Project 2025, the series traces how a fringe legal theory — the unitary executive — has been used to manipulate the machinery of the U.S. government.

Listen to the new season now.

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TRANSCRIPT

Following is an automated, unedited transcription of this episode. The text may contain grammatical or spelling errors, especially for proper nouns, or attribute text to the wrong speaker. If you plan to quote any part of this transcript, please first confirm that it is correct by listening to the audio.

[00:00:00] David Sirota: From The Lever's reader-supported newsroom, it's Lever Time. I'm David Sirota.

[00:00:05] Archival News Clips: Turning to the headache at the nation's airports...Hours long waits at security checkpoints since a partial government shutdown began...We actually got here like three hours, um, before just in case, but we still didn't make it.

[00:00:15] David Sirota: Air travel in America has been a hot mess in 2026, thanks to the longest partial government shutdown in American history. Funding for the Department of Homeland Security, including the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, has been paused. The shutdown is an outgrowth of Democrats seeking to reform the Department of Homeland Security, but the political battle has far-reaching consequences.

Earlier this week, TSA officers began receiving pay for the first time in more than a month. But concerns about staffing shortages at our airports still remain, and the issue isn't just long lines at those airport security checkpoints. A week ago, a deadly LaGuardia collision killed two pilots.

[00:01:00] Air Traffic Controller: We were dealing with an emergency earlier. I messed up.

[00:01:02] David Sirota: That's audio from a LaGuardia air traffic controller speaking to a pilot. The crash illustrated the systemic staffing problems plaguing air traffic controllers all across the country. And those problems didn't start with this latest government shutdown. As we showed on a recent episode of our other podcast, Master Plan, airline safety has been a political flashpoint for decades.

That included hiring a bipartisan roster of over a dozen government insiders with decades of experience in national security positions between them, plus inking a partnership with a top Trump-connected military contractor. 

After years of shaping U.S. defense policy, these insiders are now assisting the AI giant to cash in on the Trump administration’s unprecedented defense spending — no matter the ethical quandaries involved. 

The personnel moves appeared to pay off last month, when one of those hires reportedly helped OpenAI secure a $200 million defense contract within hours of the White House icing out rival AI company Anthropic over its concerns about its technology being used for surveillance and automated weapons. 

In this exclusive bonus episode of Lever Time, David Sirota sits down with Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, to check on the status of your digital privacy. They discuss whether personal privacy is still possible, how artificial intelligence is making matters worse, and what everyone needs to do to fight back.

To check out Cindy’s memoir, click here.

🐪 Happy Wednesday. A top FEMA disaster-response leader is doubling down on claims he once teleported 50 miles to a Waffle House, claiming “haters gonna hate.”

🔥 New in The Lever: To know a master manipulator like Jeffrey Epstein, do you have to be one?

That’s a first. Today, President Donald Trump became the only sitting U.S. president to attend a Supreme Court oral argument; justices are weighing birthright citizenship.

Pay up. Amazon will pay $20.5 million to settle claims it harmed Oregon residents with nitrate-filled water runoff from data centers — without admitting any wrongdoing.

Blast off. Today, NASA is planning a historic flight launch that is set take astronauts further into space than ever before.

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The rich don’t want to tax the rich. As the speaker of the New York City Council blocks Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s proposed tax increases on the ultra-wealthy, she’s hiding her family’s own multimillion-dollar portfolio. The Lever’s Luke Goldstein reports that Julie Menin and her husband hold a vast personal fortune, potentially worth tens of millions of dollars, including a $22 million Hamptons mansion, several luxury condos on the Upper East Side listed as their residence, and company private jets — none of which appear on her financial disclosure.  Thanks to a loophole for spouses, Menin reported less than $500,000 in assets and other income.

✍️ While opposing property tax hikes or state-level tax increases, Menin has rolled out the city council’s own proposal which instead resorts to finding “savings” and potential spending cuts to balance NYC's budget.

🤫 Council members have to submit their spouses’ financial information to the Conflict of Interest Board, but disclosure rules allow those holdings to remain confidential, a provision criticized by government accountability watchdogs for shielding members’ full portfolios. 

💸 Menin’s husband, Bruce Menin, co-founded and runs a Miami-based real estate development firm called Crescent Heights, which has accomplished $14 billion worth of deals across the country, including New York. The firm owns two private jets listed under LLCs registered to the company.