Did Trump use AI to inform military operations?

Two top congressional leaders are pressing for answers on President Donald Trump’s use of AI chatbots, potentially to make decisions about U.S. military operations. Democratic Reps. Jamie Raskin and Robert Garcia requested a closed-door briefing with a White House representative to discuss document retention policies with AI, cybersecurity safeguards and data access controls, among other things. The duo also asked for information on any past incidents involving AI chatbots that raised concerns. In a letter to the White House the Democrats cite reports that in December 2025, during an Oval Office meeting with Elon Musk, the president allegedly used Grok to seek advice on carrying out presidential duties, including asking it to opine on how Venezuelans would respond to the capture of President Nicolás Maduro. Raskin and Garcia cited the U.S. military’s strike on an Iranian elementary school and a near-miss in which the military prepared to intercept a misidentified ship as other examples of AI misuse. The former led to the deaths of 123 children, and the latter, they said, “could have easily precipitated a war with China.” The congressional leaders requested a briefing by Nov. 11 to give their respective committees time to take appropriate legislative and remedial actions. The lawmakers argued that inputs by Trump and his staff, as well as the outputs they received, fall under the Presidential Records Act of 1978. The rule changes the legal ownership of official records of the president from private to public and sets up a structure for document release and management following the end of a presidential term.

The Treasury Department last week began requiring the use of ID.me to access the agency’s platform to buy and redeem U.S. savings bonds. Two Senate Democrats want the department to rethink that decision. In a letter sent last Thursday to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and IRS CEO Frank Bisignano, Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said the “needlessly rushed deadline for transitioning to” ID.me to gain access to TreasuryDirect should be delayed “at a minimum” until after the 2027 tax filing deadline. The lawmakers argued that U.S. savings bonds are mostly held by older Americans who may not have “the digital proficiency” to make the change to ID.me. TreasuryDirect is the only electronic platform where users can buy and claim those bonds, which are backed by the U.S. government and considered among the safest investments a person can make. A Treasury official said in an email that ID.me is a government-trusted tool that will safeguard the personal and financial information of users and protect against unauthorized access and identity theft. ID.me has for years been in the crosshairs of Democratic lawmakers and privacy advocates over concerns about the digital identity verification and login service’s security practices and use of biometric data. Wyden and Warren, ranking members of the Senate Finance and Banking committees, respectively, hit on those points in their letter. An ID.me spokesperson said in an emailed statement that the service, which the Treasury Department has used since 2021, “has consistently outperformed alternatives in customer service, ease of use, expanding access, protecting taxpayer data, and fighting fraud that costs American taxpayers billions each year.”

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